CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

Bush’s phony climate change “summit”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/sep/29/usnews.climatechange
George Bush was castigated by European diplomats and found himself isolated yesterday after a special conference on climate change ended without any progress.

European ministers, diplomats and officials attending the Washington conference were scathing, particularly in private, over Mr Bush's failure once again to commit to binding action on climate change. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012155.php
[Kevin Drum] Of course, there was an easier way to tell that nobody in the White House was taking this thing seriously: it was named the "Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change." When it's a real initiative they take the time to come up with a snappy name and a nifty acronym. This time, they didn't bother.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/29/AR2007092901759.html
The Environmental Protection Agency's pursuit of criminal cases against polluters has dropped off sharply during the Bush administration, with the number of prosecutions, new investigations and total convictions all down by more than a third, according to Justice Department and EPA data.

The number of civil lawsuits filed against defendants who refuse to settle environmental cases was down nearly 70 percent between fiscal years 2002 and 2006 . . .

“I’m melting!”

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL2815198120070928?sp=true
A record melt of Arctic summer sea ice this month may be a sign that global warming is reaching a critical trigger point that could accelerate the northern thaw, some scientists say.

"The reason so much (of the Arctic ice) went suddenly is that it is hitting a tipping point that we have been warning about for the past few years," James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told Reuters. . . [read on]

“Oops, sorry”

http://www.slate.com/id/2175008
[Roger McShane] Since early 2003, more than 81,000 IED attacks have occurred in Iraq, killing or wounding 21,000 Americans. (IEDs are responsible for nearly two-thirds of American deaths in Iraq.) This leads the Post to claim that the roadside bomb "has become the signature weapon in Iraq and Afghanistan, as iconic as the machine gun in World War I or the laser-guided 'smart bomb' in the Persian Gulf War of 1991." Yet the high-tech Pentagon has struggled to develop countermeasures, as insurgents adjust the way they use this crude and cheap weapon. Or, as one officer recently put it, "The Flintstones are adapting faster than the Jetsons."

This may come as a shock, but the Post says that the war planners gave "little thought … to roadside bombs as a serious obstacle" in Iraq. Moreover, there were no plans for securing the thousands of munitions caches that have kept the bombmakers stocked with explosives. But hey, what's past is past right? Once military leaders became aware of the IED threat, they began a "costly and frustrating struggle" against the weapon. . . .

Well, it’s good to know that the lawless conduct of Blackwater has consequences (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/gharib.php?articleid=11690
A U.S.-based private security firm received a contract worth up to 92 million dollars from the Department of Defense amid hard questions about its involvement in two separate violent incidents in Iraq. . . .

People forget that Gonzales was lying consistently to Congress for months before his slippery relation to the truth became an issue they wouldn’t put up with any more (The turning point, the absolute last straw? Here’s my candidate)

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003765.php
GONZALES: I'm told that in fact here in the press conference I did misspeak, but I also went back and clarified it with the reporter.

SCHUMER: You did misspeak?

GONZALES: Yes. But I went back and clarified it with the reporter...

SCHUMER: When was that? And which -- what was the reporter's name?

GONZALES: At The Washington Post two days later.

(CROSSTALK) GONZALES: Dan Egan (ph) was the reporter. . .

GONZALES: I clarified my statement two days later with the reporter.

SCHUMER: What did you say to the reporter?

GONZALES: I did not speak directly to the reporter.

SCHUMER: Oh, wait a second -- you did not.

(LAUGHTER) OK. What did your spokesperson say to the reporter?

GONZALES: I don't know. . .

Anyway, my point is that they are on the same trajectory now with DNI Mike McConnell. What are they going to do about it?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/deny-dni-by-digby-what-in-hell-are.html

Don’t make Henry Waxman mad

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/28/141113/094
Dear Mr. Krongard:

I am writing to you about an exceptionally serious matter: reports that your senior staff has threatened officials that you could fire them if they cooperate with the Committee's investigation into your conduct. . . .

Today, I am writing to express my grave concern with the tactics your office has reportedly used in response to my request. This week, several current employees in your office -- including two who have agreed to go on the record -- informed the Committee that your senior staff attempted to coerce them not to cooperate with the Committee's inquiry and threatened their jobs and careers. . .

I am appalled by these reports. As an Inspector General, you hold a position of special trust within the federal government. Your office is supposed to be an example of how to protect whistleblowers, not an example of how to persecute them. It is unclear whether you directed your senior staff to engage in these activities or whether they took matters into their own hands. In either case, the threats against Special Agent Militana, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Rubendall, and others are reprehensible.

You should be aware -- and you should advise your staff -- that Congress has passed civil and criminal prohibitions against threatening and tampering with witnesses, retaliating against whistleblowers, and providing false information to Congress.' If Special Agent Militana's and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Rubendall's accounts are true, some or all of these provisions may be implicated.

The Committee will not tolerate any intimidation of potential witnesses. I direct you to instruct your staff, including your congressional affairs liaison and attorneys, to suspend all communications (other than those necessary to collect responsive documents) with employees the Committee is planning to interview. I also warn you against any further efforts to intimidate witnesses or prevent truthful communications with Congress.

If you have any questions about this matter, you should contact me personally.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Waxman
Chairman . . . [Wow – read it all!]

Ahem: the Cornyn resolution, which passed the Senate 72-25, says. . .

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r110:1:./temp/~r110DJkSOG:e121497:
(b) Sense of Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate--

(1) to reaffirm its support for all the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, including General David H. Petraeus, Commanding General, Multi-National Force-Iraq;

(2) to strongly condemn any effort to attack the honor and integrity of General Petraeus and all the members of the United States Armed Forces . . .

Ahem

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13055.html
[Steve Benen] In light of the controversies surrounding the MoveOn.org “Betray Us” ad and Rush Limbaugh slamming U.S. troops who support withdrawal as “phony soldiers,” you’d think Fox News wouldn’t publish a piece called, “Top Military Officials are a Disgrace to Those They Lead.” . . .

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/29/hunt/index.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/29/155122/366

Right wing attack dogs (Limbaugh, O’Reilly, and the gang), when they get caught uttering some particularly odious bit of claptrap, invariably howl that their comments were “taken out of context” – even when they were quoted, with context, verbatim. Now Limbaugh tries a new trick, IGNORING the context of his original comment about “phony troops,” which made it clear that he was accusing any soldier critical of the war of not being a real member of the military, by trying to pretend that he meant something else

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/09/presto_false_as.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054557.php

The AP helps promote his lie: http://mediamatters.org/items/200709290002

When pigs fly

http://sideshow.me.uk/ssep07.htm#09300045
He's so upset that Media Matters "smeared" him by quoting his own words that Bill O'Reilly says he's going to launch a war on smearing: "...he's going to 'hunt down' media who smear public figures -- and not just him, but Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Oh yeah. . ."

Unclear on the concept. I think Mr. O’Reilly needs some more Sunday school – the last time I checked, wishing you could strangle people (if only you could get away with it) was just about the same ticket to Hell as actually doing it. But at least he’s honest about his feelings

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709270017?f=h_latest

Another example of the stenographic media reporting a candidate’s spin as fact. Newt says on Thursday, with great fanfare, that he’s starting a big fundraising campaign and if he can get promises of thirty million dollars, he will run. TWO DAYS later he says he definitely isn’t running, and gives as the reason that he can’t run while keeping his position as head of his nonprofit. What, Mr. Political Genius didn’t KNOW he’d have to make a choice between the two? He wasn’t aware of that rule? It wasn’t worth it to him to step aside from that post to run for President? Or maybe, just maybe, the initial response to his fundraising appeal was so embarrassing that he knew he’d never come close to thirty mill

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13056.html
[AP] Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will not run for president in 2008 after determining he could not legally explore a bid and remain as head of his tax-exempt political organization, a spokesman said Saturday. . . [read on]

More: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1647

Huck-a-bee!

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/huckabee_hits_bush_compares_him_to_musharraf.php
[Eric Kleefeld] In a foreign-policy speech yesterday, Mike Huckabee [R-AK] severely faulted President Bush's handling of the War on Terror, specifically in regards to his trust of the regimes in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan — and even compared Bush to the military strongman who presides over the latter country.

"Just like Musharraf, since 9/11, the Bush administration has played both ends and the middle, assuring the American people that it’s doing everything it can to protect them, while tiptoeing around our supposed ally," Huckabee said . . .

Fred Thompson, a work in process

http://www.slate.com/id/2175008
[Roger McShane] The NYT fronts a look at Fred Thompson's eight years in the Senate. After reviewing his archived papers and interviewing his former aides, the Times says Thompson "brought a lawyer's sensibility to his deliberations" and "displayed little enthusiasm for divisive battles over … issues that motivate religious Republican primary voters." Those may sound like appealing qualities, but such nonpartisanship isn't going to fly in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. So, as the NYT delicately puts it, Thompson "is now refining some of his earlier positions in a way that better reflects his party's base." This graphic outlining his flip-floppery would make Mitt Romney blush.

Resign, hell – Larry Craig (R-ID) ain’t goin’ anywhere (and his Republican colleagues are just THRILLED)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13054.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/29/205616/963

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/29/AR2007092901549.html
Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho is a tough guy to run out of town.

Not that his Republican colleagues aren't trying. Worried that the disgraced lawmaker intends to remain in the Senate indefinitely, they are threatening to notch up the public humiliation by seeking an open ethics hearing on the restroom scandal that enveloped Craig last month. . .

How the mainstream media describes any group they consider not part of their own cozy DC orbit: “outsiders.” Well, maybe that describes MoveOn – but THIS group?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/outsiders-by-digby-according-to-ap-move.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13058.html

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/30/sunday-talking-head-thread-72/
NBC’s Meet The Press: Former President Bill Clinton, Dan Balz, Pat Buchanan, David Gregory & Tavis Smiley.

ABC’s This Week: Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, Former President Bill Clinton, Torie Clarke, Donna Brazile and George Will join me to debate the week’s politics; plus, Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus.

CBS’s Face The Nation: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Democratic presidential candidate.

CNN’s Late Edition: Sens. Kit Bond, R-Mo., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari; New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh.

Fox News Sunday: Sens. Chuck Schumer and Trent Lott; David Yepsen, Des Moines Register chief political correspondent and James Pindell, Boston Globe New Hampshire political correspondent.

Bonus item: Yes, he really said it

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/they-like-dark-ones-by-digby-if-youre.html
In the transcript, translated from Spanish by The Washington Post, Bush said that Europeans were insensitive to "the suffering that Saddam Hussein has inflicted on the Iraqis" and added: "Maybe it's because he's dark-skinned, far away and Muslim-- a lot of Europeans think he's okay." . . . [read on]

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:33 AM

 
SECOND THOUGHTS

The next big outrage

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004318.php
[Spencer Ackerman] The State Department's "first blush" investigation into the September 16 shootings at Baghdad's Nisour Square, which left 11 Iraqi civilians dead at the hands of Blackwater security contractors, largely absolves Blackwater of blame for the incident. . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054504.php
[Josh Marshall] But look at the details of the Post piece and you'll see that "first blush" -- the State Department's wording -- is something of an understatement. As the Post puts it, "the report, by the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, details the events as described by Blackwater guards ..."

So this isn't a preliminary or initial report in any sense I'd recognize. It's a debrief taken the day of the incident from the guys who actually did the shooting.

I'm not sure how much it tells us that they largely absolve themselves of culpability.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/27/iraq.blackwater/index.html
Private military contractor Blackwater USA "delayed and impeded" a congressional probe into the 2004 killings of four of its employees in Falluja, Iraq, the House Oversight Committee said Thursday in a report. . . .

More from the State Dept

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092801003.html
Two career investigators in the office of State Department Inspector General Howard J. Krongard have charged that they were threatened with firing if they cooperated with a congressional probe of Krongard and his office. . . .

The facts don’t matter – they just want the headline

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054537.php
US-led forces kill top al-Qaida leader
[Josh Marshall] The US military command in Iraq says a key al Qaida operative was killed in Iraq today. "Abu Osama al-Tunisi was one of the most senior leaders ... the emir of foreign terrorists in Iraq and part of the inner leadership circle", says Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson.

Not surprisingly, as ThinkProgress reports, al-Tunisi also apparently died last year.

Oh, I love this. Milktoast Republicans who want to end the war won’t tie Bush’s hands, but they’re perfectly willing to tie the hands of the NEXT President (whoever she might be)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054522.php
[David Kurtz] GOPers up for re-election have come up with what they think may be a way to thread the Iraq needle: call now for a withdrawal of U.S. troops--but don't begin the withdrawal until after President Bush leaves office. Brilliant!

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13043.html

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/09/gop_senators_offer_new_timelin.php

I know the Dems have calculated that they have to give Bush everything he asked for in conducting his war, so they don’t get blamed for its failure. But what if they’re going to be blamed for its failure anyway?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/show-me-money-by-digby-why-is-this-not.html

Mike McConnell seems to be vying for Alberto’s role as a serial dissembler

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054468.php
[Josh Marshall] Here's an important story. If you're a regular reader, you know that for the last week, Spencer Ackerman's been turning over important new ground in the latest FISA dispute. DNI Mike McConnell said that restrictive FISA regs led to a critical delay in obtaining a warrant to surveil Iraqi insurgents who'd kidnapped American soldiers. But Ackerman's sources disputed McConnell's account. And now the Associated Press has obtained documents that appear to confirm Spencer's reporting. The delay wasn't caused by FISA but because administration officials couldn't get their act together quickly enough.

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004320.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054552.php

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092801858.html

The Abramoff investigation keeps spreading

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054540.php
[National Journal] The Justice Department has asked the U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland to handle one aspect of the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling probe -- ex-Abramoff colleague Kevin Ring's lobbying of Justice officials. . .

What the SCHIP fight is doing to Republicans

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054546.php

Dana Perino (they call her Dana Peroxide, but I need a better nickname for her than that) tries to explain Bush’s intransigence on SCHIP

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/09/today-on-hol-11.html
Q Does it strike the President that 18 senators -- Republican senators voted for this bill? Did that make him have any second thoughts about his plan to veto?

MS. PERINO: The President does not have second thoughts. . . . [read on]

[NB: Yes, we all nod, THAT’S the problem.]

After years of denial and trivialization, Bush suddenly discovers global warming

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092800079.html
President Bush assured the rest of the world yesterday that he takes the threat of climate change seriously and vowed that the United States "will do its part" to reduce the greenhouse gases that are warming the planet, but he proposed no concrete new initiatives to reach that goal.

The president's speech at a conference of major economic powers represented a symbolic turn for a leader who once expressed doubt about global warming. . . After nearly seven years on the defensive, Bush tried to assume a leadership role in crafting "a new international approach" to preserving the world's climate.

Yet he found himself largely isolated at a meeting that he had organized to address the issue, lambasted by foreign officials, U.S. lawmakers and environmental activists who saw his effort as more show than substance. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/26/AR2007092602345.html
Seeking to counter international pressure to adopt binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions, the Bush administration has been touting the success of three mandatory programs to curb U.S. energy consumption: gas mileage standards for vehicles, efficiency standards for home appliances and state laws requiring utilities to increase their use of renewable energy sources.

But for most of the Bush presidency, the White House has either done little to promote these measures or, in some cases, has actively fought against them. Moreover, the fuel economy and appliance initiatives were first taken years ago to slash energy consumption, long before climate change became a pressing issue. . . .

More: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/how_its_done_1.php

Yes, it's stupid, yes, it’s an abasement of the legislative process, and yes the Democrats HAVE to do it

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/exclusive_dem_rep_to_introduce_house_resolution_condemning_rush_limbaugh_on_monday.php
Rep. Mark Udall (D-CO) will be introducing a resolution in the House of Representatives on Monday condemning Rush Limbaugh for his "phony soldiers" remark. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/28/18441/3779

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/9/28/175558/198

Clarence Thomas is, in my opinion, one of the luckiest guys on this earth – given a life appointment to the highest court in the land through no great achievement or merit of his own. But not to hear him tell it. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092801634.html
Justice Clarence Thomas settles scores in an angry and vivid forthcoming memoir, scathingly condemning the media, the Democratic senators who opposed his nomination to the Supreme Court, and the "mob" of liberal elites and activist groups that he says desecrated his life. . . .

Question and answer: Why did all the leading Republicans skip a debate at historically black Morgan State University?

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/election_central_debate_roundup_11.php

Answer: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/it-is-what-it-is-by-digby-everybodys.html

Fred Thompson – uh, does this guy actually WANT to be President?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13044.html
[Steve Benen] * Asked about the Jena Six, Thompson said, “I don’t know anything about it.”

* Asked about his thoughts on the Terri Schiavo matter, Thompson said, “That’s going back in history. I don’t remember the details of it.”

* Asked about hurricane property insurance while campaigning in Florida, a huge local issue, Thompson said he doesn’t “know all the facts surrounding that case.”

* Asked about Social Security reform, one of the top issues on his policy agenda, Thompson said he couldn’t remember what Bush’s position was on Social Security two years ago.

* Asked about oil drilling in the Everglades, while campaigning in Florida, Thompson said he didn’t know there was oil under the Everglades and didn’t know it was an important local issue.

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/28/83132/1230

All you can do is laugh, I guess. Everyone knows that Rudy Giuliani invokes 9-11 at EVERY opportunity. So why did he take that cell phone call right in the middle of his NRA speech? You guessed it

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13042.html

Another Mr. Know-Nothing

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/not-another-one-please-by-digby-joe.html
GIULIANI: I honestly think we might have gotten tougher questions during the Fox interview, but they were substantive questions. During the MSNBC situation, we got some really good questions. But we also got some of the trick questions: Shia and Sunni.

You know, do I know the difference between Shia and Sunni? I felt like I was, you know, defending my doctoral thesis. It happens that I am a student of the history of religion. . . [read on]

Rudy’s link to the ill-fated California proposition to steal 20 electoral votes

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012153.php

I think nothing shows the slimy opportunistic side of John McCain in a worse light than his craven pandering of the Christian Right (the people he once called “agents of intolerance”)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/despicable-john-mccain-by-tristero-john.html

Bonus item: Bush’s three sentences

http://www.slate.com/id/2174857/nav/tap3/
[Fred Kaplan] Here, in three sentences, is the first lesson on how to assess the current crop of presidential candidates: Don't pick anyone who utters, or seems capable of believing, those three sentences.

***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 @ 6:53 AM

 
PHONIES

Let’s see. It’s an OUTRAGE, an absolute outrage requiring Congressional resolutions, Presidential condemnations, and hours of hand-wringing on the news channels and talk radio, when MoveOn dares to question the sincerity of a military man speaking out on the war in Iraq. How dare they demean the motives of someone in uniform who has risked his life to serve our country?

OK, so what about THIS?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/27/184839/866
CALLER 2: No, it's not, and what's really funny is, they never talk to real soldiers. They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media.

LIMBAUGH: The phony soldiers.

CALLER 2: The phony soldiers. If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13030.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/27/164634/109

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/now-i-dont-want-to-say-that-republicans.html

[NB: The Democrats BETTER have a resolution up and ready before both houses of Congress, using exactly parallel language to the resolution condemning MoveOn, and challenging the Republicans to support it, as Dems did the other one.]

Two fewer phonies to worry about

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003638726
The Op-Ed by seven active duty U.S. soldiers in Iraq questioning the war drew international attention just three weeks ago. Now two of the seven are dead.

Sgt. Omar Mora and Sgt. Yance T. Gray died Monday in a vehicle accident in western Baghdad . . .

A little historical context

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/historic-line-of-decency-by-digby-while.html
[Bob Novak, May 6, 1999] Who is responsible for an air offensive that is building anti-American anger across Europe without breaking the Serbian regime's will? The blame rests heavily on Gen. Wesley Clark, the NATO supreme commander. . . .

http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_272616215.shtml
[Bob Novak, Sept. 22, 2007] Rudy Giuliani scored a hit with conservative activists by getting ahead of his Republican presidential competitors in blasting Sen. Hillary Clinton for not denouncing MoveOn.org's attack on Gen. David Petraeus. Giuliani caught the spirit of Republican rage over the left-wing MoveOn.org's full-page ad in The New York Times. On the day Petraeus presented his report on Iraq, the ad demeaned him as "General Betray Us."

Giuliani asked: "Who should America listen to -- a decorated soldier's commitment to defending America, or Hillary Clinton's commitment to defending MoveOn.org?" . . .

The Army is broken

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054431.php

The real impediment to Bush/Cheney’s plan to attack Iran isn’t the Dems, it’s the military itself

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/28/military_iran/index.html

Corruption in Iraq: so widespread, they don’t even know where to start in trying to fix it

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012141.php

A serious question: why ISN’T this impeachable?

http://www.juancole.com/2007/09/transcript-reveals-impeachable-offenses.html

http://www.juancole.com/2007/09/bush-aznar-transcript-war-crime-of.html

A classic nondenial denial: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054429.php

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/09/today-on-hol-10.html

Blackwater

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/middleeast/28blackwater.html
Participants in a contentious Baghdad security operation this month have told American investigators that during the operation at least one guard continued firing on civilians while colleagues urgently called for a cease-fire. At least one guard apparently also drew a weapon on a fellow guard who did not stop shooting, an American official said. . . . [read on]

The contractor scandal spreads

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054363.php
[Josh Marshall] Sec Defense Bob Gates said that one of the issues he's most concerned about is the way that private contractors in Iraq lure away active duty members of the military with promises of much higher salaries -- often to do more or less the same stuff they're doing in uniform. In fact, that problem is so bad that he's looking into whether or not he can get soldiers to sign non-compete agreements to prevent them from getting headhunted by the private contractors who are allegedly there in Iraq working for us.

This really casts in a sharp, almost comedic relief what's happening in the privatization of our military and what's becoming of what we used to call the basis of state sovereignty -- the monopoly on the legitimate use of force. . . [read on!]

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054381.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054394.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054400.php

Bush: Who, me? http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054407.php
Q Thank you, Mr. President. It's an honor to have you here. I'm a first-year student in South Asia studies. My question is in regards to private military contractors. Uniform Code of Military Justice does not apply to these contractors in Iraq. I asked your Secretary of Defense a couple months ago what law governs their actions.

THE PRESIDENT: I was going to ask him. Go ahead. (Laughter.) Help. (Laughter.)

Q I was hoping your answer might be a little more specific. (Laughter.) . . . Mr. President, how do you propose to bring private military contractors under a system of law?

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that very much. I wasn't kidding -- (laughter.) I was going to -- I pick up the phone and say, Mr. Secretary, I've got an interesting question. (Laughter.) This is what delegation -- I don't mean to be dodging the question, although it's kind of convenient in this case, but never -- (laughter.) I really will -- I'm going to call the Secretary and say you brought up a very valid question, and what are we doing about it? That's how I work. I'm -- thanks. (Laughter.)

It’s hard to bear sometimes how badly the Democrats handle these issues; haven’t they studied the playbook?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR2007092701301.html
The Senate dropped legislation Thursday that would have expanded the legal rights of military detainees, sidestepping for now a potential veto fight with the Bush administration on terrorism trials. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/27/152355/585
[Kagro X] Yesterday, Hans Von Spakovsky's nomination of the Federal Election Commission squeaked through the Senate Rules committee and is headed for a vote before the full Senate.

Von Spakovsky, like so many other Bush nominees, is really just about everything you could ever imagine not wanting in a public official. The transgressions are numerous, outrageous, and really, pretty sickening.

But his nomination comes to the floor nonetheless . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/27/19145/0726
[Politico] Galling as it may be to Democrats, Bush still can claim to be acting with more clarity and courage than the congressional majority. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13032.html

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/27/morning-cuppa-chat-with-nancy/

Will Republicans back Bush’s veto on SCHIP, to the risk of their own electoral prospects in 2008? Will the Dems figure out a way to make them pay?

Maybe: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054410.php

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/27/flipping/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012142.php

Maybe not: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_23_archive.html#192275393799512986

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_23_archive.html#6151030437893190297

The politics of fear

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13028.html

Well, at least they managed this

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR2007092700126.html
The Senate yesterday approved an expansion of federal hate-crimes law to include protections for gay men and lesbians, defying a presidential veto threat by attaching the measure to a high-priority defense bill.

Republicans said they will try to remove the provision in final negotiations with the House, but if that effort fails, GOP leaders urged President Bush to follow through with his long-standing veto threat. They were furious this week when Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced that he would force a vote on an expanded hate-crimes statute, with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) calling Reid's maneuver a "shameful" attempt to "hijack" essential defense legislation. . . .

Who voted? http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/27/121337/727

Will Bush veto it? http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13029.html

Why is such an amendment relevant to a Defense Bill? Read on

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/27/pace.gays.ap/index.html
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, caused a stir at a Senate hearing this week when he repeated his view that gay sex is immoral . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13024.html

Another Republican runs afoul of the law

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054434.php
Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) and five staffers subpoenaed in Abramoff corruption probe, AP reports. . . [read on]

What? Do you expect him to read the newspapers TOO?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070927/ap_on_el_pr/thompson_lethal_injection;_ylt=ArYaYuzykN4weLCFWcj0vQSyFz4D
Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson said Thursday he was unaware that a federal judge had ruled last week that lethal injection procedures in his home state were unconstitutional. . .

Thompson's support for the death penalty was a major part of his campaign platform when he first ran for the U.S. Senate in Tennessee in 1994. Asked for his response to the recent Tennessee and Kentucky cases, Thompson responded, "I hadn't heard that. I didn't know." . . .

A look ahead to the next Supreme Court term

http://www.slate.com/id/2174854

Looks like the GOP plot to steal 20 California electoral votes is dead

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2007/09/breaking-news-e.html

What it was: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2007/08/06/070806taco_talk_hertzberg

OK, you don’t have to drop your Verizon service after all -- they changed their minds

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054383.php

Bonus item: Fear of sunlight (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_7001456
Vice President Dick Cheney will speak to a super-secret, conservative policy group in Utah on Friday during his second trip to the state this year.

Cheney will address the fall meeting of the Council for National Policy, a group whose self-described mission is to promote "a free-enterprise system, a strong national defense and support for traditional Western values."

The organization - made up of few hundred powerful conservative activists - holds confidential meetings and members are advised not to use the name of the group in communications. . . "The media should not know when or where we meet or who takes part in our programs, before [or] after a meeting,'' a list of rules obtained by The Times showed. . . .

***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 @ 7:29 AM

 
WHAT’S A MAJORITY WORTH?

The bad guys have a good day:

Case #1: Despite a Democratic majority, vote-suppression guru Hans von Spakovsky’s nomination to the FEC gets forwarded by the Senate Rules Committee to the Senate

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004299.php

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/26/15268/5901

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/hit-me-baby-one-more-time-by-digby-from.html
[Digby] But hey, why should the Democrats want to stop a professional Republican vote stealer from being on the FEC?

More on vote suppression – the GOP is getting in position for 2008

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/19982.html
Ohio and Florida, which provided the decisive electoral votes for President Bush's two razor-thin national election triumphs, have enacted laws that election experts say will help Republicans impede Democratic-leaning minorities from voting in 2008. . .

Fight back: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/26/fight-back-against-gop-attempts-to-cheat-your-vote/

Case #2: The Democratic-controlled House issues a gratuitous “us too” resolution condemning MoveOn. Are we done with this now, folks? Can we get on to something else?

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/house_votes_overwhelmingly_to_condemn_moveon_majority_of_dems_votes_aye.php
[Greg Sargent] The House of Representatives, which of course enjoys a much larger Dem majority than the Senate, just voted overwhelmingly to condemn MoveOn for its ad criticizing General Petraeus. The vote was 341-179.

As late as this morning, it was unclear whether the House Dem leadership was going to even allow a vote on the measure. The leadership, however, was coming under conservative criticism for not taking up the measure -- and now, obviously, it has done just that.

An astonishing number of House Dems -- 146 -- voted to condemn the antiwar group, versus only 79 who didn't. That's two-thirds of House Dems voting for this thing. No Republicans voted against it. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13016.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/mccarthy-lite-by-digby-democrats-in.html

Case #3: Stripped of its “let’s attack Iran” language, the Kyl-Lieberman resolution finally passes. One question: WHY?

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/26/143246/038
[Big Tent Democrat] Wasting time, good will and attempting to wreak havoc, the original Lieberman-Kyl Amendment on Iran was tantamount to granting President Bush the power to wage war against Iran. Still wasting time and attempting to wreak havoc, the Lieberman-Kyl Amendment was gutted of its war authorizing provisions, but remained provocative, unnecessary and stupid. It should have been voted down. It was not. It passed. Among the Ays was Senator Hillary Clinton. Among the Nays were Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Biden. Absent was Senator Barack Obama.

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054292.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13015.html

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1585

Are the Democrats going to fight smart over SCHIP, or will that be failure #4?

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/26/strategy-101/

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13010.html

I think we need another word besides “patience”

http://www.kerryvision.net/2007/09/the_2_minute_republican_nation.html
2005
Jan.: Bush Urges Patience on Iraq as Election Nears
Jun.: Bush urges patience, long view on Iraq war
Aug.: Bush calls for patience on Iraq mission
Nov.: Bush Urges Patience With Iraq Training

2006
Mar.: Bush calls on Americans to show patience with Iraq
Jun.: After Iraq Visit, Bush Urges Patience
Aug.: Bush Urges Patience on Iraq, Speed in Lebanon
Oct.: Conceding Missteps, Bush Urges Patience on Iraq
Nov.: Bush Urges Patience on Winning Iraq War

2007
Mar: Bush Pleads for Patience in Iraq War
May: Bush Urges Patience on Iraq
Jun.: Bush urges patience on Iraq
Jul.: War In Year 5; Bush Requests Patience
Aug.: Bush pleads for more patience for Iraq war efforts

Another EX-general from Iraq tells us what he really thinks about the war effort

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054284.php

What our reliance on mercenaries and private contractors like Blackwater is costing us

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/world/middleeast/27contractor.html
The American security contractor Blackwater USA has been involved in a far higher rate of shootings while guarding American diplomats in Iraq than other security firms providing similar services to the State Department, according to Bush administration officials and industry officials. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2174843/
[Daniel Politi] The State Department keeps track of every time a contractor shoots a weapon while on the job, and although officials agreed to discuss the broad outlines of the reports, they would not provide the paper with any of the actual numbers. . . This higher rate didn't seem to hurt Blackwater's chances of being awarded more contracts and responsibility in Iraq. In fact, just a few weeks ago the company was awarded another large contract. The NYT goes on to note that questions have been raised about Blackwater's ties to politicians as the owner's family contributes heavily to Republicans. As is common with contractors, Blackwater also has several staff members who used to hold prominent government jobs.

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004296.php

Hmmm. . . . I thought they weren’t: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054220.php
Are Blackwater employees subject to the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice)? It seems they may now be, because of an amendment to last years Defense Authorization Act authored by Sen. Graham

Smoking-gun proof that Bush lied to take us to war – ho, hum, so what’s Britney doing?

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/26/bush-aznar-talk/

Henry Waxman, the busiest man on Capitol Hill, asks for State Dept. documents, including a study on corruption in Iraq. AFTER he asks for them, the State Dept classifies them – then explains that because they’re classified he can’t have them. Smell anything?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004302.php

More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20070926/cm_thenation/3237024

The Republicans show their “support for the troops” by condemning MoveOn. Meanwhile. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/27/332/56028
[WP] More than half a year after disclosures of systemic problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and other military hospitals, the Pentagon's promised fixes are threatened by staff shortages and uncertainty . . .

Judges keep finding the Patriot Act unconstitutional – but no one seems at all concerned about it

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/two-more-provisions-of-patriot-act.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/26/21959/1888

Oops!

http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Feinstein_asks__Spy_Chief_about_0925.html
Powerful supercomputers are vacuuming up so much information that logs of calls to or from innocent Americans could exist in government databases indefinitely, the nation's top intelligence official said Tuesday.

"You may not even realize it's in the database because you do lots of collection," Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell said, referring to the "inadvertent collection" of Americans' communications through a vast surveillance program instituted after 9/11. . . .

Why haven’t the Democrats found the right voice on FISA?

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/19992.html
[Joe Galloway] Once again, the Bush administration is flimflamming the hapless Democratic majority in Congress into rushing an important piece of legislation into law without serious thought or debate about the implications. . . .

A virtual boondoggle

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/25/AR2007092502138.html
Bush's 'Virtual Fence' Faces Trouble, Delays
Technical and management troubles have caused the government's effort to secure a portion of the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border with a chain of surveillance towers to fall behind schedule, jeopardizing the success of a costly project meant to showcase the Bush administration's tougher stance on immigration enforcement.

A $20 million pilot program to safeguard a 28-mile stretch of rough, mesquite-dotted terrain that straddles a smuggling corridor south of Tucson was supposed to be operational in June but now is expected to be delayed until the end of the year. . .

Ground radar and cameras that were to identify illegal border crossers so that armed patrols could be dispatched to capture them have had trouble distinguishing people and vehicles from cows and bushes. The sensors are also confused by moisture. . .

[NB: And only 1,972 miles to go. . . ]

Quick: what is the name of Bush’s Agriculture Secretary? Don’t blink – you’ve just missed him

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/26/heckuva-job-johanns/
[TeddySanFran] I admit not knowing the name of the Agriculture Secretary. I learned recently, though, that there’s a farm bill wending its odd way through our national legislature. Doesn’t that sound like something our Agriculture Secretary ought to attend to? Actually, the farm bill affects us all, comes up for renewal every five years, and is entirely within the purview of the Agriculture Secretary.

George W Bush’s second Agriculture Secretary, Mike Johanns [is] leaving Washington before the farm bill even passes the United States Senate. Why? He wants to run for the Senate seat Nebraskan Chuck Hagel is giving up next year. . . .

If Blackwater goes down, it could cause trouble for Mitt Romney. Here’s why

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709260015

The “weirdness factor”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13013.html
[Steve Benen] Several years ago, Rudy Giuliani asked his staff to put together a “vulnerability study,” which would highlight potential weaknesses on the campaign trail. . . .

Awwww. . . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012137.php
[ABC] A crucial GOP fundraising committee is nearly broke, according to its latest monthly filing with the Federal Election Committee . . .

A good reason to cancel your Verizon service

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/business/27cnd-verizon.html
Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless has rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program.

The other leading wireless carriers have accepted the program . . .

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054328.php
[Josh Marshall] This has no direct technological connection to the net neutrality issue. But it shows pretty clearly what can happen when you have no 'common carrier' protections on the new telecom frontier.

One of the great acts of policy hypocrisy is by those who oppose abortion, but ALSO oppose the availability of contraception and information that could help prevent unwanted pregnancies (yes, yes, I know – abstinence is the only way)

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=09&year=2007&base_name=unremarkable

ANOTHER Republican retires

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/20190-1.html?CMP=OTC-RSS

Meanwhile, Larry Craig (R-ID) just can’t seem to make up his mind

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13017.html
[Steve Benen] For those keeping score at home:

Craig wouldn’t resign…

Then he might…

Then he did…

Then he changed his mind…

Then he changed it back…

And now he’s back to not resigning again.

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/09/judge_no_swift_ruling_on_craig.php

I suppose I should let this go, but the infamous 60 Minutes report on Bush’s National Guard duty was, regardless of the forged documents, basically TRUE

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/26/101943/188

Misquoted?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709260009
The headline of a Newsday article on Bill O'Reilly's controversial remarks about a Harlem restaurant run by African-Americans asserted, "O'Reilly lashes out at CNN over misquoted report," but the article provided no examples of a "misquot[ation]," nor did it quote O'Reilly claiming to have been "misquoted." The article also stated that "Mediamatters.org released a partial transcript" of O'Reilly's comments. In fact, Media Matters provided the relevant transcript and audio clip of O'Reilly's remarks, which included the full context of his statements. . . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/oreilly-luther-king-by-digby-billo-is.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054321.php

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709270005

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/26/late-nite-fdl-bill-os-bad-moon-rising/
“If Bill O’Reilly was caught robbing a bank, he would say he was taken out of context.” Paul Waldman, Media Matters . . . [read on]

Bonus item: More misquoting, I’m sure

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709260002
During the September 25 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly stated that CNN has gone "over to the dark side" for its coverage of O'Reilly's recent statement, first spotlighted by Media Matters for America, that "I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant [in Harlem] and any other restaurant in New York City. It was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks [and has a] primarily black patronship." O'Reilly went on to claim that he "talked to CNN last night" before the controversy was discussed on the September 24 edition of CNN's Out in the Open and "explained the deal." He added, "They went ahead with the racist angle anyway." During the September 25 edition of Out in the Open, anchor Rick Sanchez aired a video clip of O'Reilly's claim that "he talked to CNN last night" and said of O'Reilly's assertion, "Never once did we utter the word 'racist' in relation to Bill O'Reilly." Sanchez added, "One other thing: He talks about calling us and talking to us. In actuality, he called and screamed at the top of his lungs for a very long period of time."

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:37 AM

 
“WORSE THAN ABU GHRAIB”

House watchdog Henry Waxman wants to investigate Blackwater – Condi’s State Dept tells him, “you can’t,” and Rice (who IS a Congressionally-approved official) refuses to testify herself. What are they hiding?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054192.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004291.php

More: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/19972.html

One thing we have learned about Josh Marshall: he has a great nose for an issue with scandal potential. Now he picks up on the great untold story of this war – the role of contractors like Blackwater (and why the Bush gang doesn’t want anyone looking into them). Expect a lot more to come

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054195.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012133.php
[WP] "This is a nightmare," said a senior U.S. military official. . . "This is going to hurt us badly. It may be worse than Abu Ghraib. . . ."

"This is a big mess that I don't think anyone has their hands around yet," said another U.S. military official. . . . “Iraqis hate them, the troops don't particularly care for them, and they tend to have a know-it-all attitude, which means they rarely listen to anyone — even the folks that patrol the ground on a daily basis." . . [read on!]

Well, this just confirms what we always knew – but you might think the press would perk up and take notice, wouldn’t you?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054196.php
[Josh Marshal] [I]t seems someone in the Spanish government has leaked to El Pais transcripts of conversations between President Bush and then Spanish Prime Minister Aznar just before the outbreak of the Iraq War. The gist seems to be that Bush was rather candid about the fact that the efforts to find a peaceful solution to the crisis were a sham and that the war was a done deal. . .

The Kyl-Lieberman resolution, Democrats realize, is actually a hidden authorization for war against Iran. (Not that the Republicans would ever try to sneak anything like that by them, would they?)

http://www.usalone.com/no_iran_war_declaration.php

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054193.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054151.php

UPDATE – bill pulled, will be “revised”: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/25/reid-lieberman-kyl-amendment-being-revised/

Fox News does its part to whip up winger support for an attack on Iran

http://www.attytood.com/2007/09/fox_doing_its_part_for_iran_war.html

You just watch: Bush and the Republicans plan to blame the Democrats for the failure of Bush’s war

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13000.html
[Steve Benen] [T]he president not only wants to stay the course between now and then, he also wants to figure out a way for the next president to also stay the course, whether they want to or not. . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012128.php

DNI Mike McConnell, whom everyone praised as the apolitical professional needed in that job, turns out to have the same capacity for demagoguery as his bosses

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004249.php
[Spencer Ackerman] Last month, in an interview with the El Paso Times, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said that openly debating changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- changes requested by none other than McConnell himself -- would mean that "some Americans are going to die." . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004282.php
[Spencer Ackerman] In response to a question from Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), McConnell reaffirmed that discussing the administration's surveillance program in open session will endanger American lives. . . .

More: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/historic-compar.html

Will the Dems cave on FISA (again)? http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1566

Gee, why would Republicans not want to go on television to defend the war they keep voting to continue?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/09/prowar_gop_sena.php

Why does the Washington Post hate the military?

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/25/pentagon-and-petraeus-casualty-data-differ-significantly/
Pentagon and Petraeus’ casualty data ‘differ significantly.’ In a report today on the Pentagon’s methods for determining sectarian killings in Iraq, the Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung writes that “apparent contradictions are relatively easy to find in the flood of bar charts and trend lines the military produces.” . . .

Of course, the Republicans see in the MoveOn “controversy” a great fundraising opportunity. . . and make it so

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054188.php
[David Kurtz] Because what better way to honor our troops' sacrifice than contributing to the NRSC. I have a lump in my throat just thinking about it.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054108.php
[David Kurtz] You don't have to get into the appropriateness of the MoveOn ad or the intricacies of the NYT's ad rate schedule to conclude the obvious: The GOP is engaged in another round of cynical, exploitative caterwauling to change the subject from their party's Iraq debacle. . .

Democrats: if being in the majority means anything, you MUST NOT confirm this man

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004289.php
[Paul Kiel] Finally, the time has come. The Senate Rules Committee will vote tomorrow on whether Hans von Spakovsky, the former Justice Department official who former employees say was key to the politicization of voting rights section, will get a term on the Federal Elections Commission. Von Spakovsky is also a veteran of Republican efforts to target voter fraud. . . [read on]

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/25/hiding-the-sockpuppet/

http://www.slate.com/id/2174680

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/confirming-fox-to-guard-henhouse-by.html

Action alert: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/25/hanging-on-the-telephone/

It appears that the House will NOT be able to override Bush’s veto of the child health care bill. Make Bush and the Republicans pay

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/25/22810/3042

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13003.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/09/25/BL2007092500855.html

Here’s how: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/25/163132/429

Bush will try AGAIN to dismantle the Social Security system. I have no doubt that the system needs reforming – but no one trusts these people to do it (see above)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/24/AR2007092401657.html

It’s more than a year away, but 2008 looks like it will be fun

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/9/25/152756/201
GOP Bracing For More Congressional Losses . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13002.html

Larry Craig hopes to fly under the radar, stay in office after his announced “resignation” date

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13006.html

What real newspapers do

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/19964.html
President Bush implored the United Nations on Tuesday to recommit itself to restoring human decency by liberating oppressed people and ending famine and disease.

Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, the president called for renewed efforts to enforce the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a striking point of emphasis for a leader who's widely accused of violating human rights in waging war against terrorism.

Bush didn't mention the U.S. prisons in Afghanistan or at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. practice of holding detainees for years without legal charges or access to lawyers, or the CIA's "rendition" kidnappings of suspects abroad, all issues of concern to human rights activists around the world. . . .

How David Brooks works

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/25/brooks/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] [V]irtually every column David Brooks writes is grounded in one of two highly misleading tactics and, on special occasions, like today, are grounded in both. That's all there is to him. He just re-cycles these same two themes over and over in different forms.

The first tactic is merely the most commonplace conceit of the standard Beltway pundit: Brooks takes whatever opinions he happens to hold on a topic, and then -- without citing a single piece of evidence -- repeatedly asserts that "most Americans" hold this view, and then bases his entire "argument" on this premise . . .

The other Brooks tactic is also a defining feature among pundits and a central prong in the Washington Establishment's orthodoxies. No matter what polls or elections show, Brooks' overriding goal is to "prove" that "most Americans" favor a "hawkish" foreign policy whereby America will rule the world by military force, most importantly in the Middle East. . . . In the Beltway pundit world, there is never any Republican/Democratic or liberal/conservative split allowed on this issue. . . [read on]

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012132.php

NPR tells Bush gang “no, you can’t hand-pick the interviewer to question the President” (so Fox News picks up the interview instead). Expect some faux outrage from the usual sources that this shows NPR’s “liberal bias”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/25/AR2007092502258.html

Bill O’Reilly: watch him squeal

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709250009

More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200709250014

Fox brings on a “body language expert” to analyze Hillary’s “evil laugh”

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709250011

Bonus item: Someone working at the U.N. has a sense of humor

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/25/speech/index.html
[Tim Grieve] A draft of George W. Bush's address to the United Nations this morning appeared briefly on the U.N.'s Web site today, and it included phonetic spellings for the names of some of the countries and leaders Bush was supposed to mention.

A reporter asked White House press secretary Dana Perino if that meant that the president has a hard time pronouncing some of these names.

"I think that's an offensive question," Perino said. "I'm going to just decline to comment on it."

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/who-owns-the-un.html
* Kyrgyzstan [KEYR-geez-stan]
* Mauritania [moor-EH-tain-ee-a]
* Harare [hah-RAR-ray]
* Mugabe [moo-GAH-bee]
* Sarkozy [sar-KO-zee]
* Caracas [kah-RAH-kus]

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/25/154942/113

***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 @ 7:03 AM

 
BIPARTISANSHIP

A Great Compromise on Iraq! Sponsored by a Democrat! Except. . . it sorta sounds like . . . . we should keep doing. . . . exactly what Bush is doing. But it’s a COMPROMISE, see? So that’s a good thing, right?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_23_archive.html#4606568798133260083
[Atrios] Note the language. "We agree." That's all that matters. Agreement! Congress should stop disagreeing! And then they'll agree! And that'll be so awesome! . . . [read on]

More on the US military practice of laying out munitions “bait” and then shooting Iraqis who happen to pick it up (because that means they’re trying to kill us, and so that makes killing them a kind of self-defense, see?). How many ways can such a scheme go wrong and end up killing innocent civilians? Count the ways

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/24/83454/7385

When the GOP sees an opportunity, they have no shame about going back to the well again and again and again

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054074.php
House GOPer demands congressional investigation of New York Times over MoveOn ad. . . Or as Matt Stoller puts it, "I'm a little worried about upcoming fights over funding for Iraq, inasmuch as they might distract us from discussing the Moveon ad."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012125.php
[Kevin Drum] Don't Republicans have anything better to do?

No shame, as I said

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/24/2192/12959
[Kagro X] Watch Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) recite her talking points on MoveOn/NYT/General Petraeus. . . until Tucker substitute host David Shuster asks her the name of the last soldier from her district killed in Iraq. . . [read on]

Republicans (along with their BFF Joe Lieberman) want to give Bush authorization to attack Iran – because it worked so well the last time

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/the-upcoming-re.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006633.html

Trying to close the prison at Guantanamo

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/24/13254/9253

More on the mysterious missing nukes

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/sep/24/simple_error_my_ass

Condoleezza Who? How bad is it when Sunday news shows don’t want the Sect’y of State for a guest?

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/24/rice-influence/

We know Bush has gotta lotta nerve, but even for him. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12990.html
[Steve Benen] Working with a Republican Congress for six years, the Bush White House has written federal budgets that grew at a rate of 7% per year — double the rate of growth under Clinton. According the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, both conservative think tanks, even nonmilitary discretionary spending has blossomed under Bush, far more than his recent predecessors. . . .

It was with some irony, therefore, that the president lashed out at congressional Democrats today, asking why they can’t be as fiscally responsible as he is. . .

Can the Dems win the veto fight with Bush over the bipartisan SCHIP bill? (My guess, yes in the Senate, no in the House.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/washington/25health.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/24/AR2007092401562.html

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/09/priorities.html

Why a smarter health care plan is GOOD BUSINESS

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/24/155243/919

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/strike-by-digby-its-our-duty.html

John Edwards actually has an education plan, and it actually makes sense

http://johnedwards.com/news/headlines/20070921-education-agenda/

More: http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=09&year=2007&base_name=post_5064

In general, the Democrats are running a strong policy-based campaign. The GOP-ers are still polishing up their applause lines

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12983.html

I think people are beginning to realize that Rudy Giuliani is a dangerous idiot – but will the Republicans nominate him anyway?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12984.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/25/21036/4648

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/24/its-giuliani-time/

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/24/airing-out-rudys-trash/

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/rudy_campaign_distances_itself_from_supporters_911themed_house_party.php

The Republicans and race

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012127.php

David Vitter (R-LA) tries to change the topic from his prostitute problem

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054052.php
Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) has earmarked $100,000 for a Louisiana group that advocates stopping the teaching of evolution in public schools. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12985.html

Theocracy watch: frivolous lawsuit edition

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054005.php
[LAT] The Internal Revenue Service has told a prominent Pasadena church that it has ended its lengthy investigation into a 2004 antiwar sermon, church leaders said Sunday. . . [read on!]

[NB: How many IRS investigations of pro-war church sermons?]

***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

 
TAKING THE BAIT

http://www.slate.com/id/2174588
[Daniel Politi] The Washington Post leads with word that at least some U.S. snipers in Iraq have been encouraged to set out "bait" to lure and kill suspected insurgents. The classified program calls on snipers to set out an object that they suspect an insurgent would use against U.S. or Iraqi troops, such as ammunition or plastic explosives, and then kill whoever tries to take the item. . . .

The Post got word of the classified "baiting" program through court documents relating to murder charges that were filed "against three snipers who are accused of planting evidence on Iraqis they killed." The three shootings don't seem to be directly related to the program but defense attorneys contend that the whole concept of baiting "blurred the legal lines of killing in a complex war zone," says the WP. It's not known how many people were officially told of the program but it seems clear more knew about the items used in the "baiting" and at least some were under the impression that their purpose was to plant evidence on Iraqis they had killed.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/23/AR2007092301431.html

“The Revolt of the Generals”

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20070923-9999-1n23generals.html
The generals acted independently, coming in their own ways to the agonizing decision to defy military tradition and publicly criticize the Bush administration over its conduct of the war in Iraq.

What might be called The Revolt of the Generals has rarely happened in the nation's history. . . [read on]

Wingers: No one can criticize our uniformed military – except when we do

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/23/just-when-you-thought-it-couldnt-get-more-crazy/

Now, THERE’S a phrase you never like to hear – “missing nuclear weapons”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12977.html
[Steve Benen] Looking back, it’s still hard to fathom. In late August, an Air Force bomber accidentally flew six cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads from North Dakota to Louisiana — with the power of 60 Hiroshimas — and no one realized the nuclear-armed missiles were missing for more than a day. . . [read on]

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/22/AR2007092201447.html

Bush undermines UN conference on global warming

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/world/24warming.html
Dozens of world leaders are to gather at the United Nations on Monday for a full agenda of talks on how to fight global warming, and President Bush is skipping all the day’s events but the dinner.

His focus instead is on his own gathering of leaders in Washington later this week, a meeting with the same stated goal, a reduction in the emissions blamed for climate change, but a fundamentally different idea of how to achieve it. . .

Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey – glass half full or half empty?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12978.html
[Steve Benen] When the president nominated former New York district judge Michael Mukasey to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General, conservatives responded with one of three reactions: there were the rank-and-file Republicans who said, “Michael who?”; there were the Bill Kristols of the world who followed the White House’s lead; and there were the activists who wanted Ted Olson and found Mukasey to be a poor substitute.

Bob Novak, summarizing the feelings of many conservative leaders, blasted Mukasey as “totally unqualified,” preferring Olson because he “knows where the bodies are buried.”

The New York Times’ Adam Liptak had a good feature piece today on Mukasey and his 18 years on the federal bench, which probably won’t help smooth over conservative discontent. Liptak describes the AG nominee as “fiercely intelligent, prickly, impatient, practical and suspicious of abstractions” — hardly qualities found in “loyal Bushies.” . . .

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/23/134640/318
[Newsweek] According to three sources, who asked not to be named discussing the private meetings, Mukasey said that he saw "significant problems" with shutting down Guantánamo Bay and that he understood the need for the CIA to use some "enhanced" interrogation techniques against Qaeda suspects. Mukasey also signaled reluctance with naming a special prosecutor to investigate Bush-administration misconduct, according to one participant. . . .

[NB: And, by the way. . . .]

[Alberto Gonzales] is now looking for a private lawyer to represent him, according to two legal sources who asked not to be identified because of the matter's sensitivity.

Rachel Paulose’s very short career as a US Attorney

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12980.html

A few words from Atrios

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_23_archive.html#3739234315460418060
I don't really care if Democratic primary candidates, or their surrogates, take potshots at each other. It's an election! It's politics!

What I do care about are a) Democrats who reinforce bogus right wing frames about Democrats generally and b) A lackey press weaned on doing the same. Add a little bit c) which is the tendency of the Beltway press to have a seizure about perceived blogger conflicts of interest while dutifully ignoring those of their favorite sources. . .

Hey Rudy, when you’re speaking before a group that already views you with well-deserved skepticism, best not to take a CELL PHONE CALL partway through your speech

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2007/09/giuliani_answers_cell_phone_du.html

More: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/giuliani-excuse-me-while-i-take-this-call/index.html

Or was it staged? http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12961.html

http://mhutch.blogspot.com/2007/09/rudy-giuliani-cell-phone-stunt-could.html

Giuliani: there’s no there there

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/24/21015/8777
[Jeralyn Merritt] The Washington Post explores Rudy Giuliani's claim he is the go-to guy in the war on terror. . . [read on]

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/23/AR2007092301432.html

Romney, “the CEO President” (crikes)

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/oh-no-romney-now-telling-people-hell-be.html

Still searching for a viable candidate. The latest flavor of the day: Newt Gingrich

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053963.php

Nasty infighting for control of the National Republican Campaign Committee – they see a bloodbath coming in 2008

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/gop_infighting_frustrated_boehner_battles_for_control_of_nrcc.php

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/9/23/161214/185

Yes, a bloodbath

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070923/ap_on_el_ge/irked_independents;_ylt=AhfRuh1lkJDWChoon_RTjC.yFz4D
Michael Brooks is exactly the kind of voter the Republican Party can ill afford to lose. But in a foreboding omen for 2008, it may have already done just that. . . .

Brooks is not alone. From coast to coast, independent voters tilt tellingly toward Democrats in their opposition to the Iraq war, their displeasure with Bush and their feeling that the country is moving in the wrong direction . . .

Bonus item: “Irony watch”

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/irony_watch.php
White House official accuses Barack Obama of "intellectual laziness."

***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 @ 6:52 AM

 
CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK

Blackwater, our proxies in Iraq – aren’t you proud?

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Blackwater-Probe.html
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/22/world/middleeast/22cnd-blackwater.html
The Iraqi government expects to refer criminal charges to the Iraqi courts within days in the killing of at least eight Iraqis by a private American security company, the State Minister for National Security Affairs said today, and he complained that the government had received little cooperation in the investigation so far from American officials. . .

http://www.juancole.com/2007/09/iraq-videotape-of-blackwater-attack.html
[Juan Cole] Iraqi authorities said Saturday that they have a videotape of the shootings in Nisur Square last Sunday by Blackwater security guards, which shows that they fired without provocation. The company has maintained that its personnel were responding to incoming fire. . .

Our terrorists: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/22/12530/3415

Meet Blackwater: http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/09/chatting_with_m.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/weekinreview/23burns.html

You think fine operations like Blackwater come cheap?

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2007/09/bush_to_seek_nearly_200_billio.html
After smothering efforts by war critics in Congress to drastically cut U.S. troop levels in Iraq, President Bush plans to ask lawmakers next week to approve another massive spending measure -- totaling nearly $200 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through 2008 . . .

This is beyond dishonest

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/09/20070922.html
[Bush] Instead of working with my Administration to enact this funding increase for children's health, Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know will be vetoed. . . . Members of Congress are risking health coverage for poor children purely to make a political point. . . .

[NB: The *Democrats* passed it? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/washington/03health.html
[Aug 3] The Senate defied President Bush on Thursday and passed a bipartisan bill that would provide health insurance for millions of children in low-income families. . . . The vote was 68 to 31. The majority was more than enough to overcome the veto repeatedly threatened by Mr. Bush.]

My Administration remains committed to working with Congress to pass a responsible SCHIP bill. In the meantime, I called this week for Congress to make sure health insurance for poor children does not lapse. If they fail to do so, more than a million children could lose health coverage. . . . Congress must pass a clean, temporary extension of the current SCHIP program that I can sign by September 30th, the date the program expires.

[NB: I think what is threatening their coverage is Bush’s veto – or am I misreading the Constitution? “A bill he can sign” is, in Bush’s universe, only the bill he would have written himself.]

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/washington/21cnd-health.html
[Sept 21] House and Senate negotiators from both parties said this afternoon that they had reached agreement on expanding a popular children’s health insurance program, setting the stage for passage by Congress next week — and a showdown with President Bush. . . .

“This legislation will get the Children’s Health Insurance Program back on track and reclaim precious resources for low-income kids,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

Another Republican, Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, called the agreement announced today “an honest compromise that improves a program that works for America’s low-income children.”

Fact-checking Bush’s comments on SCHIP

http://www.factcheck.org/bushs_false_claims_about_childrens_health_insurance.html
[FactCheck.org] President Bush gave a false description of proposed legislation to expand the 10-year-old federal program to provide health insurance for children in low-income working families. . . [read on]

http://www.cbpp.org/9-20-07health.htm
[Center on Budget and Policy Priorities] In today’s press conference, President Bush repeated a number of incorrect or misleading statements the Administration has made in recent months regarding congressional efforts to strengthen children’s health coverage through the SCHIP program. . . . [read on]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053930.php
[Steve Benen] The claim-to-lie ratio was pretty close to 1:1. . .

What is SCHIP, and why is it important?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/22/85317/6297

A primer on the Bush economy

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/22/the-the-bush-economy-worked/

You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR2007092102347.html
The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.

The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years . . .

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/22/spy-vs-spy/
[Baltimore Sun] In a major shift, the National Security Agency is drawing up plans for a new domestic assignment: helping protect government and private communications networks from cyberattacks and infiltration by terrorists and hackers, according to current and former intelligence officials. . . .

“This will create a major uproar,” predicted Ira Winkler, a former NSA analyst who is now a cybersecurity consultant.

“If you’re going to do cybersecurity, you have to spy on Americans to secure Americans,” said a former government official familiar with NSA operations. “It would be a very major step.” . . [read on!]

More: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/nsa-takes-over-.html

How the Dems got played (again) over the MoveOn ad

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2007/09/22/gop-swiftboats-the-moveon-ad-dems-fold/
[Jon Ponder] If you think Democrats in Washington are on high alert and in rapid-response mode, readied for the inevitable barrage of Republican Swiftboat attacks, think again. The sad fact is the GOP successfully deployed just such a campaign this month right under their noses, and the Dems fell for it, folding their tents at the Republicans’ first suggestion that they are anti-military. . . [read on]

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/opinion/21fri1.html

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/23/feinstein/index.html

Not helped by dishonest reporting (but they should expect that)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/09/memo_to_washing.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053932.php

Count the cases of REPUBLICANS dissing military people

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709220003

http://mediamatters.org/items/200608150009

The devious practice of trolling the Comments section of blog sites to find the one idiot (who might even be a plant) who says something foolish, then quoting that comment as the responsibility of the blog writer, now has a name: “nutpicking”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12969.html

Round and round they go, and where they end up, nobody knows: the “evolving” positions of the current crop of GOP Presidential wannabes

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-giuliani23sep23,0,6089428.story

Theocracy watch: shameless pandering edition

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzA0OTUxZTc2YTk3MmQwY2VlMmNhZjY2ZGMzMTI2Nzc=
[David Freddoso, in the NATIONAL REVIEW!] [Mitt] Romney hit some of the themes he needs to — he spoke on being a "Change Republican" and emphasized family values in particular. . .

But then he says he's going to move "In God We Trust" to the front of the new dollar coins instead of the side. Hmmm. I guess I'm all for it, but the crowd took a few seconds to applaud, and I think most people were as confused as I was. Is that a new campaign promise?

Plus, I haven't seen his delivery this bad in quite a while. . . He was very slow winding up, and the speech has a lot of really, really lame applause lines. I couldn't take much more after this one:

"I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA."

Sunday talk show line-ups (wall-to-wall Hillary!)

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/23/sunday-talking-head-thread-71/
NBC Meet the Press: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

ABC This Week: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and filmmaker Ken Burns.

CBS Face the Nation: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

CNN Late Edition: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.; Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt; French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner; Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.; former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski; former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Fox News Sunday: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; and filmmaker Ken Burns.

Bonus item: George and Hillary?

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/09/21/bush_clinton_will_be_democrati.html
Karl Rove may not think much of Hillary Rodham Clinton's chances of winning the White House, but it sounds like President Bush is less sanguine. At an off-the-record lunch a week ago, Bush expressed admiration for her tenacity in the campaign. And he left some in the room with the impression that he thinks she will win the election and has been thinking about how to turn over the country to her. . . . [read on]

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:44 AM

 
NO SURPRISE

It’s no surprise, really, but how long did that Iraqi demand that Blackwater leave the country last? Not very long

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/world/middleeast/21cnd-blackwater.html
American diplomats today resumed travel in Iraq in convoys escorted by Blackwater USA, the private American security contractor, less than a week after the Iraqi government banned the company . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053895.php
Condi Rice promises a "review" of Blackwater following last weekend's incident. . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004267.php
Q Why do you have to have private contractors who have, on the face of it, a lousy record?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think that there is because -- I think that is because there is a need. . . .

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/09/today-on-hold-9.html
Q But there apparently there was no need to change anything in advance of Blackwater resuming its patrols?

MS. PERINO: I don't know. You're going to have to ask the State Department. . . .

Q If we could go back to Blackwater. The Iraqi government's own inquiry has concluded that Blackwater was not fired upon before they were firing in that incident. Is there any reason to doubt that account?

MS. PERINO: I don't know. . .

Q Is there any thought being given to using U.S. forces to protect State Department personnel, even though it might strain --

MS. PERINO: I don't know. I don't know, I'd have to look. . .

Q Dana, I have two questions for you. One on Blackwater, which is, is there any concern at the White House that insurgents in Iraq might decide to draw Blackwater into firefights that would then result in collateral damage?

MS. PERINO: I don't know. . .

Q Dana, the White House is very dedicated to setting the record straight, as we all know, on reporting that you deem to be inaccurate. Is the reporting about the strike against Syria by Israel as reported by The Washington Post today accurate?

MS. PERINO: David, I'm not able to comment, as much as -- I don't know, and I'm not able to comment. I don't know. . .

Q Does the administration suspect or know for certain that the North Koreans helped the Syrians in any way?

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to comment, and I don't know.

Dana Perino is clearly out of her depth as the top press person. I wonder if the Bush gang is going to try to wean the press away from the idea of daily briefings – that way they can limit her exposure, and talk to the press only on THEIR schedule and when THEIR topics are high on the agenda

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/09/today-on-hold-9.html
MS. PERINO: Good afternoon. Happy Friday. Sorry I'm a little late. I have nothing to start with, so we'll go to questions. Does anyone have a question? If not, I've got plenty of other things to do. . . .

Sec Def Bob Gates recently said, quite clearly, that he isn’t sure if the war in Iraq has been worth it – the first semi-honest statement out of this gang since before the war began. Now listen to the gobbledygook as the Pentagon tries to explain what he “really” meant

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/21/gates/index.html

How (and when) the Democrats lost the initiative on the Iraq war. Everything has played out predictably since then

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_16_archive.html#2849344606944251643

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/21/17568/4686

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/21/134042/914

Bad Democrats! Won’t “compromise”

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_16_archive.html#4964782892938360795

The faux outrage over MoveOn’s Petraeus/Betray Us ad. Now some Republicans are saying they WANTED to vote to end the war, but the bad, bad, mean-old ad poisoned the atmosphere for them (uh-huh)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/boxed-in-by-digby-blitzer-on-capitol.html
[CNN] BASH: But Democrats privately admit the ad hurt them and may have contributed to the quandary they still find themselves in. After nine months in power, Democrats still cannot find enough Republicans to change Iraq strategy.

SEN. GORDON SMITH (R), OREGON: The counter-productiveness of MoveOn.org had the effect of freezing all of my colleagues.

[Digby] Imagine that. One ad in the NY Times and these Republicans decided that they couldn't vote to end the war. I'd say that's quite a statement about their morals and principles.

As Yglesias points out here, the entire Village is infuriated at MoveOn, beside themselves at how this group of lazy, stupid, amateur interlopers ruined everything. You see, if MoveOn hadn't run that ad at least a dozen Republicans would have been able to vote against the war and Johnny would be marching home again, right now! Except, of course, that's nonsense.

The Eunuch caucus never planned to vote with the Democrats and the Democrats know it. Those Republicans who have the slightest tinge of integrity are all leaving politics. (And there aren't that many.)

There is a much grander strategy at work . . . [read on!]

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/21/morning-cuppa-missing-justice/
[Scarecrow] Earth to Democrats: Republicans will not let you accomplish anything worthwhile if they can stop it. There is no responsible party across the aisle who will work with you in good faith. They’re at war with you; stop accommodating them. . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012110.php

“Betray Us” may have been over the top – but Petraeus DID cook the books. Here’s how

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004266.php

The Senate’s oh-so-delicate sensibilities. Here are some ads and public comments they DIDN’T see fit to criticize

http://sideshow.me.uk/ssep07.htm#09211150

Bush piles on, in a carefully staged Q&A: never hesitate to identify your opponent with their most extreme supporters

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/another-bait-and-switch-by-bush.html

MoveOn hasn’t been hurt by this, by the way – quite the contrary

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/bush-raises-half-million-for-moveon.html

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/21/late-nite-fdl-keep-on-moveon/

Bush’s new excuse for vetoing everything the Republicans don’t filibuster: he’s a fiscal conservative, ya see

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/22/washington/22memo.html

Bush, seeing that health care is a plus issue for the Dems, blocks a program that EVERYONE believes is working to help kids

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12954.html
[Bush] Unfortunately, instead of working with the administration to enact this funding increase for children’s health, Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know that will be vetoed. . . [read on]

[Steve Benen] If you’re looking for honesty in these remarks, you’ll be searching for quite a while. There isn’t any. . . . Congressional Republicans can be jaw-droppingly pliant at times, but even they balked at Bush’s dishonest and nonsensical argument on this one.

The coming war on health care: and the process of “framing” Hillary Clinton’s (or any Democratic) proposal – WHATEVER IT ACTUALLY SAYS – as “socialized medicine” gets pulled out of the GOP closet, dusted off, and polished up for presentation to the pliant media

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/not_that_theres_anything_wrong.php

We’ve run with stories like this before: How Bush gets manipulated, massaged by those within his bubble

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/21/the-stumper/
[Sidney Blumenthal] Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld played Bush like a Stradivarius, exploiting his grandiosity. “Rumsfeld would later tell his lieutenants that if you wanted the president’s support for an initiative, it was always best to frame it as a ‘Big New Thing.’” Other aides played on Bush’s self-conception as “the Decider.” “To sell him on an idea,” writes Draper, “aides were now learning, the best approach was to tell the president, This is going to be a really tough decision.” . . .

Lessons in story placement: where the Washington Post runs stories on crooked Republican, Democratic donors

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053818.php

How does an earmark get added to a bill AFTER it has been voted on by both houses of Congress?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053779.php

Rudy Giuliani, clearly a man who wants to be President a little TOO much

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/rudy_911_changed_my_mind_on_gun_control.php
[Greg Sargent] Rudy, speaking before the National Rifle Association today, offered a creative explanation for why his views have changed from ardent support for gun control as Mayor of New York to strong support for the Second Amendment as a GOP Presidential candidate.

His reason? September 11th has persuaded him that gun rights are necessary . . [read on]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/21/giuliani/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Could the citizens of New York have stopped the attacks of 9/11 if they'd opened fire on those airplanes with handguns and hunting rifles? Should airline passengers be allowed to carry weapons on board? And if that's not what Rudy Giuliani is saying today, can someone please explain to us what he really means?

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/its-miracle-giuliani-is-suddenly-pro.html
[John Aravosis] Giuliani is suddenly PRO-GUN after a lifetime of being the most pro-gun-control Republican in the party

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012112.php
[Kevin Drum] Does this make even the slightest sense? In what possible way did 9/11 affect gun rights? Perhaps someone on his staff could explain? . . .

Asked to explain Mr. Giuliani's remarks that his views on guns were shaped by Sept. 11, a campaign spokeswoman said, "he was making a point that personal rights such as the 2nd Amendment are even more critical in a post-September 11th world."

How much more obvious can his campaign make it that he doesn't have the slightest idea what he's talking about . . .

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/911_changed_everything.php
[Matt Yglesias] The trouble here, of course, is that Giuliani personally and the GOP more generally is deeply invested in the idea that 9/11 means we need more restrictions on individual liberties, not more rights. . . . [read on]

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1500
[Giuliani: The MoveOn ad] “passed a line that we should not allow American political organizations to pass."

[NB: Oh really, and how does he propose to prevent this?]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070921/ap_on_el_pr/giuliani_taxes;_ylt=AhkGWugnp8lRKdb.15Uj9IqyFz4D
Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said Friday that the alternative minimum tax — which is expected to generate as much as $1 trillion over the next 10 years — could be eliminated over the long term by balancing it out with even more tax cuts.

Giuliani's remarks prompted a bewildered response from his audience of technology executives. Both Republicans and Democrats said they assumed that the candidate must have misspoken as he responded to a question about the tax and its affect the middle class.

But a Giuliani spokeswoman said later that Giuliani meant what he said — tax cuts could replace the lost revenue from the AMT by boosting the overall economy.

"Giuliani is the quintessential supply-sider," said spokeswoman Maria Comella. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12958.html
[Steve Benen] This would almost be comical if it weren’t serious. . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012109.php

[NB: Giuliani knows NOTHING about national policy – that’s clear. He’s just parroting the buzz words.]

Shocking! (Just ask Hillary)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12955.html
[NYT] Rudolph W. Giuliani’s marital history seeped into the presidential campaign yesterday . . .

Bonus item: Bill O’Reilly teaches us the meaning of race

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_16_archive.html#8482309557716779224
I think it's getting better. I think black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves. . . [read on!]

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:07 AM

 
ECHOES

If Bush gives a press conference, and no one hears it, does a tree fall in the forest?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12948.html
Q Mr. President, for Republicans seeking election next year are you an asset or a liability? . . [read on]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12947.html
Q: Mr. President, back to your grade point average on holding the line on taxes –

BUSH: Whew, I thought you were going to talk about the actual grade point average. (Laughter.) I remind people that, like when I’m with Condi I say, she’s the Ph.D. and I’m the C-student, and just look at who’s the President and who’s the advisor. (Laughter.) . .

[Steve Benen] This is one of Bush’s very favorite jokes. Given the context, I suspect he doesn’t realize how ridiculous it is. . . The president thinks it’s a laugh-riot that the egghead who reads a lot gets to be his advisor, while he can become president after barely cracking a book. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/20/bush/index.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/20/AR2007092002290.html

http://www.first-draft.com/2007/09/your-presiden-7.html

Video clips: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053777.php

Quote of the day!

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0907/Darth_Cheney.html
[Hillary Clinton] "Vice President [Dick] Cheney came up to see the Republicans yesterday. You can always tell when the Republicans are getting restless, because the Vice President’s motorcade pulls into the Capitol, and Darth Vader emerges" . . .

The Senate pulls together, unified with one bipartisan voice, to say . . . they’re angry with MoveOn. Pathetic

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/20/bipartisan-warm-and-fuzzy-condemnation-of-moveon/
[Jane Hamsher] I don’t even know what to say in the wake of the passage of the Cornyn Amendment to censure MoveOn. . . .[read on]

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/reso_condemning_moveon_passes_overwhelmingly_with_lots_of_dems.php
[Chris Dodd] "It is a sad day in the Senate when we spend hours debating an ad while our young people are dying in Iraq. Now that the Senate has twice voted on this ad, it is time to move on and vote to end the war."

Democrats voting Yea: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/9/20/13506/5588

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/20/from-the-department-of-wasting-my-taxpayer-dollars-on-gop-political-grandstanding/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/09/20/BL2007092001274.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/thank-you-by-digby-so-president.html

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002356.php

MoveOn responds: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/20/quiz-can-you-find-what-matters-in-the-pictures-below/

September, September. . . hmmmm. . . . wasn’t something important supposed to happen in September?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/20/17365/6996

Our feckless Democrats

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/21/32525/9477

The new politics of filibusters

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/20/83313/0324
[Kagro X] "Everyone knows" that it takes 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate. Because that's how many votes it takes to invoke cloture, and cloture is how you break a filibuster. Right?

Sure.

But that ain't what's happening. . . .

[W]hy aren't the papers reporting on the Republican intransigence in the Senate? Why aren't they telling everyone how they're ordering troops stressed to the breaking point back into combat while they busy themselves smoothing their pocket squares? Why aren't they publishing screaming headlines about the sheer gall of yesterday's Republican filibuster?

Because there was no Republican filibuster. That's why.

Instead, the reason the Webb amendment failed even though it got 56 votes was that Senators agreed by unanimous consent that the amendment should have to get 60 votes to pass, even without a filibuster.

But why would anyone agree to allow Republicans, who are already on pace to shatter all previous filibuster records, to stop an amendment this important and this sensible without even lifting a finger? And the question here is not just why anyone would allow it, but why everyone did. A single Senator could have put a stop to this simply by saying, "I object" when the unanimous consent request was made. Just one Senator.

Yet none did. . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053757.php
[MW] Something that strikes me about the Republican use of filibusters is that they have no effect on actual outcome. That is, everything that the Republicans have filibustered would have been vetoed by Bush anyway. So, filibuster or not, the end result is the same. This is in striking contrast to the Democrat's use in the last term, where the filibuster was the only thing standing between a law or an appointment going through.

So, why do they do it? I think they are engaging in obstructionism because most people don't pay much attention to legislative details. All they know is that Democrats have not passed a bill. A veto, on the other hand, makes more news and sets up the Democrats as being in opposition to Bush. Republicans are well aware that people dislike congress because congress has not done enough to oppose Bush. So, I think their use of the filibuster is intended to portray Democrats as being ineffective.

This explains Warner's vote on troop dwell time. Whether he voted for it or not, it wasn't going to be enacted. So, being a Republican not up for reelection (and I think most Democrats would do the same) he chose to stick it to the opposing party rather than cast a vote that has no effect in the end. . .

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053790.php

Blackwater, lawless thugs (literally)

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004241.php
[Spencer Ackerman] Yesterday we reported that not only is Blackwater immunized from liability under any Iraqi law, but the State Department has allowed it to operate under less restrictive rules of engagement than any other private military company. As a result, the State Department bears responsibility for the culture of impunity that resulted. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/19/AR2007091902503.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/19/blackwater-iraq-state/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/world/middleeast/21blackwater.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012100.php

Cholera!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070921/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_cholera;_ylt=ApzQPagQMVgjFByesOG7Sp2s0NUE

Start saving your pennies, the bill is coming due

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053691.php
[David Kurtz] The Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of a long-term U.S. occupation of Iraq in the trillions of dollars in a new report released this morning. The study appears to make some pretty conservative assumptions in calculating cost estimates.

Full text: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/iraq-presence/

Well-spent, too

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/washington/21contract.html
Military officials said Thursday that contracts worth $6 billion to provide essential supplies to American troops in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan — including food, water and shelter — were under review by criminal investigators, double the amount the Pentagon had previously disclosed.

In addition, $88 billion in contracts and programs, including those for body armor for American soldiers and matériel for Iraqi and Afghan security forces, are being audited for financial irregularities, the officials said. . . .

No comment

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/20/cemetary/index.html
[Tim Grieve] One day after voting to block consideration of a measure that might have helped hasten the end of the war in Iraq, Republican Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts have written a letter to the Department of Veterans Affairs urging full funding for a new cemetery at Fort Riley in Kansas.

The reason: With an influx of casualties from Iraq, the existing cemetery at Fort Riley is now full. Well, not entirely full: A spokesman for the facility tells Reuters that bodies can be buried on top of other bodies if family members want to share plots.

Can you ever remember a Secretary of State as invisible and passive as Condi Rice? Has anybody SEEN Condi Rice?

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/20/but-was-it-a-five-inch-heel/

Details start to leak about that Israeli attack on Syria

http://www.slate.com/id/2174444
[Daniel Politi] The Washington Post leads with a few new details about the mysterious Israeli airstrike in Syria on Sept. 6, revealing that the Israeli government told the Bush administration this summer about the presence of North Korean nuclear experts in Syria. It seems the United States confirmed some of the Israeli intelligence before the bombing, which targeted a "suspected nuclear site set up in apparent collaboration with North Korea" and was carried out in extreme secrecy in the middle of the night. . . .

The one thing that is clear about the bombing in Syria is that very few people seem to know all the details. All this secrecy means that "a daring and apparently successful attack to eliminate a potential nuclear threat has been shrouded in mystery," says the Post. Some are skeptical of and note that although Syria has been interested in chemical and biological weapons, it has never crossed the line into nuclear. It's also not clear why North Korea would risk compromising the ongoing talks. The Post had previously cited claims the attacks were linked to the arrival of a North Korean ship, but today the paper emphasizes that the "ship's role remains obscure" and there's disagreement about what it was carrying.

The telecoms lobby HARD for a bill absolving them of illegal actions. And, oh, what a friend they have in George Bush

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/the-lobbyist--1.html

More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20884696/site/newsweek/page/0/

And the Democrats? http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/the-pre-emptive.html

You almost never heard about Abu Ghraib

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/cbs-collaborate.html

Does Bush really want to pick this fight?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/washington/21bush.html
President Bush, bracing for a series of battles with Congress over spending, threatened on Thursday to veto a bill expanding a popular children’s health insurance program, calling it “a step toward federalization of health care.” . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/20/AR2007092002499.html
Republicans reacted angrily yesterday to President Bush's promise to veto a bill that would renew and expand the popular State Children's Health Insurance Program, raising the likelihood of significant GOP defections when the package comes to a vote next week. . . .

Some unknown Republican Senator has put a personal hold on a bill that would renew the law requiring the release of Presidential documents (which of course the Bush gang hates). Who is it?

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/20/coburn-hold/

There is no limit to what they will do – are doing – to circumvent FISA requirements

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/they-really-do-.html

Bubble Boy throws a party

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12950.html
[Steve Benen] As he is inclined to do, the president assembled a group of sycophantic media guests to boost his ego at the White House yesterday, the latest in a series of gatherings between Bush and like-minded allies who enjoy telling him exactly what he wants to hear — and agrees with every word he says.

At yesterday’s press gaggle, Press Secretary Dana Perino read the names of the invited guests:

Michael Barone (U.S. News), Tony Blankley (Washington Times), David Brooks (New York Times), Ron Kessler (NewsMax), Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post), Bill Kristol (Weekly Standard), Larry Kudlow (CNBC), Morton Kondracke (Roll Call), Kimberly Strassel (Wall Street Journal), Kathryn Lopez and Kate O’Beirne (National Review).

When she was done, some White House reporters literally laughed. Out loud.

You’ve heard ad nauseum that “Congress’s poll numbers are even lower than Bush’s” – but look closer . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053773.php

Looking ahead to a Republican bloodbath in 2008

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053755.php

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/09/20/moderate_gop_retirements_could_start_trend.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/20/82535/2646

Theocracy watch: (Still) Looking for Mr. Right

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12942.html
[Steve Benen] The religious right has been looking ahead to 2008 with some trepidation. . .

John McCain (still) looking for some money

http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20070920/NATION/109200058/1028/election

Rudy Giuliani (still) looking for some credibility

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/09/20/quote_of_the_day.html
"I'm probably one of the four or five best known Americans in the world."

LIAR!!

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12951.html
[Steve Benen] House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) responded to the “small price” flap by sitting down with — who else? — Fox News today. Boehner insists he was responding to a question about financial costs. The video shows otherwise.

Watch: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053774.php

Ted Stevens – caught on tape!

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053791.php

Tom DeLay – no, we haven’t stopped hoping for his conviction

http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0907/Federal_grand_jury_issues_subpoena_for_Buckham_records.html

I’m sure most journalists are driven by professional motives and an honest commitment to writing and publishing the truth. But every now and then you hear otherwise. Look at this story about what the press gang did to Al Gore

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/going-after-gore-by-tristero-i-urge.html
[Vanity Fair] [Ceci] Connolly, too, at The Washington Post, wrote about Gore's "grubbing for dollars inside a monastery," and "stretching the [fund-raising] rules as far as he can." Her stories about the distortions extended the life of the distortions themselves. In one article, she knocked Gore for "the hullabaloo over the Internet—from [his] inflated claim to his slowness to tamp out the publicity brush fire." In another, co-written with David Von Drehle, she claimed, "From conservative talk radio titan Rush Limbaugh and the New York Post (headline: 'Liar, Liar') to neutral papers across the country, the attack on Gore's credibility is resonating." . . .

Gore staffers came to feel that if Connolly was denied the access or information she wanted there would be a price to pay in terms of her coverage. In one of her pieces Carter Eskew, a former tobacco-industry adviser, was described in a quote as being "single-handedly accountable for addicting another whole generation of American kids" to smoking. When asked about the article, Eskew recalls how Connolly had called him the day before for a comment about an environmental group's endorsement of Bill Bradley. After he gave her something perfunctory, he says, she went after him. "She goes, 'That's all you're going to say?'" recalls Eskew. "And I said, 'Yeah, that's all we're going to say.' And she goes, 'Do you know how stupid that is, Carter?' And then she threatened me, 'Well, if that's the kind of relationship you want to have with me, then you'll find out the kind of relationship we're going to have'—something to that effect." . . .

More: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/10/gore200710

The Village media

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_16_archive.html#4609910460139362802
[Atrios] The Washington press hates any base of power that doesn't operate within its ecosystem. This isn't just limited to bloggers, but really any organization that doesn't dance the beltway tango.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_16_archive.html#3351630930385100007
[Atrios] The bizarre thing is how regularly "the press" (meaning: the elite beltway chatterers) projects their own bizarre fetishes onto some mythical heartland voter they've never even met. This is related to their tendency to pretend they have no control over what is or isn't seen as news, as if they're just passive vessels for The News.

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/shunning-outsiders-by-digby-paul.html

Can we just say it? David Broder, “dean of the Washington press corps,” is full of it

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12946.html

Goddamn: Sally Field can’t say it, but Bill O’Reilly can

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/20/foxs-goddamn-hypocrisy/

Bonus item: I haven’t blogged here on the taser incident at University of Florida – an appalling combination of police over-reaction and a really stupid, obnoxious, self-promoting “protestor.”

(At a John Kerry event, of course. What an unlucky dude HE is.)

Of course, the video has been downloaded and watched a gazillion times – but it never occurred to me that a lot of viewers were CHEERING it

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709200004

***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.***

Labels: http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:17 AM

 
CIRCLES OF HELL

Several guests today get their own personal circle of hell – first up, journalists who write as if they don’t understand what a “filibuster” is:

Republicans BLOCK the habeas corpus bill (the right kind of coverage)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/19/AR2007091900873.html
A Republican filibuster in the Senate today shot down a bipartisan effort to restore the right of terrorism suspects to contest their detentions and treatment in federal courts . . .

The WRONG kind of coverage

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053600.php
TPM Reader ZK makes a good catch. The AP story I linked to below in the post on habeas corpus rights for detainees being rejected by the Senate says the vote was 56-43 "against the bill." ZK writes, "Last I checked that meant 56 Senators voted FOR the bill. You should put up a warning about that - the media sure has changed how they report these votes." Indeed it has . . .

Right coverage on the D.C. vote bill

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/18/AR2007091801158.html
Republican lawmakers yesterday blocked the Senate from taking up the D.C. vote bill. . .

Wrong coverage

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709190007
CNN's Keilar reported that "the Senate voted to stop debate" on DC voting rights bill -- but it was the Republicans

Right coverage on the Webb amendment

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/its_over_webb_trooprest_resolution_goes_down.php
The voting is over on the Webb troop-rest amendment. It passed 56-44, meaning it didn't get enough votes to clear a GOP filibuster. . .

Wrong coverage

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119023907420232929.html
Senate Blocks Bid to Extend Troop Leave . . .

WORST coverage (Fox, of course)

http://www.foxnews.com/
Senate Rejects Bill to Regulate How Long Troops Spend in Combat

And a special personal circle of hell for John Warner (R-VA), who effectively killed the Webb amendment by prominently changing his vote (he voted for it the first time), taking the heat off a couple of Republicans who might have helped it hit 60 votes, and shafting his fellow Virginia senator Jim Webb in the process

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/source_warner_introducing_nonbinding_version_of_webb_amendement_didnt_tell_webb.php
There's been a new twist in the battle over Jim Webb's troop readiness bill: It was just announced on the Senate floor that Senator John Warner -- who had been wavering in his support of Webb's amendment -- is planning to introduce his own, nonbinding version of Webb's measure.

But here's the rub: According to a source close to Webb, Warner didn't even inform his fellow Senator that he was planning to do this. . . .

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/19/AR2007091902153.html

Loyalty test

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/19/late-late-nite-fdl-how-the-gop-supports-the-troops/
[Reuters] Fellow Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a co-sponsor of Webb’s plan, said Republican senators were heavily lobbied by the administration against the measure.

“The White House has been very effective of making this a loyalty test for the party,” Hagel said after the vote.

Another circle of hell for . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053655.php
[David Kurtz] Following the vote on the Webb Amendment, Sen. John McCain took to the floor and praised the high level of debate in the Senate over the measure. Perhaps he missed the speech by RNC Chairman and Florida Sen. Mel Martinez: "I think we would demean their service if we were to say to them that there had to be a parity between the time in service out of the country and the time at home."

And one for these guys too: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/another-painless-filibuster-by-digby.html
Another Painless Filibuster . . . that makes the Dems look like losers. Again. . . .

The FoxNews All-stars are high-fiving all around. . .

Joe Lieberman gets his own personal circle of hell too

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/19/who-could-have-predicted-part-ii/

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/20/votes/index.html

More on filibusters: think this trend ought to be national news?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012097.php
[Kevin Drum] That seems like a good excuse to rerun this chart that McClatchy put together a couple of months ago. As you can see, Republicans aren't just obstructing legislation at normal rates. They're obstructing legislation at three times the usual rate. . .

As things stand, though, Republicans will largely avoid blame for their tactics. After all, the first story linked above says only that the DC bill "came up short in the Senate" and the second one that the habeas bill "fell short in the Senate." You have to read with a gimlet eye to figure out how the vote actually broke down, and casual readers will come away thinking that the bills failed because of some kind of generic Washington gridlock, not GOP obstructionism.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12938.html
[Steve Benen] Looking over today’s posts thus far, a trend emerges — Republican blocked a habeas corpus bill from coming to a vote. They also blocked a bill to give DC residents a voice in Congress from coming to a vote. Jim Webb’s amendment to give troops equal time off for the time they spend in combat will be blocked from coming to a vote. The Senate Democratic leadership is working on a funding bill for Iraq that includes a withdrawal timeline, which Republicans will block from coming to a vote.

And that’s just from news items today. . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/make-em-talk-by-digby-its-really-too.html

I think this is what you call a nonfalsifiable hypothesis

http://www.attytood.com/2007/09/more_proof_the_surge_is_workin.html
[Will Bunch] Tonight I see that Matt Drudge -- the man who "rules our world" in the DC politico-journalism complex -- has decreed that the right-wing version of what went down with Blackwater in Baghdad is the storyline that needs to get out there. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/20/04415/1251
[Kos] The "surge" is going so well that not even the CIA can leave the Green Zone without a heavily armed mercenary escort? And it's all Iran's fault? Yeah, of course it doesn't make any sense. Did they ever make sense?

More on Blackwater: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053579.php

More progress

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/20/43824/3858
[AP] In another sign of U.S. struggles in Iraq, the target date for putting Iraqi authorities in charge of security in all 18 provinces has slipped yet again, to at least July.

It is the second time this year the target date for completing what is known as "Provincial Iraqi Control" has been pushed back. . . .

The Iraq refugee disaster

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/2-million-iraqi-refugees-in-iraq.html

More: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/09/chertoff-blog-i.html

Did DNI Mike McConnell lie AGAIN to Congress? Sure seems like it

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004236.php

More lies: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/pied-piper-of-crawford-by-digby-bizarre.html

I can’t imagine why anyone would object to this . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/19/AR2007091901111.html
President Bush today called on Congress to make permanent a law that gives the government broad authority to eavesdrop without warrants on phone calls, e-mail and other communication between people in the United States and suspected terrorists abroad. . . .

"It is the job of Congress to give the professionals the tools they need to do their work as effectively as possible," Bush said . . .

Or this . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/19/115558/638
[Kos] The Bush Administration and Mitch McConnell are demanding retroactive immunity for past violations by telecommunication companies of the law by engaging in warrantless spying of American citizens. In essence, it would codify the notion that these companies can break the law merely because the president tells them to.

Ridiculous, right?

Well, Democrats appear ready to agree. . . .

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/19/democrats_fisa/index.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/the-pre-emptive.html

The Bush gang just can’t stop treating the Dept of Justice like crap

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004228.php
[Paul Kiel] On Monday, we noted that Peter Keisler was unexpectedly slotted in as the man to replace Alberto Gonzales until the President's nominee, Michael Mukasey, was confirmed by the Senate. This morning, The Washington Post is the first paper to take much notice of the move, and reports that it caught pretty much everyone, including officials in the Justice Department, by surprise. . .

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/no-input-from-d.html
[Emptywheel] The WaPo reveals that the White House pulled the Clement-Keisler headfake with no input from DOJ. . . .

The mainstream media trumpet every Bush “surge” in the polls (“He’s coming back” He’s coming back!”), but then fail to note that he drops back to the same baseline OR LOWER, after each of these temporary bounces

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1844140220070919
Only 29 percent of Americans gave Bush a positive grade for his job performance, below his worst Zogby poll mark of 30 percent in March. . .

Poor Condi just can’t get NO respect

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053587.php

I did not know this. Planned Parenthood clinics are often the first front for health care of all sorts (not just reproduction-related care) – so when they are blockaded or shut down. . . .

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/19/breaking-news-anti-abortion-protestors-preventing-palnned-parenthood-clinic-from-opening/

Another (yes ANOTHER) Republican is retiring

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/report_gop_congressman_jerry_weller_will_retire.php

Ted Stevens (R-AK): what a crook

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/09/tpmtv_ted_stevens_muck_update.php

Pete Domenici (R-NM), ditto

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091907A.shtml

As people in California realize the motives behind the Republican electoral vote bill, its chances drop

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/9/19/214839/561

Bonus item: Please explain to me WHAT Jesse Jackson is doing here?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12937.html
[Steve Benen] As serious as the controversy in Jena, La., is, there’s no reason for a veteran civil rights leader to accuse an African-American presidential candidate of “acting white” simply because he hasn’t emphasized the issue to the leader’s liking. And yet, that’s exactly what’s happened with Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama. . . .

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:22 AM

 
FORCING THE ISSUE

Gen. Petraeus’s dubious numbers on Iraq didn’t even hold up for a week

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004215.php
[Spencer Ackerman] [T]ake a look at this great post from Ilan Goldenberg at Democracy Arsenal. Goldenberg combs through the just-released quarterly Pentagon report and compares its civilian-casualty numbers to those presented last week to Congress by General David Petraeus. And sure enough, it appears that the quarterly report's numbers -- which were taken from Multinational Corps-Iraq, the command just under Petraeus' -- make the pre-surge period seem better than Petraeus' numbers; and the surge period seem worse. . .

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053516.php
[Josh Marshall] Following up on the post below about the new Pentagon report on violence in Iraq, which seems to contradict Gen. Petraeus's claims, here's more. The Post notes that the report says that "the security environment in southern Iraq took a notable turn for the worse in August."

That would have been nice to know, don't you think? . .

“The week that changed nothing”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12920.html
[Steve Benen] Last week was supposed to be a crossroads in the debate over Iraq policy. . . .

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053504.php

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/18/wrongness/index.html

Iraq: a new definition of “success”

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/one-week-after-petraeus-says-all-is.html
[John Aravosis] One week after Petraeus says all is well, US bans almost all land travel by American govt. officials in Iraq . .

Crocker too: http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/even-minor-progress-claims-dont-hold-up.html

Gates: http://www.slate.com/id/2174227
[Daniel Politi] The WSJ tops its world-wide newsbox with Defense Secretary Robert Gates discussing his long-term vision for Iraq in an interview, where the paper notes he didn't mention "transforming the region and spreading democracy." . . . The NYT's David Brooks also talked to Gates and asked him whether it "was a good idea" to invade Iraq. "I don't know," Gates answered . . .

We are now actively taking sides in a civil war

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012089.php

Harry Reid’s search for Republicans brave enough to vote their conscience on a failed Iraq war has apparently fallen short of the 60-vote mark. So he says, Fine. If bipartisanship isn’t possible, then we’ll force tougher votes on the war. We might lose them all, but every one of those so-called “moderate” Republicans will have a string of pro-war votes on their record for the 2008 election, and no more of those face-saving but powerless “compromises” they’ve been trying to hide behind. I hope the press is honest in reprinting all the “come September. . .” promises Republicans were making last summer

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/09/democrats_wont_temper_iraq_leg.php

Kos is happy: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/18/183919/041

Pump up the pressure: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/18/AR2007091801998.html

Webb amendment now in doubt

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/gop_senator_warner_reconsidering_support_for_webb_troop_bill.php
[Greg Sargent] Just when it looked as if Senator Jim Webb's troop readiness bill might pick up enough GOP support to reach the magic number of 60 filibuster-proof votes, we're now getting word that Senator John Warner is reconsidering his backing for it and may vote against it. . . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/surprise-surpise-surprise-by-digby-so.html

Call your Senator: http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1435

There are no atheists in foxholes – at least not if the military has anything to say about it (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/18/national/a163536D16.DTL
A soldier whose superior prevented him from holding a meeting for atheists and other non-Christians is suing the Defense Department, claiming it violated his right to religious freedom. . . .

And on a related note: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/18/AR2007091802203_pf.html
The U.S. military has introduced "religious enlightenment" and other education programs for Iraqi detainees, some of whom are as young as 11, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, the commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, said yesterday.

Stone said such efforts, aimed mainly at Iraqis who have been held for more than a year, are intended to "bend them back to our will" and are part of waging war in what he called "the battlefield of the mind." Most of the younger detainees are held in a facility that the military calls the "House of Wisdom." . . . [read on]

More: http://www.first-draft.com/2007/09/us-militarys-re.html

A new corruption investigation – this time in the State Dept

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004223.php
[Paul Kiel] In a blistering 14-page letter today, House oversight committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) charged that the inspector general for the State Department Howard Krongard has been actively impeding probes into waste and corruption in Iraq and elsewhere. The basic allegation, as Waxman simply puts it, is that "you believe your foremost mission is to support the Bush Administration, especially with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than act as an independent and objective check on waste, fraud, and abuse on behalf of U.S. taxpayers." In other words, Waxman is charging that he's a hack, and the worst kind, too -- one that can do real damage.

Waxman has a litany of examples of Krongards' alleged hackishness, but one is particularly colorful. . . [read on!]

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/washington/18cnd-inspect.html

Will this former Attorney General (Alberto somebody) be disbarred?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/09/18/texas-legal-ethics-expert_n_64790.html

What Gonzales wrought

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053506.php
[David Kurtz] [T]he problems at DOJ are not going to disappear with a new attorney general. Alberto Gonzales cronies--or Bush cronies--are spread throughout the Department now, even though many top DOJ officials have resigned in the wake of the USAs purge scandal. . .

Back to the Minnesota US Attorney, Rachel Paulose, discussed previously here but who never made it into the national news. Another underqualified Bush loyalist promoted by forcing out a long-serving career professional, she’s now under investigation herself

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004221.php

More: http://www.startribune.com/587/story/1431389.html

Questions for new AG nominee Michael Mukasey

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/opinion/18tue1.html

Make of this what you will: Reading the psyche of the Jewish neo-cons

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053426.php

Resigned? Who said anything about resigning?

Craig: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12925.html

Rove: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/18/rove/index.html

Well, it’s not bathroom hanky-panky, but you might think people would take notice anyway

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053458.php
[David Kurtz] [I]t's not every day that a witness admits in open court to having bribed a sitting U.S. Senator, which is exactly what happened last Friday. . .

Another classic Giuliani flip-flop: he used to call them “extremists.” Now he calls them “friends”

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/flashback_in_1995_interview_rudy_called_the_national_rifle_association_extremists.php

McCain’s Michigan state chairman quits – and look at the reason why

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/mccains_michigan_state_chair_quits.php

Wow. Think about this for a second

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/17/reed-beats-bush/
In what was billed as a major televised address on Iraq, President Bush last week “recycled tired rhetoric” and “mumbo jumbo” about staying the course. Sen. Jack Reed delivered a direct response, pledging the Democratic leadership would “exercise our Constitutional duties and profoundly change our military involvement in Iraq.”

In case any more evidence was needed that the American public has tuned Bush out and is anxious to hear ideas for a responsible exit strategy from Iraq, we received it today. On both Fox and CNN, more viewers watched the Democratic response than they did the Bush speech . . .

Theocracy watch: Don’t think for an instant that the evangelical Right is prepared to accept a “halfway” candidate

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/18/13255/3685

Bonus item: Sigh. Speaking of theocracy, just read this

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12922.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 @ 7:07 AM

 
GO HOME

A lesson on sovereignty: Iraq tells lawless thugs Blackwater to leave their country. Guess what the US says?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004196.php
[Spencer Ackerman] Following a Baghdad shootout yesterday that left at least nine civilians dead, security-contractor giant Blackwater will no longer be permitted to operate in Iraq, according to the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

The Interior Ministry's decision is likely to be a source of friction between the U.S. Embassy and Iraq. Not only does Blackwater guard many important U.S. officials there, but the embassy is unlikely to want a precedent established that allows the Iraqi government to kick out U.S. contractors for excessive use of force. . . .

In Congressional testimony last week, Ambassador Ryan Crocker praised private security firms working in Iraq. He is unlikely to allow the Interior Ministry to expel Blackwater without a fight: not only is Blackwater a contractor with the U.S. government, its personnel and those of its rival rival firms keep Crocker and many of his colleagues alive. Expect the ministry's decision to spark a serious diplomatic row between the U.S. and the Iraqi government, which will be under public pressure to demonstrate that it's holding the firm accountable.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012082.php
[Kevin Drum] The Bush administration can't be happy about this order. But the Maliki government is already hanging by a thread, and forcing them to back down on this after they've already gone public could deal them a death blow. Maybe there's a quiet compromise of some kind available here, but it looks to me like Blackwater needs to pack its bags.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2171334,00.html
The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, apologised to the Iraqi government yesterday in an attempt to prevent the expulsion of all employees of the security firm Blackwater USA. . . Ms Rice called the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, to apologise for the shooting. They agreed to run a "fair and transparent investigation", according to a statement from Mr Maliki's office. . . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/blackwater-banned-by-digby-is-allegedly.html

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=09&year=2007&base_name=post_4968

http://www.ericumansky.com/2007/09/translation-up-.html

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/sep/17/the_iraq_blackwater_test

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_occupation_of_iraq_/2007/09/blackwater_banned.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12910.html

On a related issue, Petraeus says they’re going to pull out some troops from Iraq (but they’re just going to HIRE MORE mercenaries to replace them)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053299.php

So typical – even with the supposedly “conciliatory” nomination of Michael Mukasey for AG, the Bush gang just couldn’t resist sticking their thumb in the Democrats’ eye

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004201.php
[Paul Kiel] Bush threw an unexpected change-up in his announcement this morning. Towards the end of his remarks about his nomination of Michael Mukasey as attorney general, he also said that outgoing Justice Department official Peter Keisler would serve as the acting attorney general until Mukasey is confirmed.

The administration had said that Solicitor General Paul Clement would serve as the acting attorney general. But Keisler, who announced his retirement from the Department two weeks ago, will apparently stick around in his stead. . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053336.php
[David Kurtz] Not only had President Bush publicly announced that Paul Clement would step in as acting AG until a new nominee was confirmed, but the Justice Department even slotted his photo in as acting AG on its website.

Why Keisler? http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053334.php

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/17/judge-mukasey-nominated-as-next-ag/

The AT&T connection

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/why-keisler.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/the-united-stat.html

Selling Mukasey to the Right

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/17/outreach/index.html
Seeking to head off a right-wing rebellion like the one that greeted the president's decision to nominate Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, the White House set up meetings Sunday between Michael Mukasey and six different "conservative constituents." . . . the White House wouldn't say who they were . . .

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053356.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12913.html

The fight over DOJ documents

http://www.slate.com/id/2174162
[Daniel Politi] Although it seems clear Bush chose someone the Senate would approve without much of a fight, key Democrats were quick to quash dreams of an easy confirmation. Some have vowed to delay confirmation until the White House agrees to hand over documents relating to some of the controversies that engulfed the Justice Department before Alberto Gonzales resigned, such as the firings of nine U.S. attorneys and the warrantless eavesdropping program. . . .

Despite the tough words, the LAT makes clear that "no one is suggesting that Democrats will hold Mukasey's nomination hostage until the White House capitulates entirely" on the documents. Although the WP quotes administration officials saying they won't hand over documents to make confirmation easier, the LAT reports some Democrats think the White House counsel seems more willing to compromise.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053320.php
[Josh Marshall] Does Michael Mukasey have some kind of deal with the president? As Paul Kiel notes here, Sen. Leahy (D-VT) says that before the Judiciary Committee goes anywhere with Mukasey's nomination, they want the information and documentation about the US Attorney firings that Alberto Gonzales had kept bottled up for months. Does he comply? Or is this where the fight is going to be?

The Webb amendment, depending on your point of view, is a clever (or dishonest) way of forcing troop reductions in Iraq by requiring the military to conform with strict troop rotation and leave calendars. Since it explicitly is trying to PROTECT the troops, it isn’t subject to the usual Republican horse-hockey. It looks as if a few Republicans are ready to sign on, and that may get them past the 60 vote filibuster threshold. Sec Def Bob Gates says he will ask Bush to veto it – but will they veto a military funding bill with this attached? Stay tuned

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/_source_republican_senators_eyeing_support_for_webb_troop_measure.php

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1414

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/18/can-the-pentagon-manage-redeployments/

More on the mystery of what Israeli planes were doing in Syria

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053314.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053399.php

Bringing back habeas corpus

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/justice-stuff-by-digby-i-heard-senator.html

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1411

Action alert: http://www.restore-habeas.org/

The latest excuse from the WH about why they can’t investigate Rove’s criminal conduct

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004204.php
Back in April, Scott Bloch, the head of the Office of Special Counsel, announced that his office would "leave no stone unturned" in pursuing White House malfeasance. In fact, a special task force was assembled to handle all of Karl Rove's alleged dirty doings.

Problem is, Bloch apparently forged ahead without actually having the money to fund the task force. And as Justin reports over at The Blotter, it's not looking like he'll be able to land that extra $3 million. So some of those stones might just have to stay right where they are. . .

More: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/09/budget-shortfal.html

Dick Cheney buries his documents WAY deep

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12911.html

Theocracy watch: sometimes John McCain just comes off like a babbling idiot

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12906.html
[Steve Benen] I strongly believe that a person’s religious faith, or lack thereof, is a personal matter . . . Having said that, when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) announced that he’s become a Baptist, after years of identifying himself as an Episcopalian, it’s curious. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012085.php
[Kevin Drum] Only one problem: he's never been, um, baptized. "I didn't find it necessary to do so for my spiritual needs”. . .

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/mccain-still-trying-to-explain-what.html
"The most important thing is that I am a Christian”

More idiocy: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/09/tpmtv_john_mccain_vs_the_video.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053392.php

Tough guy Rudy Giuliani wants to take on MoveOn.org. Bring it on, brother

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/new_moveon_ad_returns_fire_at_rudy_for_quitting_isg.php

Another Republican to retire, another winnable seat

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/report_gop_rep_jim_ramstad_rmn_to_retire.php

Bonus item: Bush meets the bloggers

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/09/17/BL2007091700952.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 @ 7:24 AM

 
LAW AND ORDER

[NB: I hearby declare this an OJ-free zone for the duration of the media frenzy and legal circus we are destined to suffer through (again) over the next year or two]

Michael Mukasey, soon-to-be nominee for Attorney General, offers something for everyone, it appears.

I have three confirmation questions I want to hear him answer: (1) Will you facilitate, or impede, Justice Dept investigations into criminal wrongdoing under the Gonzales regime? (2) Do you accept the expansive theory of executive power put forth under the Bush/Cheney administration? (3) Where do you stand on warrantless surveillance, denial of habeas corpus, and torture-based interrogation?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053269.php
[David Kurtz] The anticipated move was originally reported last night by The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, in what looks like a preemptive attempt to mollify disgruntled conservatives: the piece was titled, "Michael Mukasey to be Attorney General . . . And conservatives should be happy."

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12901.html
[Steve Benen] Oddly enough, Mukasey’s principal problem, should he be the nominee, is that he may draw fire from the right, not the left.

For one thing, conservatives wanted Olson, not just because of his record as a conservative ideologue, but also because the right relished a high-profile fight with Senate Democrats over the Attorney General vacancy. Conservatives don’t care about “confirmable”; they care about partisan warfare.

But more importantly, the right doesn’t perceive Mukasey as “one of them.” . . .

Even worse, the progressive legal community doesn’t seem to hate him too much. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has been encouraging White House counsel Fred Fielding for a Mukasey nomination, and the Alliance for Justice, a liberal legal group, suggested in 2005 that Mukasey would be a conservative-but-fair Supreme Court nominee.

These are not exactly the kind of accolades conservatives want to hear.

How serious could the right’s opposition really be? It’s hard to imagine the circumstances that would lead to a full-scale conservative revolt against a Mukasey nomination (a la Miers, Harriet), but there will likely be quite a bit of grumbling. . .

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/16/mukasey/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] There is no question that Judge Mukasey, a Reagan appointee who served as the Chief Judge for the Southern District of New York before retiring recently, is close to the far right on the judicial spectrum. He undoubtedly holds many legal and political views which most Democrats would find objectionable, perhaps even intolerable. But that will be true of any nominee Bush selects, and it is true of the current Acting Attorney General, Paul Clement, who will remain in place if no nominee is confirmed.

I want to highlight one extremely relevant consideration concerning Judge Mukasey -- the impressive role he played in presiding over the Jose Padilla case in its earliest stages. . . . Judge Mukasey repeatedly defied the demands of the Bush administration, ruled against them, excoriated them on multiple occasions for failing to comply with his legally issued orders, and ruled that Padilla was entitled to contest the factual claims of the government and to have access to lawyers. He issued these rulings in 2002 and 2003, when virtually nobody was defying the Bush administration on anything, let alone on assertions of executive power to combat the Terrorists. And he made these rulings in the face of what was became the standard Bush claim that unless there was complete acquiescence to all claimed powers by the President, a Terrorist attack would occur and the blood would be on the hands of those who impeded the President.

http://www.nysun.com/article/62750
The widely expected nomination of a former judge, Michael Mukasey, as attorney general could draw fresh scrutiny of his role in authorizing the secret detention of an unknown number of men without criminal charges following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch denounced the detentions as "Kafkaesque." . . .

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/17/34215/2476
[Jeralyn Merritt] Judge Mukasey has publicly stated his support for the Patriot Act and his belief that it's no big deal to use sneak and peek warrants and roving wiretaps in terror cases since they are already approved for drug cases. He has an expansive view of FISA, criticized the sunset provisions of the Patriot Act and he believes citizens should give the Government the benefit of the doubt.

That being said, anyone Bush picks for AG is going to be a conservative. Mukasey has bucked the Government in several cases, and I've found nothing to suggest he will be the Administration's water boy. Mukasey is a far better pick than Ted Olson or, for that matter, a career prosecutor who grew up under Ashcroft and Gonzales. While he's been politically supportive of his pal Giuliani and Joe Lieberman, it sounds like he's more interested in law than politics. That's what the Justice Department needs right now.

http://www.slate.com/id/2174045
[Roger McShane] The Post notes that Bush chose to pass on the more controversial Ted Olson, deciding "that it is important to restore confidence in the Justice Department as quickly as possible, with a choice that could garner bipartisan support." Only this administration could make such a rational assessment of the situation seem so shocking.

More: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/mukasey.php

The Bush gang’s abuses of the “state secrets” privilege

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012073.php

Alan Greenspan blurts out the secret we already knew

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/091607a.html
“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”

More: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/oil.php

The very serious, and under-reported, Iraqi refugee problem

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/dont-have-to-live-like-refugee-by-digby.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2174045
[Roger McShane] [T]he WP fronts a memo written by Ryan Crocker in which he criticizes the slow pace of the administration's Iraqi refugee processing. Crocker singles out the Department of Homeland Security for criticism, but DHS points the finger right back at the State Department (with good reason it seems). Someone's not doing their job. A DHS official says the administration expects to be able to process 12,000 refugees next year. That number seems laughable considering the U.S. has admitted only 1,521 Iraqi refugees since 2003.

Bush wants to take credit for doing something he had to do anyway

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/bushs-very-secret-plan-to-end-war-by.html

Consider this: the purely political considerations of a congressional fight over trying to end the Iraq war

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012077.php

Backlash against the Webb amendment

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/16/13299/8167

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/backdoor-by-digby-defense-secretary.html

Atrios nails it (again): it used to be – when Democrats were in the minority – that filibusters were called “filibusters,” or “blocking,” or “Democratic obstructionism.” Now, when Republicans are in the minority, it’s stated as a casual matter of assumption that every bill needs 60 votes in order to pass

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_16_archive.html#6691919347963021350

What WAS the reason for the Israeli sortie into Syria last week? And why haven’t we heard anything about it in the US press?

http://sideshow.me.uk/ssep07.htm#09161436
From the Observer: "Was Israeli raid a dry run for attack on Iran?: Mystery surrounds last week's air foray into Syrian territory. The Observer's Foreign Affairs Editor attempts to unravel the truth behind Operation Orchard and allegations of nuclear subterfuge "

The coming end of US global dominance? (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.secure-x-001.net/Secure-X.asp?Direction=Emerging.htm

Giuliani’s deft touch

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12903.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/ad-war-by-digby-rudys-made-boo-boo.html

It’s already starting: here’s a list of possible Democratic VP’s

http://politicalinsider.com/2007/09/democratic_vice_presidential_p.html

Bonus item: Fox (of course) cuts off Sally Field in the middle of a sentence criticizing the war, at the Emmy’s

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/16/fox-censors-sally-fields-anti-war-speech-at-emmys/
“If mothers ruled the world, there would be no –” But the Fox Emmycast cut off her sound and pointed the camera away from the stage, silencing the rest of her sentence: “god-damned wars in the first place.” [watch the video]

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:13 AM

 
BUILDING CONSENSUS

Muqtada al Sadr’s movement withdraws from the Iraqi govt coalition, pushing the Maliki government to the brink

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070915/ts_nm/iraq_dc_4;_ylt=Au5e_0hT8iWbyRS3M0gFrjEE1vAI

http://www.juancole.com/2007/09/sadrists-withdraw-from-government-say.html
[Juan Cole] The unstable al-Maliki government is on its last legs . . . [read on]

Looks as if the Petraeus testimony was the high point for the Bush gang on the war this week - it’s all been downhill for them since then

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006611.html

The false appeal of “bipartisanship” on the war. The DC establishment has decided: the only acceptable “bipartisan” solution is one that basically endorses Bush’s policy and guarantees 100,000 troops or more in Iraq on the day he leaves office. The “deadlock” that prevents this “sane compromise” from emerging is all because of the Democrats’ “partisanship.” Blah, blah, blah. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/15/AR2007091501452.html
When Army Gen. David H. Petraeus last week proposed withdrawing more than 20,000 U.S. troops from Iraq, some congressional Democrats nodded their heads and saw it as a positive, if insufficient, step forward. Some wanted to take credit. After all, they reasoned, the drawdown, the benchmarks report, even Petraeus's Capitol Hill testimony came about only because of Democratic pressure.

Within hours, that idea was shot down. When House Democratic leaders convened in the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) at 5:30 p.m. Monday, strategists concluded they were already getting credit for what was happening but that voters wanted much more. So Pelosi, according to aides at the meeting, insisted that Democrats coordinate their message and dictated what that message would be: The general's plan meant 10 more years of war, or even "endless war."

Either way, what seems increasingly clear is that Washington will remain locked in an endless war over Iraq -- at least until President Bush leaves office in 16 months. Following long-awaited congressional hearings, progress reports and presidential speeches, the prospect of a grand bipartisan resolution to the extended conflict in Iraq that some hoped September would bring appears more elusive than ever. . . . Where change advocates may be able to influence policy, at least for now, is more on the margins, such as legislating more resting time for troops between deployments.

No, even the Webb amendment (which would guarantee decent downtime between tours of duty) is too much for Bush supporters to accept

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/15/war_culture/index.html

Floating this candidate’s name for Attorney General means one of two things, I think: either the Democrats’ early and unwavering opposition to Ted Olson forced Bush into choosing an uncharacteristically reasonable consensus alternative; or, conservatives are leaking his name to drum up opposition behind the scenes and strengthen Bush’s resolve to go with Olson or some other hard-right candidate after all. If Mukasey’s acceptable to the Democrats, there MUST be something wrong with him

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/15/AR2007091501751.html
Michael B. Mukasey, a former federal judge regarded as an expert on national security issues, has emerged as the leading candidate to replace Alberto R. Gonzales as attorney general, several conservatives close to the White House said yesterday.

The sources said that President Bush is close to announcing his nominee, possibly doing so as early as tomorrow, and that Mukasey has vaulted to the top over other contenders, including former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson, whose chances may have been damaged after the Senate's top Democrat vowed to block his confirmation.

One source close to the White House, describing Mukasey as the clear "front-runner," said Bush advisers appear to have decided that "they didn't want a big fight over attorney general" in the Senate . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/washington/16attorney.html
Mr. Mukasey is a respected jurist but is not well known in Washington legal circles, and some Republicans say he seems too close to Democrats who have been fierce administration critics. . . . Republican lawyers have privately bristled that lawmakers like Charles E. Schumer, the Democratic senator from New York who led the effort to oust Mr. Gonzales, has publicly suggested that Mr. Mukasey would be a credible candidate.

Who is Mukasey? http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/15/202356/372

Gov. Don Siegleman’s conviction in Alabama: the cinching case in proving politicized DOJ prosecutions?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/sweet-home-alabama-by-digby-us-attorney.html

More on the myth of global warming

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070915/ap_on_sc/northwest_passage;_ylt=AoJsqzJVRvYtaNniJpoG6Cus0NUE
Arctic ice has shrunk to the lowest level on record . . .

The Fred Thompson juggernaut rolls on

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/us/politics/16thompson.html
At his second campaign stop of the day on Friday, just after 2 p.m., Fred D. Thompson was deep into a riff on the benefits of high-quality American health care.

“It’s allowing us to live healthier lives and to live longer,” Mr. Thompson, a former Republican senator from Tennessee, said at a Jaycee park here. “That’s good news. But we have more retired folks. I hope to become one of them one of these days.”

Nervous laughter from the audience.

“Not too soon,” he added hastily.

So much for dispelling the idea that he is too lazy to run for president. For months, Mr. Thompson has fought off suggestions that he is not motivated enough to weather the round-the-clock campaign trail required of serious presidential candidates. . .

His critics, already pointing to what they call Mr. Thompson’s skimpy Senate record, might find even more ammunition in his campaign schedule. In his second week as an officially declared candidate for the Republican nomination, Mr. Thompson has made a languid three-day swing through Florida ending Saturday with the candidate watching a football game in Gainesville. The pace has kept him on a jumbo air-conditioned bus far more often than he is actually campaigning. . .

None of the above! Even the entry of savior Fred Thompson doesn’t satisfy the GOP rank and file – here comes Alan Keyes and. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12899.html
“We’re putting together an effort that’s not going to be like anything before . . .”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/15/18423/9849
[Kos] Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha [deep breath] ha ha ha ha ha ha!

. . . . Newt? http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/gingrich-calls-petraeuss-report-wholly.html

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/15/AR2007091501333.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.).

THIS WEEK (ABC): Gates and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.).

NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN): Sen. James Webb (D-Va.).

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.).

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.).

LATE EDITION (CNN): Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and John Cornyn (R-Tex.); Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.); and retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, former supreme commander of NATO.

Bonus item: Heh

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/09/15/quote_of_the_day.html
"You have an unpopular President going onto prime time television, interrupting Americans' TV programs, to remind them of why they don't like him."

-- A "frustrated Capitol Hill Republican strategist with ties to the G.O.P. leadership," quoted by Time magazine, on President Bush's recent address on Iraq.

***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 @ 7:17 AM

 
A QUESTION OF TRUST

I thought the purpose of his speech was to SETTLE any doubts (it seems to have made things worse)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/washington/14cnd-policy2.html
After Speech, Bush Seeks to Overcome Doubts on Iraq . . .

It’s such a small and unnecessary lie, but it says so much about how every fiber of Bush’s speech strained and twisted the facts

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053233.php
[David Kurtz] The White House has provided us with the list of 36 nations the President was referring to last night in his speech when he said, "We thank the 36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq and the many others who are helping that young democracy. "

The key phrase there is "troops on the ground."

If you take a look at the list we were provided, by a National Security Council official, the first heading is "Countries with troops on ground in Iraq." Only 26 countries appear in that category. . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053209.php
[Josh Marshall] One way the president comes up with this number is to rope in something called the NATO Training Mission-Iraq (NTM-1). . .

One example from the president's list of 36 is Iceland which has sent a single public information officer to serve in the NATO mission in Baghdad. . . .

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=09&year=2007&base_name=post_4933
[Kate Sheppard] Also, he's not a soldier, but rather a public information officer. And Iceland doesn't have an army, so to count this guy as "troops" would be … misleading. I'm going to go with that word for it. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12881.html

Lies all the way down

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/14/unsurge/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Remember how the White House announced in January that the president was sending 21,500 more combat troops to Iraq, and then the number kept getting bigger? First the Bush administration denied that it was sending additional troops, then it admitted that it was sending 4,700 more support troops, and then Gen. David Petraeus ordered up an additional 2,500 or so combat aviation types, and before we knew it the 21,500-strong "surge" had some 30,000 soldiers heading for Iraq.

Well, surprise of surprises, it's looking like the drawdown of the surge will play out much the same way. . . .

More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070914/ap_on_re_us/us_iraq_417;_ylt=AkXRZNiyJY2Tkzmhqf5vkvQE1vAI

Bush’s alternate universe

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/09/14/BL2007091401322.html
[Dan Froomkin] In the alternate universe that President Bush occupies, he gave a smashing speech last night.

Over there, the people of Iraq need our help to save them from the al Qaeda terrorists who intend to overthrow their brave and united government on the way to attacking America. It's a battle of good versus evil. We have 36 countries fighting alongside us. And the fight is going very well indeed. Ordinary life is returning to Baghdad. . . . [read on]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053207.php
[Josh Marshall] Let's start by stipulating that the arguments for our Iraq policy have been a pretty big crock for a really long time. We want to calm the place down so they can have democracy. As long as we can also get all the terrorists there so we can fight them in one place of our choosing. Or we need to fight in Iraq because the real threat is Iran. Etc. etc. etc.

We know all the rationales. I've even made something of a career of chronicling them. But as we saw in President Bush's speech last night things have gotten to a point where the White House spinmeisters hardly seem even to have their heart in it anymore. And the president just seems to be living in some sort of alternative universe populated by the failed gods of his narcissism and vainglory. . . . [read on]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053194.php
[The Politico] In his testimony, Petraeus used the military science term “battlefield geometry” in describing how he figured out the number of troops he could afford to release. A top GOP Senate adviser complained after the speech: “The president needs better 'communication geometry' to prevent overreaching with happy talk."

They don’t like other people’s independent evaluations, so they come up with their own

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/14/AR2007091400186.html
The White House said today that Iraq has made "satisfactory progress" toward meeting nine of 18 political, economic and security benchmarks . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004180.php
[Spencer Ackerman] Time to move some goalposts. The White House today released its third benchmark report on Iraq, and, miracle of miracles, it shows some achievements. . . [read on]

Just ask them

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12887.html
[CNN] ROBERTS: How long are we going to be in Iraq? The president last night was setting the stage for a long-term relationship with the Iraqis, which would include a U.S. military presence there.

SNOW: Well, the Iraqi want that. It is impossible to say. We’re still in Germany. We’re still in Korea, in South Korea. . . .

[Think Progress] But earlier this week, an ABC News/BBC/NHK survey of Iraqis stated that 79 percent of Iraqis oppose the U.S. presence — including 84 percent of Shi’as and 98 percent of Sunnis.

Fifty-seven percent of Iraqis approve of attacks on U.S. troops, up from 17 percent in 2004. As Matthew Yglesias observed, “when an actual majority support killing our soldiers, then how, exactly, are the soldiers supposed to help Iraq’s population?”

Furthermore, in June, a majority of the Iraqi Parliament passed a resolution rejecting “the continuing occupation of their country.”

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/what_is_success.php
[Matt Yglesias] And, indeed, while the absence of political reconciliation is probably Iraq's biggest problem, it's not a particularly large problem for the American military presence. On the country, a unified Iraq -- especially one swayed by Iraqi public opinion -- might be very likely to give the US the boot. By contrast, in a divided and chaotic Iraq one can easily imagine the main players resenting the US presence but preferring it to anarchy. Indeed, Bush seems to have convinced both the Maliki government and the Anbar Salvation Front that they need American troops to protect them from each other. Meanwhile, the Kurds want us to defend them from the Turks, and the Turks want us to keep the Kurds in line and there's really no sign of an end to the tensions and violence.

From one point of view it looks like a quagmire, but from another point of view it's more-or-less ideal.

The shifting semantics of “success” in Iraq (we no longer hear the word “victory”)

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/19706.html
Eight months after President Bush made public a plan he hailed as the "New Way Forward" in Iraq, he's announced a new plan, this one called "Return on Success."

The new plan was reminiscent of last year's "Operation Together Forward," which called for U.S. troops to secure neighborhoods in Baghdad and hand them over to Iraqi security forces. It bore similarities to an even older plan commonly articulated with the catchphrase "as they stand up, we'll stand down."

But on Thursday, Bush declared success and said troops were coming home, despite a range of government reports that says Iraqi civilian casualties remain high and that Iraqi security forces remain incapable of taking control.

Our "success in meeting these objectives now allows us to begin bringing some of our troops home," the president said. . .

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/14/bush-is-holding-the-troops-hostage-to-success/
[Scarecrow] The President described his come-home-on-your-shields policy in the starkest of terms: “Return on success; the more successful we are, the more troops can return home.”

The logical, unspoken corollary must therefore be: the less successful they are, the fewer troops can return. And if there is limited or no further success, then few or none can return home. The President’s policy is thus a recipe for a permanent large occupation, rather than a plan for troop withdrawal. . . .

Oh, hell, let’s bomb them too!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/world/middleeast/15intel.html
A State Department official said Friday that the United States had concerns about Syria’s involvement in illicit nuclear activities . . .

The Dems (still) dither

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/washington/13policy.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/15/washington/15cong.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2007/09/blegging_for_information_the_senate_rules_and_the_webb_proviso.php

The sad and ironic story of Sandra Day O’Connor (file this one away under “Be careful what you ask for”)

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3975/is_200304/ai_n9221306/pg_1
[Richard Neumann] On December 9, 2000, the United States Supreme Court stayed the presidential election litigation in the Florida courts and set oral argument for December 11 . . . In a story published the following day, Christopher Hitchens, the United States correspondent for the Evening Standard of London, wrote that "O'Connor . . . has allegedly told her friends and family that she wishes to retire from the Court but won't do so if there is to be a Democratic president to nominate her replacement." Helen Thomas, a nationally syndicated columnist, wrote that "[t]he story going around [Washington] is that a very upset Justice Sandra Day O'Connor walked out of a dinner party on election night when she heard the first mistaken broadcast that Vice President A Gore had won. . . .

The following week, Newsweek published a more detailed account:

[A]t an election-night party on Nov. 7, surrounded for the most part by friends and familiar acquaintances, [Justice O'Connor] let her guard drop for a moment when she heard the first critical returns shortly before 8 p.m. Sitting in her hostess's den, staring at a small black-and-white television set, she visibly started when CBS anchor Dan Rather called Florida for Al Gore. "This is terrible," she exclaimed. She explained to another partygoer that Gore's reported victory in Florida meant that the election was "over," since Gore had already carried two other swing states, Michigan and Illinois. . .

On . . . the day of the Supreme Court's first opinion on the election, O'Connor and her husband had attended a party for about thirty people at the home of a wealthy couple named Lee and Julie Folger. When the subject of the election controversy came up, Justice O'Connor was livid. "You just don't know what those Gore people have been doing," she said. "They went into a nursing home and registered people that they shouldn't have. It was outrageous." It was unclear where the justice had picked up this unproved accusation, which had circulated only in the more eccentric right-wing outlets, but O'Connor recounted the story with fervor.

http://patterico.com/2007/09/05/jeffrey-toobin-on-the-supreme-court/
[Jeffrey Toobin] [T]he criticism of Bush v. Gore left some of the justices shell-shocked. It was one thing to be called wrong, or even reactionary and right-wing – that was routine – but this time critics went after the justices’ motives and their integrity. The decision was called a sham, a political fix, a putsch.

The backlash against the decision affected those in the majority in different ways. . . . O’Connor, in contrast, never treasured her role in the decision. She valued her place as the Court’s moderate center, and her association with a decision regarded by many as a partisan outrage made her queasy. Like Scalia, O’Connor would rarely defend the decision on its merits. With a nervous, revealing intensity, she would cite the results of the recounts conducted by the news media as supposed proof that Bush v. Gore had not mattered as much as its critics claimed. O’Connor did not voice regret for her vote – such soul-searching was definitely not part of the O’Connor style – but neither did she enjoy the memory of the case.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14384753
[Nina Totenberg] The central thesis, or one might argue, the central disclosure of Toobin's book is his portrayal of Sandra Day O'Connor as increasingly alienated from the Republican Party she loved.

Ironically, Toobin tells us, if there was a contemporary politician O'Connor really admired, it was the governor of Texas, George W. Bush — a man whose theme of compassionate conservatism was much like O'Connor's, or so she thought.

Instead, says Toobin, O'Connor came to disdain the Bush presidency. It was a transformation that did not happen overnight, but with each step that President Bush took, whether to exert unilateral executive power in the war on terror, or on social issues like abortion, separation of church and state, affirmative action, and gay rights.

O'Connor was a healthy 75 years old in June of 2005, in the prime of her judicial influence and self-confidence, when her husband's Alzheimer's took a turn for the worse. She didn't want to leave the Court, but with the ailing Chief Justice Rehnquist telling her he was going to hang on, she felt she had no choice but to step down to avoid a double vacancy in the future. In a cruel twist of fate, Rehnquist died weeks afterward — and O'Connor's husband would not recognize her within a matter of months and would have to be institutionalized.

If O'Connor had any hope that her replacement would be a woman of substance or a justice of her general outlook, that hope was dashed with the appointment of Samuel Alito. The appointment, contends Toobin, was an anathema to O'Connor; it was Alito's lower-court opinion on the abortion question that O'Connor had repudiated in the strongest terms in 1992.

The Alito opinion approved a law that required women to prove they had notified their husbands before they could have an abortion. To O'Connor, Alito's view was "repugnant." Women, she said, "do not lose their constitutionally protected rights when they marry." His appointment as her successor infuriated her.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3572143&page=1
O'Connor supported George W. Bush's election, but she quickly lost her affection for the new president and some of his officials, especially Attorney General John Ashcroft, who "embodied everything that O'Connor disdained about the modern Republican Party. He was extreme, polarizing and moralistic -- unattractive."

When she found out that one of her former law clerks was taking a job with Ashcroft, she said, "Working with Ashcroft, he's ruining his career."

Along with Ashcroft's hiring, "the politicized response to the affirmative action case, the lawless approach to the war on terror, and the accelerating disaster of the war in Iraq" (which she called a "mess") appalled her. . .

A question of trust (part 1)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/14/AR2007091402206.html
The Bush administration, facing withering criticism over its temporary foreign intelligence wiretap law, has launched a campaign to assure Democratic lawmakers that the law will not result in domestic surveillance without a court order . . .

A question of trust (part 2)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20780840/
Ten years after Congress ordered federal agencies to have outside auditors review their books, neither the Defense Department nor the newer Department of Homeland Security has met even basic accounting requirements, leaving them vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse.

An Associated Press review shows that the two departments’ financial records are so disorganized and inconsistent that they have repeatedly earned “disclaimer” opinions, meaning that they simply cannot be fully audited. . . .

Alan Greenspan protects his own legacy by slamming Bush, Republican policies

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/09/14/greenspan_blasts_bush.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/macroeconomic_policy_/2007/09/deserting_a_sinking_ship.php
[Mark Kleiman] Yes, this is the same Alan Greenspan who enabled Bush's tax cuts with one of the most intellectually dishonest performances ever seen on Capitol Hill. (Yes, I know that's saying a lot.) . . . [read on]

Ted Stevens (R-AK) – a real crook

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/14/AR2007091402145.html
A former energy company executive testified yesterday that his employees worked on an expansive reconstruction of the house of Sen. Ted Stevens (R), who is under investigation in a federal probe of corruption among Alaska lawmakers.

Bill Allen, the former chief executive of Veco Corp., said he personally oversaw the rebuilding of Stevens's house near Anchorage . . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004190.php

John Boehner (R-OH) – so dumb

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053205.php
Add Democrat Joe Biden and Republican John McCain to the growing list of people blasting Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) for saying that America has paid a "small price" in Iraq. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12884.html
[Steve Benen] I can never tell what’s going to cause a media feeding frenzy. Sometimes a politician will make a dumb joke and the media will pounce. Othertimes, a pol will say something completely outrageous, which generates a collective yawn. House Minority Leader John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) comments on CNN the other day seemed like the kind of story that could raise eyebrows. . . .

Dismissing U.S. sacrifices in Iraq as “small” seemed like a breathtakingly dumb and offensive thing to say. John Kerry pounced, imploring Boehner to apologize. The DNC and DCCC followed suit.

Regrettably, most of the media ignored the story. . . I was afraid that would be that, and the story would quickly disappear, but the controversy is showing signs of life. . . .

How much longer does Fred Thompson think he can pull this stunt, before he becomes a national joke?

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/14/freds-strategy-revealed/
[Eli] On the Terry Schiavo circus, he said:

I can’t pass judgment on it. I know that good people were doing what they thought was best. That’s going back in history. I don’t remember the details of it.

On the differences between his Social Security plan and Dubya’s (which he supported):

I don’t even remember the details of his plan.

And on his lobbying for the pro-choice National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association:

Thompson in a column posted July 11 on the blog Power Line said he does not remember but will not dispute evidence alleging that he lobbied for NFPRHA….

This level of amnesia, apathy, and unpreparedness is shocking in a presidential candidate (or would have been, prior to 2000) . . .

It’s an epidemic: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12883.html

TV reviews: Andrew Sullivan on George Bush

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012064.php
[Kevin Drum] Last night Andrew Sullivan wrote that George Bush seemed "almost broken to me...his affect exhausted, his facial expression almost bewildered." Today he offers a second opinion: “I should say that I watched Bush in high-definition, and on regular TV, he didn't look so exhausted”. . .

Jim Fallows on Rudy Giuliani (whose New York “intensity” may not play so well in other parts of the country)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012066.php
He looks like a man who is crazy. Making no clinical diagnosis here, just talking about his affect as it comes across on TV. I am sure this is partly just my unfamiliarity with his tic of stressing a point by opening his eyes so wide you can see the whites all the way around. He does that a lot . . . [read on]

A farewell to Freddo

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053255.php
[David Kurtz] It was Alberto Gonzales' last day as attorney general. So what better way to end his embarrassing tenure than with a DOJ inspector general audit. From the AP . . .

An internal Justice audit, released Friday, showed the department spent nearly $7 million to plan, host or send employees to 10 conferences over the last two years. This included paying $4 per meatball at one lavish dinner and spreading an average of $25 worth of snacks around to each participant at a movie-themed party. . . .

The report, which looked at the 10 priciest Justice Department conferences between October 2004 and September 2006, was ordered by the Senate Appropriations Committee. It also found that three-quarters of the employees who attended the conferences demanded daily reimbursement for the cost of meals while traveling -- effectively double-dipping into government funds. . . .

Six of the 10 conferences were approved by the department's Office of Justice Programs, whose assistant attorney general, Regina Schofield, resigned this week. It could not immediately be determined whether the report had anything to do with that, but Carr said Schofield left to take a job with a nonprofit child welfare services organization.

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/051804.php

This is NOT a small thing

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091302743.html
[Tom Shales] All networks shared the same pool video of Bush from the Oval Office. Perhaps in an effort to make its coverage look distinctive, CNN pulled a very questionable stunt during the speech. Bush made reference to a brave soldier, Brandon Stout, who died while serving in Iraq, and CNN, having received a copy of the text in advance, obligingly inserted a photo of Stout into the picture, moving Bush slightly to the left, as it were.

But it's not the job of news organizations to help politicians, even presidents, embellish their speeches or assist them in making a point. . . .

Bonus item: Fox News doesn’t air the Democratic response to Bush’s speech, but instead helpfully summarizes it for them

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709140002?f=h_top
Following President Bush's September 13 prime-time address to the nation on Iraq, Fox was the only broadcast network not to air the Democratic response, which was delivered by Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI). Instead, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, who was hosting Fox's post-speech coverage, stated: "The Democrats will say in the Democratic response later that the larger problems, as General [David] Petraeus put it, are not military but political. The surge, when announced by the president, was designed to give the political leaders in Iraq the time to bring together their strategies to secure the nation and solve their political problems." . . .

And so, there’s no reason to be concerned about this

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/politics/everyone_in_the_pool_66865.asp
TVNewser has learned Fox News will be the pool for the Democratic National Convention in Denver beginning August 25, 2008. . . The pool provides camera shots inside the convention halls and can be used by any cooperating (read: paying) entity.

[NB: Fox News, "Last night Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic nomination for President. We won't show you her whole speech, but she said she wanted to be a really good President and would try to make the country a better place."]

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:06 AM

 
COME ON

No matter how low one’s expectations were for Bush’s speech last night, he managed somehow to fall even below those

http://www.slate.com/id/2173902/fr/rss/
[Fred Kaplan] President Bush's TV address tonight was the worst speech he's ever given on the war in Iraq, and that's saying a lot. Every premise, every proposal, nearly every substantive point was sheer fiction. The only question is whether he was being deceptive or delusional.

The biggest fiction was that because of the "success" of the surge, we can reduce U.S. troop levels in Iraq from 20 combat brigades to 15 by next July . . . [read on!]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/opinion/14fri1.html
[NYT] This was the week in which Americans hoped they would get straight talk and clear thinking on Iraq. What they got was two exhausting days of Congressional testimony by the American military commander, hours of news conferences and interviews, clouds of cut-to-order statistics and a speech from the Oval Office — and none of it either straight or clear.

The White House insisted that President Bush had consulted intensively with his generals and adapted to changing circumstances. But no amount of smoke could obscure the truth: Mr. Bush has no strategy to end his disastrous war and no strategy for containing the chaos he unleashed.

Last night’s speech could have been given any day in the last four years — and was delivered a half-dozen times already. Despite Mr. Bush’s claim that he was offering a way for all Americans to “come together” on Iraq, he offered the same divisive policies — repackaged this time with the Orwellian slogan “return on success.”

Mr. Bush’s claim that things were going so well in Iraq that he could “accept” his generals’ recommendation for a “drawdown” of forces was a carnival barker’s come-on. . . [read on]

The “highlights,” if you missed it: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053140.php

Fact checking the speech

AP version: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003640616

WP version: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091302710.html

Salon version: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/13/fact_checking/index.html

CNN version: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/13/henry.iraq.speech/

“Return on Success": new slogan, old policy (and what a slogan – an actuary's slogan – not exactly “Remember the Maine!” or “54-40 or Fight!”)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/14/22837/3414
[Meteor Blades] Ever since Mister Bush cut and ran from "stay the course," the Administration’s brainiac consultants seem to have lost their touch in the catch-phrase department. Gone is the pizzazz of "Wanted: Dead or Alive," "shock and awe," "Mission Accomplished," "Bring ‘em on," "Fight them there so we don't have to fight them here at home," "last throes” . . . .

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/13/stand_up/index.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/13/speech1/index.html

The Korea analogy

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053130.php

36 countries?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053142.php

“Benchmarks” – huh? What benchmarks?

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/tomorrow-bush-admin-will-report.html

It’s all just buying time (again)

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/13/buying_time/index.html

Remembering what he said last January

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003639940
The president said then, "I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people -- and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act. The Prime Minister understands this....

"To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November. To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs. To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution."

None of this happened. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12875.html

There will be a hundred thousand troops, or more, in Iraq the day Bush leaves office

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/13/enduring/index.html

Oh, christ. Petraeus now says, his proposed withdrawal of 30,000 troops doesn’t necessarily mean a withdrawal of 30,000 troops

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/petraues-reduction-of-30000-troops-from.html
“So when people have said 30,000, they're not quite accurate. It might be 30,000 — it might be quite a bit less. . . .”

More: http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/dont-think-bush-is-reducing-troops.html
[The Hill] “Somebody made a back-of-the-envelope calculation and put a number, 30,000, out there,” a senior administration official told reporters hours before the speech. “As you know, we have tried to make clear to people in this room and outside this room that no one in the administration has ever used that number. . .”

Press reactions

http://www.slate.com/id/2173963
[Daniel Politi] The New York Times points out that Bush didn't utter the word withdrawal once in his speech, which "noted positive developments. . . while leaving out the grim realities of life in the shadow of death, without basic regular electricity or other services." The Washington Post notes the White House has tried to downplay the report it will send to Congress today that will say there has been "satisfactory" progress on nine of the 18 benchmarks, which is just one more than in July. USA Today highlights the fact that Bush didn't actually mention any numbers and it's unclear whether all combat and support troops that were part of the "surge" will be coming home. The Los Angeles Times notes debate will continue next week as the Senate takes up the defense authorization bill. In many ways, Bush's real audience were moderate Republican lawmakers, some of whom have expressed doubts about the president's plan. Bush tried to appeal to them last night by "insisting … the administration now wants an approach in Iraq that will have appeal in the political center," says the Wall Street Journal.

The LAT fronts an analysis piece describing how Bush used to say "victory" to describe his objective for Iraq. Now, it has been "replaced by a slightly more ambiguous goal: 'Success.'" Although Bush still spoke about how Iraq is vital to America's security, the fact remains that most Americas don't think "victory" is possible and even Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker "described more modest goals" earlier this week. . . . USAT points out that, despite previous promises to the contrary, "the commitment sounded open-ended" yesterday.

TP complained on Wednesday that the papers weren't being consistent about reminding readers that, unless the length of deployments were increased, most troops that were part of the buildup would have to come home by September anyway. Today, all the papers mention that fact numerous times. . . .

More: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003640595

Democratic reactions

Reid and Obama: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/13/212054/491

Pelosi: http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/reid-and-pelosi-weigh-in-on-bushs.html

Reed: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/14/AR2007091400342.html

Clinton: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/blog/view/?id=12809

Edwards: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/9/13/203715/354

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/9/13/213116/079

Pelosi speaks truth to power (this time)

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/nancy-marry-me.html
[NYT] When top Democratic leaders visited him at the White House this week, President Bush told them he wanted to “find common ground” on Iraq. But when the president said he planned to “start doing some redeployment,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, cut him off.

“No you’re not, Mr. President,” Ms. Pelosi interjected. “You’re just going back to the presurge level.” . . .

The people’s reaction: public opinion on the war is unmovable

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053123.php

Moderate Republican reactions: will this miserable speech give them sufficient cover to keep supporting the war?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091302741.html
If the prime targets of President Bush's appeal for patience last night were moderates in his own party, his speech may have fallen flat.

Republican lawmakers, facing tough reelection bids in the midst of an ongoing war, reacted with grave concern to the president's call for only modest troop reductions and no dramatic change of mission in Iraq. And the lawmakers' tone could prove critical when the Senate takes up defense policy legislation next week, a step that will revive the debate over whether and how the legislative branch should seek to change the course of the war. . . [read on]

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1661896,00.html
Bush's trumpeting of what he called a "return on success" could end up backfiring. Bringing the war into America's living rooms is never a safe political bet. And if news of a slow drawdown may be popular, Bush himself still is not. Some key Hill Republicans, in fact, were upset that he returned front and center on the issue at a time when the White House had so carefully ceded the selling of the surge to Petraeus and Crocker. "Why would he threaten the momentum we have?" says one frustrated Capitol Hill Republican strategist with ties to the GOP leadership. "You have an unpopular President going onto prime time television, interrupting Americans' TV programs, to remind them of why they don't like him." Republicans in Congress who were finally breathing a sigh of relief after months of bludgeoning on Iraq felt Bush was risking the progress he had made with those closely following the war by thrusting it in the faces of those who may not be paying attention. It didn't help that Bush said American forces would be on the ground in Iraq, as part of an "enduring relationship," well past the end of his term in office. . . .

Sunni militias who were killing our soldiers a year ago have now decided, for their own interests, that they will fight with us against Al Qaeda in Iraq. This does NOT make them our friends

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/13/111755/444
[BBC] Abdul Sattar Abu Risha was the leader of an alliance of Sunni Arab tribes that rejected al-Qaeda because of its methods and worked with the US.

He was killed in a bomb attack near his home in Iraq's western Anbar province.

Abu Risha was among a group of tribal leaders who met President George W Bush during his visit to Iraq last week...

[The U.S.] held up Abu Risha and his tribal fellows as a success story and a model for other parts of Iraq, saying they inflicted considerable losses and setbacks on al-Qaeda. . .

http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2007/09/abu-risha-murde.html
[Marc Lynch] His murder graphically demonstrates that the other groups threatened by the American Anbar strategy were never going to just sit back passively and allow it to succeed - an obvious strategic point which has always seemed to elude surge advocates. The Sunni strategy as presented by surge advocates has always rested not only on a whole series of dubious claims about Iraqi Sunni politics, but also relies on a whole series of best-case scenarios in which nothing could go wrong. In Iraq, something always goes wrong.

It's a major setback for the strategy . . . [read on]

More: http://www.juancole.com/2007/09/shaikh-sattar-killed-in-bombing-shakes.html

http://www.juancole.com/2007/09/our-national-discourse-has-now-reached.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053102.php

Nevertheless, despite the hype, “Al Qaeda in Iraq” is not, and has never been, the main enemy

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004178.php

How they undercount “sectarian violence”

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004172.php

“Ethnic cleansing” – a term we don’t hear much used in the Iraqi context, but it explains a good deal of whatever reduction in violence there has been

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/a_tale_of_two_mapes.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/13/214325/233

Another supposed indicator of “progress”: Iraq’s broken economy

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004179.php

Gee. What a coincidence

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053083.php
[David Kurtz] In the midst of surge week and in advance of the President's speech tonight, the Pentagon has released tapes of the combatant status review tribunal of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

And Fox News is running hard with them. . .

What will the Democrats do?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12870.html
[Steve Benen] The next legislative fight over funding the war was supposed to follow a predictable pattern that we’ve seen before. The House will pass a funding bill with a withdrawal timeline, the Senate will have the votes to pass a similar bill, but it will draw a Republican filibuster (on the Hill) or a Republican veto (from the White House). Unwilling to cut off funding, Dems will grudgingly give the president the money he wants.

The good news is, Dems have decided not to bother with this painful game. The bad news is, they’ve also decided to skip the aggressive policy measures the public wants to see. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12864.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/09/13/BL2007091301162.html

What they SHOULD do

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2007/09/iraq_strategy_for_the_democrats.php

How the media keep enabling the Bush spin regime

Fox (of course): http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/13/fox/index.html

The Washington Post (perhaps we need to start adding “of course” here too): http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1342

DNI Mike McConnell’s lie, humiliation

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20749773/site/newsweek/

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12864.html

What’s wrong with Ted Olson as Alberto Gonzales’s replacement? Plenty

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/13/111421/790

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/opinion/13thu1.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/14/13531/9229

John Boehner’s (R-OH) outrage

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/_kerry_blasts_boehner_over_troop_deaths_small_price_remark.php
[Greg Sargent] As we reported over at The Horse's Mouth, GOP House leader John Boehner went on CNN yesterday and said that the blood and treasure being expended in Iraq would be a "small price" to pay in exchange for defeating Al Qaeda and achieving stability in the Middle East. . .

[John Kerry] What a stunningly cavalier statement about the lives of the young men and women who serve our country.

Whether you support or oppose the Bush escalation, no American should ever for even a moment think the cost of war is small.

A single life is a large price to pay for any endeavor. Sometimes, in our national interest, we choose to pay that awful price, but we must always make sure that the policy is worthy of it. . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/13/191131/216

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/09/why_boehners_sm.php

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_09_archive.html#1915446235948913256

A VERY feeble “explanation” from his people: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053131.php

Larry Craig (R-ID) tries to pretend as if nothing ever happened

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/larry_craig_privately_apologizing_to_fellow_republicans_for_distraction.php
He's now privately reaching out and apologizing to his fellow GOPers for the "distraction" he caused with his men's room cruising. And he's hit on a novel way to win them back -- mail them a copy of his paperwork seeking to withdraw his guilty plea . . .

But it isn't working, according to GOPers who spoke to the paper. “The story is done," one Senate GOP aide said. "The door is closed. This is not about people not liking or liking him. This was business.”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12867.html
[Steve Benen] Craig is also continuing to act like a regular ol’ member of the Senate. Yesterday, despite the fact that he has not returned to DC since announcing his intention to step down, Craig even issued a press statement praising Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker, explaining his belief that their testimony “told a positive story,” and arguing that Bush’s policy is “making progress.”

So, any chance this might help improve Craig’s standing? Not so much. . . .

One senator wondered aloud what would happen if Craig actually made progress in reversing his guilty plea in Minneapolis. “I think we were all real happy to have the Craig thing in the rearview mirror, and to have it keep coming up again and again just isn’t a good situation,” the Senator said, adding, “What happens if he does get this thing overturned?”

Oh, ho ho – the wingers will love this. Another savior of the party proves to have feet of clay

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/thompson-says-hes-no-churchgoer-wont.html
[Bloomberg] Republican presidential contender Fred Thompson, who has based his campaign on appealing to conservative voters, said he isn't a regular churchgoer and doesn't plan to speak about his religion on the stump. . .

Alaska: big state, big corruption

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_09_archive.html#5770849186571348590
[WP] The former head of an oil field service company admitted Thursday in court that he bribed three Alaska legislators, including the son of a U.S. senator who is the target of a federal investigation. . . .

Heh, heh: if the Connecticut race were held again today, Ned Lamont would demolish Joe Lieberman

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1337

Trading our Warner for their Warner

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091300802.html

A major ABC news scam

http://www.attytood.com/2007/09/the_disgraced_abc_consultant_a.html

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006596.html

Bonus item: Well-said

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12873.html
[Steve Benen] Anytime a post begins, “Conservative blogs are all excited about…” you know you might as well reach for the Maalox. . . [read on!]

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:57 AM

 
LIES WITHOUT END

Mumbo jumbo

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/washington/12cnd-policy.html
President Bush’s chief spokesman, Tony Snow, jumped at the chance to counter House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comments on Tuesday that the strategy outlined by General Petraeus amounts to “a war without end.”

“It’s pretty clear that it’s not a war without end,” Mr. Snow said. “And as a matter of fact, it is a war that actually has victory as its aim. And victory is defined as helping the Iraqis develop the capability of defending themselves and governing themselves.” . . .

“But I think Speaker Pelosi knows precisely — well, maybe she doesn’t,” Mr. Snow said. “Maybe she just didn’t follow General Petraeus’s testimony carefully enough. But there is nothing in his testimony to insinuate that he looks upon this in the way she has characterized it.” . . .

What Petraeus said

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/17/AR2007061700830.html
Asserting steady, albeit slow, military and political progress, Petraeus said that the "many, many challenges" would not be resolved "in a year or even two years." Similar counterinsurgency operations, he said, citing Britain's experience in Northern Ireland, "have gone at least nine or 10 years." He said . . . that it was realistic to assume "some form of long-term security arrangement" with Iraq. . . .

What Pelosi said

http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=746
The President’s 10-year plan for the continued occupation of Iraq sends the wrong signal to the Iraqi government, which has failed to implement the reforms needed for national reconciliation.

Secretary Rice and General Abizaid’s admission that we will be involved in Iraq for years to come is further acknowledgment that President Bush’s Iraq policy has failed; it is a recipe for an endless war. . .

[NB: So, what exactly was Pelosi wrong about?]

Random lies

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004169.php
[Spencer Ackerman] On at least three occasions that I counted during the Petraeus/Crocker hearings, Gen. Petraeus flatly stated that the U.S. is not providing weapons to the Sunni tribal fighters who, over the past year, have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq. On Monday I noted how the U.S. was giving the tribes money that they used to buy weapons, making Petraeus' assurance precious and legalistic.

But it turns out that . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12859.html
[Steve Benen] Sometimes, these guys make it too easy. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, today:

“No, benchmarks were something that Congress wanted to use as a metric. And we’re going to produce a report. But the fact is that the situation is bigger and more complex, and you need to look at the whole picture.”

Reality, as reported last week . . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/12/mcconnell-lied/
[Faiz] Earlier this week, in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell claimed the new expansive FISA legislation passed by Congress prior to the August recess — the so-called Protect America Act — had helped to thwart a an alleged terror plot in Germany.

A government official later told the New York Times that McConnell was wrong . . .

To the woodshed!

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053040.php
[Josh Marshall] Remember that unrehearsed flash of candor where Gen. Petraeus said he didn't know whether being in Iraq was making America safer? And then later he 'set the record straight'?

Joe Klein told Chris Matthews that he thought that during the recess in testimony Petraeus got an angry call from the White House telling him to set the record straight. . . .

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39235
In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.

Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior. . . .

The Big Lie: don’t for a second believe that Bush’s speech tonight, featuring a troop reduction, represents a “compromise” or shift in policy – they HAVE to do it

http://www.slate.com/id/2173882/
[Jesse Stanchak] The NYT brings the White House into the picture, giving a preview of President Bush's Thursday night address on the war. Bush is expected to announce troop redeployments in line with Gen. Petraeus' recommendation, cutting troop levels from 160,000 to 130,000 by next July— back to where they stood before the President's "surge" plan. . . . The paper says the White House will try to sell the move as bipartisanship motivated by military success, while Democrats will argue that reducing troop numbers to pre-surge levels doesn't constitute a change in policy. . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/09/12/BL2007091201390.html
[Dan Froomkin] President Bush will go on television tomorrow night to announce the likely conclusion by next summer of the temporary troop escalation he instigated in January.

But all that would do is return us to the status quo ante . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/13/6162/35373
[BarbinMD] Yes, because of the success of the "surge," and improved conditions on the ground, we can finally begin to bring our troops home. But of course this will be a lie. Because as has been pointed out here before, the withdrawal of these troops will happen for the very simple reason that after April, 2008, the current troop levels cannot be maintained. That fact was confirmed by no less than the Secretary of Defense, the incoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Commander of Multinational Forces in Iraq. . . .

Tell me HOW they get away with this . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053021.php
House Minority Leader John Boehner: War in Iraq is a "small price" for the U.S. to pay. . . [read on!]

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12863.html

The mysterious, disappearing Sunni “insurgency”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053004.php
[David Kurtz] [N]on-al-Qaeda Sunni insurgents have accounted for most of the U.S. military casualties in Iraq. There likely has been some reduction in Sunni insurgent violence against U.S. troops in Anbar this year, and in fact the U.S. strategy of joining with the Anbar Sunnis against al Qaeda in Iraq is probably part of the reason Petraeus is downplayng the Sunni insurgency at the moment.

But whatever the short-term exigency, this has been a conflict marked by our inability, unwillingness, or ideological aversion toward accurately identifying our enemies. Even the use of the blanket term "enemy" is misleading in a conflict with multiple competing interests, where alliances come and go, and in which the enemy of thy enemy is not necessarily thy friend. . .

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/09/13/iraq_war/
[Sidney Blumenthal] Two years ago the Sunni sheiks leading the insurgency in Iraq's Anbar province approached the United States, offering to end the violence in exchange for a timetable establishing that U.S. forces would withdraw from the country, a senior official at the highest level of the British government told me. Without some sort of negotiated deal that the Sunni leaders could brandish, they explained, they would not have the essential political justification for quelling the conflict. The British believed that the Sunni offer was being made in good faith and urged that it be accepted. But according to the senior British source, President Bush rejected it out of hand, still certain that he could achieve a military victory. He saw any agreement with the Sunnis as tantamount to defeat . . .

The mysterious, disappearing “oil compromise”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/world/middleeast/13baghdad.html
A carefully constructed compromise on a draft law governing Iraq’s rich oil fields, agreed to in February after months of arduous talks among Iraqi political groups, appears to have collapsed. The apparent breakdown comes just as Congress and the White House are struggling to find evidence that there is progress toward reconciliation and a functioning government here. . .

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053047.php

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/oil-oops.html

I don’t usually use the term “tragic” to describe war deaths, but THIS is tragic

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003638726
The Op-Ed by seven active duty U.S. soldiers in Iraq questioning the war drew international attention just three weeks ago. Now two of the seven are dead.

Sgt. Omar Mora and Sgt. Yance T. Gray died Monday in a vehicle accident in western Baghdad . . .

Target: Iran

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/12/AR2007091201133.html
Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, accused Iran today of seeking to "create a Hezbollah-like force" in Iraq to exert Tehran's influence there, but denied that he was preparing the ground for a U.S. attack on Iran. . .

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296450,00.html
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, the most ardent proponent of a diplomatic resolution to the problem of Iran's nuclear ambitions, has had his chance on the Iranian account and come up empty.

Political and military officers, as well as weapons of mass destruction specialists at the State Department, are now advising Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the diplomatic approach favored by Burns has failed and the administration must actively prepare for military intervention of some kind. Among those advising Rice along these lines are John Rood, the assistant secretary for the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation; and a number of Mideast experts, including Ambassador James Jeffrey, deputy White House national security adviser under Stephen Hadley and formerly the principal deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs. . . .

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2953462.ece
British forces have been sent from Basra to the volatile border with Iran amid warnings from the senior US commander in Iraq that Tehran is fomenting a "proxy war".

In signs of a fast-developing confrontation . . .

Don’t say it if you don’t mean it, Senator Reid – we’ve had too many of these initial positions of resistance that gradually turn into capitulation. If you mean to keep Bush from getting what he wants, then you must succeed at it

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052940.php
[David Kurtz] Conservative super-lawyer Ted Olson is the front-runner to be President Bush's pick for attorney general. Senate Dems are less than thrilled, but if last week's 4th Circuit nominee is any indication (oh, and the last 6 1/2 years), the White House will not be offering a consensus-building nominee. We already know that Senate Democrats are threatening to slow down the nomination until they get responses from the Department of Justice and White House to some of their oversight requests, but will Senate Dems fight this nomination on its merits?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/053028.php
A Ted Olson nomination for attorney general will run into stiff resistance from Senate Democrats. "I intend to do everything I can to prevent him from being confirmed as the next attorney general," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12856.html

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/12/ted-olson-and-the-pushovers/

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/the-math.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/ted-olson-as-ag.html

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/marcy_wheeler/2007/09/theyve_got_to_be_kidding.html

Keep going!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/12/AR2007091202353.html
Members of the Senate intelligence committee have requested the withdrawal of the Bush administration's choice for CIA general counsel, acknowledging that John Rizzo's nomination has stalled because of concerns about his views on the treatment of terrorism suspects. . .

The real principle that unites Bush’s judicial nominees (no, it isn’t anti-abortion)

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/tableforone/2007/sep/12/presidentialist_lawyers_in_black_robes
[Charlie Savage] There was a broad array of prominent and very conservative legal scholars and lower-court judges from which the Bush-Cheney legal team could have selected its nominees. Tellingly, the administration chose all three from a very narrow slice of the conservative legal universe: all three were executive branch legal warriors. They had each spent years marinating in disputes over expanding executive powers from the White House’s perspective, and were thus likely to bring a very deferential attitude to the bench when future lawsuits arose over aggressive claims of presidential authority. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12857.html

Ted Stevens (R-AK): the hits keep comin’

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004162.php

Is the Republican electoral-vote grab in California unconstitutional?

http://www.slate.com/id/2173740/fr/rss/

A filibuster-proof Democratic majority?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/09/12/novak_gop_could_lose_68_senate_seats.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 @ 7:41 AM

 
“I DON’T KNOW”

You can’t unsay it, General

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004150.php
[Spencer Ackerman] In the hearings' most stunning moment so far, Sen. John Warner (R-VA) asked Gen. Petraeus if success in the Iraq war will make America safer. His response -- by far the most surprising moment of the hearings -- was a blunt "I don't know." This is the first time that any general officer, let alone the commanding general in Iraq, has ever equivocated on whether success in Iraq will contribute to U.S. security . . .

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-soltz/petraeus-admits-i-dont-_b_63992.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12848.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2173737/fr/rss/

Damage control kicks in furiously, but it’s too late

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004155.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/11/184253/671
[McJoan] The toothpaste was already out of the tube, and Petraeus didn't do a bang-up job of recovering there. The moment with Warner was enough to make Tweety go postal and ask the questions that every Senator and ever citizen watching the exchange has to ask: if our ongoing presence in Iraq meant a miracle were to occur and we somehow managed to win in Iraq (whatever that would mean), we wouldn't be any safer, then why in the hell are we still there.

More: http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/wednesday-morning-open-thread_12.html

More b.s. from the General

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004158.php
[Spencer Ackerman] Gen. Petraeus ranked the enemies the U.S. is fighting in Iraq at the behest of Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL), and there was a notable absence: the non-al-Qaeda Sunni insurgency. All of a sudden, practically every Sunni anti-U.S. fighter is now defined as al-Qaeda. . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004145.php
[Spencer Ackerman] Something that's passed without notice in the hearings today and yesterday is that Gen. Petraeus cheered Iraq "becoming one of the U.S.'s larger foreign military sales customers. . . we have to push the [foreign military sales] system" to get more weapons into Iraqi hands.

This is a pattern with Petraeus. When he commanded the training and equipping of Iraqi forces, almost 200,000 pistols and AK-47s intended for the Iraqi security forces went missing. Petraeus forthrightly said recently that he didn't think having safeguards in place to ensure the weapons were in the proper hands was as important as simply getting a slow-moving Pentagon bureaucracy to ship the weapons to Iraq. That decision, however, was one of several that has occasioned an unprecedented Pentagon Inspector General mission to Iraq to determine the extent of mismanagement and corruption -- and possibly even criminal activity -- in the sprawling logistics system.

Now, Petraeus seems to be saying that the Iraqi security forces need a surge of U.S. weaponry. It's admirable that Petraeus is trying to rapidly increase the competence and capability of the Iraqi security forces -- the lack of which makes up a large part of bipartisan criticism of the war. But what safeguards does Petraeus have in place to ensure that those guns won't end up on the black market, or in the hands of U.S. enemies?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004157.php
[Spencer Ackerman] Good question from Sen. John Thune (R-SD) to Gen. Petraeus. If the Iraqi security forces are ready to take over responsibility for Iraq before sectarian reconciliation has occurred -- not an unlikely scenario, given the dismal prospects for political progress, Crocker notwithstanding -- is the U.S. mission, you know, accomplished? Petraeus' answer: not necessarily. If the government was set to collapse, the U.S. might stay in Iraq to prop it up, even if the Iraqi Army and police are able to control the country. That's quite an extraordinary statement. Petraeus probably means to avoid limiting his options, but it's never before been suggested by anyone in uniform that we would stay in Iraq to support an Iraqi government after the Iraqi military has Stood Up.

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004142.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004148.php

Bush plans to call for a major troop withdrawal, back to presurge levels (with all the usual conditionals and equivocations), but Petraeus makes clear that these withdrawals were already necessitated by troop rotation schedules and shortages anyway

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/11/bush.iraq.ap/index.html
President Bush will tell the nation this week he plans to reduce the American troop presence in Iraq by about 30,000 by next summer, but will condition those and further cuts on continued progress. . . . The reductions envisioned by the White House mirror those proposed by Petraeus and would leave approximately 130,000 U.S. troops on the ground by August, roughly the same level that existed before Bush ordered the buildup early this year. . .

In the speech, the president will say he understands the deep concerns Americans have about U.S. involvement in Iraq and their desire to bring the troops home, they said. Bush will say that after hearing from Petraeus and Crocker, he has decided on a way forward that will reduce the number of troops but not abandon Iraq, they said.

The address will stake out a conciliatory tone toward Congress but Bush will place more conditions on the pace of reductions to the pre-buildup level of 130,000 than Petraeus did. . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004153.php
[Spencer Ackerman] So much for "conditions." Under questioning from Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), Gen. Petraeus conceded that his timetable for ending the surge by July 2008 is due to the five extra active-duty Brigade Combat Teams coming to the end of their scheduled deployments and the lack of available units to keep U.S. troop strength at 162,000.

Remember this when President Bush on Thursday unveils his (read: Petraeus') "drawdown" plan -- and, for that matter, any time a politician says that the only "responsible" reduction of forces is one that's "conditions-based."

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004141.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/12/03849/2011

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012049.php

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/surges_end.php

In general, the Senators do a much better job of pressing Petraeus than the House panel did

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/washington/11cnd-policy.html
Expressing deep doubts and mounting frustration, senators of both parties pressed Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker on Capitol Hill today with pointed questions about progress in the war in Iraq and the prospects for political stability and troop withdrawals.

Mr. Crocker refused to be pinned down in the face of harsh questioning on when large-scale American involvement in Iraq might come to an end, but he signaled that it would not be soon. And General Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, offered a rare display of annoyance with the senators’ skeptical questioning, telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “I’m as frustrated about this as everyone else.”

General Petraeus’s assessment was devoid of any ringing optimism. He said this afternoon, for example, that he saw “a realistic chance of achieving our objective in Iraq.” . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/11/AR2007091100738.html
The top U.S. military commander and diplomat in Iraq today came under sharp questioning from Democratic and Republican senators who demanded justification for the continued commitment of American lives and resources to Iraq more than four years after the March 2003 U.S. invasion. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12845.html

Petraeus apolitical? Don’t believe it for a second

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/10/petraeus-august/

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/11/petraeus_interview/index.html

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709110006

Ambassador Crocker – even worse

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004154.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004144.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004143.php

Bad Memory Syndrome – a Bush gang epidemic

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004147.php
[Spencer Ackerman] Months ago, Amb. Crocker told Joe Klein of Time magazine that "The fall of the Maliki government, when it happens, might be a good thing." Or did he? Asked by Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) if that was an accurate quote, Crocker equivocated repeatedly before finally saying "I do not recall saying that." . . .

Here's Klein's response: "He said it. I've got it in my notes. He never denied it or asked for a correction after it appeared in print and was featured on Meet the Press. He may not remember it, but he said it."

More: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/crockers_deceptions.php

Liveblogging the Petraeus/Crocker Senate testimony

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/11/the-petraeuscrocker-show-day-2-part-i/

I can’t tell you how unusual this is: OTHER Pentagon officers want to give an independent assessment on Iraq, different from the one Petraeus is giving. We’d heard there was dissent among the military, but this is nearly open rebellion

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20712196/site/newsweek/?from=rss
[Michael Hirsh] Let’s not mince words: David Petraeus may be the only thing standing between George W. Bush and total failure in Iraq. . . .

But it's questionable whether even the smoothest-talking salesman could appease public opinion—or Petraeus’s Pentagon detractors—at this point. NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared by a Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’s recommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoing discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity. An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.” The strategy will involve unwinding the still large U.S. presence in big forward operation bases and putting smaller teams in outposts. “There is interest at senior levels [of the Pentagon] in getting alternative views” to Petraeus, the official said. Among others, Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon is known to want to draw down faster than Petraeus.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12846.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/11/121621/548

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/09/ap_interview_abizaid_cites_ira.php
[AP] It will take three to five years before Iraq's government is stable enough to operate on its own, according to the former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, who said the surge of American forces has not solved the country's broader problems.

In an interview with The Associated Press, retired Army Gen. John Abizaid also said that beyond attacking the global threat of terrorism with military strength, the United States has done a poor job of applying the economic, political and diplomatic means to fight Islamic extremism. . .

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/sep/11/dave_petraeus_and_iraq_kabuki
[Larry Johnson] Then there is the report from retired Marine General James Jones detailing the inadequacies and corruption of the Iraqi police. Notwithstanding progress in building a new Iraqi army, its capabilities are very limited and not likely to improve dramatically in the near future.

We also have Dave Kilcullen, an Austrailian special forces type who is working with Petraeus, who acknowledges that the so called success in Al Anbar has nothing to do with the surge and is an unexpected result of local tribes retaliating against foreign jihadists who murdered local tribal leaders and their families. In addition, countries with an interest in bolstering the Sunni tribes, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, have provided finance and support. . . [read on]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/09/anbar-surge/
[Amanda] The Bush administration is increasingly touting the reduced violence in the Anbar province as evidence that the President’s escalation policies are working. Last week, President Bush made a surprise visit to the region . . . But as the Washington Post outlines today, the escalation has nothing to do with Anbar’s success. The Sunnis in the region had developed a bottom-up plan to start fighting the al Qaeda insurgents in 2006, at least four months before Bush announced his escalation . . .

Losing George Will

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/10/AR2007091002065.html
Before Gen. David Petraeus's report, and to give it a context of optimism, the president visited Iraq's Anbar province to underscore the success of the surge in making some hitherto anarchic areas less so. More significant, however, was that the president did not visit Baghdad. This underscored the fact that the surge has failed, as measured by the president's and Petraeus's standards of success.

Those who today stridently insist that the surge has succeeded also say they are especially supportive of the president, Petraeus and the military generally. But at the beginning of the surge, both Petraeus and the president defined success in a way that took the achievement of success out of America's hands.

The purpose of the surge, they said, is to buy time -- "breathing space," the president says -- for Iraqi political reconciliation. Because progress toward that has been negligible, there is no satisfactory answer to this question: What is the U.S. military mission in Iraq? . . .

Will Republicans bolt?

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/12/12751/5753

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/washington/12cong.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-petraeus12sep12,0,4310773.story

The catastrophe of Iraqi refugees

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/12/3925/06305

Is Bush laying a trap for the next (Democratic) president?

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1290

Bush’s new court nominees

http://www.slate.com/id/2173655/fr/rss/

It’s what they do: Bush Justice Dept still trying to purge voter rolls before the 2008 election (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.alternet.org/rights/62133/

The new Exhibit A on DOJ’s politicized prosecutions: Alabama’s Democratic governor

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004146.php

Ted Stevens (R-AK) – your time has come

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/11/late-nite-fdl-trouble-arrives-like-a-big-truck/

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052899.php

Screwed

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/vitter-was-meeting-one-prostitute-two.html
[David] Vitter was meeting one prostitute "two or three times" a week . . . Seems the Senator from Louisiana had quite the active libido according to a former prostitute. Vitter apparently had to end the "relationship" with the prostitute when she told him her real name was "Wendy." That would also be the name of Mrs. Senator David Vitter. You can't make this stuff up -- and the former prostitute passed a lie detector test yesterday.

Also, to clarify, as today's update points out, this "relationship" lasted from July to November of 1999. So, this is not the same prostitute who worked for the so-called DC Madam. In July of 2007. . .

Support for Giuliani falls (it was only a matter of time)

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/09/12/giuliani_fading.html

Bonus item: Yeah, baby! Thompson and Romney go at it hammer and tong over phony web site

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/_cage_match_thompson_camp_rips_romney_over_phoney_fred_web_site.php

***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 @ 7:31 AM

 
SO WHAT?

The Republicans start by framing, of course: Only radical, leftist demagogues could ever accuse General Petraeus of shading the truth

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/overplaying-their-hand-by-digby-other.html

More: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1256

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/holy-joe-bewail.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12833.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012034.php
[Kevin Drum] Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Republicans are making a big mistake by spending all their TV time this morning complaining about accusations that Gen. Petraeus is cooking the books in his assessment of progress in Iraq? Repeating the accusation, even if it's only to denounce it, is still repeating the accusation. And it means that everyone watching today's hearing is learning over and over and over that a lot of people don't trust Petraeus, something they might not have known before since Democrats aren't mentioning it and not everyone reads the inside pages of the New York Times.

This strikes me as a very dumb thing to do.

“Betray us” – I agree that it was over the top. But the feigned outrage of the Right is hard to stomach too. Guess who used it first?

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=09&year=2007&base_name=post_4859

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/10/22252/3216

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2007/09/general_betray_us.php

Petraeus starts with a lie, and it all goes downhill from there

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/10/AR2007091001102.html
“At the outset I would like to note that this is my testimony. Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself. It has not been cleared by nor shared with anyone in the Pentagon, the White House or the Congress until it was just handed out.”

Half-true, at best: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/war-and-propaga.html

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004129.php

(Not under oath – why?)

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/091007a.html

A litany of lies and half-truths

On Anbar: http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/petraeus-deception-begins.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/10/anbar/index.html

On arming Sunni militias: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004125.php

On “Al Qaeda” http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004128.php
Gen. Petraeus offered his definition of sectarian violence for his tabulations: "acts taken by individual by one ethno-sectarian grouping against another." He added that "it's not that complicated": if "al-Qaeda bombs a Shiite area," it's sectarian violence. . . . Andrew Tilghman documents in the Washington Monthly how MNF-I over-attributes violence in Iraq to al-Qaeda. . .

On disputes within the military: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004123.php
[Spencer Ackerman] [O]ther military officials -- including the Central Command chief, Admiral William Fallon -- believe a more rapid draw-down is possible and responsible, as The Washington Post reported this weekend. "A senior civilian official" told the Post that calling relations between Fallon and Petraeus "bad" would be "the understatement of the century."

During the hearing, however, Petraeus called his plan his "best professional military judgment," and stated that both Admiral Fallon "fully supports" his recommendations, "as do the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

On his discredited 2004 op-ed: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/10/204142/263

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004133.php

On cooking the numbers: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004119.php
[Spencer Ackerman] General Petraeus brought out his data today . . . He did not explain -- yet -- what that methodology is. . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004132.php
[Spencer Ackerman] Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) didn't have much success in getting Gen. Petraeus to go into more detail about how he's derived his statistics for civilian casualties and sectarian attacks. . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012036.php
[Kevin Drum] Apparently Petraeus is counting "IED hoaxes" in the PowerPoint slide that shows a sharp decrease in IED attacks. That seems odd, doesn't it? John Cole would like to see that chart replotted with just the actual IED attacks themselves. Me too. . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052719.php
[Josh Marshall] In defending his statistics earlier today, Gen. Petraeus said that two US intelligence agencies had signed off on his methods for collecting and analyzing the data. But he didn't say which two. . .

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/so-did-petraeus-cook-books-about-iraqs.html
[John Aravosis] So did Petraeus cook the books about Iraq's security forces or not? . . . I hear he did, and that he got an earful from US government officials about it. They told him to stop lying to the public and to congress and to the media, to stop falsely inflating the number of security forces he trained (but really didn't), to stop cooking the books about the situation in Iraq.

Petraeus has a reputation in the US government of being a yes-man who always presents a rosy picture, even when things aren't so rosy. Petraeus has a reputation for not telling the truth (especially when assessing his own work).

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052735.php
[Josh Marshall] We've now had the first day of testimony. Gen. Petraeus made his arguments and presented his numbers. He even knocked down a few questions about how his command in Baghdad counts the civilian death count numbers. But no one asked the general why the White House and/or the Pentagon won't release the actual data, where it comes from and how it's counted.

That's extraordinary -- not only the refusal of Petraeus & Co. to release the numbers but the committee's failure to ask for them. . .

Real numbers: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052700.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052740.php

On political progress: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/10/progress/index.html
[Tim Grieve] We began the day wondering if Gen. David Petraeus or U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker would be willing to tell Congress that if some number of U.S. troops remain in Iraq for some period of time, Iraqi politicians will make the progress that the "surge" was supposed to make possible.

We're still wondering.

Nearly five hours into a joint hearing of the House Armed Services and House Foreign Relations committees, neither Petraeus nor Crocker has been able to offer any real assurance that political progress will come as a result of the U.S. military's continuing presence in Iraq.

On when, if ever, we can leave: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/shorter-david-petraeus-by-tristero.html

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004131.php

“The magical mystery withdrawal plan” – complete with bright colors and pretty stars. . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12837.html
[Steve Benen] This lovely chart . . . purports to show the level of U.S. troops deployed in Iraq falling gradually over . . . some period of time. As withdrawal plans go, it not exactly encouraging.

That bottom line — which would, in this kind of graph, presumably indicate some measurement of time — is a little tough to read. It says, “Leading to Partnering to Overwatch (Tactical to Operational to Strategic).” And in case you have no idea what that means, that’s the general name for the strategy Petraeus outlined today for the foreseeable future.

That’s a perfectly nice name for a strategy, of course, but this chart, while colorful, doesn’t actually tell us anything, except the fact that U.S. troops will eventually be in Iraq in much smaller numbers. Whether that’s in nine months, nine years, or nine decades remains a complete mystery. . . .

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/hope_the_new_plan.php
[Matt Yglesias] Basically, the idea is that about nine months from now, we'll be back to the number of troops we had in Iraq about nine months ago. After that, more stuff is supposed to change . . . maybe . . . sometime . . . if all goes well . . . maybe . . . at some point. . . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012035.php

Fact-checking the General

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/fact-checking-testimony-of-petraeus-and.html

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/10/petraeus/index.html

Don’t forget Ryan Crocker, once regarded as a serious, conscientious diplomat

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/oracle-speaks-by-digby-oooh.html
"We had the most brutal of Baath regimes here for 35 years, and now we have a few years of turmoil. It isn't really all that much."

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/10/crocker/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Ryan Crocker, George W. Bush's ambassador to Iraq, said last month that "the whole premise, of course, of the 'surge' was to ... bring levels of violence down and keep them down so that there would be the time and space for political leadership to get on with the business of national reconciliation."

So, how's it going?

Here's Crocker, testifying about the surge before the House Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees today: "We have given Iraqis the time and space to reflect on what sort of country they want."

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004121.php
[Spencer Ackerman] As expected, Ambassador Ryan Crocker testified that the benchmarks aren't the only, or even the most important, indicators of political progress. "The seeds of reconciliation are being planted," said Crocker, referring to Iraqis in government discussing federalism and oil-wealth revenue sharing.

That's mightily convenient, given that Iraq isn't meeting the benchmarks, according to the GAO. . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004124.php
[Spencer Ackerman] Crocker [said] that the "Sunnis are now linking to the federal government by being part of the police force."

Unfortunately, the Shiite government believes, and not without reason, that the Sunni infusion into the local police and Iraqi Army will ultimately lead to a coup. . . .

To Crocker, those provincial moves against al-Qaeda "could be the seeds of reconciliation."

At several points during his testimony, Crocker has stated that "fundamental questions" over what sort of country Iraq will be is hindering reconciliation, while simultaneously hinting that such reconciliation is already occurring in miniature. Both statements can't be true at once.

Their joint appearance on Fox “News” goes pretty much as you would expect

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/10/fox_petraeus/index.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052757.php

The absence of any serious contrary views on TV

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_09_archive.html#9109472652261288197
[Atrios] [T]he non-internets media debate is almost entirely between people who think the surge and Petraeus are really awesome, and those who think the surge and Petraeus are really really awesome. . .

From the U.S.: http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/real-experts-on-petraeus-report.html

From Iraq: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3571504&page=1

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006589.html

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/they_really_hate_us.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052760.php

When they don’t know we’re listening . . .

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=09&year=2007&base_name=post_4854
[Ezra Klein] Petraeus can't speak because his microphone doesn't work. Meanwhile, [Democrat] Ike Skelton and [Republican] Duncan Hunter don't appear to be aware their microphones actually are working, and are currently calling the assembled anti-war protesters "assholes" who "really piss them off." Charming.

In case you missed it and want more: two liveblogging accounts (Christy Hardin Smith and Big Tent Democrat)

CHS: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/10/the-patraeuscrocker-show-part-i/
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/10/the-petraeuscrocker-show-part-ii/
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/10/the-petraeuscrocker-show-part-iii/
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/10/the-petraeuscrocker-show-part-iv/
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/10/the-petraeuscrocker-show-part-v/

BTD: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/10/123328/376
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/10/133033/931

The new response: So what?

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/the_questionable_relevance_of.php
[Matt Yglesias] Ed Kilgore makes a good point here -- it's really not clear why the details of General Petraeus' presentation on the military state of play in Iraq matter at all. The question of the surge, and of the military presence more generally, is whether or not the presence is creating a situation where the presence will no longer be needed in order to avoid the Potentially Catastrophic Consequences of Withdrawal. As long as we have a situation where the day after we leave, the Catastrophic Consequences of Withdrawal will come to pass, then we may as well just leave tomorrow. . . [read on]

http://www.juancole.com/2007/09/can-gen-petraeus-and-ryan-crocker-save.html
[Juan Cole] Despite what the pundits will say, I fear the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on the Hill Monday and Tuesday is not a turning point, does not give Bush breathing room, and is largely irrelevant. . . . [read on]

There – is it so hard to just say it?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_09_archive.html#90656850996126193
[Atrios] This has been said a million times in a million different ways, but the whole point of this exercise is to ensure that Bush's war continues until it's time for him to cut brush permanently. The surge can't have worked because then it could start ending, and the surge can't be not working because then it would a tragic waste of lives and money, so the surge is working just a little bit.. but might work a little bit more soon!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012037.php
[Kevin Drum] Surge discussions often go something like this: At the beginning of the year we had 132,000 troops in Iraq. Now we have 160,000. That's only a 20% increase in troop strength, and it's ridiculous to think that such a small increase could have a serious effect on the country.

But that's exactly backwards. The surge was always intended primarily to target Baghad, and in Baghdad U.S. troop strength approximately doubled, from 17,000 to 34,000. Frankly, with an increase like that, you'd expect some pretty tangible results.

And yet, at best, we've seen only a modest drop in violence in Baghdad. So what we're seeing is not a case of too few troops to make a difference. It's worse. We increased troop numbers dramatically and deployed them more effectively, and it still barely made a noticeable difference.

That's the depth of the problem we're dealing with: even doubling our troop presence and utilizing them properly hasn't had much effect on security in Iraq — and it hasn't had any effect on the political situation. Given this, does anyone seriously think that a mere six additional months of the surge will change the underlying dynamics in Iraq enough to have made a permanent difference? Really?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-iraqpolicy11sep11,0,6658607.story
[Paul Richter] The talk in Washington on Monday was all about troop reductions, yet it also brought into sharp focus President Bush's plans to end his term with a strong U.S. military presence in Iraq, and to leave tough decisions about ending the unpopular war to his successor. . . .

The plans also would allow Bush to live up to his pledge to the defining mission of his presidency, and perhaps to improve his chances for a decent legacy. He can say he left office pursuing a strategy that was having at least some success in suppressing violence, a claim that some historians may view sympathetically.

"Bush has found his exit strategy," said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former government Mideast specialist now at the Brookings Institution. . . .

Worse and worse

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/10/enough/
[Juan Cole] Rations have been reduced by 35 percent, and of the 5 million Iraqis who depend on them (about a fifth of the country), two million are having trouble receiving the rations because they live in high-risk areas. Now the news is that with Ramadan looming, where square meals at sunset and in the morning before dawn are all that keep people going during the fast, the rations may not be available in nearly the required amounts. Iraqi foodstuffs are increasingly threadbare or rotten, and delivering the rations to risky areas is very difficult . . . Oxfam estimates that 28 percent of Iraqi children are malnourished, compared with 19 percent before the U.S. invasion. . .

It’ll be a handy staging ground for attacks into Iran, too, I suppose

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006590.html
[WSJ] "The Pentagon is preparing to build its first base for U.S. forces near the Iraqi-Iranian border, in a major new effort to curb the flow of advanced Iranian weaponry to Shiite militants across Iraq. The push also includes construction of fortified checkpoints on the major highways leading from the Iranian border to Baghdad and the installation of X-ray machines and explosives-detecting sensors at the only formal border crossing between Iran and Iraq. . . .

The “threat” of Al Qaeda seems to come and go depending on the exigencies of the political moment

[Reader Bryan B.] I was wondering how Bin Laden can be 'virtually impotent' but Al Quaeda in Iraq is so potent?

More: http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/so-bin-laden-is-virtually-impotent-but.html

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=09&year=2007&base_name=post_4857

Congress keeps asking, White House keeps stonewalling

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5itcG5qkof7IkFGWghinn2rAP2-AQ
A Democratic House leader asked presidential counsel Fred Fielding on Thursday to turn over a report first requested three months ago about the White House's problems with lost e-mail. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/10/113437/703

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004126.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/11/02451/5154
[NYT] The department has refused his request, saying in a letter last week to the committee that "we want to avoid any perception that the conduct of our criminal investigations and prosecutions is subject to political influence."

[Devilstower] Got that? You might want to read it again.

What the Justice Department is saying, is that it can't turn over documents in a case where it's accused of being influenced by politics, because letting Congress see what it's been up to might cause it to be... influenced by politics. It's a defense so brilliant, so brain-numbing, so completely circular, that it's amazing it hasn't been used before. Going after a man for political reasons is okay. Turning over the documents that show you broke the law is buckling to political pressure.

Still waiting for answers on those nuclear bombs flown across the U.S.

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/09/lots_we_still_dont_know_about_b52_live_nuclear_bomb_incident.html

Once again, we find ourselves asking, “Is there any Democrat whose presidential aspirations could survive such actions?”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12835.html
[AP] Republican presidential contender Fred Thompson said Monday that while Osama bin Laden needs to be caught and killed, the terrorist mastermind would get the due process of law. . .

[Steve Benen] As it turns out, Thompson isn’t the first presidential hopeful to argue publicly that bin Laden deserves due process of law. The first was Howard Dean, four years ago. Of course, when he said that, the right went apoplectic. . . . [read on]

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/thompson_provided_legal_counsel_for_pan_am_103_bombers.php
The New York Times reports that billing records from the early 1990's show that Thompson gave advice to a colleague who was working on behalf of two Libyan intelligence officials implicated in the infamous Pan Am Flight 103 bombing in 1988, which killed 270 people. . . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/top-dog-by-digby-as-jack-cafferty-said.html
Later, a Thompson spokesman explained . . .

It almost feels like piling on to go after John McCain at his stage – but he SO deserves it

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/_mccains_new_strategy_take_ownership_of_the_surge.php
[Greg Sargent] As we noted here some time ago, the McCain campaign's current game plan is to try and make the case that the surge's "success" will be just the thing to turn around his candidacy. . . . This will be the cornerstone of McCain's "No Surrender" tour, which will unfold throughout September. . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12831.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12823.html

Thousands of poor, black, and Latino inmates start planning their appeals. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12832.html
[TPM] Sen. Larry Craig filed papers Monday seeking to withdraw his guilty plea in an airport sex sting. . .

In a “state of intense anxiety” following his arrest, Craig “felt compelled to grasp the lifeline offered to him by the police officer” and plead guilty . . .

The filing said Craig’s “panic” drove him to accept the plea rather than seeking the advice of an attorney. As a result, Craig’s guilty plea was not “knowingly and understandingly made” . . . [read on]

David Vitter (R-LA) might think he’s dodged the bullet of hooker accusations. Nope, not yet

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/09/flynt_unveiling_more_vitter_cl.php

A man of few words . . . now

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/09/10/bonus_quote_of_the_day.html
"Um, no."

-- Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, quoted by GQ, on whether he misses President Bush.

Bonus item: Psychological “proof” that liberals and conservatives think differently

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12834.html

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=09&year=2007&base_name=post_4855

***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

 
VIRTUALLY IMPOTENT

Now, this is just stupid. Recklessly stupid

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/bush-administra.html
[AP] Seemingly taunting Osama bin Laden, President Bush's homeland security adviser said Sunday the fugitive al-Qaida leader is "virtually impotent" beyond his ability to hide away and spread anti-American propaganda. . . .

White House aide Frances Fragos Townsend made a clear attempt to diminish the influence -- or the perception -- of the man who masterminded those attacks.

"This is about the best he can do," Townsend said of bin Laden. "This is a man on a run, from a cave, who's virtually impotent other than these tapes."

In appearance on two Sunday talk shows, she used the "virtually impotent" reference both times, suggesting the language was chosen with careful purpose. . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/9/16044/55109

[NB: Of course, this is all about one thing – emphasizing through their bravado that the fact that Bin Laden is still at large six years after 9/11 means very little, because he just isn’t very important any more. It’s all about minimizing their own failure to capture him. But is this going to prove to be their next “Bring it on”? How’d that one work out?]

Up is down

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/09/new_york_times_5.php
[Greg Sargent] As Josh notes over at TPM this morning, today's New York Times has what he calls a surprisingly "credulous" report by Michael Gordon saying that data assembled by the military shows that the surge has produced a decline in various measures of bloodshed in Iraq.

Josh aptly recommends comparing today's piece with this one in The Washington Post earlier this week showing a good deal more skepticism towards the military's assertions.

I'd like to recommend another comparison: Let's compare today's Times piece with one that appeared in The Times itself less than a week ago reporting that civilian casualties are up across Iraq.

That earlier piece, by James Glanz, relied on figures supplied by Iraqi officials. . . .

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/19566.html
[Must-read] Baghdad has become more segregated. Sunni Muslims in the capital now live in ghettos encircled by concrete blast walls to stop militia attacks and car bombs. Shiite militias continue to push to control the city’s last mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods in the southwest, by murdering and intimidating Sunni residents and, sometimes, their Shiite neighbors. Services haven't improved across most of the capital — the international aid group Oxfam reported in July that only 30 percent of Iraqis have access to clean water, compared with 50 percent in 2003 — and tens of thousands of Iraqis are fleeing their homes each month in search of safety.

Iraqi security forces remain heavily infiltrated by militias, and political leaders continue to intervene in their activities.

Civilian deaths haven't decreased in any significant way across the country, according to statistics from the Iraqi Interior Ministry, and numbers gathered by McClatchy Newspapers show no consistent downward trend even in Baghdad, despite military assertions to the contrary. The military has provided no hard numbers to back the claim. . . [read on]

You want to see the Pentagon’s own numbers? Sorry, IT’S CLASSIFIED

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070907/pl_afp/usiraqpolitics_070907175807

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052639.php
[Josh Marshall] In other words, it's not just a matter of getting the numbers from Petraeus and his staff and deciding whether you believe them or not. They won't even tell us what the numbers are -- let alone how they came up with them. All they'll say is that they're very good. . . . [read on]

Hit – head – against – wall

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/washington/10military.html
The top American commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, has recommended that decisions on the contentious issue of reducing the main body of the American troops in Iraq be put off for six months . . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-usiraq10sep10,1,1112159.story
No surprises expected in Petraeus' Iraq report . . .

Lest there be any remaining doubt that General Petraeus’s performance will be pure political theatre through and through

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1240
[WP] Another new arrival in the West Wing set up a rapid-response PR unit hard-wired into Petraeus's shop. Ed Gillespie, the new presidential counselor, organized daily conference calls at 7:45 a.m. and again late in the afternoon between the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the U.S. Embassy and military in Baghdad to map out ways of selling the surge.

[Matt Stoller] This follows the revelation that Petraeus has had closed door strategy sessions with the Republican caucus, persistent rumors that Petraeus will run for President on the Republican ticket in 2012, and Petraeus's grad school buddy Michael O'Hanlon at the unaccountable Brookings Institution fomenting a PR offensive to bolster his friend's image. . . .

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/petraeus-and-crocker-will-be-on-fox.html
[Joe Sudbay] Everything, well almost everything, you need to know about the report this week from General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker is summed up in this one factoid: The duo will be doing spin for an hour on Fox News tomorrow night. Yep, somehow Brit Hume got an "exclusive." Huh. Besides all the lies and cherry-picking that's already been exposed, nothing should diminish the cred of Petraeus and Crocker to the real world more than knowing they need a full hour on GOP-TV to tell their "story."

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12824.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12825.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2007/09/gen_petraeauss_ethical_lapse.php

Petraeus’s credibility problems go way back

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1762489

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/9/145435/7777

Questions for Petraeus

http://www.slate.com/id/2173355/nav/tap1/

More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/9/111859/7259

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/26614

Live-blogging: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/10/266/90089

If it’s any reassurance to you, people have already made up their minds about what the Petraeus/Crocker show will mean

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/9/85349/47272
[WP] Most Americans think this week's report from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus will exaggerate progress in Iraq, and few expect it to result in a major shift in President Bush's policy. . . .

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/bush-team-focused-on-selling-surge.html
[NYT] A majority of Americans say the United States made a mistake getting involved in the war in Iraq, and the increased numbers of troops in recent months has either made things worse or had no impact at all . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12821.html

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/09/dc_establishment/index.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012031.php

The chin-pulling consensus in DC gradually emerges with a new rationale for the war: yes, it’s a mess; yes, Bush has screwed things up at every turn; yes, the Iraqis have little inclination to do the things we expect them to do. But despite all that we can’t leave. That’s the argument – WE CAN’T LEAVE

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012029.php
[Kevin Drum] Why? Because if we leave the entire Middle East will become a bloodbath. Sunni and Shiite will engage in mutual genocide, oil fields will go up in flames, fundamentalist parties will take over, and al-Qaeda will have a safe haven bigger than the entire continent of Europe.

Needless to say, this is nonsense. . .

Ray Hunt’s Texas oil company rolls into Kurdistan – no, I don’t think the Kurds are going to wait for the Iraq govt to develop an oil revenue sharing plan

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052614.php

Is Bush really going to nominate Ted Olson for Attorney General?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20070908/cm_huffpost/063575

It’s a sad day when the press prints without comment speech lines that the White House decided to pull because even they realized they were too ridiculous

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12820.html

Bonus item: Larry Craig (R-ID) wants to withdraw his guilty plea. Why? Because the press made him do it . . .

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/10/craig/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Minnesota law says that a guilty plea can be withdrawn if it was not intelligently made . . .

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:54 AM

 
STUFF HAPPENS

How Bush supporters have created, then exploited, ambiguity about the data on “progress” in Iraq

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052591.php

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/8/17652/00814

Make the Pentagon declassify the data!

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052606.php

Frank Rich, white hot

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/opinion/09rich.html
IT will be all 9/11 all the time this week, as the White House yet again synchronizes its drumbeating for the Iraq war with the anniversary of an attack that had nothing to do with Iraq. Ignore that fog and focus instead on another date whose anniversary passed yesterday without notice: Sept. 8, 2002. What happened on that Sunday five years ago is the Rosetta Stone for the administration's latest scam.

That was the morning when the Bush White House officially rolled out its fraudulent case for the war. . .

Once again the fix is in. Mr. Bush's pretense that he has been waiting for the Petraeus-Crocker report before setting his policy is as bogus as his U.N. charade before the war. . . .

Exhibit A, of course, was last weekend's precisely timed "surprise" presidential junket: Mr. Bush took the measure of success "on the ground here in Anbar" (as he put it) without ever leaving a heavily fortified American base.

A more elaborate example of administration Disneyland can be found in those bubbly Baghdad markets visited by John McCain and other dignitaries whenever the cameras roll. Last week The Washington Post discovered that at least one of them, the Dora market, is a Potemkin village, open only a few hours a day and produced by $2,500 grants (a k a bribes) bestowed on the shopkeepers. . . .

The "decrease in violence" fable is even more insidious. Though both General Petraeus and a White House fact sheet have recently boasted of a 75 percent decline in sectarian attacks, this number turns out to be as cooked as those tallies of Saddam's weapons sites . . .

No doubt General Petraeus, like Dick Cheney before him, will say that his own data is "pretty well confirmed" by classified intelligence that can't be divulged without endangering national security. Meanwhile, the White House will ruthlessly undermine any reality-based information that contradicts its propaganda, much as it dismissed the accurate W.M.D. findings of the United Nations weapon experts Hans Blix and Mohammed ElBaradei before the war. General Petraeus intervened to soften last month's harsh National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. Last week the administration and its ideological surrogates were tireless in trashing the nonpartisan G.A.O. report card that found the Iraqi government flunking most of its benchmarks. . . .

But what about the president's own benchmarks? Remember "as the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down"? General Petraeus was once in charge of the Iraqi Army's training and proclaimed it "on track and increasing in capacity" three years ago. . . .

Let us not forget, either, Mr. Bush's former top-down benchmarks for measuring success: "an Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself." On that scorecard, he's batting 0 for 3.

What's surprising is not that this White House makes stuff up, but that even after all the journalistic embarrassments in the run-up to the war its fictions can still infiltrate the real news. . . [read on!]

Reality bites

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/world/middleeast/09surge.html
Seven months after the American-led troop “surge” began, Baghdad has experienced modest security gains that have neither reversed the city’s underlying sectarian dynamic nor created a unified and trusted national government. . . . [read on]

Why bother? His mind is already made up

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/08/AR2007090801846.html
For two hours, President Bush listened to contrasting visions of the U.S. future in Iraq. Gen. David H. Petraeus dominated the conversation by video link from Baghdad, making the case to keep as many troops as long as possible to cement any security progress. Adm. William J. Fallon, his superior, argued instead for accepting more risks in Iraq, officials said, in order to have enough forces available to confront other potential threats in the region.

The polite discussion in the White House Situation Room a week ago masked a sharper clash over the U.S. venture in Iraq, one that has been building since Fallon, chief of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees Middle East operations, sent a rear admiral to Baghdad this summer to gather information. Soon afterward, officials said, Fallon began developing plans to redefine the U.S. mission and radically draw down troops. . . .

The profoundly different views of the U.S. role in Iraq only exacerbated the schism between the two men.

"Bad relations?" said a senior civilian official with a laugh. "That's the understatement of the century. . . . If you think Armageddon was a riot, that's one way of looking at it." . . [read on]

[NB: Sounds like Congress might want to bring Admiral Fallon in for a little chat.]

Conservatives start to realize that the rampant looting that Rumsfeld et al. allowed to happen after the Iraq invasion might have created a few LITTLE problems that followed

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/looting_then_and_now.php

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/11/sprj.irq.pentagon/
[April 12, 2003] Declaring that freedom is "untidy," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday the looting in Iraq was a result of "pent-up feelings" of oppression and that it would subside as Iraqis adjusted to life without Saddam Hussein. . . .

"Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things," Rumsfeld said. "They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here."

Looting, he added, was not uncommon for countries that experience significant social upheaval. "Stuff happens," Rumsfeld said. . .

Al Qaeda, stronger than ever

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/08/AR2007090801845.html

Wanna-be Republicans pick up on Bush’s frat-boy macho talk about “kicking ass” in Iraq

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12814.html#more-12814

Jack Cafferty kicks a little ass himself – don’t miss it!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/06/bush.ap/#cnnSTCVideo

“I, too, have suffered under the cruelty of an unjust government”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052611.php
[WP] Bush has appeared energized by the events of the past few weeks. Meeting with tribal leaders in Anbar province last Monday, the president even showed empathy when the sheiks complained about a lack of money from Baghdad, officials said. As governor of Texas, Bush said, he had asked for more federal funds from Washington -- and often did not get them, either.

Dick Cheney, the 800 pound gorilla

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012028.php

Working to change the discourse from WHETHER to withdraw troops to WHEN and HOW QUICKLY to do so

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/8/193637/5381
[Meteor Blades] It seems there was an attempt to reconvene the Iraq Study Group. You remember it. The somewhat bipartisan group that last December, after nine months of work, offered 79 recommendations to the Cheney-Bush Administration for changing Iraq Policy. Almost all of which were ignored. But, writes Robin Wright in the Washington Post today, Mister Bush kept the reconvening from occurring by dissuading James Baker III from participating.

So, the U.S. Institute for Peace did a go-around and got together many of the experts from the ISG, "two dozen former U.S. officials and ambassadors, former CIA analysts, and Iraq specialists from think tanks and universities" who drafted another set of recommendations under the scintillating title "Iraq: A Time for Change." The panel's report will be released tomorrow.

Among other things, it calls for a 50 percent reduction of U.S. troops in three years, and a complete handover of security matters to the Iraqi military in five years. . .

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052608.php

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1231

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/8/15413/39223

Burned again: here’s what happens when the Democrats try to compromise with the Republicans

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/8/145216/5011
[NPR] "They've lost the momentum," McCain said. "Otherwise, they wouldn't want to sit down with Republicans and negotiate a different resolution." . .

[Kos] Talking "compromise" is seen as weakness by the GOP. . . .

[NB: Yep, criticize them when they're acting aggressively because they aren't being "bipartisan" enough, then criticize them when they do reach out because it's a sign of weakness. Listening, Mr. Broder?]

Oops, sorry

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/washington/09fbi.html
The F.B.I. cast a much wider net in its terrorism investigations than it has previously acknowledged . . .

Thank goodness we still have courts

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/08/some-good-news-from-your-friends-on-the-federal-bench/
[Looseheadprop] A bunch of civil liberties groups including the ACLU, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), and The National Security Archive Fund (NSAF) brought suit under the Freedom of Information Act to try to pry lose the documents relating to “the Bush Adminstration’s policy of conducting surveillance of domestic communications without prior authorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (”FISA Court”). . . .”

The “Do-nothing Congress” does something good

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/8/93150/20441

Politics as usual

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/08/pork-whats-on-barbeque-in-congress-is-your-future/
[MSN] Companies that give money to political campaigns have better-performing stocks, according to a new study, than companies that don’t contribute. It’s no small gap, either. Corporations that give the most have beaten the market by 2.5 percentage points a year over the past 25 years. . .

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5712.html
[Daniel Reilly] NBC’s “Meet the Press” leads with retired Marine Gen. James Jones, the head of the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, a group of military experts tasked with assessing the status of Iraqi security forces. . . .

Also on NBC, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) returns to “Meet the Press,” fresh off his eighth trip to Iraq. . .

Finally, host Tim Russert discusses the week’s political developments with David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network and John Harwood of The Wall Street Journal.

ABC’s “This Week” leads with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), another presidential candidate with a lot at stake in the war debate. . .

[F]ormer Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) returns to the Sunday circuit this week, offering a counterpoint to McCain.

Finally, host George Stephanopoulos leads a discussion on the week’s political happenings with ABC’s Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts and George Will.

Fresh off his 15,000th vote in the Senate, Massachusetts Democrat Edward M. Kennedy leads the way on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” . . .

Host Bob Schieffer then sits down with retired Gen. Brent Scowcroft to hear his assessment of the war. . . .

“Fox News Sunday” also has a congressional discussion of the war, featuring Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an outspoken advocate of it, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who wants a change of course.

White House homeland security adviser Frances Townsend also discusses on Fox a new video purportedly coming from Osama bin Laden to mark the six-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Finally, host Chris Wallace discusses the state of Rudy Giuliani’s presidential bid with campaign manager Michael DuHaime. . .

On CNN’s “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer,” which airs live from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Eastern, the war is also center stage, with a sprinkling of domestic politics. The announced topics are the Osama bin Laden tape, the war on terrorism and Iraq with Frances Townsend, White House homeland security adviser; the race to the White House 2008 and Iraq, with Mike Huckabee (R), former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate; the Iraq progress reports, war strategy and the Sen. Larry Craig controversy, with Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) of the Foreign Relations Committee; Iraq war strategy and progress report with retired U.S. Army Gen. George Joulwan, former NATO supreme commander; and the future of the Iraqi government, with Mowaffak al Rubaie, the Iraqi national security adviser.

The press just can’t help themselves from slandering bloggers. Feeling threatened, you guys?

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0709/08/cnr.01.html
KELLI ARENA, JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): "I'm alive and I'm well." That's the main message of a new videotape from Osama Bin Laden, the first in nearly three years. . . . An obvious "news-junkie" with a lot of time on his hands, he makes several references to current affairs, proof that the videotape is a new one. . . . At times he comes off like an angry blogger, chastising Americans for electing President Bush twice, and the democrats for not doing more to stop the Iraq war. . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12818.html
[Think Progress] Last night on PBS’ The NewsHour, New York Times columnist David Brooks compared 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden’s latest video message to “lefty blogs,” saying the al Qaeda head is like “one of these childish people posting rants at the bottom of the page.”

A really, really bad week for Republican frontrunners

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/requirements-by-digby-seven-years-in.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/9/8/162146/4913

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/giuliani_on_immigration.php

Fred Thompson: shortest Presidential campaign on record?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/us/politics/09thompson.html
A little over three years after Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, Fred D. Thompson provided advice to a colleague about one of his law firm’s new clients: The man representing the two Libyan intelligence officials charged in the terrorist bombing. . . .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/07/11/thompson-waffles-on-proc_n_55834.html
[Thompson, in another context, explaining his lobbying for pro-choice groups] "You need to separate a lawyer advocating a position from a position itself."

Just pathetic. GOP Presidential candidates still blame Clinton for the weakness of the military, ignoring the fact of how Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have decimated the armed forces

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12817.html

Another senior Republican (Chuck Hagel) resigns, another potential Democratic Senate seat emerges

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12815.html

Hagel in a Dem administration? http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002339.php

Bonus item: (From a reader)

I got a chuckle out of my friends where I stay when I go to DC. Lifelong Republicans - when the Bin Laden tape came on, the wife said "but I thought we got him already!"

[NB: Osama, Saddam, it’s so hard to keep these Arab names straight. And you wonder how a man like Bush stays in power – look at his supporters!]

***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 @ 7:38 AM

 
NUMBER GAMES

What do you get when you put these two stories together?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/washington/07policy.html
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, has told President Bush that he wants to maintain heightened troop levels in Iraq well into next year to reduce the risk of military setbacks, but could accept the pullback of roughly 4,000 troops beginning in January, in part to assuage critics in Congress . . .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070906/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_troops_3
The number of U.S. troops in Iraq has climbed to a record high of 168,000, and is moving toward a peak of 172,000 in the coming weeks — a level that could extend into December, a senior military official said Thursday.

Maj. Gen. Richard Sherlock, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the increase is the result of troops rotations, as several brigades overlap while they move in and out of the war zone . . .

[NB: Get that? Create an entirely artificial and temporary increase of 4000 troops, then as they rotate out in the usual cycle, claim that it represents a troop “pullback” -- as if it were some great concession or compromise. Very neat.]

When you have the numbers on your side, argue the numbers. When you don’t have the numbers on your side, say that the numbers are irrelevant

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004095.php
[Spencer Ackerman] We've been writing for a while about the difficulty of getting clear and consistent measurements about security in Iraq. The Government Accountability Office stated this week that there hasn't been a measurable decline in attacks on civilians over the course of the surge, something that General David Petraeus' command sharply disputes. Making matters more complicated, the Pentagon's quarterly Iraq reports have recently taken to revising its earlier estimates of sectarian killings without indicating what prompted the change. . .

So it's significant that Petraeus gave a subtly defiant interview to the Boston Globe's Charles Sennott. Petraeus, true to form, attaches qualifiers and caveats to his assessments, but he hits his main points hard: his is a "solid plan" that is achieving results. . .

Unlike his interview last weekend with the Australian, though, he cites no statistics about overall declines in casualties. Instead, he pointedly states that "what our troopers have achieved is measurable and important." It's a loaded statement, implying that to question the statistics distributed by Multinational Forces-Iraq is to criticize the troops on the ground. . . [read on]

More: http://www.nsnetwork.org/node/195

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/general-petraeu.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/09/07/BL2007090701397.html

TPM tabulates the numbers on civilian deaths in Iraq

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052519.php
June 07: 1640
July 07: 1760
August 07: 1809

New numbers: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/calling-statistics-geeks-by-tristero-i.html

OK, get yourself a cool drink, sit down. I know you might take this hard, but it’s time to face facts. You’ll be a stronger person for it. We now learn that . . . . wait for it . . . . there isn’t going to be any Petraeus Report after all

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/07/no-petraeus-report/
[Washington Times] A senior military officer said there will be no written presentation to the president on security and stability in Iraq. “There is no report. . . .”

[Faiz] To recap, first the public was incorrectly led to believe that Gen. David Petraeus would issue his own report about the situation on the ground in Iraq. Then the Los Angeles Times reported that the so-called “Petraeus report” would “actually be written by the White House.”

Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) then suggested the White House would probably “tweak” the “Petraeus report.” In an effort to put the controversy to rest, Gen. David Petraeus assured lawmakers that the White House was not going to be involved in the “writing” of the report:

Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), told reporters Thursday that Petraeus said he and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had briefed the administration on the situation in Iraq, but added that “as far as [Petraeus] is concerned … he is writing his recommendations of that report and testimony.”

Now, apparently there will be no written report from Gen. Petraeus at all. While Petraeus’ statement to Congress will be made available, the public will not know what information he is providing to President Bush. The lack of transparency over Petraeus’ “report” will only intensify the high level of skepticism surrounding his statistics.

UPDATE: In a recent hearing, Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) said he recently met with Gen. Petraeus and was shown “the data.” Coleman said the data is “very clear about a reduction in violence. General Petraeus has those charts,” Coleman explained. Apparently, those charts will not be for public consumption.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12802.html
[Steve Benen] This is all just too bizarre. For a couple of months, the White House has responded to every question about conditions in Iraq the same way: let’s wait until September and see the report from Petraeus and Crocker. Given their credibility, the argument goes, the document they provide to lawmakers should carry enormous weight. . . . [read on]

The Democrats were right: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/09/wingnuts_in_a_l.php

A good response to this whole charade

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/07/who-cares/
[Eli] That’s how the Democrats should respond to the (Petraeus) White House (report) non-report: “Who cares?”

We’ve seen three reports in the last 15 days from the intelligence community, the GAO, and now the Jones Commission, all of which agree that The Surge is not working, that Iraq is a violent, chaotic mess making no political progress. So why on earth should we listen to what the White House or its puppet general have to say? . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052576.php
[George Packer] The Petraeus-Crocker testimony is the kind of short-lived event on which the Administration has relied to shore up support for the war: the “Mission Accomplished” declaration, the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein, Saddam’s capture, the transfer of sovereignty, the three rounds of voting, the Plan for Victory, the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Every new milestone, however illusory, allows the Administration to avoid thinking ahead, to the years when the mistakes of Iraq will continue to haunt the U.S.

The media have largely followed the Administration’s myopic approach to the war, and there is likely to be intense coverage of the congressional testimony. But the inadequacy of the surge is already clear, if one honestly assesses the daily lives of Iraqis. . . .

Questions Petraeus ought to be asked by Congress (but don’t hold your breath)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/7/173856/7729

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012021.php

The myth of Anbar

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052587.php
[Bush] Together, Americans and Iraqis drove al Qaida from strongholds in the region. And today, because of their sacrifice, Anbar is one of the safest places in Iraq – so safe that the President of the United States can drop in to thank the troops for their courage in the fight to protect us all. . . .

[NB: Later DROPPED from his speech]

Heh

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/the_tenuous_tenuousness_of_the.php
[Matt Yglesias] I find it striking how much the non-demagogic arguments in favor of staying in Iraq sound like arguments in favor of leaving. . . . [read on]

The Other War – the one you thought we’d already won

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/afghan-war-is-indeed-winnable.html
"The Afghan war is indeed winnable" . . . [read on]

Three heroes

Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/7/1222/56314

Chris Dodd (D-CT) http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/9/7/183249/2188

Dick Durbin (D-IL) http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/7/231159/4576

Fascinating question, picking up a theme from last week. Who DID make the catastrophic decision to disband the Iraqi army?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052588.php

The old days

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/7/9503/69497
[Kagro X] It used to be the case that Congress could outlaw something, and by virtue of it being outlawed, it could safely be assumed that -- for the most part, at least -- government and political actors wouldn't do that thing. Because it was against the law. And this country was governed by the rule of law. The stain of criminality would be too much for publicly elected officials to withstand.

Well, here's a sampling from just this week of things that we used to assume would never happen -- least of all to what used to be our most cherished civil liberties -- but happened anyway . . .

A spin-off from a classic insight from Michael Kinsley: What’s most appalling about the Bush gang isn’t their secret illegality – it’s what they openly claim the right to do

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004107.php

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/what-indictment.html

The original: http://realmofends.wordpress.com/2007/01/15/the-real-scandal/

The wimp

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/were-they-bypas.html
[Emptywheel] Marty Lederman points to this excerpt from Jack Goldsmith's book at Slate. Goldsmith explains he only saw Alberto Gonzales disagree with David Addington once--and that Bush ended up siding with Addington. . . . [read on]

Bush court appointment manages to make both Democrats and Republicans angry

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/06/AR2007090602526.html

The end of the Bush Boom

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/07/jobs/index.html
[Tim Grieve] When the Labor Department reported last month that the economy had added just 92,000 new jobs in July, the chairman of George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisors said not to worry. "I think the job numbers, although slightly lower than the previous month, are still within range and we still think of these as good, solid numbers," Ed Lazear said Aug. 3. "The most important story that this tells is not so much in terms of levels, it's not that job growth is high or low, but rather that job growth continues even in the period during which we're seeing some changes in the U.S. economy, most of which are positive."

It looks like it's time for a new "story" to tell.

The job numbers for August were released this morning, and they show that the economy actually lost 4,000 jobs last month. . .

The legacy of US Attorney manipulation and mismanagement – now, somehow, they CAN’T get their act together in California to investigate ultra-shady congressman Jerry Lewis

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004093.php

More: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/09/hbc-90001133

The poster child for EVERYTHING that’s wrong with Congress

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004096.php

STILL not ready for prime time: Fred Thompson’s shaky start as a serious Presidential candidate

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052533.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12809.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/9/7/222245/1825

Bonus item: The Bin Laden tape – expect more of this: “Bin Laden wants the Democrats to end the war in Iraq. The Democrats want to end the war in Iraq. Therefore, the Democrats are allies of Bin Laden.”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12805.html

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052573.php

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:22 AM

 
AGAIN AND AGAIN

Psssst! They are lying to us (again)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/05/AR2007090502466.html
The U.S. military's claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends. . . . [read on!]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052453.php
[Josh Marshall] It's worth beginning by noting what appears to be the universal consensus that the strategic aim of the surge -- political reconciliation -- has been a complete flop. No progress and things have gotten much worse. That leaves a debate about tactical successes, which for better or worse, we're judging by various body counts. As I've struggled to get my head around this discussion I've looked -- mainly in vain -- for numbers going back some period of time with a consistent methodology since an apples to apples comparison over some period of time is the only way to make any sort of reliable judgments about change, improvement or decline.

What comes up again and again though is one basic disconnect -- the military command in Baghdad says civilian casualties have dropped dramatically. Independent press tabulations say the numbers are high and getting higher.

DeYoung's article gives us a couple bits of information that help us start to unravel the mystery. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/09/06/BL2007090601372.html
[Dan Froomkin] The late senator Daniel Moynihan famously said that people are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. . . .

No, this isn’t a joke

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_02_archive.html#3239758085450504241
[WP] "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian," the official said. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."

"Given a lack of capability to accurately track Shiite-on-Shiite and Sunni-on-Sunni violence, except in certain instances," the spokesman said, "we do not track this data to any significant degree."

Attacks by U.S.-allied Sunni tribesmen -- recruited to battle Iraqis allied with al-Qaeda -- are also excluded from the U.S. military's calculation of violence levels.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012012.php
[Ilan Goldenberg] "So to recap. The violence numbers do not include: 1) Sunni on Sunni violence. 2) Shi'a on Shi'a violence 3) Car bombs 4) Getting shot in the front of the head."

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12790.html
[Steve Benen] They’re making up standards as they go along, in the hopes they can keep the charade up just long enough to fool policy makers. It’s almost comical what doesn’t count towards the military’s data. . .

Damned even by their own numbers

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/6/134040/4553
[Devilstower] Not only has every single month of this year has seen an increase in US casualties, the last three months -- the months when the "surge" has been at full strength -- have been the worst summer ever since the war began, with every single month topping the charts. . . [read on]

Hyping the bogey-man of Al Qaeda as an excuse for fighting in Iraq (again)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0710.tilghman.html
[Andrew Tilghman] This scenario has become common. After a strike, the military rushes to point the finger at al-Qaeda, even when the actual evidence remains hazy and an alternative explanation—raw hatred between local Sunnis and Shiites—might fit the circumstances just as well. The press blasts such dubious conclusions back to American citizens and policy makers in Washington, and the incidents get tallied and quantified in official reports, cited by the military in briefings in Baghdad. The White House then takes the reports and crafts sound bites depicting AQI as the number one threat to peace and stability in Iraq. (In July, for instance, at Charleston Air Force Base, the president gave a speech about Iraq that mentioned al-Qaeda ninety-five times.) . . . [read on]

More: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/06/deliberate-lies-and-manipulations/

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/false-hype-of-al-qaeda-in-iraq.html

The press is saying the Petraeus report is the only one that matters (again)

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709060013

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/washington/07policy.html
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, has told President Bush that he wants to maintain heightened troop levels in Iraq well into next year to reduce the risk of military setbacks, but could accept the pullback of roughly 4,000 troops beginning in January, in part to assuage critics in Congress . . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2173537
[Daniel Politi] Gen. Petraeus might tell Congress next week that he's willing to consider withdrawing more troops in the months after January but only if certain conditions are met. But remember that this could hardly be considered a real withdrawal since they would merely reduce the number of American troops to their pre-"surge" levels of about 130,000. Is this really much of a concession when many have pointed to April 2008 as a date when the "surge" is simply not going to be able to be sustained anymore?

Today, the WSJ says that unless tours of duty are extended, brigades have to begin withdrawing from Iraq in April and senior military officials say "the actual drawdown is likely to begin sooner." The WP points out today that many had already expected a significant pullback in March or April, so Petraues is just saying that "it could be done a little faster." (As an aside, TP loves how the papers make it sound like Petraeus is being oh-so-conciliatory by agreeing to even consider a small withdrawal in January. Could this be part of the administration's strategy to make it seem like Bush was the one that pushed for a quicker withdrawal?)

Perhaps the saddest (and least surprising) part about all this? Looks like Congress will buy it. . . .

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/opinion/07krugman.html
[Paul Krugman] Here’s what I’m afraid will happen: Democrats will look at Gen. Petraeus’s uniform and medals and fall into their usual cringe. They won’t ask hard questions out of fear that someone might accuse them of attacking the military. . .

Gen. Petraeus has a history of making wildly overoptimistic assessments of progress in Iraq that happen to be convenient for his political masters.

I’ve written before about the op-ed article Gen. Petraeus published six weeks before the 2004 election, claiming “tangible progress” in Iraq. Specifically, he declared that “Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt,” that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward” and that “there has been progress in the effort to enable Iraqis to shoulder more of the load for their own security.” A year later, he declared that “there has been enormous progress with the Iraqi security forces.”

But now two more years have passed, and the independent commission of retired military officers appointed by Congress to assess Iraqi security forces has recommended that the national police force, which is riddled with corruption and sectarian influence, be disbanded, while Iraqi military forces “will be unable to fulfill their essential security responsibilities independently over the next 12-18 months.”

http://www.slate.com/id/2173355/pagenum/all/
[Fred Kaplan] So, the questions that Congress should make sure Petraeus and Crocker answer are these: After the surge, what? What is the new strategy? What are the core missions of U.S. forces? Where should they go, and what should they do there? What can they accomplish, with a fair chance of success, at reduced levels? And what is the meaning of success?

In recent weeks, Gen. Petraeus has frequently said that he is making "tactical progress." He will no doubt recite the phrase a few more times next week. It's important to be clear on what the phrase means and what it doesn't mean. . . . [read on]

A handy overview of those other reports (and why the Bush gang wants to pretend they never existed)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12787.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/2007/09/06/2007-09-06_iraq_government_near_collapse_secret_rep.html
Lawmakers returning here this week got hit with more bad news about Iraq in a confidential report that says the fragile democracy is "collapsing” . . .

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/06/late-nite-fdl-in-which-things-fall-apart/
[A] new report stated that the US should disband the Iraqi National Police . . .

The Bush gang is abandoning THEIR OWN criteria of “success” (again)

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/06/benchmarks/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Here's an idea: Why don't we judge the success of the "surge" against the standard that George W. Bush himself set for it earlier this year?

At a Cabinet meeting on Feb. 5, 2007, the president explained: "What we're trying to do with this reinforcement of our troops is to provide enough space so that the Iraqi government can meet certain benchmarks or certain requirements for a unity government to survive and for the country to be strong. The success of that plan is going to depend upon the capacity and willingness of the Iraqis to do hard work, and we want to help them do that work."

That seems pretty simple to us. If the Iraqis were to do the "hard work" and "meet certain benchmarks," the "surge" would be a success. If they wouldn't or couldn't, then it would be a failure. . . [read on]

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_02_archive.html#177193637483654083

Uh, ya think?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012016.php
[The “Jones Report”] Perceptions and reality are frequently at odds with each other when trying to understand Iraq's problems and progress. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the impressions drawn from seeing our massive logistics "footprint," our many installations, and the number of personnel (military and civilian), especially in and around the Baghdad region. The unintended message conveyed is one of "permanence," an occupying force, as it were.

[Kevin Drum] Unintended?

A “long shot gamble”

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012018.php
[Kevin Drum] I was more taken by an astonishing statement at the end of the piece from Stephen Biddle, a member of Petraeus's advisory panel. Here's his comment about the current plan to restore stability to Iraq via a "bottom up" strategy of working with tribal leaders:

Biddle also said (again, expressing his personal view) that the strategy in Iraq would require the presence of roughly 100,000 American troops for 20 years — and that, even so, it would be a "long-shot gamble."

Holy cats. This is coming from a "key proponent" of the tribal strategy? 100,000 troops for 20 years only gets us a "long-shot gamble" of success? What the hell do the pessimists think?

Sunnis back in power (again?)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052418.php
[JB] I'm surprised there hasn't been more commentary in the press and blogosphere regarding the fact that, in simplest terms, whatever "progress" we are making in Iraq is a function of the fact that we have switched sides. I don't think the U.S. public, or even the media, are really grasping the fact that we are fighting for Saddam's people now, and the Shia are rapidly becoming the primary target (along with the mystical "Al Queda"). The silence on the topic is a little eerie.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2007/09/sunni_rule_again_in_iraq_1.html
[William Arkin] President Bush's surprise eight-hour visit to Iraq yesterday will be read by many Iraqis, and by many others in the Islamic world, as part of a great conspiracy. The conspiracy's goal? To create an American-Sunni alliance, restore the Sunni minority to power and suppress the Shiite majority. . .

The Democrats back down. . . . again

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/_congressional_dems_willing_to_compromise_on_iraq.php

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/opinion/07krugman.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/6/184413/0937

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12791.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/09/07/iraq_debate/index.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_02_archive.html#3351294657564558224

Action alerts

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/06/stand-watch/

http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8620

Judge rules Patriot Act unconstitutional (again)

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/6/185548/2905

You think this was just a stupid accident? (think again)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/advise-and-consent-by-digby-when.html
[AP] The Homeland Security Department scrapped an ambitious anti-terrorism data-mining tool after investigators found it was tested with information about real people without required privacy safeguards. . . [read on]

New questions about the resignation of Alberto Gonzales

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/06/thursday-afternoon-as-i-don-my-tin-foil-chapeau/

The list of replacements for Gonzales gets narrowed to six

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/white_house_floating_potential_replacements_for_gonzales.php

Assessing the candidates: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/6/12832/29337

The military is using public schools as a recruiting tool (again)

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/report-finds-little-monitoring-of-military-recruiting-in-schools/index.html

Larry Craig (R-ID) is quitting (again)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/06/AR2007090600262.html

Giuliani gets hammered (again)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0E0wfShJ58

Fred Thompson shows (again) that he hasn’t fully thought through the implications of actually being President

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12795.html
[Bloomberg] Fred Thompson says a top challenge for the next president is fixing Social Security. Asked how his ideas for overhauling the system differ from those of George W. Bush, the actor and former Tennessee senator says: “I don’t even remember the details of his plan.” . . . .

Bill O’Reilly goes way over the top (again)

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709060006
Bill O'Reilly repeated his previous attacks on Media Matters and MoveOn.org, calling the two organizations "the most vicious element in our society today" and referring to their employees as "assassins." . . .

Bonus item: Why people hate George Bush – a selection

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/stupid-arrogant.html
[Digby] I do realize that I loathe Bush on a visceral level and always have, so I can't say that my impressions of him as person are particularly objective. He is a personality type I can't stand --- his privileged, macho arrogance and nasty, sophomoric social game of primitive dominance are about the least appealing characteristics I can think of in a man. Even if he weren't a complete idiot, which he is, he'd still be an asshole. . . .

[W]henever I read these "intimate" portraits of him, I'm always struck by the fact that he comes off even worse than I, who already loathe him, expect him to. These are ostensibly fair observers who were chosen by him and who were granted access because they weren't hostile. Yet, the portrait they paint is of a shockingly stupid, shallow conceited man who may even be delusional. . . [read on!]

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/06/the-least-he-could-do/
[Christy Hardin Smith] Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has a scathing op-ed in the WaPo this morning, in which she says: “Our troops face death every day; the least the president can do is face the truth.”

That would be swell, if I thought he knew what the meaning of truth was. . . .

Nothing like being certain even when you are utterly and completely wrong, is there? Especially when it is other people’s children who are dying for your lies and certitude.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12793.html
[From “Dead Certain”] Bush, as always, bridled at the request to navel-gaze. “You’re the observer,” he said as he worked the cheese in his mouth. “I’m not. I really do not feel comfortable in the role of analyzing myself. I’ll try….

“You’ve gotta think, think BIG. The Iranian issue,” he said as bread crumbs tumbled out of his mouth and onto his chin, “is the strategic threat right now facing a generation of Americans, because Iran is promoting an extreme form of religion that is competing with another extreme form of religion. Iran’s a destabilizing force. And instability in that part of the world has deeply adverse consequences, like energy falling in the hands of extremist people that would use it to blackmail the West. And to couple all of that with a nuclear weapon, then you’ve got a dangerous situation. … That’s what I mean by strategic thought.

“I don’t know how you learn that. I don’t think there’s a moment where that happened to me. I really don’t. I know you’re searching for it. I know it’s difficult. I do know — y’know, how do you decide, how do you learn to decide things? When you make up your mind, and you stick by it — I don’t know that there’s a moment, Robert. I really — You either know how to do it or you don’t. I think part of this is it: I ran for reasons. Principled reasons. There were principles by which I will stand on. And when I leave this office I’ll stand on them.” . . . [read on]

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:17 AM

 
STAGE-MANAGED

The WMD lie

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/05/bush-wmd-card/
[Amanda] In Oct. 2004, President Bush finally admitted that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction: “Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there.”

Yet according to former White House chief of staff Andy Card, this statement was just rhetoric. In his new book on Bush, Robert Draper writes that the President continued to privately insist through April 2006 that Saddam had possessed weapons of mass destruction . . .

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/09/06/bush_wmd/
[Sidney Blumenthal] On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again. . . . [read on!]

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/truth-dribbles-out-by-tristero.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/no-senators-kne.html

ANOTHER devastating new (independent) report on Iraq, on the eve of the White House con job

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070905/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq;_ylt=AgI8RY_7Zn5Fo_Y715xlOPCs0NUE
Iraq's security forces will be unable to take control of the country in the next 18 months, and Baghdad's national police force is so rife with corruption it should be scrapped entirely, according to a new independent assessment. . . .

The response? http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/6/23848/02939
[BarbinMD] So, how does the administration counteract this bad news? Talking points, of course. First, from the Pentagon . . .

Backlash against the GAO report on Iraq’s security, benchmarks

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052291.php
[Fred Kagan, “surge” author] The assertion that there is no "clear and reliable evidence that the level of sectarian violence was reduced" will surprise those who have been listening to American and Iraqi officers alike brief that the levels have been falling for months--as well as those who have walked the streets of formerly war-torn neighborhoods in Baghdad.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12781.html

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004069.php#more
[Spencer Ackerman] Now, Petraeus can make a case that the GAO isn't being fair to him. The GAO is measuring civilian casualties, and by extension sectarian violence all throughout Iraq, while he's talking about a reduction in sectarian violence in Baghdad alone. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2173437
"Let's just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree," Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002330.php
[Steve Clemons] Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman has a very interesting piece in the Financial Times today highlighting the ways that President Bush is corrupting military leaders and the Pentagon in putting them to work on his political message . . .

Are people going to buy this? The magical September deadline has now (again!) morphed into the magical April deadline

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/5/9455/45190

“The myth of AQI”

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012011.php

President Jackass, part one

http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Bush_tells_Deputy_Australian_Prime_Minister_0905.html
Upon his arrival in Sydney Wednesday, Deputy Australian Prime Minister Mark Vaile "inquired politely" about his stopover in the war-torn country. "We're kicking ass," Bush said.

[NB: Apart from his frat-boy jerkiness, it appears that Bush really BELIEVES this. These Bubble Boy visits to super-safe regions of Iraq, surrounded by cheering and hooting soldiers, are meant to expose him only to information that buttresses his sense of infallibility.]

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12778.html
[Steve Benen] As for the “substance” (I use the word loosely) of Bush’s boast, could he be any more wrong? . . .

President Jackass, part two

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052278.php
"[Maliki's] learning to be a leader. And one of my jobs as the president and his ally is to help him be that leader without being patronizing. At some point in time, if I come to the conclusion that he can't be the leader—he's unwilling to lead or he's deceptive—then we'll change course. But I haven't come to that conclusion. As a matter of fact, his recent actions have inspired me."

Katie Couric tries to make her breakthrough this week as a “hard” news reporter, reporting from the ground in Iraq – and instead just ends up as the latest shill for Bush’s talking points

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_247203227.html
One week before Gen. David Petraeus is expected to give his report on U.S. progress in Iraq, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric says she has already seen dramatic improvements in the country.

"We hear so much about things going bad, but real progress has been made there in terms of security and stability," Couric said Tuesday. "I mean, obviously, infrastructure problems abound, but Sunnis and U.S. forces are working together. They banded together because they had a common enemy: al Qaeda." . . .

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/04/america_in_iraq/main3232352.shtml

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/05/america_in_iraq/main3237148.shtml

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/did-escalation-work-by-tristero-no-of.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12775.html

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709060002

“Surge protectors”

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003635087

What was that plane with five nukes doing in US air space?

Bound for Iran? http://tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/sep/05/staging_nuke_for_iran

Or just an accident? http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052357.php

How has Chertoff done as head of the Dept of Homeland Security?

Success! http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/05/AR2007090501215.html
The United States is "unequivocally" safer from terrorist attacks than it was six years ago, but security gaps remain, notably for private airplanes and small boats, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today. . . .

No! http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/05/AR2007090502570.html
Hobbled by inadequate funding, unclear priorities, continuing reorganizations and the absence of an overarching strategy, the Department of Homeland Security is failing to achieve its mission of preventing and responding to terrorist attacks or natural disasters, according to a comprehensive report by the Government Accountability Office. . . .

A coincidence of timing?

http://www.slate.com/id/2173437
[Andrew Rice] The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times all lead with the arrest of three suspects in Germany in connection with an alleged plot to bomb targets associated with the United States. . . . All of the papers have plenty of cloak-and-dagger details about the investigation into the terror plot. . . Of the papers, only the NYT voices much skepticism about the seriousness of the threat, pointing out that several averted terrorist plots in Europe "have turned out later to be less than met the eye when announced."

Welcome to the race, Fred – now it’s YOUR turn

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/us/politics/06debate.html
The candidates who have been toiling away on the stump for months had plenty of jabs about Mr. Thompson’s late entry and his decision to skip the debate.

Mr. Romney teased him for waiting so long to enter the race. “Why the hurry?” he asked. Then he suggested that Mr. Thompson should have postponed his entry until after the major primaries. “Why not take some more time off?” . . .

I TOLD you

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=09&year=2007&base_name=post_4795
[Garance Franke-Ruta] Huckabee Comes Out Against Contraception

. . . . "Life begins at conception" is code for the extremist anti-choice position that wants hormonal birth control pills, the morning after pill, and intrauterine devices to be outlawed as abortion-inducing agents, or "abortifacients." All these methods prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in a woman's uterus. They prevent pregnancy, but not conception. . . .

Larry Craig seems to have convinced Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to let him stay in office after all

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/craig-forces-mcconnells-hand-how-did.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12782.html

He’s killing them: http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/craig-is-fighting-ethics-complaint.html
Larry Craig is fighting back against the GOP colleagues who threw him under the bus last week . . .

So far, the California electoral vote initiative isn’t catching fire. Wait til people learn what it is REALLY trying to accomplish

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/5/125523/8311

Bonus item: What the Democrats can learn from the Republicans: from David Mamet’s terrific new book

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/8/9/142119/0659
As we enter the cinema, we relax our guard. We do so necessarily, because to resist, to insist on reality in the drama, is to rob ourselves of joy.

For who would sit through the cartoon thinking constantly, "Wait a second, elephants can't fly!"

Politicians (notably the right, in both America and Britain) have cannily understood this suspension of disbelief and have, since World War II, staged their political campaigns as dramas, with themes, slogans, inflammatory appeals, and villains.

The approach has put their opponents at an unfortunate disadvantage; for while the right is staging a thriller, their opponents are stuck presenting a lecture (the preferred tool of the left).

***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 @ 7:06 AM

 
KEEP IT SIMPLE

There is going to be a lot of smoke and mirrors over the next week or two, a lot of lies and nonsense. I have very little confidence that the Democrats have a plan for how to deal with it all, but here is my little attempt to help out

#1. Catapult the bamboozlement

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052226.php
[Josh Marshall] The bamboozlement is so brazen even Wolf Blitzer is calling them on it . . [watch!]

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/09/04/BL2007090401128.html

http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/09/04/beware-the-shiny-objects/

#2. The surge isn’t working. Deaths are up in Iraq, not down

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/4/141932/3472
According to U.S. military figures, an average of 1,000 Iraqis have died each month since March in sectarian violence. That compares with about 1,200 a month at the start of the security plan, the military said in an e-mailed response to queries. This does not include deaths from car bombings, which the military said have numbered more than 2,600 this year.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_09_02_archive.html#5620468237910715405
[Atrios] Basically, they're differentiating between types of violence, focusing only on sectarian violence, and then assuming all car bombs are from the "insurgency" or "al qaeda" which doesn't count.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12770.html
[Steve Benen] Read that again. The casualty rates have gone down about 20% — but that doesn’t include car bombs . . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/04/gao-report-iraq/
Contrary to claims made by Gen. David Petraeus that sectarian violence has decreased dramatically, the GAO report is unable to report any progress on this front . . .

The push-back begins: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/04/AR2007090402338.html
A bleak portrait of the political and security situation in Iraq released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office sparked sharp protests from the top U.S. military command in Baghdad, whose officials described it as flawed and "factually incorrect." . . .

"They use the end of July as the data and evidentiary cutoff and therefore are not taking into account any gains in any of the benchmarks that may have become more clear throughout August," one official said. . . .

Walker said the GAO consulted with the military until Thursday. "We asked for, but did not receive, the information through the end of August," he said. "But we obtained their views for where the situation was . . . as of August 30th."

[NB: Isn’t that nice? Refuse to share the August numbers with them, then criticize them for not including the August numbers. So, where ARE the August numbers? Just release them now, if they’re supposed to be so encouraging.]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_09/012003.php
[Kevin Drum] This is beyond pathetic. Even if the August numbers are good — and that's a helluva stretch in any case — are they seriously contending that we should toss out the entire previous six months and judge the surge a success based four weeks of data? Is that the best they can do?

#3.