SHOCKING THE CONSCIENCE

This blog started its web presence during the revelations about Abu Ghraib. A special circle of hell will be set aside for the people who gradually, cynically, acted to shift public perceptions about torture and abuse as necessary parts of the “global war on terror.” It is a legacy that will tar Bush and his minions for generations to come, I hope.

Finally a Bush officer starts to talk openly about the decision to rationalize torture, and little by little reveals the kind of thinking that led us to this point

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/065260.php
[David Kurtz] In the view of the Justice Department, there is no categorical prohibition against the torture of detainees, even under the Detainee Treatment Act.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005177.php
[Paul Kiel] Michael Mukasey finally got into the nitty gritty of how he thinks about torture, and he seemed to finally show his hand.

Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) said that he'd been getting the impression that Mukasey really thought about torture in relative terms, and wanted to know if that was so. Is it OK to waterboard someone if a nuclear weapon was hidden -- the Jack Bauer scenario -- but not OK to waterboard someone for more pedestrian information?

Mukasey responded that it was "not simply a relative issue," but there "is a statute where it is a relative issue," he added, citing the Detainee Treatment Act. That law engages the "shocks the conscience" standard, he explained, and you have to "balance the value of doing something against the cost of doing it." . . .

Biden responded, "You're the first I've ever heard to say what you just said.... It shocks my conscience a little bit."

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/30/111154/705
[Kagro X] In his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, "Attorney General" cardboard cutout Michael Mukasey had an exchange with Sen. Joe Biden in which he redefined the (admittedly and purposefully vague) line that has in many ways separated "torture" from "not-torture," or more specifically, conduct that violates substantive due process. That is, it is violative of due process guarantees enshrined in the Constitution to engage in behavior that "shocks the conscience."

To normal people, that means you judge the behavior. Does recovering evidence swallowed by a perpetrator apprehended by police by shoving a feeding tube down his throat, force feeding him an emetic, and causing him to vomit the evidence into a bucket "shock the conscience?" The decision of the Supreme Court in the 1953 case Rochin v. California was that it did.

But Michael Mukasey is no normal person. . . . And today, he told Senator Biden that what "shocks the conscience" depends not on what the actual behavior is, but rather on the value of the information being extracted with that behavior.

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-can-legality-of-waterboarding.html
[Marty Lederman] How Can the Legality of Waterboarding Depend on the Circumstances? . . . [read on]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/it-depends-on-what-definition-of.html
[Digby] It's really hard for me to believe that someone who used to be a federal judge can blow that sophistry in a congressional hearing with a straight face. . . . [read on]

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005176.php
[Paul Kiel] Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) had a long wind up before delivering his punch. . . . "Would waterboarding be torture if done to you?"

"I would feel that it was," Mukasey replied.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/065260.php
[David Kurtz] Mukasey basically put Congress on notice that they have to outlaw waterboarding or quit asking questions about it.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005178.php
[Paul Kiel] Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) pressed the point that the Senate had, on a broad bipartisan basis, prohibited "such practices with the McCain amendment" (the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act).

But the Senate had also "voted down a bill that would prohibit waterboarding," Mukasey replied.

"You still think that the jury is out on whether the Senate believes that waterboarding is torture?" Durbin wanted to know.

"The question... is whether the Senate has spoken clearly enough in the legislation that it has passed...."

"Where is the lack of clarity in the McCain legislation?"

The "words of the legislation... are words that are general and upon which people on both sides of the debate have already disagreed. To point to this language or that language, it seems to me, is to pick nits at this point. People have disagreed about the generality of the language and said that it can be read two ways." . . .

Repugnant

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005179.php
[Paul Kiel] Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) . . . question was simple. You've said that waterboarding is "repugnant." So, if it is repugnant, don't you think that a ban of waterboarding is a good thing? Wouldn't you support that? . . . [read on]

http://www.slate.com/id/2183165
Dick Durbin, D-Ill., gets off the best line of the day when—citing Mukasey's statement that "reasonable people can disagree" about the legality of water-boarding—he asks the attorney general to name some on the pro side.

Here’s their position, if you can believe it: we used to waterboard, but we stopped doing it, so there’s no point in discussing its legality. We’re not doing it now, so stop asking. And we reserve the right to do it again in the future, but there’s no point in asking about the legality of that either, because we haven’t done it yet. Shorter version: STFU

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005170.php
"[I] have concluded that the interrogation techniques currently authorized in the CIA program comply with the law.... I have been authorized to disclose publicly that waterboarding is not among those methods.”

http://www.slate.com/id/2183165
[Dahlia Lithwick] As you'll recall, last October, nominee Mukasey promised the Senate that while he couldn't yet offer an opinion on the legality of the alternative interrogation technique called water-boarding, he'd be able to do so once he was "read into the program." As you may also recall, that nonanswer came close to scuttling his nomination. Last night, Gen. Mukasey let the Senate know in a sort of constitutional Dear John letter that he wouldn't opine on water-boarding today either, both because we stopped doing it and because it's "not an easy question."

In other words, having set about diligently to scrutinize the legality of the interrogation program, its legal justifications, and its applications, the nation's top lawyer has come up with this lawyerly answer: It depends. . . [read on]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/31/mukasey/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] Yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, featuring day-long testimony from Attorney General Michael Mukasey, was extraordinary for only one reason: for our country, what happened in the hearing is now completely ordinary . . . [read on]

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/30/12138/9366

Will the investigation of the destruction of CIA torture tapes also deal with the illegal acts they disclosed? I seriously doubt it

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/065244.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005180.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005173.php

[NB: It's an interesting conundrum, because the people who destroyed the torture tapes clearly did so to avoid prosecution, so THEY believed that what was being done was illegal, or at least could be found so.]

The Nuremberg Defense

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/30/154358/393

Torture wasn’t all they talked about

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005175.php
[Paul Kiel] Michael Mukasey is not a man to live in the past. It's a much more difficult place.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) started his questions by asking about the President's Article II powers under the Constitution. Do you think that the President can break any law he pleases because he's the President -- including, say, statutes banning torture?

"I can't contemplate any situation in which this president would assert Article II authority to do something that the law forbids," Mukasey shot back.

"Well, he did just that when he violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act" Specter responded. "Didn't he?"

Well, "both of those issues have been brought within statutes," Mukasey responded, apparently hoping that he wouldn't have to discuss the stickier past.

"That's not the point," Specter pressed. "The point is that he acted in violation of statutes, didn't he?"

"I don't know," Mukasey conceded. Awkward.

"There's no dispute about that," isn't there? The law says you have to go to court to get a warrant for wiretapping and the administration didn't do that. . . .

The FISA fight – it’s not just about telecom amnesty

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/30/115312/346

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/30/not-just-immunity/

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002767.php

Is there a deal in the works? http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005174.php

Wow. Just wow

www.washingtonindependent.com/view/did-rove-influence
[Jefferson Morley] Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, communicated secretly with White House political strategist Karl Rove and other Bush administration officials, reports independent scholar Max Holland, citing an audio version of a forthcoming book by a New York Times reporter.

On his Web site, Washington Decoded, Holland reports that Philip Shenon, who led the Times coverage of the Commission, has written a “blistering account” of Zelikow’s role overseeing the 20-month investigation . . .

More: http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2008/01/commission-conf.html

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/30/yet-more-communications-dirty-business-karl-rove-and-philip-zelikow/

Bush demolishes the principle of balance of powers

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/01/30/BL2008013001912.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/opinion/30wed1.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/013013.php

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/no_laws_for_you.php

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2008/01/george_w_cataline.php

People hate the war in Iraq more than ever

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/speaking-of-not-getting-credit/

The dogs of war

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/more-on-detainee
[Spencer Ackerman] Julian Barnes at the Los Angeles Times picks up on the story we noted Monday about soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division apparently killing Iraqi detainees. . . .

A white elephant in Baghdad

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/u-s-embassy-in

I will miss John (and Elizabeth) Edwards – and look forward to their political future

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/retrospective_e.php

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/30/the-heart-of-the-democratic-party/

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/matthew_yglesias/2008/01/john_edwardss_indelible_mark.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/30/223358/948

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/31/14240/0972

Watch: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/30/1544/31454

Who does Edwards’s departure help? (Short answer: no one really knows)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/065284.php

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/top_edwards_adviser_trippi_on_hillary_and_obama_theyre_banging_down_the_doors_for_our_endorsement.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14412.html

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/01/edwards_to_leave_presidential.html

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3524

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=whither_edwards_supporters

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/30/235933/332

http://www.slate.com/id/2182563/

The Republican war against John McCain

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_013008/content/01125106.guest.html

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/30/mark-steyn-needs-a-hug/

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/013012.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14410.html

If anyone wants to see more “bipartisanship” in D.C., start with the source of the problem

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/30/10456/8783

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14417.html

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/30/bipartisanship/index.html

As far as I know, there is no obligation for one house of Congress to automatically ratify what the other comes up with. The Senate can take a different tack on a stimulus package, then work it out in a conference committee. But the Republicans, of course, only want the version Bush worked out with Pelosi and Boehner on the House side – so will they now filibuster a bipartisan bill designed to give rebates to needy people?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/30/AR2008013003651.html

Poor Alice

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/01/29/perino-asked-is-the-country-better-off-now-than-seven-years-ago/
Perino asked: ‘Is the country better off now than seven years ago?’ . . . [read on]

It’s simple, isn’t it? Fox News’s ratings reflect people’s willingness to be deluged with Republican talking points

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14416.html
[Steve Benen] I’ll admit it; I have a special fondness for news about Fox News’ declining ratings. There’s just something about the drop in numbers that helps restore my faith in the American political system. . .

***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 @ 6:43 AM

 
THE DECIDER

The State of George Bush

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005162.php
The USA Today headline for last night's speech? "Bush Tries to Show That He's Still on The Job." Ouch. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html
[Dan Froomkin] There it was last night, for all the world to see: A presidency running on empty. . .

It makes your head spin. Congress passes a Defense Authorization Bill with a provision The Decider doesn’t like – so he vetoes it (except he really didn’t). The Congress then rewrites the bill with a waiver exception so generous that even Bush should be satisfied (except he isn’t): he still issues a signing statement saying he doesn’t have to follow it

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/29/105341/130

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/iraq-4-ever-by-dday-when-bush-vetoed.html

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/signing-statements

Here’s what REALLY bothered him: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/29/signing-statement-iraq/
[CQ] One such provision sets up a commission to probe contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another expands protections for whistleblowers who work for government contractors. A third requires that U.S. intelligence agencies promptly respond to congressional requests for documents. And a fourth bars funding for permanent bases in Iraq and for any action that exercises U.S. control over Iraq’s oil money. . . .

Another broken promise

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/washington/30military.html
Four months after announcing troop reductions in Iraq, President Bush is now sending signals that the cuts may not continue past this summer, a development likely to infuriate Democrats and renew concerns among military planners about strains on the force. . . [A] year from now, the military presence in Iraq will be just as large as it was a year ago, or even slightly larger. . .

It’s official: the U.S. believes that waterboarding – widely defined as torture – is a legal and acceptable interrogation method. Expect more questions on this at Mukasey’s appearance before the Senate today

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/washington/30justice.html
“There are some circumstances where current law would appear clearly to prohibit the use of waterboarding. Other circumstances would present a far closer question.”

With the Democrats writing the bills, Bush suddenly gets religion on earmarks

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/bush-denounces

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gBN1Niofu1pt_CZZd4vq8BfrwIAwD8UFPFP02

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14396.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/laying-landmines-by-digby-dday-wrote.html

[NB: It’s too bad. The Dems had a chance to take over this issue by banning them once they got control of Congress. Now Bush looks like the fiscally responsible one.]

In need of a good lawyer – a tale of two trials

http://www.alternet.org/rights/75244
Last week in Currituck County, N.C., Superior Court Judge Russell Duke presided over the final step in securing the first criminal conviction stemming from the deadly actions of Blackwater Worldwide, the Bush administration's favorite mercenary company. Lest you think you missed some earth-shifting, breaking news, hold on a moment. The "criminals" in question were not the armed thugs who gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians and wounded more than 20 others in Baghdad's Nisour Square last September. They were seven nonviolent activists who had the audacity to stage a demonstration at the gates of Blackwater's 7,000-acre private military base in North Carolina to protest the actions of mercenaries acting with impunity -- and apparent immunity -- in their names and those of every American.

The arrest of the activists and the subsequent five days they spent locked up in jail is more punishment than any Blackwater mercenaries have received for their deadly actions against Iraqi civilians. . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005153.php
For years, the families of the four Blackwater guards killed in the infamous Fallujah incident have carried on a wrongful death lawsuit against the company. . . .

House passes 15 day extension of FISA bill – without immunity. What next?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005168.php

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/29/fisa/index.html

Watch: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002

One part of the Bush govt is investigating another part – and vice versa! You know how effective they are at investigations, so multiply all their incompetence and duplicity by two, and you get a story like this

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005164.php

John McCain, given up for dead just a few weeks ago, wins Florida and leads the GOP field. Now what?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/29/18734/2798
[DHinMI] If John McCain doesn't win Florida, he almost certainly won't be the Republican nominee. And if he does win Florida, his only chance of avoiding a crushing defeat in November will be to embrace the same moneyed interests he's declared are among the biggest problems facing America. . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/013004.php
[Kevin Drum] [T]he Florida exit polls confirm that John McCain has a big problem. As expected, he does well among independents and moderates, but also as expected, he does less well among Republicans and conservatives. Sure, they'll mostly come around in November, but mostly isn't enough. . . .

More: http://www.slate.com/id/2183031

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3514

Rudy, oh Rudy. You’re lucky Fred Thompson ran his half-in, half-out, half-assed campaign this year – otherwise you’d get the prize for the most inept presidential campaign ever

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/us/politics/30giuliani.html
Perhaps he was living an illusion all along. . .

Just three months ago, Anthony V. Carbonetti, Mr. Giuliani’s affable senior policy adviser, surveyed that field and told The New York Observer: “I don’t believe this can be taken from us. Now that I have that locked up, I can go do battle elsewhere.”

In fact, Mr. Giuliani’s campaign was about to begin a free-fall so precipitous as to be breathtaking. . . .

As Mr. Giuliani ponders his political mortality, many advisers and political observers point to the hubris and strategic miscalculations that plagued his campaign. . .

Watch: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/065198.php

Fox News grieves: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_27_archive.html#481227794946456185

Giuliani to drop out, then endorse McCain

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/01/29/giuliani_mccain/index.html

Clinton vs McCain looks like a pretty good bet right now – and that has a lot of people worried

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002764.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14403.html
[IBD] John McCain claims his temper is not an issue. “I don’t think I would have the support of so many of my colleagues if that were the case.” Who are these supportive colleagues?

They certainly do not include Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss . . . “The thought of him being president sends a cold chill down my spine,” Cochran said. “He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.” . .

The Bloomberg factor: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/plan-by-digby-i-have-no-idea-if.html

Local NY chapter of NOW accuses Ted Kennedy of “betrayal”

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/01/29/womens-group-slams-kennedy-for-betrayal/
In a sharply critical statement, the New York state chapter of NOW took aim at Kennedy Monday for what it called an "ultimate betrayal," and suggested the Massachusetts Democrat "can't or won't" handle the idea of Clinton becoming President of the United States. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/29/122529/612
[SusanG] When women who consider themselves feminists read a load of crap like this from the New York chapter of NOW, we feel betrayed . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14402.html
[Steve Benen] When I saw an email yesterday with a statement purporting to be from the New York State chapter of the National Organization of Women, I dismissed it as a poor attempt at humor. The statement, claiming to be in response to Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama, was so over the top, and so hyperbolic in its claims, I assumed there was no way that any NOW affiliate would issue it to the media. . . .

This is idiotic and irresponsible

http://newsbusters.org/stories/smith-kennedy-agents-change-end-being-targets-you-well-know.html
[Mark Finkelstein] I'm measuring my words carefully. Harry Smith has raised the possibility that Barack Obama's life could be in danger. The Early Show anchor interviewed Ted Kennedy this morning in the wake of his endorsement of Obama yesterday. . . .

HARRY SMITH: When you see that enthusiasm [for Obama] though, and when you see the generational change that seems to be taking place before our eyes, does it make you at all fearful? . . .

I just, I think what I was trying to say is, sometimes agents of change end of being targets, as you well know, and that was why I was asking if you were at all fearful of that. . . .

Larry Craig (he resigned, remember, then “un” resigned) – under Ethics investigation by his Senate colleagues, but it’s clear they have no stomach for a fight

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/394286.html

This is a huge local story: there was a competition between Texas and Illinois for the big-budget “FutureGen” experimental energy plant. After a thorough comparison of the sites, based on scientific analyses and other data, Illinois was announced as the better site. Now Bush’s Energy Dept says, “well, maybe we won’t fund it after all.” Does anyone believe they would have said this if TEXAS had won the competition?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/29/AR2008012903287.html

Bonus item: Steve Benen reads the right-wing blogs (so we don’t have to)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14405.html

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:27 AM

 
TRUST THE PEOPLE

Bush’s pathetic, listless State of the Union speech. Cajoling Congress to pass things they’ve refused to pass for years (yeah right), blustering that he will now get serious about vetoing earmarks that he routinely accepted when the Republicans were passing them, bullying the Democrats to let him continue to execute a war that will not end before he leaves office – on front after front it was a speech that actually conceded his powerlessness and failure to achieve ANYTHING he had set out in previous SOTU’s (oh, except for that Mars mission he promised – and never mentioned again)

http://www.slate.com/id/2182951
[Fred Kaplan] The sad thing about President George W. Bush's eighth and final State of the Union address is that he seems to have learned so little about the crises in which he's immersed his nation so deeply. . . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2182952
[John Dickerson] Part of the president's goal was to remind Congress and the American people that he's still relevant, but other than the executive orders he promised and the Middle East peace initiative he committed himself to, he didn't do anything in his speech to prove that relevance. . . .

Things Bush is going to wish he hadn’t said

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/01/28/qots/index.html
"Our foreign policy is based on a clear premise: We trust that people, when given the chance, will choose a future of freedom and peace. In the last 7 years, we have witnessed stirring moments in the history of liberty. We have seen citizens in Georgia and Ukraine stand up for their right to free and fair elections. We have seen people in Lebanon take to the streets to demand their independence. We have seen Afghans emerge from the tyranny of the Taliban to choose a new president and a new parliament. We have seen jubilant Iraqis holding up ink-stained fingers and celebrating their freedom. And these images of liberty have inspired us." -- President Bush, in his State of the Union speech tonight.

[Alex Koppelman] Far be it for us to suggest changes at this late date to the president's speechwriters, but since the Taliban are back from their initial defeat and Lebanon is going through what Reuters calls the country's "worst political crisis since the 1975-90 civil war," (don't get us started on Iraq) you'd think they would have looked for some more inspiring examples.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/28/221417/005
“By trusting the people, our Founders wagered that a great and noble Nation could be built on the liberty that resides in the hearts of all men and women. By trusting the people, succeeding generations transformed our fragile young democracy into the most powerful Nation on earth and a beacon of hope for millions. And so long as we continue to trust the people, our Nation will prosper, our liberty will be secure, and the State of our Union will remain strong.”

[Georgia10] * Over 60% of Americans want all troops out of Iraq withdrawn within one year.
* 68% of Americans think the nation is on the wrong track.
* 41% of Americans think that President Bush is "definitely worst than most" past presidents.
* 69% of Americans think waterboarding is torture and at least 58% think it should not be allowed.
* 57% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
* At least 54% of Americans support civil unions for gay couples.
* A majority of Americans want the government to fund stem cell research.
* 57% of Americans oppose telecom immunity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/washington/29educ.html
President Bush’s call for a $300 million program called Pell Grants for Kids is the latest effort by his administration to channel tax dollars to low-income parents to help them send their children to private or religious schools.

His proposal, in his State of the Union address Monday night, was denounced by some top Democratic lawmakers and teachers’ union officials as a national “voucher” program that would only drain resources from urban public schools that in many cases are in need of money.

And some critics said that the president’s call for yet another education initiative only underscored the failure of the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal law that Mr. Bush considers a landmark achievement of his first term. . . .

More: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/live_blog.php

Bush wants $70 billion MORE in war funding – might I suggest that Congress make it conditional on requiring a vote over any treaty that commits to a long-term troop presence in Iraq?

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2846780020080128

Ahem

http://www.slate.com/id/2183021
[Daniel Politi] [F]ive U.S. soldiers were killed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. So far, 36 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq this month, which is an increase from the 23 that were killed in December. And yet, some insist that the "war has largely ended." . . .

The FISA vote: Dems won’t pass a bill with telecom immunity, and the GOP will filibuster any bill without it. So for now, they’ll vote a temporary extension of the current bill (MAYBE) and kick the can down the road – unless Bush follows through with his threat to veto an extension, letting the law lapse on Friday

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005159.php

Harry Reid: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005157.php
Mr. President, in my twenty years in Congress, I have not seen anything quite as cynical and counterproductive as the Republican approach to FISA. . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/game-of-chicken-by-digby-so-good-news.html

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/28/fisa_debate/index.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/28/18013/6949

I’ve been harping on this, but the Dems (and the press) have dropped the ball in not stressing that the reason the Bush gang is fighting so hard for this bill is because it provides immunity for THEM as well as the telecoms – and they’re afraid they’ll need it

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/28/dick-cheney-telecom-amnesty-bill-recap/

Noteworthy: for the first time, a Bush admin member confirms that they ARE using waterboarding

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005160.php

By the way, if waterboarding gets such great results, why didn’t they use it on Saddam Hussein?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005152.php
[FBI agent George Piro] says no coercive interrogation techniques, like sleep deprivation, heat, cold, loud noises, or water boarding were ever used. "It's against FBI policy, first. And wouldn't have really benefited us with someone like Saddam," Piro says. . .

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/28/why-did-the-fbi-fail-to-waterboard-saddam/

Why was responsibility for coercive interrogation given to the CIA, who had no background or expertise in the area? And what was the consequence? A major expose from Spencer Ackerman . . . .

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/cia-largely-in-the3
Interestingly, one place that the CIA didn’t look for help was the place where interrogations have been performed, lawfully, for decades: the Federal Bureau of Investigation. "In terms of actual interrogations, when you have a suspect in custody, the FBI does that hundreds of times a day, 365 days a year, for 90 years," said Mike Rolince, who spent over three years as Special Agent in Charge of counterterrorism at the FBI’s Washington field office before retiring in October 2005. "The FBI brought serious credibility and a track record to the table. That said, the U.S. government decided to go about [interrogations] in a different way. The results speak for themselves. I don’t think we need to be where we are." . . .

The agency’s turn to interrogation was internally controversial. The CIA sought and obtained approval from administration lawyers in the White House and the Justice Dept. in early 2002 for every interrogation technique it used—legal guidance that the White House has since refused to release to Congress. Several CIA officials expected the agency would take the fall if the program ever became public. "We knew that five, 10 years down the road, our people were going to get screwed, like they always do," the former senior official said. The administration "wanted information, and they don’t give a damn how they get it. They just don’t want dirt on their plate." . . . [read on]

More: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/the_torture_history.php

The Bush gang’s war on science

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/28/hansen-omb/
[T]he government’s top global warming researcher, James Hansen, revealed the government’s efforts to muzzle him from speaking out about climate change. NASA political appointees reviewed all his lectures, papers, and requests for interviews from journalists.

In a new e-mail, Hansen reveals that the censoring is not only happening to him, but to all government scientists. He writes that the White House Office of Management and Budget reviews all scientific testimony to make sure that it’s “consistent with the President’s budget” . . .

We are told by the Wise Men that bipartisanship is the way things should go. But what happened when the Republicans were in charge? And what did they say about it then?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/opinion/28krugman.html

Here’s what happens when a Republican actually does try to be bipartisan: they get savaged for it

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/mitt-on-mccain-he-likes-democrats.html

Stunning

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/28/13121/8194
[Kos] Huge news if true: Not Larry Sabato claims Rep. Tom Davis [R-VA] will announce his retirement this week. . . .

It wold be the 26th House Republicans to flee their sinking ship, or 13% of the GOP's caucus. And we're not done yet with the parade of retirements. We could see close to a fifth of their caucus quit before this year is out.

More! http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/29/05243/5955

What a weird, defeatist campaign Giuliani has run: now he says the winner in Florida’s primary will be the party’s nominee – and it won’t be him!

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/rudy_winner_of_florida_will_win_the_nomination.php

Theocracy watch: the massive fundraising by televangelists has never been properly investigated. Here’s what happens when someone tries

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14387.html

Bonus item: The silly season

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/28/actual-cnn-headline-huckabee-challenges-romney-over-fried-chicken/
[CNN] Mitt Romney's failure to eat fried chicken with the skin on is nothing short of blasphemy here in the South, according to GOP rival Mike Huckabee. . . .

Fried squirrel too? http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Huckabee_We_used_to_fry_squirrels_0116.html

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:20 AM

 
PYRRHIC VICTORIES

I didn’t start this primary season with strong opinions about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. John Edwards was putting out the policies closest to my own views. But the pattern of attacks from Hillary and Bill C. against Obama worries me, because if she gets the nomination, as she might, it could be a pyrrhic victory, gained by creating bitter racial divides within the party and demoralizing the expanded and inspired pool of voters Obama has been successful in getting involved in the campaign. Plus, I am convinced that if Clinton and McCain are the nominees, there will definitely be a third-party run, and even conceivably a fourth, because both of them face sizeable parts of their party regulars who will not want to support them

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/opinion/27rich.html
[Frank Rich] In the wake of George W. Bush, even a miracle might not be enough for the Republicans to hold on to the White House in 2008. But what about two miracles? . . .

Up until this moment, Hillary has successfully deflected rough questions about Bill by saying, “I’m running on my own” or, as she snapped at Barack Obama in the last debate, “Well, I’m here; he’s not.” This sleight of hand became officially inoperative once her husband became a co-candidate, even to the point of taking over entirely when she vacated South Carolina last week. With “two for the price of one” back as the unabashed modus operandi, both Clintons are in play.

For the Republicans, that means not just a double dose of the one steroid, Clinton hatred, that might yet restore their party’s unity but also two fat targets. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/26/opinion/26herbert.html
[Bob Herbert] Bill Clinton, in his over-the-top advocacy of his wife’s candidacy, has at times sounded like a man who’s gone off his medication. And some of the Clinton surrogates have been flat-out reprehensible.

Andrew Young, for instance.

This week, while making the remarkable accusation that the Obama camp was responsible for raising the race issue, Mr. Clinton mentioned Andrew Young as someone who would bear that out. It was an extremely unfortunate reference.

Here’s what Mr. Young, who is black and a former ambassador to the United Nations, had to say last month in an interview posted online: “Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He’s probably gone with more black women than Barack.” . . .

The Clinton camp knows what it’s doing, and its slimy maneuvers have been working. . . . [I]t’s legitimate to ask, given the destructive developments of the last few weeks, whether the Clintons are capable of being anything but divisive. The electorate seems more polarized now than it was just a few weeks ago, and the Clintons have seemed positively gleeful in that atmosphere.

It makes one wonder whether they have any understanding or regard for the corrosive long-term effects — on their party and the nation — of pitting people bitterly and unnecessarily against one another.

What kind of people are the Clintons? . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012979.php
[Kevin Drum] [E]nough's enough. I don't like dog whistle racial appeals when Republicans do it, and I don't like it when Bill Clinton does it. (And unlike Hillary's MLK/LBJ remark, which was idiotically mischaracterized, don't even try to pretend that this was an innocent remark. We're not children here.) Yes, Obama has to be able to handle this kind of sewage, and yes, this will almost certainly be forgiven and forgotten among Democrats by November. But it's not November yet, is it? My primary is a week from Tuesday, and I'm not feeling very disposed to reward this kind of behavior . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/us/politics/28dems.html
Democrats inside and outside the Clinton campaign on Sunday debated and in some cases bemoaned the degree to which former President Bill Clinton’s criticism of Senator Barack Obama last week had inflicted lasting damage on his wife’s presidential candidacy. . . .

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/lying_in_politics_/2008/01/cant_fool_all_of_the_people_.php

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/01/hrc_loses_another_vote.php

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2008/jan/27/the_clintons_atwater_rove_and_the_future

A contrary view: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3462

Obama’s amazing achievement

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14378.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14380.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/new-field-frontier-by-digby-one-of-most.html

More: http://futuremajority.com/node/930

“The Edwards Scenario”

http://politicalinsider.com/2008/01/the_edwards_scenario.html

Telecom immunity: big vote today

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/27/22471/9024
[McJoan] Jane breaks the great news that Senator Clinton will be on the floor tomorrow to vote against McConnell's cloture vote on the Intelligence Committee's pro-telco amnesty FISA bill. . .

Jane is now reporting that Obama will be there to vote no, too. . . .

This is good news for keeping this fight going, and good news for us. Citizen action, our pressure, is making a difference. The massive push back from the left has actually succeeded in throwing a monkey wrench into the works. . .

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/27/fisa-its-a-sunday-fax-a-thon-for-the-rule-of-law/
[Christy Hardin Smith] Retroactive immunity on FISA is designed to immunize the Bush/Cheney Administration. Once immunity is given, it cannot be taken back. . . [read on]

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/26/opinion/26sat1.html

Bush’s New World Order: how it has failed

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/magazine/27world-t.html

More failures

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/washington/28bush.html
Will George W. Bush be remembered as the president who lost the economy while trying to win a war? . . .

Big trouble ahead in Pakistan

http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2008/01/27/taliban_factions_unite_to_battle_pakistan/
Taliban factions unite to battle Pakistan . . .

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/100/story/25011.html
Pakistan military retreats from Musharraf's influence . . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/white-flag-by-digby-clammyc-over-at.html

“The stages of conservative grief”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/27/1300/78376
[Hunter] I thought it might be appropriate, at this point, to go over the five conservative stages of grief. They are taken directly from Kubler-Ross, and so are solidly backed by the best psychological modeling. In their moments of understandable despair over actually having finally been given the unfair and dastardly opportunity to put their signing pens where their mouths have been, as opposed the previous years of merely erupting, geyserlike, on Fox News every evening about what they could do if they were in charge, it is expected that most conservatives will at this point go through at least some of these stages of grief. Since we are not ogres, here, we will simply wish them well and pray for their speedy recovery. . .

Theocracy watch: church groups feel used by Bush

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/church-groups-lose

Mitt Romney: the new Bush?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/01/27/liz-cheney-to-back-romney/

Rudy currently in FOURTH PLACE in his “must win” state

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudy-no-go-by-digby-ive-seen-some.html

Bill Kristol, rewarded with priceless column space in the NYT, and for what?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/20/153833/705/250/440121
[BarbinMD] [H]e has been so consistently, so overwhelmingly wrong on so many occasions, I soon realized that it could not be covered in just one sitting, and so today I will focus on his writings between the terrorist attacks on September 11th and the United States invasion of Iraq. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/27/16475/2488
[BarbinMD] Inspired by a New York Times editorial page editor's claim that William Kristol was "a serious, respected conservative intellectual," last week I began the Herculean task of chronicling his incredible history of being wrong. This week I will be looking at Kristol's pre-war fearmongering about WMD in Iraq and then his rationalizations and revisionism when those weapons failed to materialize. . . .

Fox says no political ads during the Super Bowl – presumably this means for BOTH parties

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/01/27/no_political_ads_during_super_bowl.html

Bonus item: Has Bush set the new precedent, that wearing an earpiece and getting real-time coaching from your advisors is just another step in the evolution of the cyborg politician?

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/romneys-creepy-earpiece.html

http://www.redstate.com/blogs/jerry_zandstra/2008/jan/26/who_is_whispering_in_romneys_ear

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

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

 
ROUTS

Bush has been blustering that we need warrantless wiretapping authorized, NOW. Another day without it puts the entire nation at risk. . . blah, blah, blah. But then he says he’ll veto any bill without telecom immunity in it

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/bush-says-hell-veto-30-day-extension-of.html

The fight against telecom immunity: what’s at stake

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/26/immunity/index.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/26/151822/726/814/443633

Pakistan says, “We’re not Iraq, buddy – we really ARE a sovereign nation” rejecting Bush’s plan to increase CIA operations on their soil

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/world/asia/27pakistan.htm

Unions, for the first time in years, have grown under Bush

http://www.twincities.com/business/ci_8080448?nclick_check=1

The end of FOIA? Yes, if the Bush gang had its way

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/26/leahy-foia/

Any government today has to be worried about cyber-security. But wouldn’t you know that Bush would use it as an excuse for advancing his wider secrecy and surveillance agenda?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/26/bushs-secret-cyber-initiative/

Bush invokes Lincoln in discussing his legacy. Aside from being Presidents during wartime and suspending habeas corpus, I can’t think of a SINGLE thing they have in common

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/25/bush-lincoln-fox/
[Garret Epps] On the personal level, Lincoln had none of Bush’s obstinacy and egotism. He scorned yes men, and surrounded himself with Cabinet officials better known than he was, refusing to purge even those actively working against his own political interests. . .

George W. Bush is Lincoln the way Dan Quayle is Jack Kennedy. . . .

Hmmm. . . . why does A.G. Mukasey have a portrait of George Orwell in his office? Is that good news or bad?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/26/mukasey-orwell-and-bradbury/

Obama’s impressive South Carolina primary win: counting the numbers

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14374.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/winning-large-by-digby-congratulations.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/26/sc.exit.polls/

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/27/1014/65150

His stirring victory speech: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2008/01/26/VI2008012602513.html

Hillary tries to pretend it doesn’t mean anything

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/01/26/clinton_speech/index.html

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/obamas_speech_3.php

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14376.html

The behind-the-scenes fight for superdelegates: will they decide the nomination?

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/members-of-congress-and-governors-could.html

McCain once flirted with switching parties – you know it was only a matter of time before that got used against him. Because while there is constant pressure on Democrats to be more “bipartisan,” for Republicans it’s a disadvantage

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14368.html

Lazy journalism: still using unrepresentative snippets from blogger Comments sections to tar the entire class

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/new_york_times_13.php

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/27/sunday-talking-head-thread-87/
ABC's This Week: Sen. Barack Obama (D).

CBS' Face The Nation: Sen. Hillary Clinton (D); Rudy Giuliani (R).

CNN's Late Edition: Gen. David Petraeus, Commander Multi-National Forces-Iraq; Henry Paulson, Treasury Secretary; Mike Huckabee (R); Mitt Romney (R).

Fox News Sunday: Henry Paulson, Treasury Secretary; Mike Huckabee (R).

NBC's Meet The Press: Sen. John McCain (R).

Bonus item: “The Whisper” – mystery solved?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14367.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 @ 8:17 AM

 
BULLY PULPITS

What Constitution?

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/25/bush_plan_for_iraq_would_be_a_first/
President Bush's plan to forge a long-term agreement with the Iraqi government that could commit the US military to defending Iraq's security would be the first time such a sweeping mutual defense compact has been enacted without congressional approval, according to legal specialists. . . .

More: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/dont_call_it_permanent.php

Answers, please

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/01/judge_wants_answers_on_cia_vid.php
[AP] A federal judge said Thursday that CIA interrogation videotapes may have been relevant to his court case, and he gave the Bush administration three weeks to explain why they were destroyed in 2005 and say whether other evidence was destroyed. . . .

Democracy: such a damn nuisance when you’re trying to run a country

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/washington/26gopcnd.html
President Bush prodded the Senate on Friday to move quickly on the stimulus package laid out on Thursday. . . “Congress should move it quickly,” the president said of the $150 billion package. “I understand the desire to add provisions from both the right and the left. I strongly believe it would be a mistake to delay or derail this bill.” . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/25/AR2008012502037.html
Shrugging off a personal plea from President Bush, senators from both parties said yesterday that they will push for significant additions to the $150 billion stimulus package hammered out Thursday by House leaders and the administration. . .

Move along, nothing to worry about here . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/25/AR2008012503261.html
President Bush signed a directive this month that expands the intelligence community's role in monitoring Internet traffic to protect against a rising number of attacks on federal agencies' computer systems. . . .

“The party of ideas”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080125/ap_on_go_pr_wh/state_of_union;_ylt=Ava7j0EU4.E._cEVZ_zazOKs0NUE
Bush speech to have few new ideas
In a bow to political reality, President Bush's final State of the Union speech will skip bold proposals in favor of ones the country has heard before . . .

Heh

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120120952618514493.html?
[Peggy Noonan] George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues. . . .

Afghanistan: not a success story

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/25/215759/436

What next on FISA and telecom immunity?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005139.php
[Paul Kiel] The squeeze is on.

You remember how it went last time: with time running out before the end of the congressional summer recess, the administration, with the help of some key Democrats, managed to push through a far-reaching surveillance bill.

And once again, five months later, some of the same conditions have been created. The administration's bill, the Protect America Act, is set to expire February 1st. Republicans and the administration have consistently opposed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's attempts to push that deadline back. . .

The table is set for Monday, when the Senate will vote on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) attempt to end debate on the intel committee's bill. That motion to invoke cloture will need 60 votes to pass. If it does pass, then the Senate would immediately vote on the bill . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/25/175727/629
[Harry Reid] The president has to make a decision. He's either going to extend the law, or he will...which is temporary in nature, or there will be no wiretapping. . .

[McJoan] Time is ultimately on Reid's side on this one. The House, as of now, is not prepared to accept the Senate bill as is even if the Republicans manage to get cloture on it. The House passed their version of the bill last year, and it does not include telco amnesty. Opposition to amnesty is much stronger in the House. So it is highly unlikely that we would see a repeat of last August, when a bad Senate FISA bill was shoved down the throats of the House. With the PAA set to expire next Friday, and the House in recess starting Wednesday for a Democratic retreat, Bush and the Republicans are going to have to agree to an extension, or take responsibility for the "threat to America." . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/25/135524/426
[McJoan] It's also possibly dawning on Senate Democrats, as Tim points out, that all of this could have just been yet another political ploy by the Republicans so that they drag the fight into Monday, the day of Bush's state of the union address, and that quite possibly, this will be a major feature in his last opportunity to try to scare the shit out of the nation in hopes that they can eke out a few extra votes in November. What? This administration playing politics with national security? Trying to paint the Democrats as weak on terra? . .

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/25/fisa-take-action-today/
[Christy Hardin Smith] [W]hat the GOP wants on FISA is failure . . . [read on]

Go Chris Dodd! http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/25/23429/3129

Corruption in the Dept of Education

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/26/washington/26lender.html
The Education Department has brushed aside a finding by its own inspector general that a student lender improperly received $34 million in federal subsidies, and is instructing the lender to decide for itself how much money it should pay back. . . .

I don’t like this. I don’t like it when the Republicans try to pull this stuff, and I don’t like it when Democrats do

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064801.php
[Josh Marshall] The Clinton camp really needs to be shut down on this new gambit of theirs to muscle the party and the other candidates into seating the Michigan and Florida delegate slates.

And let me be very clear about what I mean. It was very debatable decision whether the DNC should have punished Florida and Michigan with the loss of their delegates slates because they broke the rules the party had set down for scheduling their primaries. By 'debatable' I don't mean it was right or wrong, only that it was a pretty draconian move and I know there was a lot of discussion about whether or not it was the right thing to do.

But that was the decision -- one that each of the candidates at least implicitly agreed to. Indeed, each agreed not to campaign in either of these states, again implicitly agreeing to the decision not to seat the delegates.

The Clinton camp is just pushing to seat these delegates now because the contingencies of the moment mean that the decision would favor Hillary. She was the only one whose name was on the ballot in Michigan, thus insuring her win. She has a wide lead in every Florida poll taken this month.

Even Michigan was a matter of her basically pulling a fast one on the other candidates by not taking her name off the ballot. Each of the major candidates signed a pledge not to "campaign or participate" in any primary or caucus prior to Feb. 5th except for Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. The other major candidates adopted what seems like the only reasonable interpretation of the pledge (see text here) and pulled their names from the ballot.

But then Hillary didn't, thus in essence guaranteeing her win in Michigan. . . .

More: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/25/hillary-you-dont-get-to-decide-to-seat-our-delegates/

A contrary view: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/26/04244/5558

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/25/183713/960

Apparently, there is smoke but no fire with the Obama/Rezko connection – but I guarantee you that this will not stop the media from breathlessly obsessing over it if Obama becomes the candidate

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14357.html

From those who know him best

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/opinion/25fri2.html
The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power. Racial polarization was as much a legacy of his tenure as the rebirth of Times Square.

Mr. Giuliani’s arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking. When he claims fiscal prudence, we remember how he ran through surpluses without a thought to the inevitable downturn and bequeathed huge deficits to his successor. He fired Police Commissioner William Bratton, the architect of the drop in crime, because he couldn’t share the limelight. He later gave the job to Bernard Kerik, who has now been indicted on fraud and corruption charges.

The Rudolph Giuliani of 2008 first shamelessly turned the horror of 9/11 into a lucrative business, with a secret client list, then exploited his city’s and the country’s nightmare to promote his presidential campaign. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/25/AR2008012503244.html
While it's too early to write Giuliani's campaign obituary, it's not hard to see his weaknesses as a candidate. He seems constitutionally resistant to lengthy sessions of flesh-pressing and to uncontrolled campaign dialogue. He favors long, discursive speeches and generally limits questions to a handful, when he takes questions at all. Contact is across a rope line, generally -- except when he must walk across a room to an exit, where bodyguards keep the curious at bay with deftly placed forearms, if necessary. . . .

The groundswell of support for Michael Bloomberg . . . isn’t

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/dear_mr_broder.php
Mike Bloomberg's Numbers Are Worse Than Ron Paul's . . . [read on]

Will the last Republican quitting from Congress please turn out the lights?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_20_archive.html#8494223291920226797

Theocracy watch: stewards of God’s planet?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064766.php

The Boxer: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005141.php
Rather than wait for litigation to reach its preordained conclusion, Senate environmental committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has introduced a bill that would overrule EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and instruct him to grant California's waiver.

Right out of the gate, it's got bipartisan support. . . .

Bonus item: The Whisper

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14360.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 @ 8:18 AM

 
THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM

Don’t listen to another word from the Bush gang about Iraqi “sovereignty”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/world/middleeast/25military.html
With its international mandate in Iraq set to expire in 11 months, the Bush administration will insist that the government in Baghdad give the United States broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors immunity from Iraqi law . . .

This emerging American negotiating position faces a potential buzz saw of opposition from Iraq, with its fragmented Parliament, weak central government and deep sensitivities about being seen as a dependent state . . .

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/25/but-of-course/

Good luck

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=1&docID=news-000002659256
Lawmakers Demand Input in Any U.S.-Iraq Deal . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14343.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-bases25jan25,1,1796220.story

Wrecking the U.S. military

http://www.slate.com/id/2182752
[Fred Kaplan] The Army is lowering recruitment standards to levels not seen in at least two decades, and the implications are severe—not only for the future of the Army, but also for the direction of U.S. foreign policy. . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0712.tilghman.html
[Andrew Tilghman] The Army's Other Crisis
Why the best and brightest young officers are leaving . . .

The recession: two explanations

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/23/iraq-recession/
FLASHBACK: Economists Predicted That A Prolonged U.S. Presence In Iraq Could Lead To A Recession . . . [read on]

http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/2008/01/fox-news-us-economy-tanking-because-of.html
Jon Stewart tonight played clips of various "experts" on Fox declaring that the main culprit behind our sinking financial picture and the selloffs on Wall Street is fear of a Democratic victory in November. . .

Krugman on the “stimulus” bill

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/stimulus-disappointment/

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14344.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012963.php
[Kevin Drum] I guess it could have been worse. . . .

The Dems concede ‘way too much to Bush in the stimulus package. All I can guess is that they calculated that an extended argument over the issues will hurt people who need some relief, quickly; and that partisan bickering (well, what will be represented AS partisan bickering) will simply encourage Bloomberg’s third party candidacy, which would hurt them in the fall

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_20_archive.html#9077584466660505866
[Atrios] Nancy and Boehner are on my teevee patting each other on the back for their bipartisan awesomeness. It's sort of mysterious why there needs to be bipartisan awesomeness in the House . . .

Well, if it was meant to temper Bloomberg’s aspirations, it doesn’t seem to have done so

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/speaking-of-radical-centrists-by-digby.html

Nor has it bought the Dems any good will with Bush in a wider sense

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/01/24/BL2008012401567.html
[Dan Froomkin] [T]he stimulus agreement looks like just a brief respite from what's shaping up to be another session of bloody battles in which an increasingly lame-duck president still somehow manages to consistently beat a feeble Democratic majority into submission. . .

Parliamentary jockeying over the FISA bill and telecom immunity: Reid puts off a final vote

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005133.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005137.php

Fight on . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/24/171836/135
[Hunter] There is established law for how, when necessary, to conduct surveillance on Americans. There are provisions for conducting critical, emergency surveillance without a prior warrant. None of this is complicated; the only complication is when the Bush administration decided, long before 9/11, that they did not want to make even a token effort at either following those laws or seeking modifications to those law. Instead, they went to the telecom companies to seek cooperation for simply violating the law outright, in order to accomplish the broad domestic surveillance programs that they had been longing for before they ever gained office. And except for one company -- Qwest -- all the other companies went along with the illegal activity. . . [read on]

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/24/151041/156/932/442482

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/24/18101/4412

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/24/why-cant-they-ever-punch-back/

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/24/reid-the-president-and-the-republicans-want-failure/

Jay Rockefeller (D-WV): “We” will win on FISA (huh?)

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/24/rockefeller/index.html

Explain to me why retroactive immunity, whatever its pros and cons, is necessary for the FUTURE safety and security of the country?

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/to-insure-success-bush-invokes-national.html
“If Congress does not act quickly, our national security professionals will not be able to count on critical tools they need to protect our nation, and our ability to respond quickly to new threats and circumstances will be weakened,” Bush said in a statement.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14338.html
White House to ‘play very tough’ on surveillance, telecom immunity . . .

The Bush gang, no doubt trying to influence votes on Capitol Hill, releases long-requested documents on warrantless spying

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/01/bush_opens_wiretap_documents_t.php

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005136.php

EPA administrator Stephen Johnson tried yesterday to explain why he overruled California’s emissions law, against all advice from his own staff, in an unprecedented intrusion into local policy. Here goes . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005128.php
[Paul Kiel] Finally, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson gets to show what stuff he's made of. Is he your garden variety Bush appointee who shoots off arbitrary and lawless decrees from behind his desk? Or is he the type who'll go before Congress, lead with his chin, and declare his loyalty from the rooftops?

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Senate environmental committee, rolled out the red carpet for Johnson yesterday, when she released notes that her staff had taken on internal EPA briefing documents (you can see them below). They showed, as has been reported, that Johnson's staff recommended granting California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. But Johnson ignored that and denied it anyway.

It was a battle for Boxer's committee just to see these documents. The EPA sent over heavily redacted versions, arguing that they were protected by executive privilege -- specifically that cherished privilege against "needless public confusion" over the staff advising one thing and the political appointees declaring another.

Since the EPA leadership refused to release the offending documents, Boxer's staffers had to go over and copy them themselves. Reports the AP, "EPA officials asked that the information be kept private, but Boxer's staff told EPA they wouldn't agree to that condition, and they released the excerpts to reporters Wednesday." . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005129.php
[Paul Kiel] The EPA's catch-us-if-you-can game with Congress is not the norm, Senate environmental committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said in kicking off this morning's hearing (airing on C-Span), declaring, "In all my years in the House and the Senate, I've never seen such disregard and disrespect.... I've never seen anything like it." . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005134.php
[Paul Kiel] Oddly enough, Johnson's first explanation for the timing indicated a coup to curb a staff revolt. EPA internal documents had been leaked to the press, he said, and they were misrepresenting "what actually was true." So he made the judgment call to announce the decision rather than "having inaccurate information" out there.

Two observations on this. . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005131.php
Every time [Bernie] Sanders [D-VT] asked a question and Johnson made his monotone parry, Sanders struck back to the heart of the issue.

Is global warming a major crisis facing the planet? he wanted to know.

"I don't know what you mean by major crisis," Johnson responded. . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005135.php
WARNING: Readers with an impatience for administration evasiveness should not watch this video. . . .

Oversight oversights

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/24/104230/480

Putting a leash on A.G. Mukasey?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/24/did-bush-re-nominate-bradbury-to-control-mukasey/

He’s b-a-a-a-c-k!

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/wolfowitz-returns-to-us-government-as-advisor/index.html
“The Department of State is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Paul Wolfowitz as the Chairman of the Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board. . . .”

ANOTHER senior Republican quits

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/upstate-congressman-wont-seek-re-election/index.html

Playing the victim on the Democratic side of the Presidential campaign

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/obama_winning_spin_war_over_whos_victim_in_campaign.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14348.html

All you need to know about the GOP debate last night

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/still-crazy-after-all-these-years-by.html

Fred Thomspon’s very strange, dispirited campaign

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064666.php

A typical non-apology apology from John Gibson

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801240010
“I have received comments regarding remarks I made on my radio show the other night after the shocking death of Heath Ledger. I'm sorry that some took my comments as anti-gay and insensitive. . . .”

Gee, why would they think THAT? http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/23/gibson-mocks-ledger/
Fox News host John Gibson callously mocked the death of actor Heath Ledger, calling him a “weirdo” with a “serious drug problem.”

Playing an audio clip of the iconic quote, “I wish I knew how to quit you” from Ledger’s gay romance movie Brokeback Mountain, Gibson disdainfully quipped, “Well, he found out how to quit you.” Laughing, Gibson then played another clip from Brokeback Mountain in which Ledger said, “We’re dead,” followed by his own, mocking “We’re dead” before playing the clip again.

Bonus item: Interesting issue -- is it worth $8.5 million to run ads throughout 2008 reminding people of Bush’s lies, failures, and incompetence?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14339.html

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:02 AM

 
LOSERS

Hey, if the surge is working and violence is down and everything is getting better in Iraq, why are war costs DOUBLING?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080123/ts_nm/iraq_usa_spending_dc
War funding, which averaged about $93 billion a year from 2003 through 2005, rose to $120 billion in 2006 and $171 billion in 2007 and President George W. Bush has asked for $193 billion in 2008, the nonpartisan office wrote. . . .

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/24/charge/

Political “progress” in Iraq? Look closer

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14326.html

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/it-boils-down-to

So, now that we know about the 935 lies – what about the long-delayed Senate report on prewar manipulation of intelligence?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/01/23/BL2008012301758_2.html
You may recall that more than two years ago, in November 2005, Democrats were so upset about Republican foot-dragging on the inquiry that they brought the Senate to a halt with a rare closed session to demand that work resume.

The Republicans, not surprisingly, continued to stall anyway. But the Democrats have controlled the Senate for more than a year now. Where is the report? . . .

935! http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005120.php

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/01/23/perino/index.html
[Alice] "I hardly think that the study is worth spending time on. It is so flawed, in terms of taking anything into context or including -- they only looked at members of the administration, rather than looking at members of Congress or people around the world. . . .”

More from Alice: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064576.php

AG Mukasey is coming back to Congress for testimony. Will they get an answer from him this time on whether waterboarding is torture or not?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005123.php
1. Is the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique illegal under U.S. law, including treaty obligations?

2. Based on your review of other coercive interrogation techniques and the legal analysis authorizing their use, what is your assessment of whether such techniques comply with the law?

If you followed the Yoo/Gonzales story, you know that the head of the Office of Legal Counsel was a pivotal position when it came to granting legal cover for the Bush gang’s misdeeds. That’s why this nomination is worth fighting over

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/washington/24bradburycnd.html
President Bush on Wednesday renominated Steven G. Bradbury to be an assistant attorney general in a move certain to be controversial because of Mr. Bradbury’s link to Justice Department memorandums authorizing the harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects.

Mr. Bradbury, who is from Maryland, has been serving as acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department, in effect the department’s lawyer. If confirmed, he would become the office’s permanent head. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/washington/24justice.html
Justice Nomination Seen as Snub to Democrats . . .

The Bush gang rolls out Darth Cheney to press their case on telecom immunity – and you know what THAT means

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/23/172731/046

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/23/dick-wants-his-immunity-and-he-wants-it-now/

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002738.php

More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080123/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cheney_terrorist_surveillance

It’s going to be an all-out fight because, as noted here a few days ago, the real issue isn’t telecom immunity – it’s tacit immunity for Bush and his people (and they’ll probably need it, since we still don’t know all the details of what they’ve been doing)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/23/123823/555

Chris Dodd will filibuster it again . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005125.php

. . . but in the end Bush will probably get what he wants – with Harry Reid’s help

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/23/15327/0497

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005121.php

http://sideshow.me.uk/sjan08.htm#01240346

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/23/reid/index.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012961.php

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/putting-his-foot-down-by-digby-so-heres.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14332.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/23/AR2008012302179.html

What we can do: http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/23/fisa-fundamentals-trust-us-does-not-cut-it/

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/24/1023/89672

Bush’s budget deficit starts to rise again

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080123/ap_on_go_co/budget_deficit
The deficit for the current budget year will jump to about $250 billion, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Wednesday, citing the weakening economy. And that figure does not reflect at least $100 billion in additional red ink from an upcoming deficit-financed economic stimulus measure. . .

More clues about the missing emails

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/23/the-911-commission-wants-internal-emails/

Dems push back possible Bolten/Miers contempt vote for weeks

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/23/154745/029

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/23/contempt/index.html

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005122.php

S-CHIP veto override fails (again)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/23/151330/160

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/23/9445/64637

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/sorry-kids-schip

The Republican “strategy” for motivating their dispirited electoral base

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/23/162635/676

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14331.html#more-14331

I’m sure this will help motivate them. No, it isn’t an item from the Onion or some trash magazine. Long-time GOP slime peddler Roger Stone has helped start a new anti-Hillary group: “Citizens United Not Timid.” (Think about it.)

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005124.php

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/yuks-factor-by-digby-its-little-bit.html

Heh

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/us/politics/24romney.html
At the end of the Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire this month, when the Democrats joined the candidates on stage, Mitt Romney found himself momentarily alone as his counterparts mingled, looking around a bit stiffly for a companion.

The moment was emblematic of a broader reality that has helped shape the Republican contest and could take center stage again on Thursday at a debate in Florida. Within the small circle of contenders, Mr. Romney has become the most disliked. . . .

Giuliani sinks . . .uh . . . . I don’t even know what to say any more. He’s become a ridiculous parody of himself

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064484.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064592.php
New Miami Herald poll: McCain 25%, Romney 23%, Giuliani 15%. . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064605.php
[Josh Marshall] What catches my eye here is that there is a very real chance that Rudy will come in fourth in Florida. On the positive side for Rudy, he's beating Undecided, Ron Paul and Fred Thompson, though Thompson's no longer being in the race . . .

More fun: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064608.php

The Washington Post is doing it again – regurgitating vicious lies as newsworthy WITHOUT TELLING US THEY AREN’T TRUE. And this time it’s that paragon of serious journalism, David Broder, who’s doing it

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/david_broder_do.php
[Broder] While he was on his defensive spiel, Obama also urged people to ignore "crazy" rumors that he was Muslim, not Christian . . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/a_sign_of_the_t.php

Bonus item: Fox News -- so classy

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/23/gibson-mocks-ledger/

***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

 
CREDIBILITY GAPS

Remember that Rule Number One during the early days of the Bush administration was “If the Clinton people were doing it, it was a bad idea.” Here’s how that got them into trouble

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005112.php
[Paul Kiel] A shorter rundown would go something like this: the Clinton administration, after getting into trouble over losing some White House emails, had a perfectly good system in place by the end of its term. But the Bushies threw that out the window for no apparent reason when they came in and didn't put anything in its place. Whether deviousness or incompetence is to blame is unclear. . . .

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/22/two-reminders-not-an-agency-and-search-terms/
[Emptywheel] We've had a bit of discussion whether the White House has lost all its email because of some nefariousness--or because of rank incompetence. I'm still not claiming to know the answer to that question. But there are two data points I want to remind everyone of. . . .

The 12 hour gap

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012208A.shtml
[Jason Leopold] At 8 PM on September 29, 2003, former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales received a phone call from the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Gonzales received formal notification that evening that the DOJ had launched a criminal investigation into the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson.

Curiously, the Justice Department, which at the time was headed by John Ashcroft, officially launched the investigation on September 26, 2003, but Ashcroft waited more than three days before notifying Gonzales and the White House, whose high-level staffers were reported to be responsible for disseminating Wilson's affiliation with the spy agency to the media just two-and-a-half months earlier.

Gonzales asked the DOJ if he could wait until morning before notifying White House staffers about the probe, thereby delaying the issuance of a directive to preserve emails and other documents related to the leak of Wilson's undercover status federal investigators would need as part of their investigation.

The DOJ agreed.

But after Gonzales hung up the telephone, he immediately contacted Andrew Card, who was White House chief of staff at the time, and told him about the investigation.

Twelve hours later, Gonzales sent out an email to more than 1,000 White House staffers stating, "you must preserve all materials that might in any way be related to the [Justice] department's investigation" of Wilson as well as any emails or documents that mentioned her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose criticism of the administration's prewar Iraq intelligence led White House officials to leak his wife's identity to the media.

What happened during those 12 hours is anyone's guess. . . .

A searchable database of Bush war lies

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/23/05948/3557

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/22/study-false-statements-p_n_82764.html

http://www.juancole.com/2008/01/935-false-statements-that-led-nation-to.html

[NB: It’s a BIG data base]

“The surge is working” – how many times have you heard that phrase? Well, guess what . . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/just-six-more-months-please-by-dda

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/22/andrew-bacevich-meet-david-petraeus/

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/22/213859/752

[NB: I also don't trust the idea that these policies can be characterized as "working" or not. It's a simpleminded slogan superimposed on a complex, conflicted situation. But everyone, including the media and the Democrats, has bought into it - forcing people into the argument that the surge ISN'T working, which is equally simpleminded.]

Reconciliation in Iraq? Tell me another . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iraq.html
Iraqi lawmakers have refused to pass the 2008 budget because of rows over funding, including how much money to give the autonomous Kurdistan region, in the latest sign of the country's deep political divisions. . . .

On the US Attorney firings and politicization of the Dept of Justice: a “scathing report” is forthcoming

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005117.php

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/attorneys-probe-deepens-2008-01-22.html

More: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/22/still-investigating-crimes-associated-with-the-usa-purge/

Welcome back: Dems want to extend the old “Protect America Act” without the telecom immunity provision. The GOP says, “no way” – and once again the Dems have put themselves in the defensive on an issue they should be controlling

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005116.php

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/its-baaack-by-digby-it-looks-like-were.html

It’s still the economy, stupid

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064408.php

You know, for a guy with an inflated sense of his own leadership ability and a grandiose sense of his Historic Importance, Bush sure likes to pile blame onto his advisors, not his own decision-making responsibility

http://www.first-draft.com/2008/01/today-on-hold-7.html
Q Does he have any reaction to Harry Reid's comment that Harry Reid thinks that the economy is sliding into recession?

MS. PERINO: Well, the President's advisors are advising him that they are not forecasting a recession. . . .

Q Dana, does the President regret not backing or officially backing an economic stimulus package sooner?

MS. PERINO: Well, the President's advisors advised him along the way. . . .

Q The description, Dana -- about this economy, is again what from the economic advisors?

MS. PERINO: The economic advisors believe that the fundamentals of the economy are healthy . . .

Dear Mayor Bloomberg: you know that groundswell of calls for a “bipartisan third party candidate” (i.e., YOU)? Well, it doesn’t exist

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/memo_to_pundits.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14319.html

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005117.php

On the politics of meanness

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064354.php

Hmmmm. . . . . Obama and Rezko: nothing there?

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/22/141117/268

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/19/135420/218

Salvaging the Republican party during its fracturous campaign

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/22/david-brooks-gops-complete-implosion-is-good-for-the-gop/

Ho ho ho. Guess what Rudy is saying about Florida NOW?

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/election_central_florida_roundup.php

Here’s why: http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/report_rudy_dropping_in_florida_despite_sinking_big_money_into_the_state.php

[NB: Let’s see, John Edwards, who has run a respectable second or third in most of the primaries so far, is being told he MUST quit because it is the “honorable thing to do.” Giuliani hasn’t come close in any primary, but says that pattern of losing doesn’t mean anything because he hasn’t really been trying – and he’s still being propped up as a viable national candidate. Why?]

Buh-bye Fred

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/22/143240/018
The guy even quits lazy. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14320.html

Cui bono? http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/01/thompsons_out_who_gains.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 @ 7:43 AM

 
GOOD RIDDANCE

We’re in the last year of Bush’s reign, and the end can’t come quickly enough

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-backtrack21jan21,1,676371.story
The Bush administration is beginning its last year in office by quietly scaling back its foreign policy ambitions as it struggles with new obstacles and rapidly dwindling influence. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/business/worldbusiness/23cnd-asiastox.html
Stock markets across Asia plunged even farther and faster on Tuesday than on Monday — while stock markets in Europe also opened with further losses on Tuesday — as anxious sellers dumped huge numbers of shares on worries that an economic slowdown in the United States could drag down growth around the world. . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14302.html

More CIA interrogation tapes? Apparently so

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005108.php

So, national security is Job One, eh?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080118/ap_on_go_pr_wh/security_grants;_ylt=AkOvYPNjLBt0lKHJbYv52leyFz4D
The Bush administration will cut counterterrorism money for police, firefighters and rescue departments next year. . .

If the point of a stimulus package is, say, actually to stimulate the economy, and not just to enrich Bush’s plutocratic “base,” here’s what we should do

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_20_archive.html#5323185586444885956

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005107.php

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361596/quotes
[Bush] What an impressive crowd: the haves, and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite, I call you my base.

The missing emails

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/21/plame-investigation-and-missing-emails-analysis-on-emails/
[Emptywheel] [I]t appears that almost all the periods for which OVP or WH were missing emails (the exception being September 12, 2003 and May 21-23, 2005) were periods during which they were responding to document requests or subpoenas. There is clear indication that OVP, at least, attempted to shield conversations with journalists outside of Novak, Phelps, and Royce (and given Libby's claim that he didn't speak to Novak the week of the leak even though his phone records showed he did, he appears to have tried to shield his conversation with Novak, as well). Thus, one possible explanation for the missing email archives is that OVP and WH were trying to hide email discussions about their attempts to hide the most incriminating discussions with journalists, notably with Judy Miller. . .

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2008/01/those-missing-emails-and-12-hour.html
[Joseph] On the morning of September 30, 2003, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales sent a message to everyone working for the President and Vice President -- "preserve all materials that might be relevant" to the Valerie Plame probe, which was then just beginning.

Looks like someone didn't get the message. The emails from Cheney's office for that period were not preserved -- in fact, they have gone missing. . . .

Here's the part Raw Story doesn't mention: Gonzales became aware of the probe on September 29, the day before this formal notice made the rounds. Twelve hours before that message went out, Gonzales gave White House Chief of Staff Andy Card a "heads up" warning, informing him of the probe. . . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/21/cheney-emails-missing-from-day-leak-probe-started/
[US House] “Vice President Cheney’s office showed no electronic messages on 16 occasions from September 2003 to May 2005.” Among the sixteen days for which email are missing from Vice President Cheney’s office “is Sept. 30, 2003, the same day the day the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced they were investigating who outed former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/21/AR2008012102070.html
For years, the Bush administration has relied on an inadequate archiving system for storing the millions of e-mails sent through White House servers, despite court orders and statutes requiring the preservation of such records, according to documents and technical experts.

President Bush's White House early on scrapped a custom archiving system that the Clinton administration had adopted under a federal court order. From 2001 to 2003, the Bush White House also recorded over computer backup tapes that provided a last line of defense for preserving e-mails . . .

Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005105.php
[Paul Kiel] It's official! The EPA-California greenhouse gas affair has matured into the promised knock-down-drag-out fight it showed promise to become. That's right, barely a month into it, and we've already got an assertion of executive privilege. . . .

John Bolton condemns the Iran NIE as proof of the “illegitimate politicization” of the US intelligence process – this in contrast, presumably, with the “legitimate politicization” of intelligence that he and his bosses engaged in to drive the country into war with Iraq

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005106.php

South Carolina Democratic debate assessments

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064349.php
[Josh Marshall] Hillary can be relentless and like a sledgehammer delivering tendentious but probably effective attacks. But whatever you think of those attacks, Obama isn't very good at defending himself. And that's hard for me to ignore when thinking of him as a general election candidate. . . . [read on]

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/21/22826/5856
[Jeralyn Merritt] I thought Edwards and Hillary did the best. I thought it was one of Barack Obama's worst debate performances . . .

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002734.php
[Steven Clemons] I'm not going to run through every detail of this extremely interesting debate, and I wish I had heard none of the political commentators afterward because listening to Mark Halperin (a virtual friend of mine) after, I was very irritated. He said he gave Obama an A- tonight and then a B+ each to Hillary Clinton and to Edwards.

I have to go with my own filters, not those of others -- and to me, regardless of who one supported tonight, it's clear that each scored points but that Hillary Clinton performed with an authority, presence in that huge hall, and mastery of detail that was just second to none. She hammered Bush on the semi-secret deal he's trying to rig with the Iraqi government to commit American troops and bases indefinitely -- something the others did not mention. She had numbers and details flowing forth as if they were as natural as could be.

One thing that was weird for me in this debate is that Hillary Clinton is clearly not mimicking her husband in any way. John Edwards is. Bill Clinton is the master of anecdotes and "let me tell you all a story" moments. Hillary is dense with facts, details, experiences -- but it's not warm and fuzzy. . . .

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/21/debate-post-mortem/
[Jane Hamsher] I have to say I enjoyed this debate quite a bit. After the first half snipe fest, the candidates sat down and conversed. Obama seemed much more at ease at that point and was actually quite gracious and funny about being on the receiving end of the Clinton/Edwards tag team.

But most importantly, I felt like we were finally getting to enjoy the benefits of having a woman and an African American as frontrunners in the race. Perhaps it was because the field has now narrowed to three, but a lot more time seemed to be devoted to discussing the subjects of equality, equal pay and social justice as core Democratic values by candidates who were speaking from the heart, from experience.

I was actually quite proud of them all.

More: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/01/21/democratic_debate_reaction.html

John Edwards says he won’t quit the campaign, yet is under a lot of pressure to do that. But why should he?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14307.html
[Steve Benen] Edwards will settle for third-place finishes, indefinitely, and keep picking up a few delegates here, a few delegates there. That will likely give him some relevance at the convention, should it remain a close contest. Edwards can also continue to “watch the dynamics,” which effectively means, “see if one of the other two stumbles badly.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064305.php
[Josh Marshall] Seriously, why should John Edwards drop out of the race? I think his chances of winning the nomination at this point are quite slim. And I could understand if he wanted to drop out. But is there some reason he should? Is he under some obligation?

It's not clear to me which candidate his withdrawal would help most at this point. And depending on what your judgment of that question is, I can see supporters of Hillary or Obama wanting him to get out. That makes sense to me.

But I don't see any reason that Edwards is under any obligation to get out of the race as long as his supporters are willing to fund his campaign.

And in the case of Edwards specifically, I would say two things. First, as others have noted, his campaign has had an effect on this race out of proportion to his poll support in as much as he's forced the two other leading candidates to grapple with issues they would not have otherwise. . .

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_20_archive.html#6976038374824557818

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_20_archive.html#8969271638247944527

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/us/politics/21edwards.html

What next on the campaign front?

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3347

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3352

Rudy Giuliani’s campaign is turning into a joke

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064317.php
[Josh Marshall] [I]t's getting harder and harder for news anchors to keep a straight face when they confront Rudy with the fact that he's now 1 for 6 against Ron Paul. But here's a couple recent examples of Rudy trying to put a brave (and in one instance, Raccoon-like) face on it. . . .

He’s losing IN NEW YORK: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/01/21/2008-01-21_poll_giuliani_trails_mccain_in_new_york.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/21/144917/529

The kind of man he is: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/us/politics/22giuliani.html

9iu11iani: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/21/125948/934

Exploiting the terrorist threat: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14303.html

What went wrong? http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012940.php

Ah’m down wit dat, yo

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/uptight-white-guy-out-of-his-element.html

Fred Thompson couldn’t quite stir himself to work up the energy to get seriously into the presidential race – and now he doesn’t seem to be able to stir up the energy to get out of it

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064340.php

The right wing’s quarter-billion dollar answer to MoveOn.org – because these left-wing Internet groups are just so darn powerful

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005103.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14309.html

More attacks: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064315.php
The Heritage Foundation's 'blog' indicts the "moral bankruptcy of Talking Points Memo." . . .

Bonus item: I haven’t expended any effort here in attacking Jonah Goldberg’s profoundly stupid book “Liberal Fascism.” You can find many scathing reviews online. But if you want just a flavor of how incoherent and intellectually dishonest his argument is, check this out (thanks to Avedon Carol for the link)

http://www.osmond-riba.org/lis/journal/2008_01_13_j_archive.htm#2061555325127505188

***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 @ 6:46 AM

 
WAR AND PEACE

We have to listen to the “serious” people on what to do about Iraq – the same serious people who got us into this mess

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/20/gordon/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] The New York Times' Michael Gordon -- a long-time, vigorous proponent of both the Iraq War and the Surge while masquerading as a "reporter" (he was once publicly admonished for admitting his pro-Surge views) -- has an article today lambasting Democratic candidates for advocating an end to our occupation of Iraq. Citing pro-war arguments from both anonymous military officers and his standard list of pro-war Serious Experts (Michael O'Hanlon and Anthony Cordesman), Gordon argues that the Only Serious Option is to remain in Iraq for a long, long time, and any politicians who refuses to accept this is being -- for that reason alone -- irresponsible and Unserious. . . . [read on]

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_20_archive.html#8683328123400390560
[WP] In only one respect has the surge achieved undeniable success: It has ensured that U.S. troops won't be coming home anytime soon. . .

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/bacevich_on_iraq.php
[WP] The real legacy of the surge is that it will enable Bush to bequeath the Iraq war to his successor -- no doubt cause for celebration at AEI, although perhaps less so for the families of U.S. troops. Yet the stubborn insistence that the war must continue also ensures that Bush's successor will, upon taking office, discover that the post-9/11 United States is strategically adrift. Washington no longer has a coherent approach to dealing with Islamic radicalism. . . .

Shocking: 1 in 5 soldiers comes back from Iraq with brain injuries

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/20/iraq-brain-trauma/
“[T]he legacy of that will last all of our lifetimes and it’s incalculable.”

Increased air strikes equal increased civilian casualties. That’s always the way it works

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/20/from-four-a-week-to-four-a-day-the-air-surge-in-iraq/

Brilliant. Even I would say that one of the few things the Bush gang has done right in Iraq is to put General David Petraeus in charge. So what are they doing now? Figuring out a way to pull him out and assign him somewhere else

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/washington/21military.html

Good point: Bush’s new “stimulus proposal” is far bigger than the one he proposed in the wake of 9/11. The first economic catastrophe was caused by terrorists; who caused the second one?

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/how-bad-is-economy.html

Why it may not help: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012931.php
[Kevin Drum] Bruce Bartlett takes to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to warn us that while a one-shot tax rebate in April might make us all feel good, it won't actually stimulate the economy much because people are unlikely to spend more than a small portion of it. At least, that's what Milton Friedman argued when Gerald Ford tried a tax rebate during the 1974 recession . . .

When is a veto not a veto?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/20/11327/4799

Another controversial Justice Dept nominee

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/senators-need-to-ask-kevin-oconnor.html

What is it with Texas Supreme Court judges? First, Alberto Gonzales, now this

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005102.php
[Diane Vacca] They say everything is bigger in Texas. And sure enough, if you've ever seen a bigger legal mess than the case of Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina, we'd love to hear about it.

Last June, the Medinas' house burned down in a fire that spread to two other houses, causing a total of about $900,000 in damages. Investigators suspected arson when they found an accelerant in the Medinas’ garage where the fire started. And the discovery that the house had been in foreclosure a year earlier deepened their suspicion. Medina and his wife gave conflicting accounts of the judge’s whereabouts at the time of the fire. . . .

Medina was charged with tampering with or falsifying evidence, and his wife with arson, both felonies. Arson carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison; tampering with an investigation, a maximum of 10 years. They were set free on bail—$20,000 for Mrs. Medina and $5,000 for the judge. . . [read on]

Helpful: framing vs spinning vs lying

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3334
[Paul Rosenberg] Framing:

A: "The glass is half full."
B: "The glass is half empty." . . . .

Spinning:

A: "The glass is half empty."
B: "Why didn't you say it was half full?"
A: "But that's what I DID say! They're both the same, you know." . . .

Lying:

A: "The glass is half full."
B: "Why are you saying it's half empty? You're such a pessimist! Liberals are all pessimists!"

Counting delegates (and superdelegates)

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/20/16209/3985
[J Ro] It's becoming clear that the primary fight is turning into a two-way battle for delegates. The opening salvo of contradictory victory press releases from the Obama and Clinton camps is only the beginning.

What does it mean if the narrative shifts away from winners and losers and towards delegate counts? . . .

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/delegate_counts_where_we_stand_now.php

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/01/20/delegate_counts.html

What’s a superdelegate? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22067963

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/20/14034/7446
[msn1] The campaigns who put the delegate slates together are not going to put anybody but the most committed loyalists on the ballot. But once those delegates get to the convention they are free to vote for whomever they want. In reality the only way for a candidate to lose those delegates would be for some major political damage to happen to a candidate between the time he or she secures a majority of votes and the convention, and for the candidate to refuse to withdraw. In that scenario, you could see delegates being pressured to change their vote, and they would be able to under the rules. The 796 superdelegates would also be under the same pressure to revoke any endorsements they had made. It's an unlikely scenario, but, the point is, it is possible. Delegates are not bound to the candidates.

Nice catch: Who said this?

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/torture_/2008/01/moral_clarity_dept.php
X was similarly vague about how X would handle special interrogation methods used by the CIA. X said that while X does not condone torture, so much has been kept secret that X would not know unless elected what other extreme measures interrogators are using, and therefore could not say whether X would change or continue existing policies.

"It is not clear yet exactly what this administration is or isn't doing. We're getting all kinds of mixed messages," X said. "I don't think we'll know the truth until we have a new president. I think [until] you can get in there and actually bore into what's been going on, you're not going to know."

Obama drops Rezko’s money (good, but shoulda done it earlier)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/01/obama_gives_away_questionable.php

Who writes Obama’s stirring prose? A 26 year old kid

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/20/205733/449

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/fashion/20speechwriter.html

The silly season

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/21/05315/4404
[Yahoo] Chuck Norris Says McCain Too Old To Be President

You’ve probably heard a thousand times the CW analysis that McCain is the candidate of military conservatives; Huckabee the candidate of social conservatives; and Romney the candidate of economic conservatives. That may capture a certain set of fault lines within the Republican party. But here is a more subtle analysis, I think (Thanks to Matt Yglesias for the link)

http://www.patrickruffini.com/2008/01/20/no-tactical-voting-in-sc/

Rudy’s nonsense

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/history_hesitated.php
“When corruption ruled, he challenged it. When welfare failed, he changed it. When crime thrived, he fought it. When government broke, he fixed it. And when the world wavered. And history hesitated. He never did. . . .”

[NB: “History hesitated”??]

The kind of man he is

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/02/proust_rove200802
[Karl Rove] What is your motto?
I like the one that used to be the motto on the unit coin of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the Blackhorse: “Be prepared! Find the bastards. And pile on!”

Wrong about this (just like everything else)

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_011808/content/01125109.guest.html
[Rush Limbaugh, January 18] Fred Thompson Surges in South Carolina . . .

http://www.nowpublic.com/politics/senator-fred-thompson-dropping-out
[January 19] Is Fred Thompson Dropping out following South Carolina Loss?

Bonus item: Celebrating Martin Luther King

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/20/232627/867

http://www.juancole.com/2008/01/king-war-cannot-achieve-even-negative.html
“They are talking about peace as a distant goal, as an end we seek, but one day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal we seek, but that it is a means by which we arrive at that goal.”

***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 @ 8:02 AM

 
COVER-UPS

Just a coincidence

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080119/ap_on_go_pr_wh/white_house_e_m
[AP] Apparent gaps in White House e-mail archives coincide with dates in late 2003 and early 2004 when the administration was struggling to deal with the CIA leak investigation and the possibility of a congressional probe into Iraq intelligence failures . . .

Among the periods of time for which the chart indicates e-mail is missing is a five-day span starting on Jan. 29, 2004, when the White House was dealing with the possibility of an election-year probe by Congress into Iraq intelligence failures.

Not archived by the office of the vice president is e-mail for Jan. 29-31, 2004, according to chart information released by Waxman. In addition, all e-mail from the White House Office in the Executive Office of the President was listed as missing for one of those days.

The chart indicates that e-mail also was not archived by the White House on the following Monday — Feb. 2, 2004 — the day President Bush took a big step in averting what could have been a politically troublesome congressional inquiry. He ordered an independent investigation into intelligence failures in Iraq. . . .

The Plame timeline: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/19/plame-investigation-and-missing-emails-timeline/

The CIA tape case: dynamite

http://harpers.org/archive/2008/01/hbc-90002165
[Scott Horton] The destruction of the CIA torture tapes is still a fairly young scandal as Washington scandals go. It hasn’t even acquired a “gate” suffix. But the Administration is already busily choreographing it, with the dozens of shiny metal parts clicking away in synchronicity, like a finely designed mechanical watch. There is an admirable efficiency to the political process. If only these people were a fraction as good at the work of government as they are at political shenanigans, I keep thinking. The Bush Administration plan is simple: let’s think of this as a movie–Abu Ghraib, The Sequel. Instead of offering up a group of young grunts for the sacrifice, this time it will be a retired senior management figure at the CIA and some of his subordinates. And this sacrifice will, in the White House’s view, divert attention from the real source of both scandals, which is high in the upper reaches of the Executive Branch. Inside the White House, in fact. . . . [read on]

“The Surge to Nowhere”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/18/AR2008011802873.html
[Andrew Bacevich] As the fifth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom nears, the fabulists are again trying to weave their own version of the war. The latest myth is that the "surge" is working. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.juancole.com/2008/01/iraq-is-still-bad-bargain.html
[Juan Cole] If someone came to you six years ago and said that for only $2 trillion, you could have for your colony a burned out country, a failed state, and a semi-permanent incubator of terrorism and hatred against the US, would you have ponied up the money? That's what you've got, and that is what it cost you. . . [read on]

The EPA scandal cover-up continues

http://epascandal.notlong.com
[AP] Invoking executive privilege, the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday refused to provide lawmakers with a full explanation of why it rejected California's greenhouse gas regulations. . . .

Romney and McCain split victories, and the Republican side remains hopelessly muddled

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/us/politics/20assess.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/19/AR2008011903187.html

Huckabee’s speech was better: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/19/AR2008011902859.html

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14296.html

McCain still has a huge target on his back: the party regulars do – not – want – him

http://www.slate.com/id/2182354/fr/rss/

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/01/20/a_big_mccain_win_but_trouble_in_the_weeds.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064228.php

http://toohotfortnr.blogspot.com/2008/01/doing-good-and-looking-fly.html

Rudy: the worse he does in the voting, the more grandiose his aspirations become

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/19/103717/485

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/19/142028/025

“Rudy’s Last Stand” http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/20/2658/78063

The point of primaries isn’t to win vote percentages, but to win delegates. That makes Hillary’s “victory” a bit ambiguous

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/19/AR2008011902184.html
Clinton Remarks on Victory After Nevada Caucus

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/obama_campaign_we_might_have_won_nevada_caucus.php
Obama Campaign: We Won Nevada Caucus -- Based On Delegate Count

Who won? http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/01/20/shifting_standards_of_victory.html

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/hillary_campaign_no_we_won_the_nevada_caucuses.php

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3331

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/19/192914/929

Who knows? http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/20/04859/5980

Obama’s Achilles heel?

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/749138,obama20web.article
For the first time, Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama has surfaced in the federal corrupton case against his longtime campaign fund-raiser, Tony Rezko, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. . . .

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4111483
In sharp contrast to his tough talk about ethics reform in government, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., approached a well-known Illinois political fixer under active federal investigation, Antoin "Tony" Rezko, for "advice" as he sought to find a way to buy a house shortly after being elected to the United States Senate. . . .

Bloomberg’s third-party threat: I think it’s an anti-Hillary ploy. If she (or Edwards) gets the nomination, he’s likely to jump in. If Obama gets it, he probably won’t. That’s my take anyway

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14288.html

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/television/sunday_show_preview_75337.asp
Meet the Press (NBC): Tom Brokaw, presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Newsweek's Jon Meacham, Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan, and NPR's Michele Norris.

Face the Nation (CBS): John Edwards, David Axelrod from the Obama campaign, and Politico's Roger Simon.

Fox News Sunday: Mitt Romney and Sen. Chuck Schumer.

This Week (ABC): Rudy Giuliani, Rep. Charles Rangel and a roundtable with Financial Times' Chrystia Freeland, The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel, ABC's Matthew Dowd, and George Will.

CNN Late Edition : Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), Majority Whip, Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI) chair, Congressional Black Caucus and a roundtable with Jeffrey Toobin, CNN senior legal analyst, Fareed Zakaria, CNN analyst; editor, Newsweek International and Dana Bash, CNN congressional correspondent

Bonus item: Could George Bush become an American citizen?

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2008/01/could-president.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 @ 8:11 AM

 
NO DOLLAR LEFT BEHIND

I’m not an expert on the national economy, by any means – but I know enough to know that it is a tremendously complicated thing. If you push here, something pops up over there; you try to fix one problem, but end up making another problem worse.

Right now we have a litany of economic problems: a slumping economy; a growing federal deficit; a massive trade deficit; a dollar that’s being devalued around the world; foreign countries soaking up US debt (in the form of govt T bills) and buying US properties, including banks and financial institutions; the mortgage crisis and other problems caused by deregulation; rising unemployment; and a slide in consumer confidence . . . These require complex, multifaceted, and interdependent solutions

Mister Fixit comes along just in time to make things worse. He sees this all merely as an opportunity to lock in $145 billion in new tax cuts.

So what happens? He gives his speech and then the stock market, which had been creeping hopefully back, tanks for a 300 point loss. And you know what? They’re happy to see it, because a sense of crisis is their only hope for getting these tax cuts through Congress

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/business/18cnd-econ.html
President Bush called on Friday for about $145 billion worth of tax rebates for American families and incentives for businesses to provide “a shot in the arm to keep a fundamentally strong economy healthy” and avert a slide into recession. . . .

http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/18/markets/markets_0405/index.htm
Stocks slipped Friday, ending a tough week on a down note as investors mulled upbeat earnings from GE and IBM and President Bush's proposed fiscal stimulus plan, but remained wary about the outlook for the economy. . . .

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/stock-market-plunges-nearly-300-points.html
[Chris in Paris] Has he ever *not* made a mess with his plans? The reverse Midas touch strikes again. Maybe Cheney could update us all on the economy instead of looking as though he's at a funeral in the background. Bush patsy Paulson isn't looking much better though I suspect his years at Goldman taught him enough to know how badly they ruined everything. Where's the big talk about the US economy being so "resilient" now? Wrong once again.

Krugman takes them apart: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/return-of-the-tax-families/
The selling strategy for the first Bush tax cut relied heavily on “tax families” — photogenic families who would supposedly be the big beneficiaries of the tax break. In fact, they were mainly beneficiaries of the child tax credit and the “cutout”, the reduction of some peoples’ rates from 15% to 10% — and they were carefully chosen to give a misleading picture both of how the typical family would fare and who the real main beneficiaries were.

Well, there they go again. This is from the “fact sheet” on Bush’s stimulus proposal. . . .

This email business must have the Bush gang pretty worried, because they’re descending into gobbledygook and easily-refuted lies. It’s very simple: they broke the law by not properly archiving WH emails; they broke the law by erasing the ones they did save; and they broke the law by using non-WH email accounts for official business (through the RNC and campaign accounts), which were never archived – although that last part of the story seems to have been forgotten. And all of this just happens to have occurred during some of the most suspicious periods of WH skullduggery (lying to start a war with Iraq, outing Valerie Plame, etc.) But I’m sure they will explain that it’s just an unfortunate mistake and coincidence.

I think it’s clear that they have decided that being found in violation of the Presidential Records Act – if and when that ever happens – will be less of a problem for them than what those emails would have disclosed

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005097.php
[Paul Kiel] Sometimes it's just too easy. . . . [read on]

Who’s on first? http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14277.html

http://www.first-draft.com/2008/01/today-on-hold-6.html

When did the WH “discover” that the emails were missing?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/18/henrys-dates-two-data-points-from-the-plame-investigation/

http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/30837

http://www.first-draft.com/2008/01/ovp-missing-ema.html

Waxman’s on the case

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/White_House_no_email_archived_on_0118.html
Congressman calls hearing after White House report shows 473 days of email 'missing'

A White House chart shown to Congress indicates no e-mail was archived on 473 days for various units of the Executive Office of the President, a House committee chairman says.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., says a White House spokesman's comments suggesting no e-mail had disappeared conflicted with what congressional staffers were told in September. He also said the White House has refused to make the chart public.

On Thursday night, Waxman said he was scheduling a hearing for Feb. 15 and challenged the White House to explain spokesman Tony Fratto's remark that "we have absolutely no reason to believe that any e-mails are missing." . . .

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/01/18/BL2008011801660.html

Don’t touch Dick Cheney. It’s against the law!

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14279.html

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jan/18/denver-lawyer-seeks-depose-cheney-assault-case/

Could the Dems gain a filibuster-proof majority?

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/18/17755/7451

John Edwards has a legitimate beef

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/keeping_more_th.php

Clinton/Obama – getting nasty again

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/01/18/obama/index.html

Obama’s big goof: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/game-changing-strategy-by-digby-so-i.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/19/2262/76171

Tom DeLay – a lying crook forced to resign in disgrace – says McCain would be a disaster for the GOP

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/tom-delay-mccains-nomination-will.html

Watch it: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064140.php
"McCain has done more to hurt the Republican party than any elected official I know of."

Rudy Giuliani: “the worst presidential campaign in history”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064103.php
[JW] Gulliani was the national frontrunner a year ago in many, many polls. He led virtually all of his Republican opponents, and several of the top Democratic candidates as well. Today, he has been drubbed in every race and is left in a do-or-die situation in Florida. . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064117.php
[TN] I think the Rudy! strategy at this point looks like this: Lose every state. Claim you never really contested any of them. Hope for a brokered convention. . . .

9/11! 9/11! 9/11! http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064134.php
[AMS] As we've seen Rudy hemorrhage support and lose increasingly embarrassing primary after primary, the 9/11 focused rhetoric of his campaign has sunk far below the line of self-parody into some kind of bizarro world . . .

Watch: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064093.php

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064109.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064083.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14284.html

Looks like Rush is homing in on his preferred Republican candidate

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/18/mitt-the-gop-approved-placeholder-for-jeb-2012/

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/18/late-night-fdl-whither-rush/

But bad news for Mitt: the beat reporters don’t like him. Not at all

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14282.html

Bonus item: Cookin’ With Mike

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/fried_squirrel.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 @ 7:52 AM

 
TRACK RECORDS

Bush: Look, let’s just pretend that NIE on Iran never existed, shall we?

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/17/bush-nie-iran/

Federal judge wants to know more about what the CIA did with those tapes

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/us/18tapescnd.html

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/17/judge-hellerstein-calls-the-cia-on-its-bs/
[Emptywheel] Wow. Judge Hellerstein is not amused with the CIA's assertion that the torture tapes--which IG staffers flew to Thailand to view as part of their investigation into CIA interrogation methods--were not part of their investigation. Nor does he buy the assertion that the "special review" is not an investigation. He basically called Bull on the CIA's assertions in about six different ways. . . .

More: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/17/it-smells-like-a-cover-up/

The real scandal

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2008/01/real-cia-tapes-scandal-that-everyone-is.html
[Marty Lederman] These investigations are important. But they are obscuring the much larger scandal here. Of course, the largest scandal of all—one that John Durham apparently is not investigating—is that the interrogations themselves were part of a concerted CIA program in violation of the criminal prohibition against torture, and in breach of the Geneva and Torture Conventions, a program sanctioned at the highest levels of government, and approved by countless professional lawyers, doctors, government officials, and psychologists. That’s why the tapes were destroyed—because they were stark evidence of wrongdoing, perhaps even of war crimes.

But even sticking to the tapes themselves, the greater scandal is not that these tapes were destroyed, but instead that the CIA did not create tapes of all its high-level interrogations. That is to say, the real outrage was the orders from the CIA to stop taping. . .

More: http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/the-crime-vs-the

Def Sect’y Gates says the surge will be over by July. (Gee, I thought this decision was going to be made by our “commanders on the ground”?)

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/gates-surge-done-by

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/washington/18military.html

Are they wanting to switch troops from Iraq to Pakistan?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012921.php

Contractors in Iraq are basically immune from prosecution, no matter what they do – and that’s just fine with the Bush gang

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2241901,00.html

The WH tries to explain the missing emails. Please tell me how this isn’t a crime?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/17/tony-fratto-opens-his-big-fat-mouth-and-waxman-responds/
MR. FRATTO: I think our review of this, and you saw the court filing on this, and our declaration in response to the judge's questions -- I think to the best of what all the analysis we've been able to do, we have absolutely no reason to believe that any emails are missing; there's no evidence of that. There's no -- we tried to reconstruct some of the work that went into a chart that was entered into court records and could not replicate that or could not authenticate the correctness of the data in that chart. And from everything that we can tell, our analysis of our backup systems, we have no reason to believe that any email at all are missing.

Q So where are they?

MR. FRATTO: Where are what? . . .

No evidence? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011703575.html
The White House possesses no archived e-mail messages for many of its component offices, including the Executive Office of the President and the Office of the Vice President, for hundreds of days between 2003 and 2005, according to the summary of an internal White House study . . .

Timeline: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/17/disappearing-white-house-emails-timeline/
February 26, 2001: Gonzales informs White House staff they must preserve their email. . . [read on]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/01/17/BL2008011701213.html
[Dan Froomkin] The law is clear that e-mails sent and received by anyone in the White House -- just like all official White House documents -- should be instantaneously and automatically archived.

So someone in the White House should have been making sure the law was being followed, and that all e-mails were indeed being properly stored for posterity.

That same someone also should have been making sure White House staffers weren't circumventing archive requirements by using outside e-mail addresses. But the White House legal counsel's office remained silent as top aides, including Karl Rove, fired off possibly hundreds of thousands of official-business e-mails from Republican National Committee accounts, where most data is routinely deleted after 30 days.

The matter in the news today relates not to those e-mails, but to as many as several million others -- these actually on the eop.gov accounts -- that seem to have vanished. . .

More: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/18/henrys-dates-medicare-part-d/

The fight over telecom immunity continues

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/17/telecoms/index.html

Pardons? http://www.samefacts.com/archives/terrorism_and_its_control_/2008/01/pardon_the_telecoms.php

Fed Chairman Bernanke tells Bush, “Don’t use the economic crisis as an excuse to push through your tax cuts”

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_13_archive.html#2222350511809732651

Who asked the Secret Service to lie?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/us/18colorado.html

No, I don’t think John Edwards has much of a chance to win, but that’s for the voters to decide, right?

http://agonist.org/ian_welsh/20080114/accounts_of_edwards_electoral_death_are_perhaps_premature
Accounts of the Electoral Death of John Edwards Are Perhaps Premature . . .

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3286
Edwards is now being left out of Survey USA polling. . . .

Watch: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/edwards_campaig.php
Camp Edwards has released a short vid lampooning the media's treatment of...itself . . . [F]or the past year now we've been hearing justifications for why the Edwards campaign doesn't deserve the same level of coverage as the two leading Dem superstar candidates. . . .

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064006.php

Romney lies about lobbyists in his campaign

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/romney-and-staff-lose-cool-with-ap.html

McCain’s already talking about VP running mates: Lieberman? Huckabee? Thompson?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14273.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/17/115119/258

Sometimes you just have to hate the nature of our politics

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005091.php
This is certainly the nastiest line we've heard in the push polls going out to about a million South Carolinians. Respondents who say that they're supporting John McCain are told "Fact: McCain voted to allow scientific experiments to be done on unborn children." . . .

Let’s not hear any more about what a “nice guy” Huckabee is, all right?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14269.html
[Steve Benen] About a month ago, David Corn took a closer look at a book Mike Huckabee wrote as governor in 1998, called “Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our Culture of Violence” . . . At one point in the book, Huckabee argues, “It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations — from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia.”

It certainly looked like Huckabee was linking homosexuality with sadomasochism, pedophilia, and necrophilia, which is, of course, rather insane. On “Meet the Press” a few weeks ago, Tim Russert asked the former governor about this, and he said the comment in the book had been “taken out of the larger context of that book.”

Russert asked directly if Huckabee considers homosexuality somehow equivalent to pedophilia or sadomasochism. “No,” Huckabee said, “of course not.”

With this in mind, Huckabee’s interview with BeliefNet helped shed some additional light on his anti-gay animus. . . .

More: http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/huckabee_equates_homosexuality_with_bestiality.php

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/huckabee-equates-gays-to-bestiality.html

How Karl Rove thinks the Republicans can win

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14265.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/17/103655/032

You shouldn’t have to pass a law to prevent “vote caging” – an overt effort to prevent legal voters from voting – but that’s where we are now

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005094.php

Chris Matthews is very, very sorry . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/064040.php

Transcript: http://mediamatters.org/items/200801170019

. . . for his long record of sexist comments

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801170001

***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 @ 7:23 AM

 
DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE

This is not a sports blog, but let’s try a little thought experiment: what do you think when you read this?

[CASE #1] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/football/ncaa/01/15/rodriguez.wvu.ap/
West Virginia is investigating the disappearance of records associated with the school's football program, a topic the agent for former coach Rich Rodriguez says will be addressed in court documents when the time is right. . . .

The newspaper report claimed the missing documents included players' personal contact information, scholarship payments and class attendance records, as well as strength and conditioning records and photographs that tracked players' physical progress. . . [NB: think “steroids” and “HGH”]

Ok, now, what do you think about these stories?

[CASE #2] http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005082.php
[Paul Kiel] We've heard CIA Director Michael Hayden's confusing and risible explanation for why the CIA's torture tapes were destroyed. And there have been a number of media accounts citing dozens of unanimous government officials that haven't managed to shed much light. But today's Washington Post provides about as clear of a narrative as we're likely to get on why the tapes were made, when they were made, and why they were destroyed. . . .

[H]ere's why they were destroyed, according to the Post. The Post broke news of the CIA's black sites in November of 2005. That made CIA officials even more nervous that "the agency could be publicly shamed and that those involved in waterboarding and other extreme interrogation techniques would be hauled before a grand jury or a congressional inquiry." At the same time, the station chief in Bangkok, who'd had the tapes in a safe in the U.S. Embassy compound there for three years, was retiring and "wanted to resolve the matter before he left." So he sent a cable to CIA headquarters asking if he could destroy them.

The rest we know. Then-operations chief Jose Rodriguez checked with two CIA lawyers who said that the agency was not required to preserve them. Since no one in the administration had directly forbidden the destruction of the tapes, he went ahead and gave the station chief the go-ahead.

And no one seemed to be very upset after the deed was done . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/16/AR2008011604031.html
The CIA's destruction of videotapes containing harsh interrogations of detainees at secret prisons drew bipartisan criticism from House lawmakers who attended a closed hearing yesterday at which the agency's acting general counsel testified about the matter. . . .

John A. Rizzo, the CIA's acting general counsel, answered all questions, provided "highly detailed" responses and "walked the committee through the entire matter, dating back to 2002."

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.), the panel's ranking Republican and former chairman, said Rizzo suggested that Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., the CIA's head of clandestine services, acted on his own authority in November 2005 when he ordered that the tapes be destroyed. "It appears from what we have seen to date that Rodriguez may not have been following instructions" when he ordered the destruction, Hoekstra said. . . .

Two of those at the hearing said that Rizzo said that after the tapes were made in 2002, lawyers at the CIA discussed the possibility that the FBI and the 9/11 Commission might want to see them. But the agency did not disclose the existence of the tapes to either before destroying them in 2005, a decision that commission members have criticized.

"It smells like a coverup, but the question is whether it was illegal or not” . . .

[NB: QUESTION???]

More: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/16/shorter-rizzo-to-rodriguez-well-if-youre-not-going-to-testify-i-will-screw-you/

More!

[CASE #3] http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005083.php
[AP] The White House has acknowledged recycling its backup computer tapes of e-mail before October 2003, raising the possibility that many electronic messages — including those pertaining to the CIA leak case — have been taped over and are gone forever.

The disclosure came minutes before midnight Tuesday under a court-ordered deadline that forced the White House to reveal information it has previously refused to provide.

Among the e-mails that could be lost are messages swapped by any White House officials involved in discussions about leaking a CIA officer's identity to reporters. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/16/AR2008011602202.html
E-mail messages sent and received by White House personnel during the first three years of the Bush administration were routinely recorded on tapes that were "recycled," the White House's chief information officer said in a court filing this week. . .

Two federal statutes require presidential communications, including e-mails involving senior White House aides, to be preserved for the nation's historical record, and some historians responded to the court disclosure yesterday by urging that the White House's actions be thoroughly probed. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/16/115838/457
[Scout Finch] This is far, far more than an 18 minute gap on the Nixon tapes. We are talking about 15 million emails that have gone missing faster than mob accusers. This is outrageous business and should be front page of every single newspaper in America. Nightly news should be leading with the story. And no, I don't care that Bush is on his way out the door......this should be be aggressively investigated and prosecuted. . . [read on]

Here’s how we know they’re lying: http://www.discourse.net/archives/2008/01/disgusting.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14260.html

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/16/the-white-house-response-on-backup-tapes/

CREW: http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/30775
With this new filing, the White House has admitted that although it has long known about the missing emails, it did nothing to recover them, or discover how and why they went missing in the first place. The missing emails are important historical records that belong not to the Bush administration, but to the American people. As a result, the public deserves a full accounting and hopefully, now that the matter is before a federal court, we will get one. . . [read on]

[NB: This is going to be one of the big themes now in the coming year. There is no way these people are going to leave documentary evidence of their skullduggery for the next (Democratic) administration to get at. Destruction and other kinds of mysterious loss and disappearance are going to create a great information void – what do you think Dick Cheney is doing HERE:

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

Another emerging theme: locking in policies and personnel that limit the options of the next administration to undo the Bush gang’s excesses

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/16/chertoff-dhs-transition/

The Justice Dept is now saying it CAN’T prosecute Blackwater employees for the massacre of Iraqi civilians -- partly because Blackwater destroyed evidence by repairing and repainting the vehicles used

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/washington/16blackwater.html
Justice Department officials have told Congress that they face serious legal difficulties in pursuing criminal prosecutions of Blackwater security guards involved in a September shooting that left at least 17 Iraqis dead. . . .

In a private briefing in mid-December, officials from the Justice and State Departments met with aides to the House Judiciary Committee and other Congressional staff members and warned them that there were major legal obstacles that might prevent any prosecution. . . .

Justice Department officials said Tuesday that the briefing had principally been held to answer questions concerning those problems, one of which arose when State Department investigators granted Blackwater employees a limited form of immunity for what they disclosed. There are also questions about whether federal law applies to the Blackwater contractors. . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005085.php

I know this might shock you, but . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063858.php
[NYT] Highly promising figures that the administration cited to demonstrate economic progress in Iraq last fall, when Congress was considering whether to continue financing the war, cannot be substantiated by official Iraqi budget records, the Government Accountability Office reported Tuesday. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/16/101446/197

Oh, let’s just let bygones be bygones

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_13_archive.html#8602998120479146319
[The Hill] Congress has reached a compromise with the White House over a defense authorization bill provision that had drawn complaints from the Iraqi government.

Those complaints prompted President Bush to veto the defense bill last month. He complained that a provision in the bill that allowed victims of terrorism to be awarded compensation from frozen foreign assets of state sponsors of terror could have crippled the fledgling Iraqi government with billions of dollars in liability.

Under the compromise, Iraq is excluded from the provision, but other state sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran and Syria, could see frozen assets used as compensation. The compromise is likely to leave American victims taken hostage and tortured by Saddam Hussein’s regime during the first Gulf War without recourse in U.S. federal court.

What is CIFA? Why should you be worried?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/16/stephen-cambone-collects-on-his-handiwork-with-cifa/

How the Pentagon pumped the phony Strait of Hormuz “crisis”

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/16/off-the-record-on-filipino-monkey/

Let’s play “If it were a Democrat” . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/01/exlawmaker_charged_in_terror_c.php
A former congressman and delegate to the United Nations was indicted Wednesday as part of a terrorist fundraising ring that allegedly sent more than $130,000 to an al-Qaida and Taliban supporter who has threatened U.S. and international troops in Afghanistan. . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/16/16745/8450

What next for FISA?

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3260

Mitt Romney, following in the footsteps of Bush and Rove

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/01/15/romneys-unemployed-single-mom-photo-op-fakery/
A well-publicized weekend photo-op for Mitt Romney turns out to have been missing a piece of information that might have undermined its credibility: the unemployed single mom at the center of the event was the mother of a Romney staffer . . .

A big OUCH!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/on_deadline_michigan
[AP] Mitt Romney's victory in Michigan was a defeat for authenticity in politics.

The former Massachusetts governor pandered to voters, distorted his opponents' record and continued to show why he's the most malleable — and least credible — major presidential candidate. . . .

The (Democratic) case for Romney

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/the_case_for_romney.php

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/romneys_big_lead.php

McCain gets “swift-boated” by a Vietnam Vet group in South Carolina – it’s so bad that one of the original Swift Boaters jumps in to say, “You can’t smear the reputation of a brave combat veteran like that.” John Kerry, somewhere, must be shaking his head . . .

http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/2008/01/swift-boating-john-mccain-in-south.html
Supporters of John McCain in South Carolina are describing as "absolutely despicable" a flier claiming that he turned his back on fellow prisoners of war in Vietnam. . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005084.php
Is the ragtag Vietnam Veterans against John McCain giving swift boating a bad name?

Yes, said Swift Boat Veterans and POW’s for Truth treasurer Weymouth Symmes. "I don't think there's any truth to that at all. He was a hero, in my opinion. I'd be appalled if anybody questioned his war service." . . .

More: http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/vicious_south_carolina_mailer_attacks_mccains_vietnam_service.php

Rudy says his campaign is right on track (uh-huh). He’s not worried (right). Well THIS should worry him

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063870.php
[Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post] But there's only one GOP candidate that beats all the rest at being a loser: Rudy Giuliani.

He has perfected the art of underperforming to the point that his campaign now insists it was all part of his game plan.

He's been reduced to watching from the sidelines and praying for other people to lose - like McCain in Michigan so his momentum would be stalled - rather than getting in the game and winning himself. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/us/politics/17york.html
For months, the Republican establishment in New York and New Jersey marched nearly in lock step behind Rudolph W. Giuliani. . .

But as Mr. Giuliani has plummeted from first to fourth — or worse — in some national polls, as he finished near the bottom of the pack in the nation’s earliest primaries, and as his lead evaporated even in Florida, the state on which he has gambled the most time and money, those Republican leaders are verging toward a grim new consensus . . .

The whole Republican field is in disarray

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14258.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/16/11620/6103/714/437623

Hillary hatred: it’s getting out of hand

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/on_hillary_hatr.php
[Ezra Klein] Everything becomes evidence of personal cynicism and ambition. Nothing is a slip, or harmless, or just politics. Every word, gesture, and political feint is evidence of Shakespearian levels of cynicism and power-lust. And this belief in the Manichean size of her traits makes her the center of gravity. Her failures are so deep, her appetite for conquest so epic, that everything must revolve around her story. . . [read on]

John Edwards, invisible man

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/study_john_edwa.php
[Greg Sargent] The Project for Excellence in Journalism has released its latest campaign coverage index for January 6-11, a study that does its damndest to try to quantify which political figures are sucking up the most media oxygen and why.

It found that Edwards only got 7% of political coverage during those days -- less than one-fifth of what Hillary earned, and less than one-forth of that accorded to 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 @ 6:25 AM

 
GETTING TO KNOW YOU

The latest from our President, dismissing his own CIA’s intelligence reports on Iran because they don’t support his bellicose intentions. This story has really gotten to me. No, it isn’t a surprise at all – we know the sort of man he is by now – but look at it from a certain distance. WHO THE HELL DOES HE THINK HE IS?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063747.php
[David Kurtz] The President has been disowning the Iran NIE in private. Now he appears to have taken his objections public, in a roundtable with reporters today in Saudi Arabia. . . . [read on]

http://www.slate.com/id/2182222
[Timothy Noah] I'm not sure, but I think President Bush just admitted that when somebody briefs him, he consciously prefers what he wants to hear to what the truth happens to be. As do we all, I suppose. But I see no evidence of irony, let alone self-criticism, in what Bush said. . . .

Note that Bush didn't say the intelligence services sometimes come to conclusions separate from what he may or may not believe. It would be bad form for Bush to say that out loud, because it would undermine part of his own executive branch. But it would be defensible intellectually. Of course presidents are going to disagree now and then with conclusions reached by the intelligence agencies. One would hope that, in doing so, they give careful consideration to the known facts. But Bush wasn't saying that. He was saying that the intelligence services sometimes come to conclusions separate from what he may or may not want. In affirming this, he seemed totally unself-conscious. There is absolutely no evidence that Bush was describing the necessary mental challenge of rising above what he wants to hear so that he can take in new information that might alter his understanding of reality. Indeed, Bush's statement suggested that he suffers from a sort of executive learning disability that leaves him unwilling or unable even to grasp that what he wants to hear isn't always going to be the same thing as what he needs to hear. . . .[read on]

Reflecting on this brings back several threads that have recurred in this blog over the years.

One is the unbelievably arrogant interviews Ron Suskind captured from Bush aides (Rove, I assume), denigrating us poor “reality based” folks who think there are facts about the world that must be paid attention to. According to this right-wing version of postmodernism, facts are mere constructions that can and should be reshaped to fit policy and justify it. There’s an old-fashioned word for this: propaganda

[October 17, 2004] http://pbd.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_archive.html#109801739033240408
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality . . .” [read on]

A second line of analysis began for me with something I wrote a little earlier that same month:

http://pbd.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_archive.html#109741363639203971
[NB, October 10 2004] The more I see of Bush, the more I have come to see him not as "macho" at all, but as a very small-minded man trying to project/mimic a macho posture and swagger. In fact, he seems to be a weak and reactive personality, easily swayed by stronger-willed people around him. When challenged, his exaggerated responses suggest not self-confidence, but a fear of engaging true criticism directly. The stage-managed simulacra of his confidence and popularity -- the aircraft carrier landing, the sycophantic “Meet the President” sessions, and so on – seem to be as much about bolstering his own insecurities as they are about creating convincing public illusions.

A colleague of mine later told me that I had perfectly captured the symptoms of a “dry drunk,” a person so afraid of their susceptibility that they fear admitting error or changing their mind, because this threatens a fragile sense of self – and this has become a recurring theme as well

http://pbd.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_archive.html#109818795159190586
[Walter Feinberg, October 19, 2004] Bush's behavior is very consistent with that of ex alcoholics who have not delved deeply into the reasons for their problems. They fear changing their mind on one thing will weaken their resolve on the main thing. Often this behavior serves them well and is functional. In Bush's case it has led to disaster.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0127-11.htm
[Katherine van Wormer, January 27, 2004] Earlier several other writers and I likened Bush's personality characteristics to those of a person who, in AA parlance, is "dry" but whose thinking is not really sober. Grandiosity, rigidity, and intolerance of ambiguity, and a tendency to obsess about things are among the traits associated with the dry drunk. The dry drunk quits drinking, but his or her obsession with the bottle is often replaced with other obsessions. . . [read on]

http://makeashorterlink.com/?A56B6265D
[Patrick Moore, June 28, 2006] In 1999, responding to questions about his use of drugs and alcohol, George Bush told the Washington Post, "Well, I don't think I had an addiction. . ." Having observed the president's behavior in office, I wonder if he might be wrong. Perhaps not only the president, but also his administration, suffers from alcoholism. After all, arrogance and the inability to take responsibility for one's actions, classic alcoholic traits, have become trademarks of the Bush presidency.

George Bush's problems are not only personal. By necessity, they have become the problems of our entire country. And our country is like the family of an alcoholic, devastated by the drinker's actions but powerless to stop them. . . [read on]

More: http://www.americanpolitics.com/20020924Bisbort.html

http://www.counterpunch.com/wormer1011.html

http://www.counterpunch.com/mccarthy1019.html

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/03/10_drunk.html

The third strand of this analysis is that Bush, literally, has a contempt for intelligence (and not only Intelligence). There is no other explanation for his reflexive, repeated joke line, used when standing next to Condi Rice or others, saying “She’s got a PhD, and I was a C student – but look who got to be President.” It’s not very funny the first time, but he has uttered it over and over again – each time as if no one has heard him say it before. Something is clearly going on with this guy

[February 2, 2007] http://pbd.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html#2142593637833365296

[October 6, 2007] http://pbd.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html#1317690948508295635

[February 8, 2005] http://pbd.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_archive.html#110786990602278294

[September 7, 2007] http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/12947.html

Bush’s approval keeps dropping

http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Vote2008/story
Beset by growing economic concerns on top of the long unpopular war in Iraq, President Bush starts the last year of his presidency with the worst approval rating of his career. . .

An “enduring presence” in Iraq?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005072.php

Good move, wrong timing

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005078.php
[Paul Kiel] 2012, 2020, forever. Whatever the terms hashed out between the administration and Nouri al-Maliki's government, the administration has said that they won't have to consult Congress to finish the deal. . . .

But Congress is maneuvering to make sure that they get a say. Today, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) will introduce the Iraq Strategic Agreement Review Act of 2008, which would require the administration to consult with Congress on the agreement and withhold funds for the agreement if it did not come in the form of a formal treaty. . .

[NB: That’s fine, but we knew it was coming, so why wasn’t this added as a condition on the war funding bill Congress just passed? This bill, even if it has support, will just be filibustered by the GOP]

Now we know: the Strait of Hormuz “provocation” was a fraud

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40801
[Gareth Porter] The reason for that absence of public information on the incident for more than a full day is that it was not that different from many others in the Gulf over more than a decade. A Pentagon consultant who asked not to be identified told IPS that he had spoken with officers who had experienced similar encounters with small Iranian boats throughout the 1990s, and that such incidents are "just not a major threat to the U.S. Navy by any stretch of the imagination".

Just two weeks earlier, on Dec. 19, the USS Whidbey Island, an amphibious warship, had fired warning shots after a small Iranian boat allegedly approached it at high speed. But that incident had gone without public notice.

With the reports from 5th Fleet commander Vice-Adm. Kevin Cosgriff in hand early that morning, top Pentagon officials had all day Sunday, Jan. 6, to discuss what to do about the encounter in the Strait of Hormuz. The result was a decision to play it up as a major incident.

The decision came just as President George W. Bush was about to leave on a Middle East trip aimed in part at rallying Arab states to join the United States in an anti-Iran coalition. . . .

“Committed to democracy” (yeah, right – tell me another)

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14248.html

Very smart: SecDef trashes NATO allies

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-usafghan16jan16,1,2643605.story
The U.S. Defense secretary says he thinks the soldiers from Canada, Britain and the Netherlands do not know how to fight a guerrilla insurgency. . . .

The coming FISA fight: WH plays the irrational fear card

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14247.html

More: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3244

The House will not give CIA spook (and tape destroyer) Jose Rodriguez immunity (yet)

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005074.php

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/15/AR2008011504090.html

Are there more tapes? http://www.newsweek.com/id/91675

A.G. Michael Mukasey wants to make nice with Congress, and plans a return visit for testimony. That could make for an interesting encounter

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005075.php
[Paul Kiel] First he only managed confirmation by the skin of his teeth, because he refused to brand waterboarding as torture. Then he ticked everybody off when the Justice Department asked Congress to shut down their investigations of the CIA torture tapes' destruction until the DoJ finished up. And then there's the KBR rape case. . . [read on]

Running an email list costs nothing in additional recipients, right? So why did the Dept of Justice DROP Josh Marshall’s TPM from their list?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005079.php
“I appreciated your desire to be in tune with DOJ press releases, however, unfortunately I am not able to add you to our distribution list. As you may realize we have a lot of requests to be put on our media lists and we simply are not able to put everyone on the list.”

[NB: But they were on the list, and were DROPPED. Explain that, please]

Appalling: food from cloned animals will NOT be labeled as such (I think a Democratic admin will change this policy)

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/fda-says-no-need-to-inform-consumers-of.html

Hmmm . . . . where have I heard this before?

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/huck_we_need_to_amend_the_constitution_bring_it_in_line_with_god.php
At a Michigan campaign event last night, Mike Huckabee gave an interesting reason for why he wants to amend the Constitution to ban both abortion and gay marriage: Otherwise, the Constitution would be in conflict with God.

Huckabee first observed that some of his opponents don't want to amend the Constitution on both of these topics. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God," Huckabee said. "And that's what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards . . .”

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec05/iraq_10-14.html
[October 14, 2005] MAHMOOD AL-SUMAIDAIE: If we see that the [Iraq] constitution is getting along with the Koran's principles, we will vote yes, but if we see that the constitution doesn't go along with Islamic and national principles and divides the country and the people at that time, we must refuse it.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14244.html

Mike Huckabee, from the people who know him best (thanks to Elaine N. for the first link, Melisande for the second)

http://perezhilton.com/2008-01-14-headline-of-the-week-weak-74
The Pony Express has reached us here in the Arkansas backwoods with the latest journals from the big cities. So the country correspondents have taken a break from hand-setting lines of type to read the Beltway boys and girls rave about our former governor, Mike Huckabee.

"Easy to like," wrote Newsweek's Jonathan Alter. "Who Doesn't Heart Huckabee?" said the headline over Gail Collins' column in the New York Times. And those are restrained commentators. If you Google the names Ronald Reagan and Mike Huckabee in tandem, I understand you get better than 600,000 hits.

OK. I exaggerate. I have a phone and a computer (and it's 208,000 hits). But you'd think from national press comments that our friendly state is unreachable by phone or Internet. Do national commentators do homework? Or is a smiling, shoe-shining parson all it takes to generate such fluff?

Come to Arkansas. . . [read on]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/78241
As Mike Huckabee gains in the polls, the former Arkansas governor is finding that his record in office is getting more scrutiny. One issue likely to get attention is his handling of a sensitive family matter: allegations that one of his sons was involved in the hanging of a stray dog at a Boy Scout camp in 1998. The incident led to the dismissal of David Huckabee, then 17, from his job as a counselor at Camp Pioneer in Hatfield, Ark. It also prompted the local prosecuting attorney— bombarded with complaints generated by a national animal-rights group—to write a letter to the Arkansas state police seeking help investigating whether David and another teenager had violated state animal-cruelty laws. The state police never granted the request, and no charges were ever filed. . . .

Isn’t it fun to watch the Republicans panic?

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_011508/content/01125107.guest.html
If McCain or Huckabee Gets the Nomination, It Will Destroy GOP

More: http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/gops-deep-rifts.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14243.html

Good news for Rush! Romney wins Michigan

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/15/early-exit-polls-favor-romney-great-orange-satan-plot/
[Jane Hamsher] Markos' fiendish plan works. . . .

D-Kos takes credit: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/15/22445/2952

Bad news for McCain!

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/on_the_republican_side.php
[Matt Yglesias] [I]t would seem to be an ominous sign for John McCain that he got beaten so badly among registered Republicans . . .

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063839.php

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/16/11159/2045

Good news for Giuliani! (huh?)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063838.php
Best Sum-Up of Results of the Evening, from Ari Fleischer: "Great news for Rudy," who clocked in with a respectable 3% tonight.

By the way, here's Rudy explaining how good things are going in his interview today with Fox ...

“Am I nervous at all? Do I look nervous? (I am) having a great time. This is a strategy we selected–it is the only strategy that can work for us and it’s a good one…and given the nature of the race which is wide open, we think it is going to turn out to be a smart strategy.”

http://redstatemobile.com/node/149185
Giuliani and Thompson haven't won anywhere, and neither is doing all that well in national polling any more. But Giuliani, though not the front-runner, is in better shape tonight as a result of McCain's loss. . .

[NB: There’s spin for you – Rudy hasn’t come close in any primary so far, and is dropping in the national polls. But it’s all according to plan!]

Here comes the South

http://www.slate.com/id/2182157
[John Dickerson] Mitt Romney beat John McCain handily in Michigan, which means there have now been three major GOP contests and three different comeback winners. At this rate, Thompson will win South Carolina and Giuliani Florida. The GOP primary is starting to look like a Pee Wee soccer tournament: Everyone gets a trophy!

More proof that “Unity 08” was never anything more than a stalking horse for an eventual Bloomberg campaign

http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/movement-to-draft-bloomberg-launched-2008-01-15.html
Two founders of the bipartisan Unity08 effort launched a new campaign to draft independent New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg into the presidential race Tuesday, saying he is the right candidate to overcome bitter partisanship and oncoming economic problems. . . .

Yet another senior Republican in Congress resigns

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_13_archive.html#5287334525572281533

Fox News, beyond satire

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/15/fox-discovers-filipino-monkey/
“Let’s hope it’s not the Filipino Monkey, for our sake. Because I think it’s a humongous embarrassment.” [read on!]

Regular readers know that Richard Cohen, WP columnist, is an idiot. But now he crosses the line . . .

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2008/jan/15/playing_with_fire_smearing_obama_among_jews
[M.J. Rosenberg] On Friday, when I wrote about the Jewish community being inundated with anti-Obama fear-mongering, some people at TPM expressed doubt. I was even excused of making it up.

Five days later, few Jews active in the community have not received calls or e-mails telling them that Obama is a threat to the Jews.

The latest charge is that the minister of Obama's church publishes a magazine that honored Louis Farrakhan. . . .

It's pretty ugly and today columnist Richard Cohen is taking it mainstream. Check out his column in the Washington Post. He shares the story of Obama's Farrakhan-admiring minister and sounds the alarms to Jews everywhere. He demands Obama repudiate the pastor. What idiocy!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/everybodys_alre.php
[Greg Sargent] Everybody's already taken their whacks at today's reprehensible Richard Cohen column in The Washington Post recycling the latest smear of Obama. But I wanted to highlight one particular aspect of it. . . . [read on]

More: http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/01/15/richard-cohen-bad-for-the-jews/

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/15/15427/5104

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14241.html

How can ANYBODY in the media utter these words today without a sense of irony?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/wapo_to_solomon.php
[Greg Sargent] [John] Solomon also unintentionally commits a funny in the piece, describing the style of journalism he plans to do at The Washington Times as "fair and balanced." If you're trying to present yourself as non-ideological, as Solomon does here, that seems like an unfortunate choice of words, to put it charitably.

Bonus item: “The Slipper Tongue”

http://www.slate.com/id/2182222
[Jacob Weisberg] In an April 1995 memo, Bush invited his staff to come to his office to look at a painting. . . The picture is a Western scene of a cowboy riding up a craggy hill, with two other riders following behind him. Bush told visitors—who often noted his resemblance to the rider in front—that it was called A Charge To Keep and that it was based on his favorite Methodist hymn of that title, written in the eighteenth century by Charles Wesley. As Bush noted in the memo, which he quoted in his autobiography of the same title: "I thought I would share with you a recent bit of Texas history which epitomizes our mission. When you come into my office, please take a look at the beautiful painting of a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail. This is us. What adds complete life to the painting for me is the message of Charles Wesley that we serve One greater than ourselves." Bush identified with the lead rider, whom he took to be a kind of Christian cowboy, an embodiment of indomitable vigor, courage, and moral clarity. . . .

He came to believe that the picture depicted the circuit-riders who spread Methodism across the Alleghenies in the nineteenth century. In other words, the cowboy who looked like Bush was a missionary of his own denomination.

Only that is not the title, message, or meaning of the painting. The artist, W.H.D. Koerner, executed it to illustrate a Western short story entitled "The Slipper Tongue," published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1916. The story is about a smooth-talking horse thief who is caught, and then escapes a lynch mob in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. The illustration depicts the thief fleeing his captors. In the magazine, the illustration bears the caption: "Had His Start Been Fifteen Minutes Longer He Would Not Have Been Caught."

***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

 
CONFIDENCE GAME

The President we have

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/not-so-innocent-abroad-by-dday-with.html
[D-day] Bush can talk about democracy promotion, but when it comes down to it a substantial portion of US aid goes to undemocratic regimes, and little goes to actually strengthening the building blocks of democracy. Bush can praise the United Arab Emirates (!) as a model society because to him, it is; an obscenely wealthy oligarchy that practically enslaves immigrant labor to construct their opulent palaces. Bush can caution for stability in the region while selling $20 billion in arms to the Saudis, clearly as a counter-balance to Iran, which may increase tensions rather than diffuse them (Congress, by the way, has the ability to, and should, outright reject these sales). Bush can call for an end to the occupation of Palestine while failing to understand or even engage with the dynamics of the debate, seven years after ignoring the peace process and making the problem significantly more protracted.

http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2008/01/bombing-auschwitz.html
[D] The Decider doesn't understand why the US and its allies in World War II couldn't have bombed Auschwitz and, he assumes, saved thousands of lives.

Here, Bush is invoking a debate that goes back about 30 years and continues to inspire ferocious argument among historians. . . .

I can't for a moment imagine that Bush has any inkling about the actual terms of this debate. Rather -- as his idiotic pronouncements about the Yalta conference indicated three years ago -- the man appears genuinely convinced that his raisins are larger than FDR's and, moreover, that pre-emptive action always produces the best possible outcome. Had Bush been president, we're asked to believe, the Iron Curtain would not have descended across Eastern Europe, and the name "Auschwitz" would, like "Normandy," call to mind the moral purity and spirit of sacrifice that defined the American war effort. It's a laughable premise, but it's pretty much par for the course. He may be an inarticulate dunce, but he surely ranks as one of the great egomaniacs to hold the presidency. That much is obvious whenever he tries to speak about history.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_13_archive.html#4895053835394629587
[Atrios] The question we should all be pondering is what happens when after you place a mediocre narcissist quite literally at the center of the world for a while, the clock ticks inevitably to the time when that will no longer be the case. How will he behave?

http://www.slate.com/id/2182071
[Fred Kaplan] President George W. Bush hasn't accomplished much on his voyage to the Middle East, but he did take the time to inflict another wound on the entire U.S. intelligence community—and on the credibility of anything he might ever again say about the world. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/01/14/BL2008011401233.html

Well, that only took six years

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7223489,00.html
The chief of the U.S. military said he favors closing [Guantanamo] as soon as possible because he believes negative publicity worldwide about treatment of terrorist suspects has been “pretty damaging” to the image of the United States.

They love war

http://www.newshounds.us/2008/01/10/fox_news_chickenhawks_regret_strait_of_hormuz_incident_didnt_turn_into_armed_conflict.php
[Ellen] On last night’s (1/9/08) Hannity & Colmes, “fair and balanced” FOX News stacked its panel with chickenhawks eager to escalate tensions against Iran. Sean Hannity and Geraldo Rivera expressed outright disappointment that the recent incident in the Strait of Hormuz hadn't turned into armed conflict between the US and Iran . . . Hannity was ready to talk tough. “It wouldn’t have bothered me one bit, Geraldo, if we blew those ships right out of the water.”

“The captain would have been justified,” Geraldo readily agreed.

“What ought we do with Ahmadinejad at this point?” Hannity asked Geraldo who is not exactly a foreign policy expert. “He continues to pursue weapons of mass destruction,” Hannity claimed. Oh really? Where did he get that information? From Curveball? Because last I heard, our National Intelligence Estimate said otherwise.

Geraldo didn’t want to talk about that. “We’ve got to make very clear rules of engagement that allow us to fire a shot across the bow at 300 yards, engage with deadly force at 200 yards.” As precedent, he cited the fact that similar rules are in effect on Humvees in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Something tells me the Iranians would not see why rules established by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan should apply in the Strait of Hormuz. . .

Stay. Go. Stay. Go. Stay

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/world/middleeast/15military.html
The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018. . .

The much-touted law on Baathist participation in the Iraqi govt, like everything else these people have manufactured, is likely to make things worse, not better

http://toohotfortnr.blogspot.com/2008/01/dont-you-try-to-fake-me-out.html
[Spencer Ackerman] Welcome back to the world of fake reconciliation. At long last, the Shiite/Kurdish government finally passes a de-Baathification law, only the law is phony. The Sunnis are outraged: one Sunni parliamentarian calls the law "a sword on the neck of the people." But the Shiites throw their hands up and say What do you want from us? It took us over a year of arduous compromise to get to this point. That's as far as we can go! Or, for what they actually said:

One particular improvement, [a Maliki adviser] said, was that de-Baathification cases would now be subject to judicial review, whereas the old de-Baathification committee’s decisions were final. And the Council of Ministers would have the right to make exceptions to the law in order to serve the public interest. “Before, we dealt with Baath Party members as a group,” he said. “Now, being a Baath Party member is not a crime by itself. If someone has committed a crime in the old regime, that accusation should be made in court. And all of the members can get a pension.”

This de-Baathification law sounds worse than not having a law in the first place. . .

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/iraq-de-baathification-reconciliation.html
[A.J. Rossmiller] The only info I've seen on Sunni reaction is that Mutlaq (leader of the National Dialogue Front, the smaller of the two major Sunni parties and a relative hard-liner) walked out of the vote, which certainly seems to be a sign that Sunnis don't think this actually helps them. I haven't seen any major Sunni politician endorse it, and reportedly the bill was drafted (and is being hailed by) Sadrists, which makes it pretty unlikely that it will lead to real reconciliation as opposed to misleading press releases. . . [A]t first blush this looks like the Iraqi version of the "Clean Skies Act" or something -- calling a piece of legislation something good to hide that it actually sucks.

The Kurds are unhappy too: http://www.juancole.com/2008/01/al-hayat-reports-in-arabic-that.html

Trouble in Pakistan

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/world/asia/15isi.html
Pakistan’s premier military intelligence agency has lost control of some of the networks of Pakistani militants it has nurtured since the 1980s, and is now suffering the violent blowback of that policy . . .

Trouble in Afghanistan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/14/AR2008011402722_pf.html
The U.S. plan to send an additional 3,200 Marines to troubled southern Afghanistan this spring reflects the Pentagon's belief that if it can't bully its recalcitrant NATO allies into sending more troops to the Afghan front, perhaps it can shame them into doing so, U.S. officials said.

But the immediate reaction to the proposed deployment from NATO partners fighting alongside U.S. forces was that it was about time the United States stepped up its own effort.

After more than six years of coalition warfare in Afghanistan, NATO is a bundle of frayed nerves and tension over nearly every aspect of the conflict, including troop levels and missions, reconstruction, anti-narcotics efforts, and even counterinsurgency strategy. Stress has grown along with casualties, domestic pressures and a sense that the war is not improving . . .

TIA – here it comes, ready or not

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/US_drafting_plan_to_allow_government_0114.html
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is drawing up plans for cyberspace spying that would make the current debate on warrantless wiretaps look like a "walk in the park," according to an interview published in the New Yorker's print edition today. . . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005071.php

Remember TIA? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office

More from McConnell

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005063.php
[Paul Kiel] The more Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell talks, the worse it gets.

Consider: McConnell, whose nomination early last year was applauded by lawmakers from both parties, has twice provided false information to Congress -- and in both cases, they were statements that served to distort the surveillance debate. In the heat of the surveillance bill debate, McConnell claimed that three German terrorism suspects had been arrested due to intercepts made possible by the administration's Protect America Act; it turned out the intercepts were obtained under the old FISA bill. Only a couple weeks later, McConnell told Congress that rulings by the FISA Court had prevented the NSA from surveilling Iraqi insurgents who had kidnapped U.S. soldiers for 12 hours. That turned out to be, at best, a misleading explanation for the delay.

He's also said, over and over, that the public debate over surveillance law is endangering American lives.

But this one, to my mind, takes the cake. . . [read on]

The next Bush administration member gets ready for the hot seat

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005068.php
[Paul Kiel] Both Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and House sleuth Henry Waxman (D-CA) have set their sights on EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, who made the unprecedented and arbitrary decision (over the unanimous recommendation of the staff) to deny California's petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. They both requested documents related to the decision. But Johnson is apparently having real trouble getting all those documents together. . . .

In the meanwhile, he says that the committee will be interviewing a host of EPA employees about Johnson's decision. If the reports are correct, all of them will be telling Waxman about how they told Johnson there was no legal justification for blocking California's law and he overruled them anyway. . . [read on]

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005067.php
[WP] In its first couple of weeks after it returns tomorrow, the House is likely to take up contempt-of-Congress resolutions against White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers for their refusal to appear before Congress for questioning about the 2006 removal of nine U.S. attorneys, Democratic leadership aides said.

[Paul Kiel] For those keeping track at home, it's been nearly six months since the House Judiciary Committee initially approved the contempt citations. As for what the timing might be on the Senate side, where the Senate Judiciary Committee recently approved contempt citations for Karl Rove and Bolten, it's not yet clear.

The Firedoglake series on law and justice

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/14/the-first-monday-series-a-chat-with-nan-aron-of-afj/

The primary schedule ahead—a handy overview

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/post.php

Why EVERYBODY has to be a candidate of change this year: the current NYT right track/wrong track poll reads. . . . 19/75

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_13_archive.html#4594432950936534924

This Hillary/Obama race thing has gotten out of hand. There’s blame on both sides (or on their proxies) – the latest being Robert Johnson’s screed. But this explosive material could ruin the campaign for everybody – and OF COURSE it is the sort of thing the press goes wild over. Dumb politics all around

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/01/14/drugs/index.html
[Tim Grieve] Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, said that the Clintons were "deeply and emotionally involved in black issues" when Barack Obama was still "doing something in the neighborhood, that I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in his book."

Another not-so-veiled reference to Obama's admissions of past drug use? In a statement released Sunday afternoon, Johnson said it would be "simply irresponsible and incorrect" to read his words that way. "My comments today were referring to Barack Obama's time spent as a community organizer, and nothing else," he insisted.

As Walter Shapiro notes today in Salon, Johnson's explanation is "giggle"-inducing. But maybe it's a little worse than that. Johnson's explanation came via an e-mail message distributed by the Clinton campaign's press office, which certainly suggests some kind of stamp of approval for a claim that's so obviously false. And this morning, Johnson's statement got a semi-explicit endorsement from Bill Clinton himself. Asked about Johnson's explanation in a radio interview, the former president said: "I think we have to take him at his word." . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14227.html

The press just eats it up: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1703310,00.html
Race Spells Trouble for the Dems

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/14/AR2008011402961.html
As a controversy over racially charged politics threatened to spin out of control . . .

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/14/is-the-press-out-to-destroy-the-democrats/

It looks as if the two campaigns have talked behind the scenes and agreed to tone it down. About time

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/stopping-train-by-digby-both-clinton.html

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/obama_hillarys_martin_luther_king_remark_not_racial_comment.php
Barack Obama takes steps to defuse the racial and political tensions that have been uncorked by the battle between Hillary and himself over the meaning of recent remarks by the Clintons . . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012898.php

How many polls have you seen matching up Hillary or Obama against likely Republican opponents? Ok, now, how many have you seen matching Edwards against the same Republicans – you know, Edwards, the loser who doesn’t stand a chance? Check this out

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/14/the-polls-you-wont-hear-much-about/

Rudy Giuliani, Katherine Harris, and a speech delivered in a church. Well, isn’t that special?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14234.html
“I’m not coming here to ask for your vote,” he said. “That’s up to you and it’s not the right place. But I am coming here to ask you for something very special and more important: I’m asking for your prayers.”

Kos suggests that Dems cross over and vote for Romney in Michigan. Good idea or not, it is clearly legal and a political strategy that has long been practiced by both sides. But hear the wingers cry “vote fraud!”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/14/121732/309

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/14/12434/2826

John Solomon, who compiled an impressive record of credulous, stenographic journalism over at the Washington Post, moves over to the Washington Times. ‘Nuff said

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063653.php

His record: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/14/john-solomons-phone-records/

The NYT Public Editor (ombudsman) is not sure hiring Bill Kristol was a good idea for the paper

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/opinion/13pubed.html

More: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/13/kristol-refuses-to-comment-on-call-to-prosecute-nyt/

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:36 AM

 
BENEATH THE SURFACE

Tying the hands of the next administration – and circumventing Congress

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/13/65647/5504
[Ambassador Ryan Crocker] Our mutual intention is -- and this was laid out in a declaration in November -- is in the course of 2008 to negotiate a long-term strategic partnership that obviously will include the equivalent of a status of forces agreement. . . [read on]

[NB: By “equivalent,” they mean that it won’t be a formal treaty, hence won’t need any Congressional approval or input.]

This tells us so much: not only that when facts conflict with Bush’s strongly held views, it’s the facts that must be wrong – but beyond this, the bald assumption that NIE’s should REFLECT Executive policies, not inform them (but then, we knew that, didn’t we?)

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/13/bush-israelis-nie/
[Newsweek] “He told the Israelis that he can’t control what the intelligence community says, but that [the NIE’s] conclusions don’t reflect his own views” about Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, said the official . . . [read on]

Here’s the original tape of the Strait of Hormuz incident – and it raises some troubling questions

http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2008/01/who-spun-hormuz-incident.html

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/13/104924/836

More unraveling of the Baathist “reconciliation” bill

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/myth-of-progress-grows-mythier-by-dday.html

Is it possible that Abu Ghraib was even worse than we knew?

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/13/115326/878

The Incredible Shrinking “Coalition of the Willing” (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2008/edition_01-13-2008/Intelligence_Report#governmentwatch

Emptywheel walks us through an internal investigation (or "review") the CIA did regarding the torture tapes – and shows that somebody is clearly hiding something

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/13/cia-inspector-general-we-never-had-any-torture-tapes/

Upcoming fights between the WH and Congress

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/13/AR2008011302718.html

Law and Order, part one (a series on Firedoglake)

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/13/legal-sunshine-and-shadows/
[Christy Hardin Smith] Beginning tomorrow, we will kick off a series on the effects of the legal system, judicial rulings, and issues in an effort to raise the level of awareness of your vote and its impact on all of our lives and the legal system. Elections have consequences, and one of the big ones at the federal level is the ability to impact the legal system for a very long time through lifetime appointments to the federal bench. . . [read on]

We saw this with Nixon – when an administration implements overly expansive policies of secrecy, surveillance, and skullduggery (in the name of asserting Executive privileges), it often prompts a series of controls and countermeasures that actually leave the Executive branch weakened and delegitimated. We may be on the verge of a new cycle of this, thanks to Bush, Cheney, Gonzalez, Addington, Yoo, etc. etc.

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/13/leaving-the-presidency-weaker-than-when-they-started/

Thanks for nothing

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005062.php
As deputy counsel to Governor Matt Blunt (R) of Missouri, [Scott] Eckersley gave the governor and his staff impeccable legal advice. According to the lawsuit Eckersley filed against Blunt and other administration members, he told them they were violating Blunt's own written instructions, document retention policy and Missouri's Sunshine Law by deleting all their emails.

Since the governor and his pals were deleting emails to preclude the scandal that would likely hit them if they became public, Eckersley's advice was unwelcome, and since he was in charge of complying with the state's freedom of information law, he became inconvenient, to say the least. Ed Martin, Blunt's chief of staff, fired Scott Eckersley on September 28. . . [read on]

I don’t do a lot with poll numbers here, but these ARE interesting

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/01/13/big_shift_among_gop_voters.html
A new New York Times/CBS News poll shows the Republican presidential race completely upended with Sen. John McCain now leading solidly across the country. McCain is in front with 33%, followed by Mike Huckabee at 18%, Rudy Giuliani at 10%, Mitt Romney at 8%, and Fred Thompson at 8%. . .

[NB: Romney at 8% ??!]

Ah, Rudy

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063545.php
[Josh Marshall] The Post has done a poll with a likely voter screen the last three times, this month, early last month and in early November. In early November Rudy was at 34%. A month later he was at 25%. Today he's at 15%. The Times meanwhile has Rudy dropping from 22% to 10% over the last month among Republican primary voters.

Honest John gets twisted into knots over tax policy

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/straight_talk.php

With friends like these. . . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063536.php
[Josh Marshall] We seem to be at the point where there are now two credible possibilities. One is that the Clinton campaign is intentionally pursuing a strategy of using surrogates to hit Obama with racially-charged language or with charges that while not directly tied to race nonetheless play to stereotypes about black men. The other possibility is that the Clinton campaign is extraordinarily unlucky and continually finds its surrogates stumbling on to racially-charged or denigrating language when discussing Obama. . . .

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/campaign_2008_/2008/01/the_clinton_slime_machine_in_action_billionaire_division.php

For the second week in a row, Bill Kristol mails in a half-assed NYT column

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012893.php

Michael Froomkin on blogging for money

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2008/01/about_blogging_for_money.html

Bonus item: Chris Matthews, in cartoon form (how appropriate)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/tweety-affect-by-digby-via-salon-ht-to.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 @ 7:20 AM

 
BEAT TO FIT, THEN PAINT TO MATCH

My, but that was quick – and oh, so convenient for those hammering the war drums against Iran

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080103/NATION/498097125/1001
[January 3] Iran's leaders are no longer supplying weapons or training to Islamic militants in Iraq, the spokesman for the top U.S. commander in Iraq told The Washington Times.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, sees Iran as following through on assurances it made to Iraqi and U.S. officials last fall not to assist extremists in Iraq, spokesman Col. Steven Boylan said, adding that other U.S. officials have noted declines in Iranian weapons and funds to Iraqi insurgents. . . .

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/01/12/iran.iraq/index.html
[January 12] Attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq with bombs believed linked to Iran -- known as explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) -- have risen sharply in January after several months of decline, according to the top U.S. commander in Iraq. . . .

Right on schedule. . .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080113/ap_on_re_mi_ea/bush_mideast
President Bush said Sunday that Iran is threatening the security of the world, and that the United States and Arab allies must join together to confront the danger "before it's too late." . . .

Just call them fastidious

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080112/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/blackwater_prosecutions
Blackwater Worldwide repaired and repainted its trucks immediately after a deadly September shooting in Baghdad, making it difficult to determine whether enemy gunfire provoked the attack, according to people familiar with the government's investigation of the incident. . . .

The repairs essentially destroyed evidence that Justice Department investigators hoped to examine in a criminal case that has drawn worldwide attention. The Sept. 16 shooting has strained U.S. relations with the Iraqi government, which wants Blackwater expelled from the country. It also has become a flash point in the debate over whether contractors are immune from legal consequences for their actions in a war zone. . .

Bush is going to tout the new laws on Baathist participation in govt as a sign of political reconciliation in Iraq. Is it? Not so much

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012888.php

http://www.juancole.com/2008/01/so-big-political-news-today-is-that.html

For me, but not for thee

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080113/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/terrorist_interrogation
The nation's intelligence chief says waterboarding "would be torture" if used against him or if someone under interrogation actually was taking water into his lungs.

But Mike McConnell, in a magazine interview, declined for legal reasons to say whether the technique categorically should be considered torture.

"If it ever is determined to be torture, there will be a huge penalty to be paid for anyone engaging in it," McConnell told The New Yorker, which published a 16,000-word article Sunday on the director of national intelligence. . . .

As McConnell describes it, a prisoner is strapped down with a wash cloth over his face and water is dripped into his nose.

"If I had water draining into my nose, oh God, I just can't imagine how painful! Whether it's torture by anybody else's definition, for me it would be torture," McConnell told the magazine. . . .

Bringing the war back home

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/us/13vets.html
Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: “Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.” Pierre, S.D.: “Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.” Colorado Springs: “Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.”

Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak. . . .

The beginning of the end of the American empire?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/business/13econ.html
As leaders in Washington turn their attention to efforts to avert a looming downturn, many economists suggest that it may already be too late to change the course of the economy over the first half of the year, if not longer. . .

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063481.php
[Josh Marshall] I don't talk much about international economics because most of it is beyond my comprehension. But am I right to be unnerved by the fact that as a result of the mortgage crisis big chunks of major US-based financial services companies -- Citibank, Merrill Lynch, etc. -- are being bought up not by foreign owners of capital but, in effect, by foreign governments?

What Alice doesn’t know could fill a library

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/12/184933/549
Q ...does the President still believe that the incident was as serious as he described it on Monday when he --

MS. PERINO: Absolutely.

Q He's not -- because the reports seemed to suggest that maybe it was not as serious as the White House and others had indicated.

MS. PERINO: Whose reports? The Iranians' reports? I mean, I've heard nothing different from what we have said...

Q Well, the fact that the video now is not clear that the statement that "we're coming after you" was referring to these five boats; that's a new fact that's different than --

MS. PERINO: I have not heard that. . . [read on]

The “outcry” for a third party candidacy – where is it?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/13/23345/1296
[Ed KIlgore] It's telling that the Unity '08 founders, and the Village Elders as well, claim to represent tens of millions of Americans who are eager to abandon the two major parties--yet their "movement" now depends entirely on Mike Bloomberg's polling, and his willingness or unwillingness to throw enough money into a campaign to buy crediblity. You'd think the irony would give them pause. We'll soon see.

[Kos] I find it hilarious. Fact is, as we've seen in Iowa and New Hampshire, no one is pining away for some mythical "independent" to save them from the scary "partisanship" in DC. They're turning out in record numbers to choose from the existing choices.

John Edwards, non-person

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/dlc-leaders-cut-edwards-out/
Al From, the D.L.C. founder, said he was “very happy about the two candidates” Americans are considering. . .

The Democratic battle is getting nastier

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063499.php

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-unions13jan13,1,5201798.story

More: http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/hillary_charges_that_obama_campaign_is_distorting_her_martin_luther_king_comments.php

Hillary better cut this out

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012887.php

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/television/sunday_show_preview_74855.asp
• Meet the Press: Hillary Clinton.

• Face the Nation: Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee

• Fox News Sunday: Rudy Giuliani.

• This Week: Sen. John Kerry. Newt Gingrich. A roundtable with Washington Post's E.J. Dionne, Time's Jay Carney, ABC's Claire Shipman, and George Will

• Late Edition : Romney, Huckabee and Fred Thompson, Iraqi Defense Minister Abd al-Qadir al-Mufriji and a roundtable with CNN's Jessica Yellin and Bill Schneider.

Bonus item: Man, a billion dollars just doesn’t buy what it used to

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011103772.html
The firefighting system in the massive $736 million embassy complex in Baghdad has potential safety problems that top U.S. officials dismissed in their rush to declare construction largely completed by the end of last year, according to internal State Department documents, e-mails and interviews.

Some officials assert that in the push to complete the long-delayed project, potentially life-threatening problems have been left untouched. "This is serious enough to get someone killed," said a State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retaliation. "The fire systems are the tip of the iceberg. That is the most visible. But no one has ever inspected the electrical system, the power plant" and other parts of the embassy complex, which will house more than 1,000 people and is vulnerable to mortar attacks. . . .

***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 @ 7:50 AM

 
NEW YEAR’S WISHES

Oh, easily. . .

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1127895620080111
President George W. Bush said on Friday the United States would have a long-term presence in Iraq that could "easily" last a decade . . .

Remember those promised troop reductions for the new year?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080112/ap_on_re_mi_ea/bush_mideast
Facing another decision about U.S. troop levels in Iraq by spring, President Bush said Saturday it's "fine with me" if generals recommend no more reductions . . .

Hope springs eternal

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/assistant_secdef_our_strategy.php
[Matt Yglesias] I've noted time and again that one curious element of current US strategy in Iraq is that many of the people charged with planning and implementing it think it will probably fail. Here's Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle Eastern Affairs Mark Kimmitt telling people at the Heritage Foundation "if I had to put a number to it, maybe it’s three in 10, maybe it’s 50-50, if we play our cards right." . . .

Bush is promising a Middle East deal before leaving office. How much is that promise worth?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/01/11/BL2008011101840.html

Bush’s “legacy year”: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14201.html

The Goofus Files return

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_06_archive.html#8007945439958807971
During a roundtable interview with Arab journalists before leaving Washington, [Bush] made a curious statement while he was lauding political reforms by pro-U.S. rulers in the conservative Gulf countries. "You know," he said, "women are now very active in the Kuwaiti parliament." Well, no woman has ever been elected to the Kuwaiti parliament. . .

Looks as if the military has thrown in the towel over the Strait of Hormuz tape

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/11/because-youd-all-be-sad-without-a-borat-visits-the-straits-of-hormuz-update/
[WP] Pentagon officials insist that they never claimed Iran made the threat. "No one in the military has said that the transmission emanated from those boats. But when they hear it simultaneously to the behavior of those boats, it only adds to the tension," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011103730.html
The small, boxlike objects dropped in the water by Iranian boats as they approached U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf on Sunday posed no threat to the American vessels, U.S. officials said yesterday . . .

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005061.php
[Navy Times] The threatening radio transmission heard at the end of a video showing harassing maneuvers by Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz may have come from a locally famous heckler known among ship drivers as the “Filipino Monkey.”...

In recent years, American ships operating in the Middle East have had to contend with a mysterious but profane voice known by the ethnically insulting handle of “Filipino Monkey,” likely more than one person, who listens in on ship-to-ship radio traffic and then jumps on the net shouting insults and jabbering vile epithets . . .

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/11/filipino-monkey-borat-same-difference/
[Emptywheel] We almost just started a war on the basis of the functional equivalent to a prank phone call. . . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012882.php

You just know there is an ugly story waiting to come out on this one

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Missing-Marine.html
A pregnant Marine missing for nearly a month is dead, and investigators were seeking a fellow Marine she had accused of sexually assaulting her, authorities said Friday.

Authorities had not recovered the body of 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Maria Frances Lauterbach, but they believed she was buried in a shallow grave in a residential area of coastal Onslow County, Sheriff Ed Brown said.

The suspect, 21-year-old Cpl. Cesar Armando Lauren, has declined to meet with investigators and is not in custody, he said.

"They don't know where he is," Brown said of the suspect. "He's gone."

Lauterbach had claimed a superior had sexually assaulted her, and she was worried that the investigation was going nowhere, according to court documents. She vanished last month before she was to testify in a military probe. . . .

I think we have a big win on telecom immunity – unless Bush’s people figure out some way to give him the power to assert it unilaterally (which they might)

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3192
[WSJ] We're told that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is saying privately he now won't attempt to update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) on the wiretapping of al Qaeda suspects. Instead, he'll merely support another 18-month extension of the six-month-old Protect America Act. Among other problems, the temporary bill includes no retroactive immunity for the telecom companies that cooperated with the feds after 9/11.

[NB: Thank you, Chris Dodd!]

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/11/94633/8811

Bush’s national ID plan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011103410.html

Positively Orwellian

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/11/223033/125
Judges Say Men at Base are Not "Persons" Under U.S. Law. . .

Oh-oh

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/24637.html
Two new reports on the assassination last month of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto suggest that the killing may have been an ambitious plot rather than an isolated act of violence and that the government of President Pervez Musharraf knows far more than it's admitted about the murder. . .

Legal troubles

EPA head Stephen Johnson: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005058.php

Former AG John Ashcroft: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/washington/11justice.html

John McCain: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/7837.html

The Wall Street Journal calls for more tax cuts. Let me get this straight: when the economy is doing well, we should cut taxes; when it’s going badly, we should cut taxes; and when it’s stagnant. . . . we should CUT TAXES, of course. What’s the old saying, “Give a kid a hammer . . .”?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012881.php

Now, why do these two stories seem to belong together?

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/11/rudys-big-plan-to-fix-everything-tax-cuts-on-steroids/
[CNN] Rudy Giuliani has launched a new ad in which the Republican presidential candidate pledges that his first priority as president will be a proposal for the largest tax cut in U.S. history – one which would dwarf successful cuts by both President Reagan and President George W. Bush . . .

Giuliani's multi-trillion dollar proposal, unveiled in a speech earlier this week, would reduce the capital gains tax from 15 percent to 10 percent, preserve President Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, permanently eliminate the estate tax, and give taxpayers the option of choosing a simplified tax form with three tax brackets with a maximum bracket of 30 percent.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/01/giuliani_staffers_forego_paych.php
[AP] About a dozen senior campaign staffers for Rudy Giuliani are foregoing their January paychecks, aides said Friday, a sign of possible money trouble for the Republican presidential candidate . . .

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14200.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14208.html

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/budgeting_with_rudy.php

Giuliani is talking about a “50-state campaign” for President. Hell, he can’t even be sure of winning the Republican primary in NEW YORK

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/poll_rudy_and_mccain_in_dead_heat_in_new_york.php

More: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/01/08/giuliani_sinks_to_fourth_in_florida.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/01/11/giuliani/index.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063427.php

Oooh, I like this. Very devious: “Democrats for Romney” in Michigan

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/10/2713/87225/55/434206

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/11/132847/518

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14204.html

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/democrats_for_romney.php

Fox News is worried: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/11/132154/913

Mike Huckabee likes to project an “aw shucks” populism and straightforwardness. Behind the scenes, however, he has a state-of-the-art (and possibly illegal) push polling operation working for him

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005057.php
[Paul Kiel] Yesterday we gave you the rundown on Common Sense Issues, a nonprofit group that's been phoning millions of voters in key primary states on behalf of Mike Huckabee. The automated calls ask voters about their views on certain hot-button conservative issues and then provide a barrage of facts demonstrating that Huckabee is stronger.

I spoke with the group's executive director Patrick Davis this morning and asked him to lay it all out for me. Where was the group active? How many calls had they made? And were the calls illegal? . . .

Yep, raising the level of discourse

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063426.php

Really, really stupid

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/11/stupidest-thing-said-this-campaign-season/
[Lawrence O’Donnell] “John Edwards is a loser. He has won exactly two elections in his life and lost 31. Only one of his wins and all of his losses were in presidential primaries and caucuses. He remains perfectly positioned to continue to lose with a Kucinich-like consistency. Nothing but egomania keeps Edwards in the race now. All presidential candidates are egomaniacs but some of them have party status worth preserving that forces them to drop out when they hit the wall. A loser like Edwards has no status or dignity to lose. Campaigning and losing is his life. So, he will continue his simple-minded, losing campaign and deny Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton the one-on-one contest they deserve.

If John Edwards stays in the race, he might, in the end, become nothing other than the Southern white man who stood in the way of the black man. And for that, he would deserve a lifetime of liberal condemnation.” . . . [read on]

“They say” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/11/AR2008011103460.html
[Dan Balz] Edwards has offended many Democrats with his candidacy. They question his authenticity and see his shift from optimism to anger as the sign of an opportunistic politician. . .

[NB: The national media has always considered this a Hillary/Obama race. That was the preferred narrative, and every other candidate was just an annoyance as far as they were concerned. Now they’re ready to lock the frame in place, and Edwards isn’t playing along. So you know what that means.]

How does the national press really feel about Hillary?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2008/01/10/new_hampshire/index.html

“The experience factor.” Does Hillary REALLY have an advantage over Obama?

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/compare_and_contrast_1.php

Here, bookmark this link – Steve Benen has done a great job of giving a point-by-point refutation of the despicable “Obama is a Muslim” emails that are going around. Of course, this won’t stop them, and it won’t stop a sizeable wingnut minority from believing them. What I hope, speaking seriously, is that they don’t whip up enough hate and suspicion that some goofball decides Obama needs to be taken out “for the good of the nation.” And who will we blame for THAT if it happens?

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14207.html

I guess EVERYONE is an agent for change . . .

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/01/11/bush/index.html

. . . . but who has actually DONE anything about it?

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/11/whats-wrong-with-now/

Bill Richardson’s prospects as a VP candidate

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/doubling_down.php

An encouraging trend: the youth vote tilts heavily Democratic

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/11/171416/684

We’re on record here that the voting system in the US is a disorganized mess, rife with opportunities for fraud. Anything that raises the visibility of e-voting problems, etc. is a good thing. But it seems wacky to argue that Clinton’s surprise victory over Obama in NH was somehow fraudulent . . . .

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/kucinich-to-force-recount-in-nh-dem.html
[AP] Democrat Dennis Kucinich, who won less than 2 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, said Thursday he wants a recount to ensure that all ballots in his party's contest were counted. The Ohio congressman cited "serious and credible reports, allegations and rumors" about the integrity of Tuesday results. . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/11/124711/384

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063292.php

http://dhinmi.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/10/02623/2264/85/434176

BUT: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_bruce_o__080110_obama_clinton_3a_remar.htm

Simply delusional

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/11/oreilly-i-should-be-on-the-supreme-court/
O’Reilly: ‘I should be’ on the Supreme Court . . .

This rings true for me: if Chris Matthews has been even more of an insufferable blowhard lately, it might be because he’s threatened by the onsurge of Keith Olbermann as the rising star of MSNBC, and he thinks he needs the attention

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/11/tweetys-angst/

Bonus item: Our 8 year old had a bulletin-board project at school listing their wishes for the new year. Here’s what he wrote

“I hope we have peace. I hope we have a better President. I hope the war ends, beggars get a home, and people stop hurting.”

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:56 AM

 
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

The surge, one year later

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/01/10/BL2008011002194.html
[Dan Froomkin] On the one-year anniversary of President Bush's announcement of a troop surge in Iraq, it's worth looking back to see what he promised the American people would happen. . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/10/194941/102
[McJoan] One year ago today, President Bush announced his response to the Iraq Study Group recommendations, which centered on a gradual but significant troop withdrawal and invigorated diplomacy.

Bush's response, of course, was an escalation of the occupying force, and a renewed effort to get an oil law beneficial to U.S. companies passed.

In looking back at the past year of the surge earlier this week, Bush described it as "incredibly successful, beyond anybody’s expectations." We all remember, of course, what Bush's stated expectation for the surge was: to improve security in order to give the Iraqi government "the breathing space it needs" to "make reconciliation possible." . . . [read on]

Remember “benchmarks”? http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005048.php

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14196.html

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/10/lieberman-mccain-surge-worked/

Five years in Iraq, seven years in Afghanistan: http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/10/bushs-legacy-two-lost-wars/

Only the best

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2008/jan/09/islamofascist_nonsense
[Larry Johnson] A old friend of my just deployed to Iraq. His unit will be carrying out a mission that involves psychological operations. Guess how many Arabic speakers are in the unit? None. Guess how many weeks of training they received on Iraq, Islam, and Arabic cultural sensitivities? NONE!! But we want these soldiers to go into a foreign combat theater and help shape the hearts and minds of a foreign people. This, in a nutshell, highlights why we are making so little progress in Iraq.

Sure enough, the military is now hedging over the authenticity of those Strait of Hormuz videotapes

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4115702&page=1
Just two days after the U.S. Navy released the eerie video of Iranian speedboats swarming around American warships, which featured a chilling threat in English, the Navy is saying that the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship. . . .

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/degrees-of-confidence-on-us-iran-naval-incident/index.html
[Mike Nizza] The list of those who are less than fully confident in the Pentagon’s video/audio mashup of aggressive maneuvers by Iranian boats near American warships in the Strait of Hormuz now includes the Pentagon itself. . .

More: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40747

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/10/iran/index.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/straits-of-tonkin-by-dday-after-few.html

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/10/pentagon-maybe-that-borat-voice-came-from-a-ufo/

Why?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/01/10/missing.marine/index.html
A pregnant Marine missing from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, was the victim of a crime and was to testify about it, the Onslow County sheriff told CNN affiliates.

Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach was eight months pregnant when she went missing on December 14.

A search is under way for 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, who has been missing from Camp Lejeune since December 14. . . .

[NB: Why doesn’t this CNN story tell us what the crime was? Are we supposed to guess?]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22579604/
A pregnant Marine who vanished last month before she was to testify in a military probe claimed “a senior officer ... had raped her and that the investigation had gone sour,” according to new court documents. . .

Again, why?

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/72996/
The recent killing of two U.S. soldiers by their Iraqi colleague has raised disturbing questions about U.S. military relations with the Iraqis they work with.

On Dec. 26, an Iraqi soldier opened fire on U.S. soldiers accompanying him during a joint military patrol in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. He killed the U.S. captain and another sergeant, and wounded three others, including an Iraqi interpreter.

Conflicting versions of the killing have arisen. Col. Hazim al-Juboory, uncle of the attacker Kaissar Saady al-Juboory, told IPS that his nephew at first watched the U.S. soldiers beat up an Iraqi woman. When he asked them to stop, they refused, so he opened fire.

"Kaissar is a professional soldier who revolted against the Americans when they dragged a woman by her hair in a brutal way," Col. Juboory said. "He is a tribal man, and an Arab with honor who would not accept such behavior. He killed his captain and sergeant knowing that he would be executed." . . .

The story was first reported on al-Rafidain satellite channel. That started Iraqis from all over the country talking about "the hero" who sacrificed his life for Iraqi honor. . . .

[NB: The U.S. version of events is very different, of course. But why haven’t we seen more coverage of this story?]

A third time, why?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005051.php
Back in 2005, The New York Times reports, a Blackwater helicopter dropped tear gas (CS gas) on a checkpoint in Baghdad's Green Zone. "An armored vehicle on the ground also released the gas, temporarily blinding drivers, passers-by and at least 10 American soldiers operating the checkpoint.... A number of Iraqi civilians, both on foot and in cars waiting to go through the checkpoint, were also exposed. " The gas, which the American military itself "can use only under the strictest conditions and with the approval of top military commanders," causes burning eyes, skin irritation, coughing, difficulty breathing and sometimes even vomiting.

Blackwater's explanation, by way of spokeswoman Anne Tyrell, was that "a CS gas canister was mistaken for a smoke canister and released near an intersection and checkpoint." If there was some mistake, both the helicopter and the vehicle on the ground seem to have been mistaken. Oops.

What CS gas does to you: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/10/35352/9610

[NB: Why does Blackwater get away with EVERYTHING?]

That could change: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22598582/
Two former employees of Blackwater Worldwide, the beleaguered contractor whose practices in Iraq are under federal scrutiny, were sentenced to probation Thursday on gunrunning charges.

Blackwater, the largest private security firm in Iraq, has been under scrutiny as a federal grand jury in Washington investigates the company's involvement in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians. The firm is also under investigation for possible weapons smuggling allegations — which the firm strongly denies.

The two men were granted leniency because they have been helping federal investigators for more than a year . . .

Telecom immunity is essential, we have been told, because noble, selfless communications companies were doing their patriotic duty to help President Bush protect national security and track down the evildoers. Protecting these loyal companies must be our very, very highest priority. . . . right?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/mochila.php?articleId=11476508&channelId=76
[AP] Telephone companies cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time, according to a Justice Department audit released Thursday. . . .

And at least once, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation — the highly secretive and sensitive cases that allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies — "was halted due to untimely payment."

"We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence," according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/10/131644/460
[McJoan] Remember how the FISA "reform" bill was pushed through Congress just before the August recess last year because of critical "national security" concerns? Remember how that action was so urgent because these warrantless wiretaps are such a critical part of our national security? . . . [read on]

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/phone-companies-cut-off-fisa-wiretap.html
[John Aravosis] So to the big phone companies, the rule of law doesn't matter. Promises to protect your privacy don't matter. But if you don't show them the money, suddenly all their "we had to illegally spy on you to defend national security" talk goes out the window. National security isn't so important to the big phone companies when money is involved.

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14194.html

Congress will proceed with its investigation of the CIA tape destruction

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=4006089&page=1
House Intelligence Committee chairman Silvestre Reyes told ABC News today that he will ignore the Bush administration's request to drop its investigation of why CIA interrogation tapes were destroyed.

"This is an administration that frankly does not have a good track record of policing itself," Reyes said. "We intend to go forward and issue subpoenas next week . . .

Stop the presses! Dick Cheney isn’t worried about staggeringly high oil prices (thanks to AmericaBlog for the link)

http://www.cnbc.com/id/21492800/

Nope, not worried at all: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/10/is-dick-stealing-from-the-us-and-giving-to-his-friends-again/
[Emptywheel] Remember the Minerals Management Service? That's the Department of Interior agency that is supposed to make sure that when oil companies drill on US or Native American lands, the landowner gets a sufficient return for the oil or gas they take out of the land, or, alternately, that a sufficient amount of oil to account for the royalty on the drilling rights is given back to the US. It's been at the center of scandal before . . . [read on]

Wear orange today!

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/closeguantanamo.html
[ACLU] On January 11, we are calling on everyone opposed to torture and indefinite detention to WEAR ORANGE to symbolize their sadness and disgust with the national shame that is Guantánamo Bay. . . .

More: http://www.discourse.net/archives/2008/01/close_guantanamo_now.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/10/54423/2973

Watch the Republican party pulling apart at the seams

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063381.php

The latest Fox News debate gives the boys a chance to play “Who hates the Iranians more?”

http://www.juancole.com/2008/01/us-video-of-iran-speedboats-flawed.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_06_archive.html#3918712033238069196

Let the right-wing McCain bashing begin!

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/10/rick-santorum-john-mccain-is-an-unelectable-rino/

More: http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/talkradio/transcripts/Transcript.aspx?ContentGuid=e96c3803-c542-4a57-98bd-68635a744540

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_010908/content/01125110.guest.html

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OWEyMDgxMWJlZmYxN2M1MGQ1ZDUxNjcxNmE5MmRmOGE

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14193.html

Mr. Default Option?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/7813.html
[Peter A. Brown] Despite his unpopularity among many GOP activists on the right, McCain's nomination is not likely to inspire a third-party candidate from the right, as might the nomination of Giuliani. That’s because Giuliani’s support for abortion rights, gay rights and gun control — all of which are in direct opposition to the mainstream position of conservatives — are litmus tests for conservatives.

McCain is with them on those questions, while conservatives are skeptical of him on mainstream matters like taxes, immigration and more esoteric questions like campaign finance, which matters to activists but not to the rank and file.

The question for those conservatives who rejected McCain the first time around is whether — and how much — they will re-evaluate their view now that the political environment, along with their choices, has changed substantially.

Honest John says he wants to raise the level of political discourse. Uh-huh – and he has just the track record to prove it

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14188.html

Huckabee’s tax plan

It’s brilliant! http://www.slate.com/id/2181833/fr/rss/

It’s loony! http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012879.php

The delicate issue of evolution – and how most of the Republican candidates try to avoid it

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14195.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/11/72621/6806

Raising the level of political discourse? Barack and Hillary, let it start with you

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/10/bangs-head-against-wallhow-stupid-can-they-be/

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063389.php

“Unity 08” morphs into “Bloomberg 08” (my, how convenient)

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2008/01/unity08-to-jump-on-bloomberg-b.html
A source familiar with the Bloomberg for president movement says the bipartisan Unity08 effort is poised to shut down its Web site, reconstitute as a Draft Bloomberg site and launch its own 50-state signature-gathering operation on behalf of the supposedly reluctant would-be independent presidential candidate. . .

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/bloombergunity_08.php
[Matt Yglesias] Because in the wake of catastrophic conservative governance, America needs two center-left candidates to split the vote and ensure the catastrophe continues! . . .

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_06_archive.html#1809696595343164510
[Atrios] Dear readers know that I've been heavily invested in the Unity 08 movement. And they've long promised me that I would be a part of their nominating process, that together we would choose our bipartisan ticket. I've put a lot of effort into pushing my favorite choice - Sharpton/Tancredo.

Now it appears they're going to choose the candidate for me, without my input.

More: http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_06_archive.html#8248166195056384359

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14191.html

OK, Mike – in or out? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/us/politics/11bloomberg.html
Mr. Bloomberg’s dalliance with the idea of running for president has stretched on and on, with his enthusiastic approval despite the public denials. But even before actually entering the contest, Mr. Bloomberg may have already risked losing something: people’s patience.

The political parlor game — Will he run? When will he decide? How much could he spend? — that has so delighted Mr. Bloomberg is suddenly sparking a backlash. . . .

The Politico itemizes a list of particulars damning the state of political reporting (including its own). But will anything change?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/politicos_edito.php
[Greg Sargent] The piece ticks off a litany of journalistic failures: Addiction to horse race coverage; slavish adherence to arbitrarily created narratives; a willingness to let coverage be tainted by the preference for certain outcomes; an eagerness to be led around on a leash by Drudge; etc., etc. . . [read on]

More: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/7822.html

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_06_archive.html#4138628545032920221
[Politico] Check out the nicer restaurants in Manchester, N.H., or Des Moines, Iowa, in the political season and you will see the same group of journalists and pols dining together almost every night. We go to events together, make travel plans together and read each other's work compulsively. We go to the same websites — the Drudge Report, Real Clear Politics, Time’s “The Page” — to see what each other is writing, and it’s only human nature to respond to it.

[Atrios] Drudge: conservative. Real Clear Politics: conservative. Halperin, formerly of the Note: conservative (I don't know what his personal politics are, just judging the product).

And that's all you need to know about the Villagers.

How bad is it when PAT BUCHANAN has to call out Chris Matthews?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/tweetys-new-meme-by-digby-matthews.html

Hmmm. . . Maureen Dowd’s apparently eyewitness report on Hillary’s campaign in NH? Written from Jerusalem

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/dowds.php

Like tv televangelists, there is nothing Ralph Reed can do, apparently, that will stop people from caring what he has to say

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/10/redemption-of-ralph-reeds-reputation-just-say-no/

Bonus item: Who said it – and who was he talking about?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119992615845679531.html
"He is often lazy, given to misstatements and exaggerations and, when he doesn't know the answer, too ready to try to bluff his way through."

***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 @ 7:46 AM

 
THE CRYING GAME

Hey, but the surge, the SURGE, is working!

http://www.juancole.com/2008/01/9-us-troops-killed-250000-civilians.html
Sunni Arab guerrillas have killed 9 US soldiers in the past two days. They killed 6 and wounded 4 with a bomb in a booby-trapped safe house on Wednesday. The deaths come in the course of an American sweep in Diyala Province aimed at weakening the Salafi radicals. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2181840
[Daniel Politi] On Tuesday, the military launched Phantom Phoneix, its latest offensive against Sunni militants that stretches across four provinces in Iraq and involves 24,000 U.S. soldiers and 130,000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers. Military officials expected to face stiff resistance in Diyala, but discovered that most of the insurgent leaders who were their targets had fled in advance of the attacks. The trend continued yesterday. "I'm sure there's active leaking of communication," said the northern commander, Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling. But it was clear that in Diyala, the insurgents "left behind a deadly calling card" . . .

Although Iraq has been off the front pages lately, the NYT helpfully reminds readers that 16 Americans have already died there in 2008.

http://www.slate.com/id/2181840
[Daniel Politi] The WP fronts a look at how U.S. officials have undergone a "quiet policy shift" where they now emphasize that they will simply let Iraqis figure out what works best. "We try to come up with Iraqi solutions for Iraqi problems," said the leader of a provincial reconstruction team with U.S. troops in Fallujah. Some think this shift that abandons many of the lofty goals espoused by the Bush administration during the invasion is simply a realistic acknowledgment that much of what has been tried in Iraq hasn't worked. But others see all this talk of "Iraqi solutions" as a way for the Bush administration "to turn a blind eye" to the multitude of problems that still plague Iraq with the goal of getting U.S. troops out of there.

Damn!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080109/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/cia_videotapes
A federal judge refused on Wednesday to delve into the destruction of CIA interrogation videos, saying there was no evidence the Bush administration violated a court order and the Justice Department deserved time to conduct its own investigation.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy was a victory for the Bush administration, which had urged the courts not to wade into a politically charged issue already being investigated by the Justice Department, CIA and Congress. . . .

More: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005047.php

Next step: Jose Rodriguez will try to get immunity from Congress

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/mochila.php?articleId=11463437&channelId=76

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/09/they-really-dont-want-us-learning-about-the-torture-tapes-do-they/

Iran says the U.S. altered the Strait of Hormuz tapes – and while you wouldn’t normally give the Iranians a lot of credence, this isn’t really very hard to imagine, is it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/world/middleeast/10iran.html
The Revolutionary Guards in Iran accused the United States on Wednesday of fabricating a video showing Iranian speedboats confronting United States Navy warships in the Persian Gulf over the weekend . . .

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/01/09/iran.boats/index.html
An audio recording has an unidentified Navy crew member say over the radio: "This is coalition warship. I am engaged in transit passage in accordance with international law. I intend no harm. Over."

The boats continue to race through the water even as the U.S. warship repeatedly sounded its horns.

"I am coming to you," a deep, thickly accented voice says in English over the radio.

To that, an unidentified sailor aboard the Hopper, speaking into a radio, asks the boats to identify themselves and steer clear.

"Inbound small craft: You are approaching a coalition warship operating in international waters. Your identity is not known; your intentions are unclear," he says.

"You may be subject to defensive measures. Request that you establish communications now or alter your course immediately to remain clear."

Immediately afterward, the same deep voice says: "You will explode in a few minutes."

When the U.S. ships heard that radio transmission, they took up their gun positions and officers were "in the process" of giving the order to fire when the Iranians abruptly turned away, U.S. officials added.

After the radio transmission, one of the Iranian boats dropped white boxes into the water in front of the U.S. ships, the officials said. It was not clear what was in the boxes, officials said, and they were not picked up because it was not known what they were. No shots were fired, and no one was injured.

It was not clear, however, that the voice was coming from any of the boats, Cdr. Lydia Robertson, the 5th Fleet spokeswoman in Bahrain, told CNN. It could have come from another ship in the area or from shore, she said. "We don't have a direct connection, but it's not necessarily a disconnect," she said.

Fake? http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/09/are-we-faking-it-again/
The video and audio were recorded separately and then matched, Naval and Pentagon officials said Tuesday. . . . [read on]

Bush’s vanishing Middle East agenda

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/01/09/BL2008010901704.html
Bush, who as recently as a week ago was promising a comprehensive peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians before the end of the year, is now describing a more modest goal: a shared vision of what a Palestinian state would look like. . . .

Wow. These are the kinds of people shaping U.S. policy toward Muslim nations – no wonder they’ve screwed it all up

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2008/jan/09/islamofascist_nonsense

Bush’s Civil Rights Commission – how “Republicans” became “Independents,” and vice-versa

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005043.php

It’s looking bad for the Supreme Court review of voter ID laws (hell, they gave Bush the 2000 election, maybe they can help the Republicans in 2008 too)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/01/court_hears_indiana_voter_id_c.php
[AP] "You want us to invalidate the statute because of minimal inconvenience?" Justice Anthony Kennedy said near the end of an hour-long argument. Kennedy, often a key vote, appeared more willing than some to consider changes to the law. . .

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/uncategorized/commentary-the-partisan-elephant-unnoticed-in-the-room/
The Supreme Court, studiously avoiding almost all mention that it was examining a thoroughly partisan political battle, spent a spirited hour on Wednesday looking for ways either to scuttle a major test case over voters’ rights or to find a way — as if the Justices were writing a law themselves — to soften the impact of a tough state requirement for a photo ID before a voter may cast a ballot at the polls.

Only two Justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens — even hinted at the real-world fact that the photo ID law in Indiana is at the heart of a bitter, ongoing contest reaching well beyond Indiana.

It was apparent from the outset that the Court’s more conservative members were most interested in (a) finding that no one had a right to bring the constitutional challenge, at least at this stage, (b) putting off a challenge until the law has actually been enforced or at least until just before election day, or (c) salvaging as much as possible of the Indiana photo ID requirement on the theory that voter fraud is a problem that states have a legitimate right to try to solve. There was some hand-wringing, particularly by Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., over how difficult it is for a judge to “draw the line” on when a voting requirement would or would not pass a constitutional test. . . [read on]

http://www.slate.com/id/2181781/fr/rss/
[Dahlia Lithwick] The real problem with Crawford v. Marion County Election Board is that the whole case is a dance of the seven veils. By which I mean that voter-identification laws are phony ways to solve pretend problems, while today's challenge to those laws is thin on evidence of real voters who've suffered real harms. A chimera doing battle with a fantasy. . . . [read on]

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005040.php
[Paul Kiel] Of course, it's rare to hear the Republican supporters of voter ID laws admit that there's no evidence that voter impersonation, the kind of voter fraud the laws are meant to stop, occurs.

But that's just what happened yesterday . . .

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/washington/10scotus.html

Plausible evidence that easily-corrected ballot issues might have affected the NH primary outcome. When will we get serious about ironing these things out? (thanks to John Aravosis for the link)

http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Decision2008/story?id=4107883&page=1

Unpacking the reasons for Hillary’s unexpected win in NH

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14177.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012869.php

Yes, Virginia, sexism is still alive and well

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/010908.html
Hillary Clinton helped turn her political fortunes around in New Hampshire by flipping a tasteless shock jock stunt – two guys shouting “iron my shirts!” – into a case study of male oppressors blocking her route to the presidency. . .

The “Obama is a closet Muslim” story is not going away – it doesn’t matter what the facts are. Bigots aren’t going to stop painting him as some sort of Manchurian Candidate, planted to subvert the country once he gets in power. Anonymous emails keep circulating and spreading the lies. Ugly, ugly stuff

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801100003
[O]n the January 6 broadcast of the nationally syndicated Live on Sunday Night, It's Bill Cunningham, conservative radio talk-show host Bill Cunningham repeatedly referred to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (IL) as "Barack Mohammed Hussein Obama." In fact, "Mohammed" is not a part of Obama's name. Cunningham also falsely claimed that Obama "was raised in madrassas in Indonesia" and accused Obama's church, the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, of being "black separatist" and "black racist." . . .

The facts: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1007/6314.html
But rather than vanish, the whispered smear campaign appears to have gone underground, and in its purest form: Obama himself, according to a pair of widely circulated anonymous e-mails, is a Muslim. . .

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/22/obama.madrassa/

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_barack_obama_muslim.htm

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp

Where the delegate count stands – closer than you think

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/9/183431/0116
Obama (25)
Clinton (24)
Edwards (19)

John Edwards, forgotten but not going away

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/09/where-do-we-go-from-here-2/
[Mike Lux] Edwards is dead as a Presidential prospect for 2008, but if this becomes a long, drawn out, fairly evenly-divided fight, and Edwards stays in and keeps drawing around 20% everywhere he goes, he could be the guy who decides the nominee. I could easily see this playing out where Obama wins a bunch of states and Clinton wins a bunch, and they both end up with about 40% of the delegates, and Edwards keeps playing to the end of the primary process and then delivers his 20% to one of them. Could make things interesting right up to convention day. . . [read on]

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/01/09/edwards/index.html

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14181.html

Hey, it worked for Hillary! (thanks to Leslie R. for the link)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/us/politics/10campaign.html
Earlier in the day, after hearing from a voter who recalled his father, Mr. Romney choked up momentarily, according to a pool reporter who was present. “He was a great man, and I miss him dearly,” Mr. Romney said. . . .

Feel the Romentum

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080109/ap_on_el_pr/romney_money;_ylt=AlFsbCQgxOOeiuE5sC91cRKs0NUE
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has decided to pull his advertising from South Carolina and Florida, in a sign of trouble for a campaign that badly needs a win. . . .

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/poll_mccain_ahead_in_michigan.php
A new poll of Michigan [where Romney is practicallly a favorite son] by Republican Strategic Vision gives John McCain the lead with 29%. Behind are native son Mitt Romney at 20%, Mike Huckabee with 18%, Rudy Giuliani at 13%, and Fred Thompson and Ron Paul at 5% each.

The poll was conducted January 4-6, before McCain's win in New Hampshire. McCain also has the advantage of having won the Michigan primary in 2000.

In order to minimize his own responsibility for war decisions, Bush continually says he will “listen to his commanders on the ground.” Well, of course he should do that – but gradually this has become, “the DECISION will be made by my commanders on the ground.” That’s not what the Constitution says about the powers and responsibilities of Commander in Chief. Now John McCain, who knows better, has caught the same bug

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/politics_and_leadership_/2008/01/mccain_disqualifies_himself_for_the_presidency.php
“There is only one man who should decide when to withdraw from Iraq and that is (General) David Petraeus,” the Arizona Senator said. . . [read on]

Looks like Bloomberg is serious about his third-party bid

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080109/ap_on_el_pr/bloomberg2008;_ylt=AqQ1LUSDbvsER59t.23c.zKs0NUE
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has quietly been polling and conducting a highly sophisticated voter analysis in all 50 states as he decides whether to launch an independent presidential bid . . .

The exhaustive data collection started months ago . . .

The “Unity” agenda – not based on issues where we don’t have enough “bipartisanship.” By and large, they are issues where Democratic (and democratic) solutions have been BLOCKED

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/the_statement.php
* Approval for the United States around the world has dropped to historically low levels, with only one out of four people approving of our country's actions, even in nations that are our longtime allies.
* We have eroded America's credibility and capacity to lead on urgent global and foreign policy issues, including terrrorism, nuclear profileration, climate change, and regional instabilities.
* Our budget and trade deficits are out of control. We are squandering our children's future. The ominous transfer of our national wealth has made our economy vulnerable, and our economic strength and competitiveness are both declining. Middle-income Americans are struggling to keep their homes and jobs and educate their children.
* We are not as secure as we should be. Our military is stretched thin and our nation remains vulnerabvle to catrostrophic terrorism."
* We are being held economically hostage because we have no energy policy worthy of the name.
* Our educational system is failing to prepare our children to succeed in a globalized and technological world
* Nearly 50 miillion Americans remain without health insurance, and the cost of medical care continues to spiral.
* The failures of bridges in Minnesota, and levees in New Orleans are harsh metaphors for the reckless neglect of our infrastructure.

[Matt Yglesias] On all of these issues, the problem isn't that people disagree about how to accomplish these things. The problem is that many politicians don't want to do this stuff.

What’s WRONG with these people?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/opinion/08dowd.html
[Maureen Dowd] Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back to the White House?

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_06_archive.html#4824083789051702836
[Dowd, describing some of her fellow reporters] A woman gazing at the screen was grimacing, saying it was bad. Three guys watched it over and over, drawn to the “humanized” Hillary. One reporter who covers security issues cringed. “We are at war,” he said. “Is this how she’ll talk to Kim Jong-il?”

Another reporter joked: “That crying really seemed genuine. I’ll bet she spent hours thinking about it beforehand.” He added dryly: “Crying doesn’t usually work in campaigns. Only in relationships.”

[Atrios] These people are all broken. Complete monsters.

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/09/matthews/index.html

Chris Matthews, a man with, uh, ISSUES, deserves a special listing all to himself

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/9/11232/49952
Matthews: I think the Hillary appeal has always been about the mix of toughness and sympathy. Let's not forget, and I'll be brutal, the reason she's a US Senator, the reason she's a candidate for President, the reason she may be a front runner, is that her husband messed around.

Brzezinski: Yeah, but...

Matthews: That's how she got to be a Senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win it on her merit, she won because everybody felt, "My God, this woman stood up under humiliation," right? That's what happened. . .

[Christy Hardin Smith] What is wrong with Chris Matthews? With all of these media people? I mean that, in all honesty, what in the hell is wrong with them? Their personal loathing of Hillary Clinton shone through in every sniggering, overwrought report this week. . . .

None of it has anything to do with substance. It's as if a pack of hyenas were crossbred with the characters in Mean Girls and then sent out to play at journalism.

Watch it: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/one_day_after_s.php

Matthews’ Greatest Hits: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/9/15149/90400
MATTHEWS: I hate to say this. I'm not going to hate to say it. It's a fact. You [Clinton] look more witchy when you're doing it like this. . . [lots more like this – read on]

Matthews vs Brokaw: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14179.html
BROKAW: You know what I think we’re going to have to do?

MATTHEWS: Yes sir?

BROKAW: Wait for the voters to make their judgment.

MATTHEWS: Well what do we do then in the days before the ballot? We must stay home, I guess.

BROKAW: No, no we don’t stay home. There are reasons to analyze what they’re saying. We know from how the people voted today, what moved them to vote. You can take a look at that. There are a lot of issues that have not been fully explored during all this. But we don’t have to get in the business of making judgments before the polls have closed. And trying to stampede, in effect, the process.

Look, I’m not just picking on us, it’s part of the culture in which we live these days. I think that the people out there are going to begin to make judgments about us if we don’t begin to temper that temptation to constantly try to get ahead of what the voters are deciding . . [read on]

Matthews vs Maddow: http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_antichris_matthews_vote.php
RACHEL MADDOW, Air America: Pat, I will tell you that on the influential -perhaps influential on the left — Web site, talking points memo today, do you want to know who they’re blaming for women voters breaking for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama? Who they’re blaming for this late showing for Hillary Clinton? They’re blaming Chris Matthews. People are citing specifically Chris not only for his own views but also as a symbol for what the mainstream media…

MATTHEWS: What Web site?

MADDOW: Talkingpointsmemo.com. It’s cited anecdotally…

MATTHEWS: My influence over American politics looms over the people! I’m overwhelmed myself.

MADDOW: People feel that the media is piling on Hillary Clinton. They’re coming to her defense with their votes . . [read on]

Watch it: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/heres-that-rachel-maddow-moment-by-dday.html

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/09/msnbc-you-have-a-matthews-and-a-gender-problem/

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/09/media-analysis-the-tweety-effect-runs-rampant/

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801090008

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801090006

Paul Begala tells Fox News that a story they are running about him is flat out false – but do they care?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-begala/fox-news-we-report-e_b_80698.html

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/01/09/quote/index.html
"I'll take it under advisement." -- Fox's Major Garrett, responding to an e-mail from CNN's Paul Begala in which Begala denied unequivocally Garrett's report that Begala was going to work for Hillary Clinton's campaign. Begala says Fox continued to run the story Monday despite his denial, with Garrett insisting to Begala that his "sourcing" was "strong, very strong."

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14184.html

A typical Rush Limbaugh “insight”

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_010908/content/01125104.guest.html
RUSH: [T]here's something going on in California that you need to know about. California. The state government of California is making a play for their right, the state's right, to have remote control over the thermostat in your house -- based on energy consumption, carbon footprint, and global warming. This story has been in the LA Times. It has been in some of the San Francisco papers. I have it two or three times in the stack over here. "California utilities would control the temperature of new homes and commercial buildings in emergencies with a radio-controlled thermostat, under a proposed state update to building energy efficiency standards." This is what will happen if global warming is declared by California to be "an emergency event." If they declare global warming in California to be an emergency event, that means they'll get control of your thermostat every day, because you don't have global warming alerts like you have smog alerts or other kind of inclement weather alerts.

Global warming, once it's declared to be an emergency, it's going to be for 30 years, 30 40-years, right, while we wait for this to play out. So in California they are making a play to have control over your thermostat from the utility company, meaning you will not be able to raise it or lower it to your preference. There will be governors or limits on your thermostat from the utility company, and it will be whatever the state mandates. This is not that far removed from any number of other things, like the lightbulb switch: the banning of the incandescent lightbulb by the year 2012; an absolute meaningless, worthless gesture that hardly anybody raised an eyebrow over, and yet it represents one of the most dramatic increases in government control over your freedom and your life that you can imagine -- and now they want, in California, control over your thermostat . . .

Bonus item: The semiotics of “change" (c/o the tv show “Cheers”)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/tweety-effect-and-other-things-by-digby.html
Cheers: One for the Road
[Frasier is helping Woody prepare a speech]

Woody Boyd: "I believe I was elected to the City Council as an agent of change. And I fully intend to live up to that pledge: I will make change."

Dr. Frasier Crane: Change 'change' to 'a change'.

Woody Boyd: A what?

Dr. Frasier Crane: You see, in here, you make 'change'. There, you make 'a change'. So, just make the change. Change 'make change' to 'make *a* change'.

Dr. Frasier Crane: [frustrated and yells] Oh, just change it!

[Frasier storms off]

Woody Boyd: [to Norm] Boy, I think I see why Dr. Crane never cures anybody. . .

***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 @ 7:08 AM

 
HOLD EVERYTHING!

Well, well, well. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a horse race again . . .

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14175.html
[Steve Benen] Oh, now I remember. We’re supposed to wait until after voters express a preference to declare a winner of a contest. . . [read on]

http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3147
[Chris Bowers] Shocking, stunning, amazing that [Clinton] could overcome an 8% deficit in the polls in just one day. The huge turnout among Democratic women did the trick . . .

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/08/late-nite-fdl-why-were-the-polls-so-wrong/

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063175.php

Individual candidates aside, I’m usually happy to see it when the pollsters and forecasters miss a big one like this. It’s an important reminder that people decide these things. Good news for Hillary, of course. And even if Obama still ends up being the nominee, this will help him too – he will have had to earn a harder-fought campaign, there will be more press interest on the Democratic and not only Republican side of upcoming primaries, and he might be vetted a bit more thoroughly to withstand what will surely be a brutal Republican onslaught in the fall. I think more than a few people, not against Obama necessarily, were saying, “Whoa, wait a minute, let’s slow down before we coronate this guy.”

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/01/08/clinton_speech/index.html
[Hillary] "In the last week, I listened to you, and in the process, I found my own voice."

Watch: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063177.php

“Rumors of my demise . . .”

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/09/weekly_standard/index.html

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/09/allow-us-to-revise-and-extend-our-remarks/

What happened? Everyone focuses on Hillary’s weepy moment as the factor that changed the dynamic. Did it soften her iron-lady image? Did the generally clueless and often sexist reaction of commentators (like Chris Matthews) generate sympathy for her? Or. . . . is even that analysis a little bit sexist?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/us/politics/09moment.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/i-fucking-love-rachel-maddow-let-me.html

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/08/new-hampshire-tweety-did-it/

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063143.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012864.php

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/aint-no-hollaback-girl-by-digby-well-it.html

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063146.php
[Reader AL] [T]he idea that people would vote for her simply because they're "outraged" over media coverage these last few days is incomprehensible to me. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2181584/fr/rss/
[John Dickerson] Democrats like a fighter. Maybe that's the simplest reason Hillary Clinton pulled out a surprise victory in New Hampshire. . . . [read on]

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063135.php

The sorry state of political reporting generally

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/07/media_coverage/index.html

In other news. . .

Gee, why would anyone suspect the Bush gang of being less than candid about the “provocative” assault on US ships in the Strait of Hormuz?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005033.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/washington/09prexy.html

Our friends

http://www.slate.com/id/2181770
[Daniel Politi] In other news, all the papers go inside with U.S. and Iraqi forces launching a major offensive against Sunni insurgents in Diyala Province. But even before the offensive began, military officials got word that insurgent leaders had fled their hideouts, "confirming a long-standing pattern: When U.S. and Iraqi forces attack, insurgents drop their weapons and blend into the civilian population," says the LAT. The NYT notes that American planners had kept most Iraqi troops in the dark about the offensive in order to avoid just this kind of scenario, which "suggests they cannot fully trust their allies who are supposed to pick up more of the fighting" this year.

The Dept of Defense says, well maybe one of our main contractors was involved with, and then covered up, a gruesome rape case – but it’s not our problem

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4099514&page=1
The Defense Department's top watchdog has declined to investigate allegations that an American woman working under an Army contract in Iraq was raped by her co-workers.

The case of former Halliburton/KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones gained national attention last month. An ABC News investigation revealed how an earlier investigation into Jones' alleged gang-rape in 2005 had not resulted in any prosecution, and that neither Jones nor Democratic and Republican lawmakers have been able to get answers from the Bush administration on the state of her case. . .

Is this a going-away present of sorts?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063102.php
[AFP] Lights in the Old City of Jerusalem will be turned off before dawn this week so visiting US President George W. Bush can get a better view of the sun rising over its ancient walls.

Bush, who arrives in the Middle East on Wednesday for a visit lasting more than a week, had made a request to watch the sun rise over the Old City from his suite at the King David Hotel, a municipal spokesman said on Tuesday.

To make the scene more dramatic, the authorities have decided to turn off the lights illuminating the limestone walls before dawn on Thursday and Friday, the spokesman told reporters.

Could be big: Federal judge tells the Bush gang to open up their records about conveniently missing WH emails

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hKKWSY_43nHexg55YcW2X9YXNayAD8U1T7U00

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/08/its-more-than-just-whether-the-e-mails-are-on-the-back-ups/

It’s good that someone notices these little things. The Bush gang would never impede an investigation of its Hatch Act violations – would they? – but they weren’t going to approve funds to pay for it either. Oh, wait, that IS impeding it, isn’t it? Fortunately, Congress stepped in (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfe/dailyfed/0108/010708cdpm1.htm

Packing the Civil Rights Commission

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005036.php
[Paul Kiel] Back in November, The Boston Globe's Charlie Savage reported on how the Bush administration had stacked the U.S. Civil Rights Commission with Republicans -- two GOP commissioners had switched their registration to independents after being appointed, clearing the way for the administration to appoint two more Republicans. The scheme was entirely legal, the administration said, and the Justice Department, in a memo from the Office of Legal Counsel, had said so. But now a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has found the OLC memo "problematic" and says that if someone were to challenge the arrangement in court, the administration would probably lose. . .

George Bush, who has presided over the devastation of our economy, suddenly expresses concern – yeah, thanks for nothing, man

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/01/08/BL2008010802026.html
The insincerity of President Bush's sudden concern about the economy and the plight of working Americans was plain for all to see yesterday in Chicago, where he acknowledged the existence of "economic challenges," but cited them as a reason to -- of all things -- make his tax cuts permanent. . . . [read on]

http://www.first-draft.com/2008/01/today-on-hold-2.html
Q The President's comments on the economy yesterday were perceived to have shown a change in tone, maybe a more, I guess, mixed view, as he described it, on the economy. Is he growing increasingly worried about the economy, in light of the jobs report, the oil prices, and some of these other figures?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think I would ask you, Caren, and others in the room who cover the President every day, and I cover -- I follow closely what the President says as well, and I didn't notice a shift in the President's comments. . . .

Q Well, the President, as you said, has been saying that there's mixed signals on the economy, but isn't the administration also sending mixed signals when it says on the one hand, the economy is fundamentally sound, but then is also either posing options or considering options? Does that indicate maybe, you know, you're doing things to prop it up?

MS. PERINO: I think that that's the very definition of "mixed" -- there are some good numbers and some numbers that are troubling. And that's what the President is analyzing, and his economic commanders on the ground are advising him, as to what they think may or may not need to be done. And we'll just have to wait and see what he decides.

[NB: “Economic commanders on the ground”? That’s ridiculous, but what the hell, it worked in Iraq to allow himself to be distanced from the consequences of his own bad decisions.]

Welcome back Michael Berube – we’ve missed you

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2008/jan/08/nonpartisan_wisdom_on_iraq
In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Very Serious Person Michael O’Hanlon takes Barack Obama to task for his fundamental unseriousness on Iraq:

“there are nonetheless two problems with Mr. Obama's Iraq views that call into doubt his ability to build a truly inclusive American political movement. First, he seems contemptuous of the motivations of those who supported the war. While showing proper respect for the heroic efforts of our troops, he displays little regard for the views of those many Americans who saw the case for war in the first place -- even as he has called for a more civil and respectful political debate.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063073.php
[Berube] O’Hanlon makes a good point. Truly, to bring America together, Obama will have to be more respectful of people who were wrong about war in Iraq, and who spent most of 2002-03 sneering derisively at people who turned out to be right about war in Iraq. If Obama can’t be nicer to all those people who dismissed war opponents as lunatics and Saddam-enablers, we will never have Unity in 2008. . . [read on]

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14162.html

The candidate of “change”? Tell me another

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063079.php
[KA] If I'm not wrong, Mitt fully supports Bush and the rest of the Republicans. I've never heard him utter a bad word about any of them. What exactly does he want to change? . . .

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/03/romney-i-love-bush/
[W]e also love a president who has kept us safe these last six years.”

Is the Bush gang not-so-subtly tilting toward Romney?

http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2008/01/did-bush-just-k.html

Giuliani’s “plan” is to lose primary after primary until he starts his unstoppable drive of momentum in Florida. How’s that working for you, Rudy?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/01/08/giuliani_sinks_to_fourth_in_florida.html
A new Datamar poll in Florida finds Mike Huckabee leading the Republican presidential primary race with 24% support, followed by Mitt Romney at 20%, Sen. John McCain at 18% and Rudy Giuliani now back in fourth place at 16%.

Two months ago, Giuliani led the GOP race. With little chance of winning the other early states, he has been campaigning nearly non-stop in Florida for several weeks. . .

He really DOES have “9/11 Tourette’s”

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14169.html
Giuliani, appearing on MSNBC, is asked for his thoughts about Hillary Clinton and tears on the campaign trail. He said, “This is not something I would judge anybody on, one way or the other. And the reality is, if you look at me, September 11 — the funerals, the memorial services — there were times in which it was impossible not to feel the emotion.”

The Bloomberg wankfest that was supposed to kick off the great “Unity” third-party campaign, fizzled

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_06_archive.html#7308217257659445964
[Atrios] I have no idea if Michael Bloomberg is going to run for president, and frankly I don't care, but only the Villagers could imagine that at this point in time there's some sort of mass excitement over the prospect. . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/memories-of-wankstock-by-dday-im.html
[Dday] I'm kicking myself for only catching about 10 minutes of the Wankstock conference on C-SPAN. I was disappointed to see Bob Graham there; I always thought he was better than that. And the deep, thought-provoking discussions I saw consisted mainly of jokes about Oklahoma Sooner football. The only issue anybody brought up was Republican former Congressman Jim Leach's call essentially for public financing of elections, which was met with a decent round of applause. I guess Bloomberg's billion dollars doesn't count.

The more representative quotes were pabulum like this:

"People have stopped working together, government is dysfunctional, there's no collaborating and congeniality," Bloomberg said to applause from the crowd.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/dont-eat-bloomer-acid-by-digby-d-day.html
[Digby] Apparently government isn't dysfunctional when it's working like a GOP dictatorship. . . .

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/8/13147/76417

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/8/134643/0365

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14163.html

Bill O’Reilly, FOS

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/bill_oreilly_i.php
[Greg Sargent] Bill O'Reilly is offering a rather high-flown explanation for the incident in which he shoved the Obama staffer in order to get access to the Illinois Senator during a rally in New Hampshire: He did it in the name of freedom.

O'Reilly addressed the incident himself on his show last night, and aired footage of it in the apparent belief that it exonerates him. . .

"I had no choice, ladies and gentlemen, but to uphold the Constitution," O'Reilly says, adding that his zeal to defend the "freedom of the press" explains why he went on to shove the Obama staffer, shout at him repeatedly, and call him a "son of a bitch."

Bonus item: I’m convinced

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/08/vote-mccain-bomb-iran/

***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 @ 7:30 AM

 
CURTAIN CALLS

The brief for impeaching Bush and Cheney, from George McGovern (thanks to numerous people for sending me the link)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/04/AR2008010404308.html
Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard.

From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team's assumption of power was the product of questionable elections that probably should have been officially challenged -- perhaps even by a congressional investigation.

In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion -- by far the highest in our national history. . . .

It happened in part because the Bush-Cheney team repeatedly deceived Congress, the press and the public into believing that Saddam Hussein had nuclear arms and other horrifying banned weapons that were an "imminent threat" to the United States. The administration also led the public to believe that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks -- another blatant falsehood. . . .

Another shocking perversion has been the shipping of prisoners scooped off the streets of Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other countries without benefit of our time-tested laws of habeas corpus. . . .

As former representative Elizabeth Holtzman, who played a key role in the Nixon impeachment proceedings, wrote two years ago, "it wasn't until the most recent revelations that President Bush directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- and argued that, as Commander in Chief, he had the right in the interests of national security to override our country's laws -- that I felt the same sinking feeling in my stomach as I did during Watergate. . . . A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law -- and repeatedly violates the law -- thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors."

Is the real purpose behind telecom immunity to give the BUSH GANG immunity?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/6/215233/4358/367/428825
[Patriot Daily News] Bush wants to keep Senators clueless because telecom immunity also gives Bush immunity. Telecom immunity includes by definition the approval of two condition precedents: Bush had constitutional authority for the warrantless surveillance and the surveillance was determined to be lawful. Under the doctrine of Congressional ratification, the effect of this approval is to retroactively "legalize" Bush's authority and program. This means that Bush may have immunity from prosecution. Moreover, for years, Bush could not cite any statutory authority for his theory of unitary presidential prerogatives. Bush will now have precedent. . . .

Bush argues that retroactive immunity is imperative to protect the telecoms from financial ruin from lawsuits and to avoid unfairly punishing patriotic telecoms which cooperated after receiving assurances of lawfulness. Neither of these grounds is presently an issue facing the telecoms. The law already immunizes telecoms and if financial ruin becomes an issue, there are remedies which have been used in the past which do not involve retroactive immunity. In fact, there is no political or legislative precedent for retroactive immunity under these circumstances. . . [read on!]

Will Congress start the new year by confronting the Bush gang about its expansive and unaccountable assertions of power?

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/07/oversight-intel-and-the-rule-of-law-avoiding-the-santayana-curse/

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/07/oversight-intel-and-the-rule-of-law-avoiding-the-santayana-curse-part-ii/

Is the Bush gang trying to fabricate a “Gulf of Tonkin” crisis?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/01/07/iran.us.navy/index.html
The U.S. military reported Monday on a "significant" confrontation involving five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats that "harassed and provoked" three U.S. naval ships in international waters over the weekend. . . .

http://www.juancole.com/2008/01/iran-irgc-ships-confront-us-navy.html
[Juan Cole] That the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps coast guard would play chicken with the US Navy is not that surprising. Enemies at sea often taunt one another, and I think there were similar feints by Soviet subs in the old days. (A kind reader pointed out that it even happened more recently with China.)

What is harder to understand is the Iranian government explanation, which was that the IRGC did not recognize the US naval ships as such. That isn't plausible, and besides, what other naval ships would the IRGC have a problem with?

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/what-are-odds-of-this-being-true.html
[Chris in Paris] Just days before Bush departs for his Middle East tour, the Pentagon reports a "significant provocative act" from Iran. Unbelievable (quite literally). The boy who cried wolf strikes again. Somehow I feel like we've been here before.

Think of it this way: if they were really serious about using CIA infiltration units to go into Pakistan to kill or capture Bin Laden, we would never hear about it unless and until it was successful. So why leak a story like this?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/07/is-dick-finally-going-to-go-after-obl/

What, no happy talk?

http://www.slate.com/id/2181558
[Daniel Politi] The New York Times leads with news that President Bush acknowledged yesterday that the country faces "economic challenges" and noted "recent economic indicators have become increasingly mixed." Although Bush didn't say anything about a recession, it marked a shift in message for a president who has always been decidedly upbeat about the economy, and it's the clearest sign yet that the next big Congress vs. White House fight will be over the best way to stimulate the economy. . .

The WSJ reported yesterday that congressional Democrats are working on legislation to boost economic growth, and today the NYT points out that the differences between Republicans and Democrats on the issue "could dominate the 2008 election campaign and the remainder of the Bush presidency." Despite the more negative words about the economy, administration officials made clear that, as the Post reported late last year, Bush still hasn't made up his mind whether a stimulus package is even needed and will probably hold off an announcement until closer to the State of the Union later this month. The NYT points out that Democratic leaders haven't made up their minds either, but it looks like they're trying to take advantage of the White House delay to announce their own plan first. There seems to be general agreement among the Democrats that a stimulus package would have to be temporary and target lower and middle income households by, for example, offering rebates or restoring tax credits to families that currently don't qualify for them.

Bush begins to narrate his legacy

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/01/07/BL2008010701413.html

Pervez Musharraf, still blaming Bhutto for her own assassination

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/busharraf-by-dday-dick-cheneys-man-in.html

I’m beyond being shocked by this, but WTF?

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/7/1489/07174
[NYT] The government contends that it is perfectly free to inspect every laptop that enters the country, whether or not there is anything suspicious about the computer or its owner. Rummaging through a computer’s hard drive, the government says, is no different than looking through a suitcase. One federal appeals court has agreed, and a second seems ready to follow suit. . . .

The coming Supreme Court decision on voter ID laws, and what’s at stake

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005027.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/us/07identity.html

There is a monster on the Supreme Court

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/7/17910/11390
The Supreme Court appeared divided Monday over whether the drugs commonly injected to execute prisoners risk causing excruciating pain in violation of the Constitution. . .

"There is no painless requirement" in the Constitution, Scalia said. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito also indicated their support for the states' procedures. . . [read on]

In election news . . .

Think the sudden appearance on Fox News of a NH “focus group” that just LOVES Mitt Romney right after Sunday’s debate was just a little too much of a coincidence?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005030.php

Here’s the kind of focus group Luntz runs: http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/07/ron-paul-supporters-confront-frank-luntz/
Fox's official pollster Frank Luntz's feathers were ruffled because a Paul supporter got into his focus group and taped the proceedings.

The man claims that Luntz was slamming Paul to focus group members, and according to Melissa Bailey of the New Haven Independent, threatened to publish the video on his web site . . .

Fox News, still playing favorites

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/7/193838/0549
[Scout Finch] When Fox News announced they wouldn't allow Ron Paul into their "Republican Forum", some longtime suckers viewers were upset. A recent WMUR poll showed Ron Paul with 10% of the NH Republican vote, far ahead of Thompson.

So, a group of Ron Paul protesters showed their displeasure outside of the forum. That's when they spotted Sean Hannity and began chasing him down the street chanting "Fox News Sucks!" Cliff Schecter of Brave New Films has the video . . .

[NB: The other delightful aspect of this story is the fracturing of the conservative coalition between establishment political and media figures and insurgent candidates with a devoted following – see more on this below]

Romney’s big electoral weakness (aside from being a phony and a liar)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/062953.php

John McCain, darling of the media

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14156.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/10-demerits-by-digby-jane-at-fdl.html
[Digby] The reason the kewl kidz on the bus love him so much is because he is a nasty, high school locker room smart ass. . . .

Honest John utters an untruth! (Think about the media's relentless coverage of Romney's claims about seeing his father march with MLK -- as compared with their bland acceptance of this much more important howler)

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/06/mccain-earmark/
[McCain] And I’m proud to tell you, Chris, in 24 years as a member of Congress, I have never asked for nor received a single earmark or pork barrel project for my state . . . [read on]

NH and SC predictions

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/063031.php

Another scandal-plagued Republican Congressman says bye-bye

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005031.php

Or not? http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/7/161546/2483

On the Democratic side. . . .

Is Hillary’s campaign running out of money?

http://www.thechrismatthewsshow.com/html/transcript/index.php
[Chris Matthews, 1-6-08] Ms. MITCHELL: Hillary Clinton's supporters, in New York, at least, who have not given the maximum amount of money are getting automated calls this weekend telling them to contribute more urgently for New Hampshire.

MATTHEWS: Yeah. Lose for your--contribute before New Hampshire. In case she loses in New Hampshire. I get it.

Ms. MITCHELL: No, contribute because they need the money now.

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/edwards_adviser_trippi_hillary_is_broke.php
Edwards senior adviser Joe Trippi has a theory about the Clinton campaign: He says that it's broke, or will be soon enough.

"There's a good chance that they're on the ropes financially," Trippi argued in an interview by cell phone from New Hampshire. "I can guarantee you their money is drying up. I don't think anyone is contributing to them." . . . [read on]

The politics of tears

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/us/politics/07cnd-campaign.html
In perhaps her most public display of emotion of the presidential campaign, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s eyes welled with tears, and her voice cracked dramatically on Monday, as she talked about holding up under the rigors of the race and her belief that she is the best candidate for the Democratic nomination. . . .

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/01/breaking_hillary_cries.html
The Journal wonders whether this may be Clinton's Edmund Muskie moment (Muskie appeared to tear up in 1972 after a New Hampshire newspaper attacked his wife, and the image managed to derail the popular Maine senator's candidacy). But we have to wonder, like Bob Shrum before us, if this isn't exactly what her campaign needs. Finally, proof that Hillary is human. Even though the campaign is ravaging her physically and emotionally, she's still fighting because she cares. What better testament to someone's character as a candidate?

Either that or she faked it, which would also be totally stellar.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/062974.php
[Josh Marshall] TPM Reader AB just asked if this was Hillary's 'Muskie' moment, when she teared up a bit talking about her presidential campaign with voters in New Hampshire. I'm skeptical about whether it'll matter too much one way or another. But I would say it's a net positive if it's anything. This isn't 1972 and she's no Edmund Muskie. I thought it showed her in a very positive light.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14159.html
[Steve Benen] ABC’s headline on this strikes me as wildly unfair: “Can Clinton’s Emotions Get the Best of Her?”

“Get the best of her? These candidates, all of the ones who are really giving it their all, are enduring a grueling, painful process, with very little sleep, poor nutrition, and intense, constant pressure. Given how exhausted these folks are, I’m actually surprised more candidates don’t cry more often.

What’s the charge here? That Clinton got emotional? There’s nothing wrong with emotion. That she’s faking it? Nonsense; she’s not that good an actor. That’s she’s cracking under pressure? That’s just absurd. . . .

On a related note, I was disappointed by Edwards’ reaction.

John Edwards was asked in Lakeport about reports that Hillary had teared up.

“I really don’t have anything to say about that,” he said. “I think what we need in a commander in chief is strength and resolve, and presidential campaigns are a tough business, but being president of the United States is also a very tough business. And the president of the United States is faced with very very difficult challenges every single day, difficult judgments every single day. What I know is that I’m prepared for that, and I’m in this fight for the middle class, for the future of this country, for the long haul.”

If this is an accurate quote, it’s a surprisingly cheap shot. Clinton wept, so she lacks “strength”? She teared up, so she’s unprepared for “tough business”? He’s more “prepared” because he didn’t cry?

If this really was Edwards’ response, I have to admit, I’ve lost some respect for him.

It’s different for a woman: http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/07/feel-the-misogyny/

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/fake_stories.php

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_06_archive.html#3856559216903629676

More: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Clinton_fights_tears_Its_not_easy.html

http://www.attytood.com/2008/01/a_brief_history_of_crying_in_t_1.html

Video: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4097366

I’m not anti-Hillary, but this is desperate and DUMB

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/on_eve_of_primary_hillary_drops_negative_mailer_hitting_obama_on_taxes.php
Check out this new mailer -- forwarded our way by a Dem operative -- that Hillary has dropped in New Hampshire, attacking Obama on Social Security taxes . . .

I basically buy the line of argument that says, Democrats competing for office can and will criticize one another – but they shouldn’t be reinforcing Republican talking points in doing it

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/be_afraid_2.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/7/181142/9115

More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14158.html

Getting to know the candidates by the advisors they choose

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080121/berman

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/the_advisor_gap_1.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012854.php

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002673.php

Not to get too wonky about it, but here’s why you don’t want your chief pollster to also be your chief political strategist

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/062969.php

It’s amazing how quickly this may be coming for a candidate who looked like an unbeatable juggernaut just a few weeks ago, but if Hillary continues to slide, at what point do her people decide that they have to salvage her long-term political position rather than fighting on futilely?

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/some_hillary_insiders_worry_about_staying_in_past_new_hampshire_others_urge_her_to_fight_on.php
[Greg Sargent] According to a Hillary adviser I spoke to today, Camp Hillary insiders who have been with her a very long time, such as Patti Solis Doyle, are worried about the long term damage that could be done to Hillary if she decides to fight on after a New Hampshire loss, though there's no indication they are yet urging an exit.

"People who are close to Hillary personally are worried about what this is doing to her, what it might do to her career," the adviser says. . . .

More: http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/01/07/clinton4/index.html

People are already writing Hillary’s political obituary

http://www.newsweek.com/id/84540

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/07/AR2008010702263.html

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2008/01/why-is-hillary.html

Is Obama “post-partisan”?

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/gop-fears-obamas-bipartisan-outreach.html

Not enough, apparently: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3127

Here’s what Bloomberg and the “Unity” crowd mean by “bipartisan”

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/by-time-they-got-to-wankstock-by-digby.html

Colin Powell praises Obama – is that bipartisan enough?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080108/cm_thenation/45267470_1

Nope, still not bipartisan enough

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/07/AR2008010702939.html
Even Conservative Media Chorus Sings Obama's Praises

Is it possible that the Democratic primary will be, for all intents and purposes, over by tonight?

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/07/monday-late-nite-you-gotta-fight-for-your-rights/
[Watertiger] So, according to the Village idiots (and Keith Olbermann, much to my dismay), tomorrow's New Hampshire primary is going to be the "make or break" day for all of the Democratic campaigns. We can thank two small states out of fifty for taking on the onerous task of representing a legitimate cross-section of the American voting population. I guess they're voting there so we don't have to vote here. (Insert eye rolling emoticon).

I've been casting my vote for 27 years now; I don't ever recall Presidential primaries being called IN THE SECOND WEEK OF JANUARY! What the hell has happened to our primary system? Why should my vote be discounted . . .

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/7/223839/6811
[Jeralyn Merritt] If Markos of Daily Kos, a very astute observer without a dog in this fight is correct, it's a tsunami.

That means those of us voting in the 47 states other than Iowa, NH and SC won't have an impact in determining who our nominee will be. . .

What's even sillier is that the decision as to who gets the Democratic nomination is being made more by Independents than by registered Democrats, since these early states allow Independents to vote in the Democratic primary and they are turning out in droves.

Chris Matthews isn’t obsessed with Hillary Clinton – really, really he’s not

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/playing-wrong-clip-by-dday-i-know-big.html

Watch: http://cliffschecter.bravenewfilms.org/blog/23973-chris-matthews-denies-obsession-with-hillary

Bill Kristol makes his debut as a NYT columnist – and if you thought he would break out his very best effort to make a good first impression as an informed, insightful commentator, well, you would be wrong

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2008/jan/07/kristols_first_times_oped_neoconservatism_for_idiots
"Who, inquiring minds want to know, is going to spare us a first Obama term? After all, for all his ability and charm, Barack Obama is still a liberal Democrat. Some of us would much prefer a non-liberal and non-Democratic administration. We don’t want to increase the scope of the nanny state, we don’t want to undo the good done by the appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, and we really don’t want to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in Iraq." . . .

[M.J. Rosenberg] It's not a column. It a series of GOP talking points.

And the clichés! http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/bill_kristol_de_1.php

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/the_nyt_introduces_a_wordsmith.php
[Jim Fallows] I am talking instead about the breathtaking banality of expression.

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/whoopsie_kristo.php
[I]t looks as if Kristol's first column will already require a correction: Kristol seems to have attributed a quote to the wrong author. . . .

http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/2008/01/kristol-mess-on-first-day-on-job.html

Comparing Kristol and Krugman: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/bill-kristol-could-use-nanny-by.html

I promise not to subject you to many more transcripts of Rush, but this is just fascinating. By trashing Mike Huckabee as a “populist” and not a real “conservative,” Limbaugh has alienated a large part of his listenership, religious conservatives who feel finally, for once, they’ve found a viable candidate who speaks their language.

This exchange reveals the larger problem, which is that establishment conservatives want the support of evangelicals, but have very little patience for their actual beliefs and commitments. Watch how Rush tries to bluster his way through this, finally giving up and just resorting to sarcastic insults

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_010708/content/01125112.guest.html.guest.html
[Their title:] The Hucksters Make Their Case -- and Finally Convince the Host?

RUSH: Eric in Concord, North Carolina. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. This is going to be hard. This is going to be a rough call for you. I know you like to look good, but you'll probably look bad here in a moment.

RUSH: Uh-oh.

CALLER: This is not good. You won't like me. I am a born-again, evangelical Christian also, and one thing that I'll say. You said that you feel that Christians are either -- have been either betrayed or been -- Mike Huckabee has been dishonest towards them. I want to say that I feel that you, Rush, have betrayed the evangelical base. You have been one of our greatest supporters over the years, the great -- the person we have looked to in many, many ways, and I will say that because of what I call some outright lies and distortion. . . Now, I can go through a whole list of places where you have really distorted the truth. . . .

BREAK

RUSH: Back to Concord, North Carolina. Eric, you started out with great promise, man, you're a little bit off the rails now. Let's get it back on track.

CALLER: All right. First of all, how am I off the rails?

RUSH: Well, you're railing away here in sort of a maniacal fashion about this. Do you want to talk about me or do you want to talk about Huckabee?

CALLER: Well, both, really. Number one, I want to just talk -- straighten out some -- some outright distortions, either -- I conclude, either, Rush, you've been duped or you're being deceitful. I hate if it's the latter. I know it's not the latter. I just want to say because of the --

RUSH: Wait, Eric. One thing here.

CALLER: Sure.

RUSH: I haven't been duped, and I'm not trying to be deceitful.

CALLER: No.

RUSH: And I also know that I can't talk you out of what you believe and I'm not even going to try. I'm just telling people what I think and what I observe. You can throw it out the window. You can get all upset all you want.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Many people, many people are now eating dirt who tried to fool me.

CALLER: Okay. Well --

RUSH: Just don't fool yourself. . . .

CALLER: Okay, well, I mean I'm trying to stay levelheaded, too. We can both agree to disagree on some things . . . You want to say he's a "populist," but you don't want to defend him for the stand that –

RUSH: He is!

CALLER: Okay, that's fine.

RUSH: He is! It's not a crime! Boy, you call these people "populists," and they get all defensive about it. It's not a crime. . . .

Look, I learned in 1992, Eric. This election is a verbatim replay of six months of 1992 when Perot got involved. . . I'm not going to try to talk you out of it. That's not the point. But at the same time, I spent a very focused weekend here because I was in a funk. I was in a funk since Friday's show. Friday's show was, in my mind, the worst show that I can remember having presided over in ten years. I was embarrassed about it. I went home, and I was literally in a funk all weekend. . .

I care deeply about the future of the country, too, and if there are things out there that I see that I think pose a problem that are destructive to the coalition on the conservative side that has the best chance of seeing this country and its people realize it and their full potential, then I'm going to discuss it. But I'm not going to try to talk you out of anything because I know I can't. It's not possible. You have attachments to the Huckabee campaign, Eric, that immune from anything I might try. I'm not trying to separate anybody from anybody here. But at the same time I'm going to tell you what I see and what I think and what I know to be true -- and if it hurts, if you think I'm ganging up on your guy, tough toenails. . .

I want to move on to Chad in Savannah, Georgia. Chad, nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: I called... This is a very hard thing for me to do. I've been a huge fan of yours since 1991 when I was a young skull full of mush at Liberty University, but I've been very disappointed with you and with, frankly, a lot of other heroes of mine and the way they've taken down Huckabee here I feel like, in the last month. And let me tell you why I think the evangelicals are going to continue to support this guy, despite the fact that a lot of the people we look to for leadership are not. Number one, I don't think we can support Romney or Giuliani because of their pro-life -- their pro-choice positions in the past, which now Romney's switched to pro-life, Giuliani has not. The Second Amendment is a big deal to a lot of us, especially down here in Georgia and throughout the area, and Giuliani and Romney have been miserable on the Second Amendment. And clearly with Giuliani, frankly a lot of us see the issues that we destroyed Bill Clinton for -- we hoped to destroy him for -- with Giuliani, and that is, you know, infidelity while he's in office. Think of Bill Clinton and the Arkansas state troopers and how we went after them over, you know, the things that went on there, and evangelicals are not going to gel around these people. We'll looking for someone who we feel is a true conservative.

RUSH: Well, wait a second. Wait a second. I have no brief for Rudy Giuliani here, but you can't compare Rudy Giuliani and Bill Clinton and the Arkansas State Troopers. Giuliani's expenses incurred by the NYPD driving around out to the Hamptons and so forth, has been totally explained fully and exonerated. There was no crime. There was no inappropriate behavior. There was nothing even off the center of the track on this. I know where you're coming from here, and you think that I'm blowing the conservative Reagan coalition, and I'm trying to save it.

CALLER: Well, Rush, do you really think the evangelicals are going to go for either Romney or Giuliani with a lot of the issues that they've stood up -- not only held, but have. Yet Rudy for instance...

RUSH: You really don't want me to answer this. You really don't want me to answer this. You really do not want me to answer this. Do not ask that question again, because I might answer it, and you don't want my answer.

CALLER: Well, Rush, there are millions of people who are looking for a real conservative, and, I'm sorry, but it's not Romney and it is not Giuliani. . . .

RUSH: Have you heard me proclaim either of these people to be a conservative?

CALLER: You have said in the past that you liked Thompson, Mitt, and Rudy. You've lifted them up in the people that are around.

RUSH: Have you heard me say that "there is no Reagan conservative in this race"?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: All right. Fini! I'm not calling any of them perfect.

CALLER: (silence) Well, I just feel like you're really piling on Huckabee along with a lot of other people, and I feel like he's got a lot more conservative points to him than some of these other people.

RUSH: (sigh) Okay. I understand. (sigh) He's not.

BREAK

RUSH: All right, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to take the gloves off here for just a second. Welcome back, by the way, to the Rush Limbaugh program and the EIB Network. We're getting a lot of people calling here, claiming to speak for all evangelicals. Even Huckabee himself said on Fox yesterday that he did not get all of the evangelical vote in Iowa. . . .

I think I know what is happening here, Mr. Snerdley, who is the official screener of calls here today. I think that the Huckabee campaign has finally figured it out. I think that we've got behind-the-scenes advisors in some cases calling in here, and advisors are having some of their people call in here.

I'm not getting inundated here from the Ron Paul crowd; I'm not getting inundated from the McCain crowd, or by the McCain crowd. . . . I really think here that what's happening is sort of an organized campaign from the Huckabee people here to try to get to the program and refute what I'm saying . . .

BREAK

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I have been thinking since this recent spate of callers from Huckabee supporters, which started about 50 minutes ago, 45 to 50 minutes ago, thought about it long and hard during the break, even been thinking about it here while doing other things opening this hour's monologue segment. I want to say to you Huckabee supporters that you've convinced me. I have been convinced. I've been convinced through the power and the brilliance of your arguments made to me here on the phone on this program, today, that Governor Huckabee is a true conservative. He is the only guy who is a true conservative, and I have concluded that I am debasing myself and the conservative cause by questioning it. As a matter of fact, Governor Huckabee was right to increase taxes by $500 million in Arkansas. Governor Huckabee was right to offer in-state tuition to illegal aliens. He was right to offer the Mexican government a consulate in Arkansas for one dollar a year. More states should show this kind of compassion. When I learned this, I said, "There's a conservative." The Mexican consulate, a dollar a year in Arkansas. He was right to release over one thousand criminals. This is conservative. He is right to oppose school choice. This is conservative. And he was right to accuse President Bush of a bunker mentality and stubbornness in dealing with our enemies. He was right in suggesting that the way to deal with Bin Laden and Zawahiri and other enemies of the United States is to implement the Golden Rule. He was right.

This is, ladies and gentlemen, the new conservatism. It is both Reaganism and post-Reaganism, postmodern Reaganism and after-modern post-Reaganism. I'm sitting here chastising myself. "How could I have missed this?" After 20 years, how could I have missed this? After 20 years it has become clear, after only eight weeks of Governor Huckabee on the scene, I now see the new conservatism: no school choice, $500 million in tax increases, Mexican consulates in states for one dollar a year, in-state tuition to illegal aliens, the new conservatism. And how could all the rest of us, the tens of millions of conservatives who have yet to even vote in these primaries, and the over 60% in Iowa who did not vote for Governor Huckabee, how could we have made such an error? I have seen the light. . . .

Bonus item: Leading conservative blog Red State gets whiny because their website application (“Scoop”) doesn’t work for them – and this too is a liberal conspiracy against them

http://atrios.blogspot.com/2008_01_06_archive.html#4376492115909414609

P.S. Send money! http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/07/redstate-tells-readers-scoop-developers-are-all-liberals-so-fork-over-25-grand/

***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

 
SLOW LEARNERS

George Bush, nearly at the end of his Presidency, pretty clearly hasn’t learned a damn thing

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/6/2196/51146

Yesterday we had the news that the CIA was planning to step up operations inside Pakistan. The Pakistani govt says, “the hell you will”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080106/pl_afp/usattacksintelligencepakistan

When I heard the news about an Iraqi soldier killing two American soldiers, I knew we weren’t being told the whole story. We’re told that he was some kind of Sunni insurgent operative buried in the military just to commit such a crime, but really – do you believe that’s why it happened? If there was some kind of precipitating factor, why aren’t we being told what it was?

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/06/only-telling-half-the-story/
[Siun] The rather startled reports repeated assertions that the attack was for "reasons unknown." Iraqi reports say the US soldiers were kicking a pregnant Iraqi woman when shot. Here’s what we’ve been able to learn so far. . .

Sibel Edmonds, former FBI translator, has been saying for years that she has explosive information about breakdowns in US intelligence security. Now, she is starting to tell her story – and if it’s true, it is certainly explosive (thanks to Ben R. and Buzzflash for links)

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2008/01/bombshell-sibel-edmonds-speaks.html

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5518#more-5518

The Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3137695.ece

Federal judge tells the Dept of Justice – you can’t be trusted to investigate your own

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/06/bostons-chief-judge-opr-isnt-doing-its-job/

Bush ignores another bill passed by Congress – just because he doesn’t like it

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/bush-continues-assualt-on-american.html

In election news. . . .

Because it’s just so much damn fun: more Romney-bashing from Saturday’s New Hampshire debate

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/062827.php
[Josh Marshall] To say Mitt Romney had a bad debate last night is an understatement for the ages. Some of the best moments came when Mitt was getting so knocked around that he seemed to forget which side of the argument he was arguing. . . .

Video: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/062839.php

More: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/062833.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/062838.php

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14145.html

http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/06/the-best-they-can-offer-a-gop-pie-fight/
[Christy Hardin Smith] Last night's GOP debate in New Hampshire was a bit of a brawl. . .

http://www.slate.com/id/2181435/fr/rss/
[John Dickerson] Mitt Romney's rivals don't just disagree with him. They don't like him. . . .

The zinger of the night – maybe of the whole campaign so far

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-gop_debate_0106jan06,0,5744074.story
"I just wanted to say to Gov. Romney, we disagree on a lot of issues, but I agree you are the candidate of change," a smiling McCain said.

On Sunday, another GOP debate (the one sponsored by Fox, which excluded Ron Paul)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/062865.php
[Josh Marshall] Mitt Romney did much, much better than he did last night. It didn't take much of course. That was the worst debate trainwreck I've ever seen in a national race. . . .

I thought Mitt did a good job and repaired some of the damage from last night. But then after the debate Fox had Frank Luntz on hand with a focus group at the Merrimack Restaurant (where I usually ate meals when I was reporting New Hampshire primaries) in Manchester. And basically the focus group was unanimous that Mitt had had a crushing victory. No kidding. The Mittmentum was palpable.

Now, it was clear that a lot of the people in this particular focus group were as dumb as posts. One of the guy's Luntz interviewed explained how Mitt was obviously more credible on the pro-life issue than Mike Huckabee. I mean, I had no idea Mitt could do so well bamboozling these folks. Seriously, it was so surreal that I had to consider whether Mitt had possibly forced a leveraged buyout of the restaurant or possibly the members of the focus group.

But if these folks were at all representative of New Hampshire Republicans I think there's a possibility that Mitt really changed the dynamic with 36 hours left to go. . . .

[NB: Josh, Josh, Josh – it was on FOX NEWS. Get it?]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/us/politics/07repubs.html
After being pounded at the Republican debate on Saturday, Mitt Romney struck back hard on Sunday against Senator John McCain of Arizona and Mike Huckabee on multiple fronts, including illegal immigration, taxes and the qualifications for the presidency. . . .

The exchanges, especially between Mr. Romney and Mr. Huckabee, on Sunday in a televised candidate forum from Manchester were some of the most testy and angry of the Republican campaign to date. . . .

Trying to score points through immigrant-bashing

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/06/AR2008010602404.html

It doesn’t work: http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/06/sunday-late-nite-joshua-hoyt-tells-the-gop-that-dog-wont-hunt/

Theocracy watch: back in the pulpit

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/06/AR2008010602261.html
A pastor from Texas was scheduled to deliver the sermon Sunday at a church here called the Crossing.

But instead this small evangelical congregation heard from a different special guest: Baptist minister and 2008 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who delivered a sermon of more than 20 minutes on how to be part of "God's Army" . . .

The arguments against a federal sales tax to replace the income tax are well-rehearsed and widely known. So why doesn’t this tremendously bad idea go away?

http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/huckabee-tax-plan-step-back-in-time.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/compromising-blowhards-by-digby-so-i.html

The politics of fear

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/01/07/terror/

Heh, heh

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14147.html
[Steve Benen] Slowly but surely, former Bush speechwriter David Frum has been working to restore some semblance of credibility. After his White House stint — he is often credited for helping coin the “axis of evil” phrase — Frum remained a loyal Bushie in the conservative media for quite a while, until a few months ago, when he started to voice restrained concerns about today’s Republican Party.

In August, for example, Frum wrote a piece on Karl Rove’s tenure, which argued that Rove crafted a White House political strategy that was predicated on helping Republicans, instead of helping the country.

Last month, Frum went even further, publishing a piece accusing conservative Republicans in general of embracing an unhealthy, anti-intellectual worldview.

Today, he tells the NYT’s Deborah Solomon that he’s considered the Republican Party’s standing in the current political landscape, and he’s “terrified.” . . . [read on]

Someone is giving Hillary REALLY bad advice

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/hillarys_claim_i_wouldnt_have_started_iraq_war.php
[Eric Kleefeld] During a campaign stop in Nashua, Hillary Clinton might have just stepped on the beehive that has already caused her so much trouble in this campaign. "After 9/11, I would never have taken us to war in Iraq," she said, according to Ben Smith. "I would have stayed focused on Afghanistan because the real threat was coming from there."

Obama spokesman Bill Burton immediately pounced, bringing up Hillary's 2002 vote to authorize the Iraq War: "Hillary Clinton may try to rewrite history, but it's hard to believe she didn't know what would happen after she voted for a resolution with the title "A Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq."

This guy? http://firedoglake.com/2008/01/06/mark-penn-wrong-again/

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/062815.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/6/183244/6352

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/062874.php
[Thomas Edsall] A number of Clinton operatives and supporters report privately that her campaign organization is beset with internal turmoil, and that Mark Penn remains in serious danger of losing his position as the senior and dominant strategist. "There are a lot of people saying Mark Penn is going to be thrown under the bus," said one source.

More bad advice: http://politicalinsider.com/2008/01/identity_left.html
[Dan Conley] In a remarkable piece on Huffington Post, Thomas Edsall quotes an unnamed Clinton strategist spewing venon at Barack Obama, calling him the "candidate of the identity left."

To quote Sen. Clinton, let's have a reality check ... last night and many times in the past, Hillary Clinton has spoken openly about how great it would be to elect the first female President.

Barack Obama has never in this campaign touted the importance of electing the first African American.

It's pretty obvious which candidate has been using identity politics tactics throughout the race and it's not Obama. It's also humorous to see the Clinton campaign now calling Obama a captive of the left since they have been spinning the liberal netroots for weeks with the line that Obama speaks right wing talking points.

It now appears that the Al Gore scorched earth strategy that worked against Bill Bradley is all that the Clintonistas have left ... unfortunately for them, their opponent is not Bradley. And one must wonder -- given Clinton's extreme difficulties appealing to independents -- how hard they are willing to push when the end result may be alienating the young voters and minorities drawn to the Obama campaign that they would desperately need on their side to win in November.

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/and_by_identity_we_mean_black.php
[Matt Yglesias] These sound like some talking points straight outta 1988 to me.

Still more bad advice: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/062875.php
[Clinton aide] Ann Lewis: "Presidents don't get to vote present."

[Josh Marshall] Now, I'm confident that the vast majority of people, even a lot of politically aware people, would not have any idea what Lewis was even talking about, let alone whether they agreed with it or whether it would sway their vote.

If you're interested, the reference is to an issue discussed in this article in the New York Times a couple weeks ago -- the number of times Obama voted "present" while serving in the Illinois legislature. As it happens, it seems to be at least a fairly bogus issue. As the Times explains, he did so "nearly 130 times," though virtually all of those votes seemed to be cases where a "present" vote would be unremarkable in the context of the way the Illinois legislature works.

But my point is not to get into the merits of this 'voting present' issue. Read the article and make your own judgment.

My point is that this issue scarcely rises to the level of inside baseball. Hillary is in a five day fight for her political life. And the best one of her chief message gurus can come up with is an obscure jab that wouldn't even be that cutting if people had any idea what she was talking about? . . .

Snark

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/lying_in_politics_/2008/01/no_sense_of_decency.php
[Mark Kleiman] You have to feel sorry for Hillary Clinton. . . . [read on]

Hillary also isn’t helped by the pack mentality of campaign reporters

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14148.html

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=01&year=2008&base_name=the_press_corps

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012848.php

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/ways_of_winning.php

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/1/6/2024/67142

Here’s what Michael Bloomberg and anyone else who truly wants to overcome partisan gridlock should do

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/the_best_way_to.php
[Greg Sargent] Mike Bloomberg, for all his complaints about the two parties, is in almost unanimous agreement with the policy goals and platform, broadly defined, of one party -- the Democrats. He is in almost unanimous disagreement with the policy goals of the other -- the GOP. The Dems represent majority opinion on a host of issues. The GOP doesn't. Broadly speaking, the main obstacle to the realization of multiple policy goals favored by the majority is the "partisan gridlock" being created by the GOP, which is using every parliamentary gimmick at its disposal to frustrate the legislative progress that the American people want.

Therefore, if Bloomberg were serious about ending "partisan gridlock" in the service of the very same policy goals he himself espouses, he would devote his efforts and fortune not to the equal demonization of both parties, but to the further weakening of the Republicans. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/nyregion/06bloomberg.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/partisan-bickering-by-digby-via.html

“How to Rig an Election”

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4088097&page=1

Bonus item: “The Republican Debates According to a 9-Year Old”

http://www.discourse.net/archives/2008/01/the_republican_debates_according_to_a_9year_old.html
“Sarge, Wrinkles, Bunny Ears, Oily, Beagle Eyes and Carrot Face.” [don’t miss it!]

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

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:04 AM

 
MELTDOWNS

The nightmare continues . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/5/81942/94280
[AP] The U.S. military said Saturday that an Iraqi soldier apparently shot dead two American service members for "reasons that are as yet unknown" while they were on a joint patrol north of the capital.

Three other U.S. soldiers and one civilian interpreter were wounded in the Dec. 26 attack, the military said in a statement. The shooting occurred as American and Iraqi soldiers were conducting operations to establish a combat outpost in Ninevah province in northern Iraq.

The Iraqi soldier who allegedly opened fire fled the scene but was identified by other Iraqi army personnel and was then captured, the military said. Two Iraqi soldiers are being held in connection with the incident. . . .

[Reuters] The U.S. military said it was not clear why the Iraqi soldier had opened fire, but two Iraqi generals told Reuters the attacker had links to Sunni Arab insurgent groups.

It is believed to be the first reported incident in which an Iraqi soldier has deliberately killed U.S. servicemen since Saddam Hussein was toppled in the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. . .

A last desperate push to get Bin Laden before Bush leaves office

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/washington/06terror.html

Oh, yeah

http://www.newsweek.com/id/84572
Attorney general Michael Mukasey's decision to launch a full-scale FBI probe into the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes has sent several alarmed agency employees scrambling to find lawyers. To lead the probe, the A.G. named John Durham, a hard-nosed veteran prosecutor who is assembling a team of deputies and FBI agents. Some CIA veterans fear the move is tantamount to unleashing an independent counsel on Langley. "A lot of people are worried," says one former CIA official . . .

Why the lawsuit against John Yoo is probably going nowhere

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/01/05/john-yoo-complains-i-am-trapped-on-a-plane-in-all-of-this-bad-weather/

And in election news. . .

The New Hampshire debates – how did the Republicans do?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/5/205846/6303
[DHinMI] So, in the end, the two people who came off the best were the guy with the sunny disposition whose positions embody the worst of the GOP's holy-roller base, which is off-putting to large swaths of America, and the guy who doesn't have the energy or tenacity to fight for the nomination. The slick guy from the adjoining state was attacked repeatedly, and as MissLaura observed, the punches landed. The rising hope for the GOP establishment was tired, mean-spirited and was again forced to defend his immigration position, which is loathed by almost the entire GOP electoral base. And Giuliani's smarmy egotism got another airing, in a state that he too has conceded.

Who won the Republican debate?

The Democrats. [read on]

Miss Laura: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/5/203126/5462/865/431354

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/gop_debate_roundup.php
[Matt Yglesias] I didn't think Mitt Romney did as poorly as the post-game TV commentary suggested. He was on the defensive all night, since a lot of different candidates targeted, but under the circumstances I thought he did okay. . . .

Mike Huckabee is clearly the best politician out of this crew -- everyone but him and Ron Paul looked tired, and Huckabee is really the only one who's in touch with the mood of the country. His policy solutions are empty or crackpotty, but since his rivals don't deign to engage with him that doesn't come across during the debates. Meanwhile, his empty or crackpotty solutions are aimed at real problems real people have. The others often seem to be living on another planet.

More: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/01/05/republicans_debate.html

How did the Democrats do? (Includes video)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/5/232338/5059
[DHinMI] All four of our candidates were very strong. They all came across as likable. They are extremely sharp, incredibly well-informed and thoughtful. They have visions for how and where they would lead the country, and the role of America in the world. They want to challenge the American people by appealing to the sense of the common good. They didn't attack government and demean its potential for positive change. They showed that they can all inspire Americans to strive for a better future for all of us. There couldn't be a more stark contrast between our tremendous field and the horrible Republican field than the back-to-back debates that just aired on ABC. . . [read on]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/062809.php
[Josh Marshall] First, a few months ago, I said that I didn't get what Barack Obama thought he was doing in one of the debates, that he was doing a very good job debating as the frontrunner, when in fact he was falling further and