ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
A smart move politically AND the right thing to do
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/world/middleeast/04cnd-prexy.html
As President Bush prepares to present his new strategy on Iraq to the American people, Democratic Congressional leaders said today they will fight any approach that calls for deploying more United States troops there.
“We want to do everything we can to help Iraq succeed in the future but, like many of our senior military leaders, we do not believe that adding more U.S. combat troops contributes to success,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate majority leader, wrote to Mr. Bush.
“Adding more combat troops will only endanger more Americans and stretch our military to the breaking point for no strategic gain,” the Democrats’ letter said. . . .
How bad are Bush’s policies when Nancy Pelosi and Oliver North are both opposed to them?
http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jan/05/surge_is_opposed_by_ollie_north
"A 'surge' or 'targeted increase in U.S. troop strength' or whatever the politicians want to call dispatching more combat troops to Iraq isn't the answer. Adding more trainers and helping the Iraqis to help themselves, is. Sending more U.S. combat troops is simply sending more targets."
More: http://www.slate.com/id/2157088
[Emily Biuso] The President and his national security advisors met Friday with 15 senators (or perhaps only 13, which is the number the NYT gives) to talk Iraq policy, several of whom later told the papers that there was widespread skepticism among the senators about troop increase. . . .
John McCain and Joe Lieberman, on the other hand, dig themselves deeper and deeper
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/5/151247/5847
[McCain] There are two keys to any surge of U.S. troops. To be of value the surge must be substantial and it must be sustained -- it must be substantial and it must be sustained.
We will need a large number of troops. . . .
[Lieberman] I strongly support and I just embraced comments that I know -- and the excellent report done by Mssrs. Keane and Kagan and Senator McCain's comments -- that we need an increase in troops there now. . . that the increase in troops must be robust, it must be substantial and it must be sustained. . .
The president of the United States . . . needs our support. . .
[NB: Supporting a “substantial and sustained surge” sounds suspiciously similar to “escalation,” surely]
One little problem, fellas
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/05/report-military-tells-bush-it-has-only-9000-troops-available-for-surge/
A State Department official leaked word this week that President Bush is considering sending “no more than 15,000 to 20,000 U.S. troops” to Iraq. “Instead of a surge, it is a bump,” the official said.
This claim was bolstered last night by CBS’s David Martin, who reported that military commanders have told Bush they are prepared to execute a troop escalation of just 9,000 soldiers and Marines into Iraq . . .
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116804451737483118
[MSNBC] McCain said, “The worst of all worlds would be a small, short surge of US forces. We’ve tried small surges in the past and they’ve been ineffective.”
[Digby] Very brave words from a man who just read in the papers that Bush was not going to send in a sustained and substantial increase because the military doesn't have enough troops. "If he'd have done what I wanted, we could have won." How convenient. . .
Hasn’t McCain ever heard the expression “whack-a-mole”?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011808
[McCain] “[W]here American soldiers have been deployed to areas in turmoil, including Baghdad neighborhoods, the violence has ceased almost immediately. . .”
For example: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1116-22.htm
http://www.ericumansky.com/2005/08/iraq_whackamole.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14390980/
[August 20, 2006] SEN. McCAIN: And what I worry about is we’re playing a game of Whack A Mole here. We move troops—it flares up, we move troops there.
MR. GREGORY: Whack A Mole. What are you talking about? What’s the concern?
SEN. McCAIN: Well, there’s the, you know, the old arcade game where the head, and you bang it down, and another head pops up someplace else, and that’s basically what I was talking about . . .
McCain has caught the Bush bug
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116804451737483118
McCain tells me, "It's just so hard for me to contemplate failure that I can't make the next step."
Lieberman? He’s just sputtering whatever comes into his head
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011804
Lieberman: Iraq War has the [same] relationship to the next war as the Spanish Civil War had to World War II. . .
[NB: What the HELL does that mean, and why is there any reason to take the analogy seriously?]
Steve Benen translates: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9532.html
Duh
http://mediamatters.org/items/200701060004
[Jamison Foser] People. Don't. Like. This. War.
How hard is that to comprehend? It's been the truth for a long time. A very long time. President Bush and John McCain are pushing an Iraq policy -- escalation -- that has the support of only about 11 percent of Americans. Eleven percent! . . .
Surveying these facts, pundits declare that Democrats better watch out, lest they be branded "cut-and-run[ners]." And these people get paid to utter this nonsense!
The Haditha massacre: even worse than you’ve heard
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/05/AR2007010502248.html
U.S. Marines gunned down five unarmed Iraqis who stumbled onto the scene of a 2005 roadside bombing in Haditha, Iraq, according to eyewitness accounts that are part of a lengthy investigative report obtained by The Washington Post.
Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the squad's leader, shot the men one by one after Marines ordered them out of a white taxi in the moments following the explosion . . . "The taxi's five occupants exited the vehicle and according to U.S. and Iraqi witnesses, were shot by Wuterich as they stood, unarmed, next to the vehicle approximately ten feet in front of him," said a report by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service on the incident that runs thousands of pages. . .
Nice going, guys
http://www.slate.com/id/2157088/
[Emily Biuso] The NYT fronts a story on Saddam Hussein's public image makeover: In death, the convicted dictator is being cast as a hero. Demonstrators throughout the Middle East have been praising him in recent days, and the Libyan government has plans to erect a statue of Hussein in the gallows. In an interview with an Israeli newspaper Friday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said, "No one will ever forget the way in which Saddam was executed… They turned him into a martyr."
What Bush’s reshuffling of foreign policy staff means
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/01/05/BL2007010500923.html
Sit down. I hope this doesn’t shock you. It’s terribly disillusioning, I know. But the “consultation” and “listening” to other views Bush has been doing before he announces his new plan for Iraq? He doesn’t really mean it
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/6/388/24406
Bush on the couch (this is becoming a recurring feature)
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116803624128598616
[Digby] Governing By Tantrums
It seems to me that one of the defining characteristics of the Bush administration is a sort of stubborn, spoiled reaction to his critics. I think it comes from two things. First it is a reflection of Bush's personality which, in a position as powerful as the presidency, is bound to color everything. . .
Nothing to hide?
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002290.php
[Paul Kiel] What do you do when there are public records showing the details of visits by a corrupt lobbyist and his associates? If you're the Bush White House, you do what you do best: make them disappear!
[AP] The White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement last spring in the midst of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal declaring that records identifying visitors to the White House complex are not subject to public disclosure . . .
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/corruption_in_washington_/2007/01/george_w_nixon.php
[Mark Kleiman] [T]he notion of signing a secret memo with the Secret Service, during the course of a lawsuit about White House visitor logs, to make the logs "White House records" instead of "Secret Service records" is truly Nixonian: a comically incompetent attempt to cover up wrongdoing. . .
Henry Waxman (D-CA) is going to be fun to watch
http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/010407/waxman.html
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has created a new subcommittee that will tackle decisions made by the Bush administration regarding which government records should be made available to the public. . .
Bush’s signing statements: you can question them individually (over 800 now), but the sum total means something else
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/5/151019/2593
[Kagro X] They're taking on a symbolic meaning, although it might actually be true that they were meant to have this meaning all along. And that symbolic meaning is that they demonstrate that Bush is reserving for himself the right to do anything. . . . [read on]
The Congressional version of signing statements: fight back!
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/2007_democratic_agenda_/2007/01/the_no_funds_rider.php
The Goofus Files
http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8172
Off to a great start
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/05/AR2007010500681.html
On its second day under Democratic management, the House yesterday overwhelmingly approved new rules aimed at reining in deficit spending and shedding more light on the murky world of special-interest projects known as earmarks. . .
http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/5/19550/52045
What's on deck? . . .
H.R. 1 :: Implementing 9/11 Commission's Recommendations (slated for January 9)
H.R. 2 :: Increase the Minimum Wage (January 10)
H.R. 3 :: Stem Cell Research Bill (January 11)
H.R. 4 :: Prescription Drug Negotiating Authority (January 12)
Sloppy journalistic writing, or just refusing to give the Dems their due?
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/5/124123/1156
[ABC] “House Dems Move to Increase Spending”
Except, look at the sub-title:
“House Democrats Push Proposal to Increase Spending Only With Cuts in Other Funding”
The House moved Friday in only its second day under Democratic reign toward changing budget rules that allowed deficits to swell with lawmakers' pet projects and President Bush's tax cuts. . .
The Democrats’ choice
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/us/politics/05assess.html
[Carl Hulse] As they take control of the House and Senate, members of the new majority must reconcile diverse ideological factions within their ranks and make a fundamental choice. They can spend their energy trying to reverse what they see as the flaws of the Bush administration and a dozen years in which conservative philosophy dominated Congress. Or they can accept the rightward tilt of that period and grudgingly concede that big tax cuts, deregulation, restrictions on abortion and other Republican-inspired changes are now a permanent part of the legislative framework. . . .
The House Republicans just sound sillier and sillier
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011814
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) turns the Golden Rule on its head: "What we really expect out of the Democrats is for them to treat us as they would like to have been treated."
[NB: Uh, John, the Democrats ARE applying this rule – they just watched what you did]
Trent Lott (R-MS), forced out as Majority Leader in favor of toady Bill Frist, continues to exact revenge on the Bush gang
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002287.php
[Paul Kiel] Does anybody else find this to be a stunning admission . . . ?
More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9530.html
A long-overdue article: 77 Senators voted to authorize Bush’s Iraq war in October 2002. What do those people think today?
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9533.html
http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/in_retrospect/
[A] whole bunch of GOP Senators either refused to answer or else dodged the question in silly ways. . .
The kind of people they are
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/cnns-glenn-beck-said-it-might-not-be.html
[Joe in DC] Glenn Beck is a sicko. That's not a surprise. That he continues to spew his hate on CNN is the surprise. We are still dealing with the repercussions of a hurricane that destroyed an American city. Apparently, Glenn Beck wants the same thing to happen to New York City. . . .
LANDSEA: New York is extremely vulnerable, too, if a hurricane strikes just west of them and funnels all that water just north along Long Island into the city itself. They could have 20 to 25 feet of storm surge.
BECK: Actually, that would clean the streets out. It might not be bad.
"Clean the streets out" of what? . . .
Never admit you’re wrong, never apologize
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/credibility-of-right-wing-blogosphere.html
Bonus item: No comment
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/05/dead.letters.ap/index.html
The Army said Friday it would apologize to the families of about 275 officers killed or wounded in action who were mistakenly sent letters urging them to return to active duty. . . .
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Friday, January 05, 2007
WINDS OF CHANGE
The Hammer
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/04/BAG5ANCTQ27.DTL
[Nancy Pelosi] "The election of 2006 was a call to change -- not merely to change the control of Congress, but for a new direction for our country. Nowhere were the American people more clear about the need for a new direction than in the war in Iraq.
The American people rejected an open-ended obligation to a war without end. Shortly, President Bush will address the nation on the subject of Iraq. It is the responsibility of the president to articulate a new plan for Iraq that makes it clear to the Iraqis that they must defend their own streets and their own security, a plan that promotes stability in the region, and a plan that allows us to responsibly redeploy our troops.”
Things are gonna be different: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116794711746214446
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/4/133829/8010
http://mydd.com/story/2007/1/4/175042/5795
The last sane man
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003527576
[Bob Herbert] "The war has been an exercise in futility and mind-boggling incompetence, and yet our involvement continues — with no end in sight, no plans for withdrawal, no idea of where we might be headed — as if the U.S. had fallen into some kind of bizarrely destructive trance from which it is unable to awaken....
"This war is not worth fighting. And if there were ever serious talk about enacting a draft or raising taxes to fight it, you’d see quickly enough that the vast majority of Americans would not find it worth fighting.
"There must be a leader somewhere who can shake the U.S. out of this tragic hypnotic state, who can see that it is beyond crazy to continue our involvement in this war indefinitely, to sacrifice another 1,000 young lives, and then another thousand after that.
"All of the tortured, twisted rationales for this war — all of the fatuous intellectual pyrotechnics dreamed up to justify it — have vaporized, and we’re left with just the mad, mindless, meaningless and apparently endless slaughter.
"Shakespeare, in 'Henry VI,' said: 'Now thou art come unto a feast of death.' We should end our participation in the feast of death in Iraq. It is criminal to continue feeding our troops into the slaughter.
"If there were politicians here at home with some of the courage of the troops in the field, we could begin saving lives rather than watching helplessly as the Bush White House continues to sacrifice them. Three thousand and counting is enough."
The last sane woman
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=21830
[Molly Ivins] The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck -- so it's up to us. You and me, Bubba.
I don't know why Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it's time we found out. The fact is WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped NOW. . . .
Do it
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9518.html
[Steve Benen] Though it didn’t generate much attention, the Center for American Progress released a very interesting report last week recommending “an amendment on the supplemental funding bill that states that if the administration wants to increase the number of troops in Iraq above 150,000, it must provide a plan for their purpose and require an up or down vote on exceeding that number.”
It’s good advice. Bush has come to think of Congress as little more than an ATM machine when it comes to the war in Iraq — say very little, don’t ask any questions, and hand over the cash. The CAP recommendation, therefore, would serve multiple valuable functions, not the least of which would be demanding some accountability from the White House.
It looks like someone may have passed along the CAP idea to Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) . . .
Today’s must-read (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=153798
[Tom Engelhardt] Every now and then, you have to take a lesson or two from history. In the case of George Bush's Iraq, here's one: No matter what the President announces in his "new way forward" speech on Iraq next week -- including belated calls for "sacrifice" from the man whose answer to 9/11 was to urge Americans to surge into Disney World -- it won't work. Nothing our President suggests in relation to Iraq, in fact, will have a ghost of a chance of success. Worse than that, whatever it turns out to be, it is essentially guaranteed to make matters worse. . . [read on!]
Generals Casey and Abizaid question the need for more troops, and now they are O-U-T
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/world/middleeast/05military.html
Have some people in the Bush administration already concluded that Iraq is lost?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/04/AR2007010401525.html
Juan Cole: “The Adults Take Charge”
http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/adults-take-charge-reality-based.html
Good question
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005377.html
[Laura Rozen] The reader who noted the talk of Negroponte moving to deputy secretary of State back in November writes, "Now that I have had some more time to consider the Negroponte move, it strikes me as clear evidence of the Administration's growing insularity despite the outward appearances of Rumsfeld's exit and the various Presidential "consultations" on next steps in Iraq. John Negroponte is a distinguished public servant who is very talented and capable. But he has now held four of the key national security positions in this Administration -- UN Ambassador, Iraq Ambassador, DNI, and now Dep Sec. Is there really no other talented American the President or Condi can turn to? Why the reliance on old blood in the seventh year of the Administration? Or is more likely that Bush trusts Negroponte, is comfortable with him, and knows that Negroponte is not someone who will rock the boat or challenge current policy?"
Revelations about Saddam’s execution just keep pouring in. The feckless Maliki govt turned Saddam over to their (deeply compromised) Interior Dept. So who actually carried out the execution? The Mahdi Army, it appears
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011788
[Reuters] Echoing those accusations, a senior Interior Ministry official said the hanging was supposed to be carried out by hangmen employed by the Interior Ministry but that "militias" had managed to infiltrate the executioners' team.
"The execution was carried out by militias and outsiders. . .”
[Josh Marshall] At this point, do we just officially call it a lynching? . . .
More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116797523952791538
[Digby] In my earlier post I quoted a passage from Juan Cole's analysis which makes me think that Maliki wasn't exactly coerced. . .
Iraq: through the looking glass
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003528028
[E&P] The Associated Press has just sent E&P the following dispatch from Baghdad, as it was about to be distributed on its wire. The existence of Jamil Hussein had been hotly disputed by conservative bloggers, some Iraqi officials and the U.S. military in recent weeks.
[AP] The Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that an Iraqi police officer whose existence had been denied by the Iraqis and the U.S. military is in fact an active member of the force, and said he now faces arrest for speaking to the media.
Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press. . . .
Wingnut heads explode: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/4/19298/58298
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/4/232510/6591
They won’t stop (until we stop them)
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/485561p-408789c.html
President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.
The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.
That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it. . .
More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9513.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/01/04/BL2007010400803.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/04/AR2007010401702.html
Harriet Miers quits. What does this tell us? That Bush is looking for a wartime consigliere: they're going to the mattresses
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/04/AR2007010400778.html
Bush’s booming economy
Jobs: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8162
Retail: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8165
Remember when it was unthinkable that Bush’s popularity would drop into the 30’s? Now it might drop into the 20’s
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/04/opinion/polls/main2330862.shtml
Job approval: Approve 30% Disapprove 63%
Does Bush have a clear plan for Iraq? Yes: 20% No: 76%
What will Virgil Goode (R-VA) say?
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/bush-to-appoint-muslim-to-highest-us.html
[John Aravosis] Reuters is reporting that Bush is planning on moving US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad over to the UN as our new ambassador. That would make Khalilzad the highest-ranked Muslim official in the US government ever . . .
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002189.php
[Goode, on Keith Ellison, D-MN] [I]f American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran," the letter reads. "I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.
The Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” are on the wall in my office. A Muslim student came by the office and asked why I did not have anything on my wall about the Koran. My response was clear, “As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office.”
Our ignorant press
http://mediamatters.org/items/200701030004
MSNBC reporter Alex Johnson wrote that Democrats "just squeaked through" the midterm elections. In fact, in the upcoming session of Congress, Democrats will hold a larger majority in the House than Republicans had in any Congress since they gained control in 1994.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/01/04/gop_barely_held_15_seats.html
A Congressional Quarterly analysis finds the wave that swept Republicans out of control of Congress last year could have been a lot worse. . . . "Of the 202 Republicans sworn in Thursday as members of 110th Congress, 15 maintained GOP control of their seats by margins of just 3 percentage points or less. . .
You’ve heard about Nancy Pelosi’s “first hundred hours” – what about over on the Senate side?
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/first-ten-senate-bills-start.html
The GOP’s extremist values have just cost them control of Congress. What have they learned?
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/4/12539/27754
63 Senators voted for the last stem cell research bill. . .
But Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), a leader of the social conservatives, plans a mini-filibuster that will delay passage at least three weeks.
George Will says, abolish the minimum wage
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116793453699997761
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/4/183023/8224
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9514.html
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/01/daniel_gross_ha.html
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010514.php
[George Will] The minimum wage should be the same everywhere: $0. Labor is a commodity; governments make messes when they decree commodities' prices.
[Kevin Drum] This, in a nutshell, is the core problem with conservative economics: it views workers as commodities. Naturally it follows from this that we should be free to treat workers like commodities, rather than as human beings. . .
Great headline
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002275.php
Sex-for-Oil Scandal Rocks Interior Department . . .
The kind of man he is
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002280.php
In 1986, the Reagan administration was eager to protect its nomination of Rehnquist to be chief justice the Supreme Court. Officials learned that at his confirmation hearings, Democrats in Congress planned to bring out witnesses who would testify that Rehnquist had intimidated minority voters as a Republican Party official in Arizona. . . . So the administration enlisted the FBI to do background checks on the witnesses -- and pushed the bureau to send special agents to "interview" them prior to their testimony. That's not a usual practice, mind you. At the time, at least one FBI official warned that the Justice Department "should be sensitive to the possibility that Democrats could charge the Republicans of misusing the FBI and intimidating the Democrats' witnesses."
Despite that warning, the order was approved.
Who would have rubber-stamped such a horrendous idea? . . .
McCain called for a troop escalation in Iraq, and now it looks like he’s going to get what he asked for – but, he says, uh, it isn’t really what HE asked for
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9519.html
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/mccain-suggests-we-arent-leaving-iraq.html
We’ve mentioned this before, but you can start believing Republican platitudes about bipartisan civility and respect when they stop using the intentionally insulting and inaccurate label “Democrat Party”
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116794096131680761
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116794148716678893
One question. Just get them to answer one question the next time the Republicans start bleating about protecting the rights of the minority party
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9515.html
“What stopped you from taking that opportunity when you were still in the majority?” inquired Rick Klein of the Boston Globe.
Heh heh: Charlie Rangel bumps a Big Republican out of the House office building to take over his prime space. Who got shoved out?
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/rangel-bumped-cheney-from-his-capitol.html
Shameless. They’re just shameless
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116793801489572401
MATTHEWS: Why does he still suggest—as our country western music did for all those years—that the people who attacked us on 9/11 -- you know, bin Laden‘s crowd, al Qaeda, which we know exactly who the people were who attacked us, none of them were Iraqi—why the president continue to insists, again in the “Wall Street Journal” today we‘re fighting the same terrorists we fought on 9/11, who killed us on 9/11? Why does he keep doing that?
BLANKLEY: Look, I mean, what he said in the “Wall Street Journal” today, I think the language was careful. He is not saying the same individuals.
MATTHEWS: He is implying it‘s the same enemy.
BLANKLEY: The same radical Islam. . .
MATTHEWS: We got the radical Islamists on our side. We got Muqtada al Sadr as part of our hanging party. . . .
BLANKLEY: Look. You understand what the—you‘re being literal about it. . . .
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9512.html
[Steve Benen] At yesterday’s White House press briefing, a reporter asked Tony Snow a question that I’ve been anxious to hear for quite a while: “[T]he President has been determined, he’s been resolved, and nobody questions that, but does he get it? I mean, is he fundamentally out of touch with what the reality is on the ground in Iraq?”
The answer was a classic. . . .
“No, I think what happens is, we may be out of touch with reality because we sit around and we look at fractional pictures on the screen. This is a President who gets exhaustive briefings on a daily basis about the situation. He knows more than anybody in this room about what’s going on there. . .”
Ideally, this might make some sense. Of course a president is going to receive more information than the public and the media. . . The problem, though, is that this president is unique.
Bush may receive extensive and informative briefings, for example, but there’s no reason to believe he’s engaged by what he hears. The president received a pretty interested briefing in August 2001 about Osama bin Laden and a potential attack on the U.S., prompting Bush to tell his briefer, “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.”
For that matter, for a guy who “knows more than anybody in this room about what’s going on there,” he has a funny way of showing it.
* As recently as October, Bush insisted that we’re “absolutely” winning in Iraq.
* Bush likes to characterize himself as a modern-day Truman.
* As recently as last month, Bush contradicted his own intelligence sources to misidentify the cause for sectarian violence in Iraq.
And yet, for Tony Snow, Americans are “out of touch with reality.”
The mind reels.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9521.html
[Steve Benen] As you may have heard, Democrats officially took the reins of both houses of Congress today. It’s a proud moment that many of us have been waiting for, with varying degrees of patience, for quite some time. . . . I couldn’t help but be curious, though, about how our friends on the right are receiving the news. I expected plenty of bitterness, but I was surprised to see so many come up with “Red Scare 2007.”
Redstate, for example, is one of the preeminent conservative blogs in the country. Needless to say, no one would expect Redstate’s proprietors to be pleased with today’s developments, but the lead graphic on the site, right now, is a sign reading, “Democrat-Socialists Take Back Congress.” There’s a hammer and sickle in the middle, and the background image is of the evacuation of the U.S. embassy of Saigon. . . .
Bonus item: With a female Speaker of the House, and a soon-to-be leading female candidate for President, the press is going to have to unlearn some of its tropes (and about time)
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/4/165355/1197
[WP] Catfight aftermath: Rep. Jane Harman is still quite irked that House Speaker-designee Nancy Pelosi nixed her for chairman of the House intelligence committee – and she's not exactly being stoic about 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.***
The Hammerhttp://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/04/BAG5ANCTQ27.DTL
[Nancy Pelosi] "The election of 2006 was a call to change -- not merely to change the control of Congress, but for a new direction for our country. Nowhere were the American people more clear about the need for a new direction than in the war in Iraq.
The American people rejected an open-ended obligation to a war without end. Shortly, President Bush will address the nation on the subject of Iraq. It is the responsibility of the president to articulate a new plan for Iraq that makes it clear to the Iraqis that they must defend their own streets and their own security, a plan that promotes stability in the region, and a plan that allows us to responsibly redeploy our troops.”
Things are gonna be different: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116794711746214446
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/4/133829/8010
http://mydd.com/story/2007/1/4/175042/5795
The last sane man
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003527576
[Bob Herbert] "The war has been an exercise in futility and mind-boggling incompetence, and yet our involvement continues — with no end in sight, no plans for withdrawal, no idea of where we might be headed — as if the U.S. had fallen into some kind of bizarrely destructive trance from which it is unable to awaken....
"This war is not worth fighting. And if there were ever serious talk about enacting a draft or raising taxes to fight it, you’d see quickly enough that the vast majority of Americans would not find it worth fighting.
"There must be a leader somewhere who can shake the U.S. out of this tragic hypnotic state, who can see that it is beyond crazy to continue our involvement in this war indefinitely, to sacrifice another 1,000 young lives, and then another thousand after that.
"All of the tortured, twisted rationales for this war — all of the fatuous intellectual pyrotechnics dreamed up to justify it — have vaporized, and we’re left with just the mad, mindless, meaningless and apparently endless slaughter.
"Shakespeare, in 'Henry VI,' said: 'Now thou art come unto a feast of death.' We should end our participation in the feast of death in Iraq. It is criminal to continue feeding our troops into the slaughter.
"If there were politicians here at home with some of the courage of the troops in the field, we could begin saving lives rather than watching helplessly as the Bush White House continues to sacrifice them. Three thousand and counting is enough."
The last sane woman
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=21830
[Molly Ivins] The president of the United States does not have the sense God gave a duck -- so it's up to us. You and me, Bubba.
I don't know why Bush is just standing there like a frozen rabbit, but it's time we found out. The fact is WE have to do something about it. This country is being torn apart by an evil and unnecessary war, and it has to be stopped NOW. . . .
Do it
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9518.html
[Steve Benen] Though it didn’t generate much attention, the Center for American Progress released a very interesting report last week recommending “an amendment on the supplemental funding bill that states that if the administration wants to increase the number of troops in Iraq above 150,000, it must provide a plan for their purpose and require an up or down vote on exceeding that number.”
It’s good advice. Bush has come to think of Congress as little more than an ATM machine when it comes to the war in Iraq — say very little, don’t ask any questions, and hand over the cash. The CAP recommendation, therefore, would serve multiple valuable functions, not the least of which would be demanding some accountability from the White House.
It looks like someone may have passed along the CAP idea to Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) . . .
Today’s must-read (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=153798
[Tom Engelhardt] Every now and then, you have to take a lesson or two from history. In the case of George Bush's Iraq, here's one: No matter what the President announces in his "new way forward" speech on Iraq next week -- including belated calls for "sacrifice" from the man whose answer to 9/11 was to urge Americans to surge into Disney World -- it won't work. Nothing our President suggests in relation to Iraq, in fact, will have a ghost of a chance of success. Worse than that, whatever it turns out to be, it is essentially guaranteed to make matters worse. . . [read on!]
Generals Casey and Abizaid question the need for more troops, and now they are O-U-T
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/world/middleeast/05military.html
Have some people in the Bush administration already concluded that Iraq is lost?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/04/AR2007010401525.html
Juan Cole: “The Adults Take Charge”
http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/adults-take-charge-reality-based.html
Good question
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005377.html
[Laura Rozen] The reader who noted the talk of Negroponte moving to deputy secretary of State back in November writes, "Now that I have had some more time to consider the Negroponte move, it strikes me as clear evidence of the Administration's growing insularity despite the outward appearances of Rumsfeld's exit and the various Presidential "consultations" on next steps in Iraq. John Negroponte is a distinguished public servant who is very talented and capable. But he has now held four of the key national security positions in this Administration -- UN Ambassador, Iraq Ambassador, DNI, and now Dep Sec. Is there really no other talented American the President or Condi can turn to? Why the reliance on old blood in the seventh year of the Administration? Or is more likely that Bush trusts Negroponte, is comfortable with him, and knows that Negroponte is not someone who will rock the boat or challenge current policy?"
Revelations about Saddam’s execution just keep pouring in. The feckless Maliki govt turned Saddam over to their (deeply compromised) Interior Dept. So who actually carried out the execution? The Mahdi Army, it appears
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011788
[Reuters] Echoing those accusations, a senior Interior Ministry official said the hanging was supposed to be carried out by hangmen employed by the Interior Ministry but that "militias" had managed to infiltrate the executioners' team.
"The execution was carried out by militias and outsiders. . .”
[Josh Marshall] At this point, do we just officially call it a lynching? . . .
More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116797523952791538
[Digby] In my earlier post I quoted a passage from Juan Cole's analysis which makes me think that Maliki wasn't exactly coerced. . .
Iraq: through the looking glass
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003528028
[E&P] The Associated Press has just sent E&P the following dispatch from Baghdad, as it was about to be distributed on its wire. The existence of Jamil Hussein had been hotly disputed by conservative bloggers, some Iraqi officials and the U.S. military in recent weeks.
[AP] The Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that an Iraqi police officer whose existence had been denied by the Iraqis and the U.S. military is in fact an active member of the force, and said he now faces arrest for speaking to the media.
Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press. . . .
Wingnut heads explode: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/4/19298/58298
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/4/232510/6591
They won’t stop (until we stop them)
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/485561p-408789c.html
President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.
The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.
That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it. . .
More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9513.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/01/04/BL2007010400803.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/04/AR2007010401702.html
Harriet Miers quits. What does this tell us? That Bush is looking for a wartime consigliere: they're going to the mattresses
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/04/AR2007010400778.html
Bush’s booming economy
Jobs: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8162
Retail: http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8165
Remember when it was unthinkable that Bush’s popularity would drop into the 30’s? Now it might drop into the 20’s
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/04/opinion/polls/main2330862.shtml
Job approval: Approve 30% Disapprove 63%
Does Bush have a clear plan for Iraq? Yes: 20% No: 76%
What will Virgil Goode (R-VA) say?
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/bush-to-appoint-muslim-to-highest-us.html
[John Aravosis] Reuters is reporting that Bush is planning on moving US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad over to the UN as our new ambassador. That would make Khalilzad the highest-ranked Muslim official in the US government ever . . .
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002189.php
[Goode, on Keith Ellison, D-MN] [I]f American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran," the letter reads. "I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.
The Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” are on the wall in my office. A Muslim student came by the office and asked why I did not have anything on my wall about the Koran. My response was clear, “As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office.”
Our ignorant press
http://mediamatters.org/items/200701030004
MSNBC reporter Alex Johnson wrote that Democrats "just squeaked through" the midterm elections. In fact, in the upcoming session of Congress, Democrats will hold a larger majority in the House than Republicans had in any Congress since they gained control in 1994.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/01/04/gop_barely_held_15_seats.html
A Congressional Quarterly analysis finds the wave that swept Republicans out of control of Congress last year could have been a lot worse. . . . "Of the 202 Republicans sworn in Thursday as members of 110th Congress, 15 maintained GOP control of their seats by margins of just 3 percentage points or less. . .
You’ve heard about Nancy Pelosi’s “first hundred hours” – what about over on the Senate side?
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/first-ten-senate-bills-start.html
The GOP’s extremist values have just cost them control of Congress. What have they learned?
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/4/12539/27754
63 Senators voted for the last stem cell research bill. . .
But Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), a leader of the social conservatives, plans a mini-filibuster that will delay passage at least three weeks.
George Will says, abolish the minimum wage
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116793453699997761
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/4/183023/8224
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9514.html
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/01/daniel_gross_ha.html
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010514.php
[George Will] The minimum wage should be the same everywhere: $0. Labor is a commodity; governments make messes when they decree commodities' prices.
[Kevin Drum] This, in a nutshell, is the core problem with conservative economics: it views workers as commodities. Naturally it follows from this that we should be free to treat workers like commodities, rather than as human beings. . .
Great headline
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002275.php
Sex-for-Oil Scandal Rocks Interior Department . . .
The kind of man he is
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002280.php
In 1986, the Reagan administration was eager to protect its nomination of Rehnquist to be chief justice the Supreme Court. Officials learned that at his confirmation hearings, Democrats in Congress planned to bring out witnesses who would testify that Rehnquist had intimidated minority voters as a Republican Party official in Arizona. . . . So the administration enlisted the FBI to do background checks on the witnesses -- and pushed the bureau to send special agents to "interview" them prior to their testimony. That's not a usual practice, mind you. At the time, at least one FBI official warned that the Justice Department "should be sensitive to the possibility that Democrats could charge the Republicans of misusing the FBI and intimidating the Democrats' witnesses."
Despite that warning, the order was approved.
Who would have rubber-stamped such a horrendous idea? . . .
McCain called for a troop escalation in Iraq, and now it looks like he’s going to get what he asked for – but, he says, uh, it isn’t really what HE asked for
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9519.html
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/mccain-suggests-we-arent-leaving-iraq.html
We’ve mentioned this before, but you can start believing Republican platitudes about bipartisan civility and respect when they stop using the intentionally insulting and inaccurate label “Democrat Party”
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116794096131680761
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116794148716678893
One question. Just get them to answer one question the next time the Republicans start bleating about protecting the rights of the minority party
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9515.html
“What stopped you from taking that opportunity when you were still in the majority?” inquired Rick Klein of the Boston Globe.
Heh heh: Charlie Rangel bumps a Big Republican out of the House office building to take over his prime space. Who got shoved out?
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/rangel-bumped-cheney-from-his-capitol.html
Shameless. They’re just shameless
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116793801489572401
MATTHEWS: Why does he still suggest—as our country western music did for all those years—that the people who attacked us on 9/11 -- you know, bin Laden‘s crowd, al Qaeda, which we know exactly who the people were who attacked us, none of them were Iraqi—why the president continue to insists, again in the “Wall Street Journal” today we‘re fighting the same terrorists we fought on 9/11, who killed us on 9/11? Why does he keep doing that?
BLANKLEY: Look, I mean, what he said in the “Wall Street Journal” today, I think the language was careful. He is not saying the same individuals.
MATTHEWS: He is implying it‘s the same enemy.
BLANKLEY: The same radical Islam. . .
MATTHEWS: We got the radical Islamists on our side. We got Muqtada al Sadr as part of our hanging party. . . .
BLANKLEY: Look. You understand what the—you‘re being literal about it. . . .
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9512.html
[Steve Benen] At yesterday’s White House press briefing, a reporter asked Tony Snow a question that I’ve been anxious to hear for quite a while: “[T]he President has been determined, he’s been resolved, and nobody questions that, but does he get it? I mean, is he fundamentally out of touch with what the reality is on the ground in Iraq?”
The answer was a classic. . . .
“No, I think what happens is, we may be out of touch with reality because we sit around and we look at fractional pictures on the screen. This is a President who gets exhaustive briefings on a daily basis about the situation. He knows more than anybody in this room about what’s going on there. . .”
Ideally, this might make some sense. Of course a president is going to receive more information than the public and the media. . . The problem, though, is that this president is unique.
Bush may receive extensive and informative briefings, for example, but there’s no reason to believe he’s engaged by what he hears. The president received a pretty interested briefing in August 2001 about Osama bin Laden and a potential attack on the U.S., prompting Bush to tell his briefer, “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.”
For that matter, for a guy who “knows more than anybody in this room about what’s going on there,” he has a funny way of showing it.
* As recently as October, Bush insisted that we’re “absolutely” winning in Iraq.
* Bush likes to characterize himself as a modern-day Truman.
* As recently as last month, Bush contradicted his own intelligence sources to misidentify the cause for sectarian violence in Iraq.
And yet, for Tony Snow, Americans are “out of touch with reality.”
The mind reels.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9521.html
[Steve Benen] As you may have heard, Democrats officially took the reins of both houses of Congress today. It’s a proud moment that many of us have been waiting for, with varying degrees of patience, for quite some time. . . . I couldn’t help but be curious, though, about how our friends on the right are receiving the news. I expected plenty of bitterness, but I was surprised to see so many come up with “Red Scare 2007.”
Redstate, for example, is one of the preeminent conservative blogs in the country. Needless to say, no one would expect Redstate’s proprietors to be pleased with today’s developments, but the lead graphic on the site, right now, is a sign reading, “Democrat-Socialists Take Back Congress.” There’s a hammer and sickle in the middle, and the background image is of the evacuation of the U.S. embassy of Saigon. . . .
Bonus item: With a female Speaker of the House, and a soon-to-be leading female candidate for President, the press is going to have to unlearn some of its tropes (and about time)
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/4/165355/1197
[WP] Catfight aftermath: Rep. Jane Harman is still quite irked that House Speaker-designee Nancy Pelosi nixed her for chairman of the House intelligence committee – and she's not exactly being stoic about 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.***
Thursday, January 04, 2007
UNDEPENDABLE
I think it’s well-established by now what sort of man George Bush is, but how do you control your gag reflex when he comes out talking about bipartisanship? I can think of no President in my lifetime (including Nixon) who has expressed such evident scorn for the opposing party. Of course, he’s lost the majority, and so it’s politically de rigueur (once you’ve LOST) to suddenly discover the virtues of bipartisanship. But if you wanted to make even a TOKEN effort at reaching out to the other side, couldn’t you do better than this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/world/middleeast/03cnd-prexy.html
President Bush sought today to regain the initiative on the eve of the Democratic takeover of Congress, pledging to work enthusiastically with the new lineup of lawmakers but holding fast to his own goals. . .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010201536.html
President Bush, facing a Democratic-controlled Congress for the first time, is urging lawmakers to work with his administration and warning that "political statements" in the form of legislation would result in a stalemate. . . .
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2365.html
[Ezra Klein] This morning's Wall Street Journal boasts an op-ed by George W. Bush calling for comity and compromise with the new Congress. Lucky for them, he's got a common sense, broadly agreeable agenda in the offing: Escalation in Iraq, continuing his tax cuts, privatizing Social Security and Medicare, passing a line-item veto, and ending earmarks. Truly, the man's talent for consensus is boundless. . .
Tell us something we don’t already know
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/03/escalation-political-decision/
Last night on NBC News, Jim Miklaszewski reported that the new strategy will be announced next Tuesday, and that an administration official “admitted to us today that this surge option is more of a political decision than a military one.” . .
Playing politics with people's lives: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/3/114525/6484
And, no, they STILL don’t have a clearly identified mission for what those additional troops are going to be dying for
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/01/03/BL2007010300708.html
Is it time to JUST SAY NO to Bush’s requests for more fodder for his doomed war adventure?
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/froomkin-asks-questions-about-bushs.html
Another aspect of the Fred Kagan quote yesterday
http://susiemadrak.com/2007/01/03/14/42/your-imagination-sucks-fred/
Meanwhile, the intellectual architect of the “surge”, Frederick W. Kagan, admits to the Journal: “If we surge and it doesn’t work, it’s hard to imagine what we do after that.”
[NB: Gee, I don’t know, Fred – how about, ADMIT YOU WERE WRONG AND GET OUT?]
The kind of man he is
http://www.slate.com/id/2156840/fr/rss/
[Fred Kaplan] What's going on here? Does President Bush simply want to avoid admitting that he's been wrong? Or does he really think he's been—and still is—right?
Probably both. His unwillingness to acknowledge mistakes, however profound or trivial, is legendary. Yet it's also the case, as a few former high-ranking officials have recently told me, that he genuinely believes he's on "the right side of history" when it comes to Iraq, the war on terror, the freedom agenda—all of which he sees bundled into a single grand vision (as distinguished, and self-consciously so, from his father, who was famously and explicitly the opposite of a visionary).
It's a dangerous sign when politically ailing sitting presidents read biographies of Harry Truman, as Bush has apparently been doing for a while. It's like failing artists who take solace from the fact that van Gogh didn't sell many paintings in his lifetime either. Maybe they'll end up like van Gogh, too, appreciated years later. Then again, maybe they're just lousy artists. . . .
More phony calls for bipartisanship
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116786113639576591
http://mediamatters.org/items/200701030016
[Fox News] "Are Congressional Democrats killing spirit of bipartisanship?"
[NB: yes, you know, that warm spirit of bipartisanship that the Republicans and their media mouthpieces have been working so hard to maintain over the years.]
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/4/0520/62234
[Kos] While the Beltway Gasbags talk about "healing" and "bipartisanship", the numbers show that the American people are firmly behind the Democratic agenda. . .
Promises, promises
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/03/AR2007010300235.html
President Bush today pledged to submit a five-year budget proposal next month that would balance the federal budget by 2012 . . .
[NB: Uh, George, you won’t BE President after 2008. But I’m sure the next President appreciates your drafting a budget for him (or her)]
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/bush-wants-balanced-budget-so-whats.html
[Chris in Paris] Interesting talk from a guy who has shown no interest in spending restraint at all . . .
Now, HERE’S a man to base your nation-building strategy on
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6226953.stm
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has made clear he dislikes being the country's leader and would prefer to leave the job before his term ends. . .
"I wish I could be done with it even before the end of this term," he said.
"I didn't want to take this position," he told the Wall Street Journal. "I only agreed because I thought it would serve the national interest, and I will not accept it again."
http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8156
Q Prime Minister Maliki says that he wishes he could leave office before his term is over and that he wouldn't run again. Does the President still think that he's the right man for the job? . . .
We learn more and more about the travesty of Saddam’s execution
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011777
[JG] Reading your detailed post on the sorry spectacle of the Hussein execution and the pathetic responses by the right wing bloggers, it struck me that this is a repeating theme for this crew. They don't really believe in democracy, they don't really believe in the rule of law, or in impartial justice. Every Bush effort, and every Republican effort, since the Iraq war got started has the same touches on it as this sorry spectacle, rush things to fit political time tables, ride over the rule of law, chaos, incomptence, and the country looking worse at the end of it. Some of your readers don't understand the problem, but it's the same problem as what's going on in Gitmo and god knows where else, it's all of a piece. Rule of law isn't some neat extra cool thing that democratic countries came up with because its nice and convenient, it's like oxygen, entirely necessary. It's what gives the entire process of justice something more than simple bloodletting. We see the consequences of a lack of respect for the rule of law in the savagery of Saddam's execution, do we imagine that these thugs are any less savage to anybody else they deem "guilty" but is actually simple an innocent from the wrong tribe? The longer this thing goes on, the more clear it becomes that the current Iraqi government is the child of its Republican fathers in every meaningful way. Are we supposed to imagine that a (Republican) government which is so clearly incompetent, dangerous, savage when it can get away with it, elevates political theatre above actual results, and plays hard to its base somehow created a government that does the *same exact things* in Iraq (where those tendencies have even worse results) by *accident* or *coincidence*? No. The Iraqi government is as much an import from the US as the US solders sustaining it are.
Oh, never mind: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/3/17927/74342
[CBS/AP] The U.S. government worked Wednesday to distance itself from the ugly details of Saddam Hussein's execution and tried to focus on the symbolism of the former dictator's death sentence.
"There seems to be a lot of concern about the last two minutes of Saddam Hussein's life and less about the first 69 (years), in which he murdered hundreds of thousands of people," White House press secretary Tony Snow said. "That's why he was executed."
[SusanG] Yes, by all means, let’s sweep those nasty few minutes of gruesome reality under the rug and back off to the soft focus of long-term symbolism, spin and propaganda. God knows, it’s the only damn thing this administration has the minimum of skill in – convincing you that what you see with your very own eyes doesn’t mean what normal, sane people think it means. . .
Who made the video? An “evolving” story
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011770.php
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011772
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011773
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011774
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011779
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011782
Negroponte steps down as head of national intelligence. (Remember what a tough time they had filling that job?) I guess anything related to “intelligence” is a hard slog with this gang
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011785
[Josh Marshall] John Negroponte is resigning as Director of National Intelligence and becoming Deputy Secretary of State.
The DNI position is a new one. So it's hard to say where it rates. But it's hard for me to see where this isn't a substantial come down in seniority. And what does it say about the position of DNI? I suspect that is the story here. . . .
http://www.slate.com/id/2156908/
[Daniel Politi] It is unclear whether Negroponte took the new job because the Bush administration is unhappy with his work, or if he is not satisfied with the job of intelligence czar . . .
http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8161
[Scout Prime] The Dep Sec of State position has been unfilled for 6 months since Robert Zoellick quit in June. The NYT reports that Condi "has had great difficulty" finding a replacement with several people having "turned down the post" . . . .
[NB: I’m wondering if this is going to be part of Bush’s big shake-up in his Iraq policy. Will Negroponte become the new Majorodomo of the Iraq initiative? But who would want THAT job?
Scout Prime’s posting goes on to cite sources suggesting that Rice is in trouble. . . .]
Today: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/washington/04secretary.html
Mr. Negroponte will fill a critical job that has been vacant for months, and he is expected to play a leading role in shaping policy in Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/03/AR2007010301527.html
It also comes as President Bush plans to announce a new Iraq strategy; as former Iraq envoy, Negroponte would be expected to play a major role in implementing that plan in his new role.
Interesting point
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010512.php
[P.W. Singer] Not one contractor of the entire military industry in Iraq has been charged with any crime over the last 3 and a half years, let alone prosecuted or punished. Given the raw numbers of contractors, let alone the incidents we know about, it boggles the mind. . . . [read on!]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/03/AR2007010301759_pf.html
New allegations of detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay released by the FBI on Tuesday put private contractors at the center of interrogation operations, raising questions once again about where they fit in the military's chain of command. . .
The Pentagon plans to do nothing about new allegations over Gitmo abuse
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/3/23548/37969
What they’ve done to Jose Padilla, U.S. citizen (and convicted of NOTHING so far) will give you chills
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116788165429745676
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/4/13846/75081
John McCain: can you believe it? He doesn’t really care all that much for religious yahoos
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/mccain-just-faking-his-support-of.html
[Vanity Fair] "Yes, he's a social conservative, but his heart isn't in this stuff," one former aide told me, referring to McCain's instinctual unwillingness to impose on others his personal views about issues such as religion, sexuality, and abortion. "But he has to pretend [that it is], and he's not a good enough actor to pull it off. He just can't fake it well enough." . . .[read on!]
More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9509.html
One of these people is lying
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/3/12464/26651
A GOP corruption two-fer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/03/AR2007010300778.html
Obama admits cocaine use – will this come back to haunt him?
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/3/23218/91557
http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8160
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/01/barack_obama_it.html
It's Going to Get Ugly . . .
But what about Bush? http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/3/164135/1255
Keith Ellison (D-MN), the new Muslim congressman, has a sense of humor AND good political instincts
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/rep-ellison-to-use-thomas-jeffersons.html
[T]he Koran to be used by Rep. Keith Ellison was owned by Thomas Jefferson. Interestingly, Jefferson, who helped forge the idea of freedom of religion for our nation, was born in the Virginia district represented by the bigoted Congressman, Virgil Goode. . . .
Right-wing wackos show their atavistic side: they really do think we should just kill all the Muslims who hate America
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116788732914666282
[Dean Barnett] “At the end of this war, Iraq must necessarily be composed of people who always wanted to live in peace and the one-time enemies of peace who have come to realize they have no other choice but to live in peace. How much killing will this take?”
Theocracy watch: a vengeful God
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116784010453460979
[CNN] Evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday that God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would cause a "mass killing" late in 2007.
"I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," he said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network.
"The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."
Robertson said God told him about the impending tragedy during a recent prayer retreat.
God also said, he claims, that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.
[NB: Now, I ask you, what kind of God tells you in advance that a massive slaughter of innocents is going to happen, but tells you nothing about how to plan for or avoid it?]
Enough is enough. Don’t any of these news agencies have proofreaders?
http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jan/03/yahoo_news_captions_obama_photo_with_name_osama
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116787456495584352
[Atrios] How many times can the "professional" news media confuse the names of Osama bin Laden and Barack Obama before someone starts to ask them how this keeps happening?
Bonus item: The Right thinks the Left is too angry. Gee, what reason would we have to be angry?
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116784884860526257
[Digby] We could point out that the Republicans seized the presidency in 2000 under extremely dubious circumstances and then acted as if they'd won 49 states. We could protest that we were called traitors for failing to fall to our knees as they did and worship this incompetent they foisted on the country as he proceeded to take this country into a completely unnecessary war for inexplicable reasons. We could go back even further and say that we've been quite angry ever since the Republicans impeached a duly elected president just because they could and turned this country into a circus for his entire eight year term.
And then there is the toxic waste dump that is right wing talk radio in which the highest reaches of the Republican party cater to disgusting creeps like Rush Limbaugh who say things like this:
I mean, if there is a party that's soulless, it's the Democratic Party. If there are people by definition who are soulless, it is liberals -- by definition. You know, souls come from God. You know?
He is the most powerful Republican voice in the country, reaching many millions each day along with his various clones. They have been at this for decades now, talking about liberals and Democrats as if we are animals. . . [read on!]
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
I think it’s well-established by now what sort of man George Bush is, but how do you control your gag reflex when he comes out talking about bipartisanship? I can think of no President in my lifetime (including Nixon) who has expressed such evident scorn for the opposing party. Of course, he’s lost the majority, and so it’s politically de rigueur (once you’ve LOST) to suddenly discover the virtues of bipartisanship. But if you wanted to make even a TOKEN effort at reaching out to the other side, couldn’t you do better than this?http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/world/middleeast/03cnd-prexy.html
President Bush sought today to regain the initiative on the eve of the Democratic takeover of Congress, pledging to work enthusiastically with the new lineup of lawmakers but holding fast to his own goals. . .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010201536.html
President Bush, facing a Democratic-controlled Congress for the first time, is urging lawmakers to work with his administration and warning that "political statements" in the form of legislation would result in a stalemate. . . .
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2365.html
[Ezra Klein] This morning's Wall Street Journal boasts an op-ed by George W. Bush calling for comity and compromise with the new Congress. Lucky for them, he's got a common sense, broadly agreeable agenda in the offing: Escalation in Iraq, continuing his tax cuts, privatizing Social Security and Medicare, passing a line-item veto, and ending earmarks. Truly, the man's talent for consensus is boundless. . .
Tell us something we don’t already know
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/03/escalation-political-decision/
Last night on NBC News, Jim Miklaszewski reported that the new strategy will be announced next Tuesday, and that an administration official “admitted to us today that this surge option is more of a political decision than a military one.” . .
Playing politics with people's lives: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/3/114525/6484
And, no, they STILL don’t have a clearly identified mission for what those additional troops are going to be dying for
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/01/03/BL2007010300708.html
Is it time to JUST SAY NO to Bush’s requests for more fodder for his doomed war adventure?
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/froomkin-asks-questions-about-bushs.html
Another aspect of the Fred Kagan quote yesterday
http://susiemadrak.com/2007/01/03/14/42/your-imagination-sucks-fred/
Meanwhile, the intellectual architect of the “surge”, Frederick W. Kagan, admits to the Journal: “If we surge and it doesn’t work, it’s hard to imagine what we do after that.”
[NB: Gee, I don’t know, Fred – how about, ADMIT YOU WERE WRONG AND GET OUT?]
The kind of man he is
http://www.slate.com/id/2156840/fr/rss/
[Fred Kaplan] What's going on here? Does President Bush simply want to avoid admitting that he's been wrong? Or does he really think he's been—and still is—right?
Probably both. His unwillingness to acknowledge mistakes, however profound or trivial, is legendary. Yet it's also the case, as a few former high-ranking officials have recently told me, that he genuinely believes he's on "the right side of history" when it comes to Iraq, the war on terror, the freedom agenda—all of which he sees bundled into a single grand vision (as distinguished, and self-consciously so, from his father, who was famously and explicitly the opposite of a visionary).
It's a dangerous sign when politically ailing sitting presidents read biographies of Harry Truman, as Bush has apparently been doing for a while. It's like failing artists who take solace from the fact that van Gogh didn't sell many paintings in his lifetime either. Maybe they'll end up like van Gogh, too, appreciated years later. Then again, maybe they're just lousy artists. . . .
More phony calls for bipartisanship
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116786113639576591
http://mediamatters.org/items/200701030016
[Fox News] "Are Congressional Democrats killing spirit of bipartisanship?"
[NB: yes, you know, that warm spirit of bipartisanship that the Republicans and their media mouthpieces have been working so hard to maintain over the years.]
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/4/0520/62234
[Kos] While the Beltway Gasbags talk about "healing" and "bipartisanship", the numbers show that the American people are firmly behind the Democratic agenda. . .
Promises, promises
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/03/AR2007010300235.html
President Bush today pledged to submit a five-year budget proposal next month that would balance the federal budget by 2012 . . .
[NB: Uh, George, you won’t BE President after 2008. But I’m sure the next President appreciates your drafting a budget for him (or her)]
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/bush-wants-balanced-budget-so-whats.html
[Chris in Paris] Interesting talk from a guy who has shown no interest in spending restraint at all . . .
Now, HERE’S a man to base your nation-building strategy on
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6226953.stm
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has made clear he dislikes being the country's leader and would prefer to leave the job before his term ends. . .
"I wish I could be done with it even before the end of this term," he said.
"I didn't want to take this position," he told the Wall Street Journal. "I only agreed because I thought it would serve the national interest, and I will not accept it again."
http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8156
Q Prime Minister Maliki says that he wishes he could leave office before his term is over and that he wouldn't run again. Does the President still think that he's the right man for the job? . . .
We learn more and more about the travesty of Saddam’s execution
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011777
[JG] Reading your detailed post on the sorry spectacle of the Hussein execution and the pathetic responses by the right wing bloggers, it struck me that this is a repeating theme for this crew. They don't really believe in democracy, they don't really believe in the rule of law, or in impartial justice. Every Bush effort, and every Republican effort, since the Iraq war got started has the same touches on it as this sorry spectacle, rush things to fit political time tables, ride over the rule of law, chaos, incomptence, and the country looking worse at the end of it. Some of your readers don't understand the problem, but it's the same problem as what's going on in Gitmo and god knows where else, it's all of a piece. Rule of law isn't some neat extra cool thing that democratic countries came up with because its nice and convenient, it's like oxygen, entirely necessary. It's what gives the entire process of justice something more than simple bloodletting. We see the consequences of a lack of respect for the rule of law in the savagery of Saddam's execution, do we imagine that these thugs are any less savage to anybody else they deem "guilty" but is actually simple an innocent from the wrong tribe? The longer this thing goes on, the more clear it becomes that the current Iraqi government is the child of its Republican fathers in every meaningful way. Are we supposed to imagine that a (Republican) government which is so clearly incompetent, dangerous, savage when it can get away with it, elevates political theatre above actual results, and plays hard to its base somehow created a government that does the *same exact things* in Iraq (where those tendencies have even worse results) by *accident* or *coincidence*? No. The Iraqi government is as much an import from the US as the US solders sustaining it are.
Oh, never mind: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/3/17927/74342
[CBS/AP] The U.S. government worked Wednesday to distance itself from the ugly details of Saddam Hussein's execution and tried to focus on the symbolism of the former dictator's death sentence.
"There seems to be a lot of concern about the last two minutes of Saddam Hussein's life and less about the first 69 (years), in which he murdered hundreds of thousands of people," White House press secretary Tony Snow said. "That's why he was executed."
[SusanG] Yes, by all means, let’s sweep those nasty few minutes of gruesome reality under the rug and back off to the soft focus of long-term symbolism, spin and propaganda. God knows, it’s the only damn thing this administration has the minimum of skill in – convincing you that what you see with your very own eyes doesn’t mean what normal, sane people think it means. . .
Who made the video? An “evolving” story
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011770.php
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011772
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011773
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011774
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011779
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011782
Negroponte steps down as head of national intelligence. (Remember what a tough time they had filling that job?) I guess anything related to “intelligence” is a hard slog with this gang
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011785
[Josh Marshall] John Negroponte is resigning as Director of National Intelligence and becoming Deputy Secretary of State.
The DNI position is a new one. So it's hard to say where it rates. But it's hard for me to see where this isn't a substantial come down in seniority. And what does it say about the position of DNI? I suspect that is the story here. . . .
http://www.slate.com/id/2156908/
[Daniel Politi] It is unclear whether Negroponte took the new job because the Bush administration is unhappy with his work, or if he is not satisfied with the job of intelligence czar . . .
http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8161
[Scout Prime] The Dep Sec of State position has been unfilled for 6 months since Robert Zoellick quit in June. The NYT reports that Condi "has had great difficulty" finding a replacement with several people having "turned down the post" . . . .
[NB: I’m wondering if this is going to be part of Bush’s big shake-up in his Iraq policy. Will Negroponte become the new Majorodomo of the Iraq initiative? But who would want THAT job?
Scout Prime’s posting goes on to cite sources suggesting that Rice is in trouble. . . .]
Today: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/washington/04secretary.html
Mr. Negroponte will fill a critical job that has been vacant for months, and he is expected to play a leading role in shaping policy in Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/03/AR2007010301527.html
It also comes as President Bush plans to announce a new Iraq strategy; as former Iraq envoy, Negroponte would be expected to play a major role in implementing that plan in his new role.
Interesting point
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010512.php
[P.W. Singer] Not one contractor of the entire military industry in Iraq has been charged with any crime over the last 3 and a half years, let alone prosecuted or punished. Given the raw numbers of contractors, let alone the incidents we know about, it boggles the mind. . . . [read on!]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/03/AR2007010301759_pf.html
New allegations of detainee abuse at Guantanamo Bay released by the FBI on Tuesday put private contractors at the center of interrogation operations, raising questions once again about where they fit in the military's chain of command. . .
The Pentagon plans to do nothing about new allegations over Gitmo abuse
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/3/23548/37969
What they’ve done to Jose Padilla, U.S. citizen (and convicted of NOTHING so far) will give you chills
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116788165429745676
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/4/13846/75081
John McCain: can you believe it? He doesn’t really care all that much for religious yahoos
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/mccain-just-faking-his-support-of.html
[Vanity Fair] "Yes, he's a social conservative, but his heart isn't in this stuff," one former aide told me, referring to McCain's instinctual unwillingness to impose on others his personal views about issues such as religion, sexuality, and abortion. "But he has to pretend [that it is], and he's not a good enough actor to pull it off. He just can't fake it well enough." . . .[read on!]
More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9509.html
One of these people is lying
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/3/12464/26651
A GOP corruption two-fer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/03/AR2007010300778.html
Obama admits cocaine use – will this come back to haunt him?
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/3/23218/91557
http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8160
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/01/barack_obama_it.html
It's Going to Get Ugly . . .
But what about Bush? http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/1/3/164135/1255
Keith Ellison (D-MN), the new Muslim congressman, has a sense of humor AND good political instincts
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/rep-ellison-to-use-thomas-jeffersons.html
[T]he Koran to be used by Rep. Keith Ellison was owned by Thomas Jefferson. Interestingly, Jefferson, who helped forge the idea of freedom of religion for our nation, was born in the Virginia district represented by the bigoted Congressman, Virgil Goode. . . .
Right-wing wackos show their atavistic side: they really do think we should just kill all the Muslims who hate America
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116788732914666282
[Dean Barnett] “At the end of this war, Iraq must necessarily be composed of people who always wanted to live in peace and the one-time enemies of peace who have come to realize they have no other choice but to live in peace. How much killing will this take?”
Theocracy watch: a vengeful God
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116784010453460979
[CNN] Evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday that God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would cause a "mass killing" late in 2007.
"I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," he said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network.
"The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."
Robertson said God told him about the impending tragedy during a recent prayer retreat.
God also said, he claims, that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.
[NB: Now, I ask you, what kind of God tells you in advance that a massive slaughter of innocents is going to happen, but tells you nothing about how to plan for or avoid it?]
Enough is enough. Don’t any of these news agencies have proofreaders?
http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jan/03/yahoo_news_captions_obama_photo_with_name_osama
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116787456495584352
[Atrios] How many times can the "professional" news media confuse the names of Osama bin Laden and Barack Obama before someone starts to ask them how this keeps happening?
Bonus item: The Right thinks the Left is too angry. Gee, what reason would we have to be angry?
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116784884860526257
[Digby] We could point out that the Republicans seized the presidency in 2000 under extremely dubious circumstances and then acted as if they'd won 49 states. We could protest that we were called traitors for failing to fall to our knees as they did and worship this incompetent they foisted on the country as he proceeded to take this country into a completely unnecessary war for inexplicable reasons. We could go back even further and say that we've been quite angry ever since the Republicans impeached a duly elected president just because they could and turned this country into a circus for his entire eight year term.
And then there is the toxic waste dump that is right wing talk radio in which the highest reaches of the Republican party cater to disgusting creeps like Rush Limbaugh who say things like this:
I mean, if there is a party that's soulless, it's the Democratic Party. If there are people by definition who are soulless, it is liberals -- by definition. You know, souls come from God. You know?
He is the most powerful Republican voice in the country, reaching many millions each day along with his various clones. They have been at this for decades now, talking about liberals and Democrats as if we are animals. . . [read on!]
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
YOU’RE FIRED!
If you ever read military history, you know that the last gasp of a dying campaign is when the leaders start firing the generals who have been loyally implementing their own policies. Well, guess what?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011761
[Josh Marshall] According to the White House, the person to blame for Iraq is Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., the top American commander in the country. And Casey's so bad that President Bush is probably going to can him before his current tour concludes this summer. Probably as soon as next month.
In so many words, Casey's policy (which, reading between the lines, it's pretty clear Casey thought was Bush's desired policy) was maintain current troop levels and 'standing down as the Iraqis stand up'. You may have thought that was the Bush policy. But apparently not. "Over the past 12 months," the Times now tells us, "as optimism collided with reality, Mr. Bush increasingly found himself uneasy with General Casey’s strategy." . . .
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/2/131513/3672
[Kos] See? We're losing the war because our top general in Iraq doesn't want to win, he wants to get out. And since withdrawal equals defeat, any effort to reduce our military footprint in Iraq is, by definition, defeat. It's that simple!
More: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/01/white_house_dri.html
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8146
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005368.html
Dysfunctional Iraqi govt to “investigate” its own bungled Saddam execution
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/world/middleeast/03iraq.html
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116779556496615765
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116782064141521313
[Attaturk] You have to hand it to the Bush Administration, they've managed to oversee the creation of an Iraqi government ("government?" let's be generous) that was obviously put together to handle situations with the same level of "competence" and "integrity" as their patrons.
[NYT] ...a prosecutor at the trial that condemned Mr. Hussein to death, said that one of two men he had seen holding a cellphone camera aloft to make a video of Mr. Hussein’s last moments — up to and past the point where he fell through the trapdoor — was Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Mr. Maliki’s national security adviser.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070103/ap_on_re_mi_ea/world_saddam_execution
Grainy cell phone video of Saddam Hussein's execution triggered international criticism Tuesday, with Britain's deputy prime minister calling the leaked images "unacceptable" and the Vatican decrying the footage as a "spectacle" violating human rights. . .
http://www.slate.com/id/2156833/fr/rss/
[Daniel Politi] Even though the video seems to have been shot by someone who was happy with what was taking place, the Post decides to take a leap and states, "[T]he video was the latest example of how amateurs using modern technology are exposing abuses and holding the powerful to account."
TWO videos: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/uh-there-were-obviously-two-videos-of.html
[John Aravosis] The article keeps talking about the "unofficial" cell phone video. First off, we don't know for a fact that the video was unofficial. In fact, I'd wager that the White House and the Iraqi Prime Minister both wanted that video taken and distributed, just as Bush wanted the pictures of Saddam's dead sons publicly disseminated to "prove" their death.
Was the execution rushed because Maliki feared that Saddam would escape from their custody?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011762
Why it's useful to the Bush gang that Saddam can no longer reveal what he knows (thanks to Warren C for the link)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2114403.ece
And before we start throwing ALL the blame on the Iraqis, let’s remember our own glass house
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/3/75548/78659
[Devilstower] If you were seeking one sterling example of the overwhelming pettiness, the sheer cruelty, the staggering ignorance, and the absolute dedication to erasing everything good that America ever stood for found in the black heart of the current administration, you need look no further than the case of Jose Padilla. . .
FBI admits detainee abuses at Gitmo
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070103/D8MDFOQ80.html
More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010201219_pf.html
Here’s the first of many, many attempts by the Bush gang to stonewall document requests from the Democratic congress
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002262.php
Olbermann on Bush’s call for “sacrifice”
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/02/olbermann-special-comment-on-sacrifice/
What do the Republicans REALLY think about Bush’s troop escalation?
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9490.html
[Steve Benen] * Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.): “It’s Alice in Wonderland. I’m absolutely opposed to sending any more troops to Iraq. It is folly.”
* Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) came out against an escalation.
* Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) returned from a recent Baghdad trip opposing more troops.
* Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) returned from the same trip saying the same thing.
* Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.), after returning from her own visit to Iraq, is a strong opponent of escalation.
* Sen. Chuck Lugar (R-Ind.) hasn’t formally taken a position, but said political conditions “could get ugly” if the White House doesn’t consult more with Congress on the issue.
* Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) said, “A short-term buildup in troops, if it simply is to impose military order without the possibility of political equilibrium, that doesn’t seem to me to be too farsighted.”
* Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) have both expressed reservations, and shared their concerns with the White House.
I love this, coming from Kagan
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9490.html
AEI resident scholar Frederick Kagan, a leading proponent of escalation, told the WSJ, “If we surge and it doesn’t work, it’s hard to imagine what we do after that. But we’re already in a very bad spot, and if we don’t do anything defeat is imminent.”
Looks like Bush is headed for the same fate with Republicans that Jimmy Carter got from the Democrats (“he has nothing to do with us!”)
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116776713093235884
http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/2/17562/58401
Bush writes an op-ed (yawn)
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/bush-wrote-op-ed-in-todays-wall-street.html
The Republicans start whining already . . .
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002257.php
[Justin Rood] Republicans aren't yet an official minority in the House, but they're already beginning a campaign to portray themselves as victims of a heartless Democratic majority. . .
"Unfortunately, as you are well aware, the Democrats' forty-year reign over the House was plagued by consistent, systematic efforts to usurp the rights and privileges of the Republican minority," write Reps. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Tom Price (R-GA).
They don't mention their party's own strongarm tactics -- which is striking, given that since 2002 Cantor himself was a member of the House GOP leadership, which was known for ruthlessly engineering legislative victories. "[R]eveling in the power they have, [Republicans] are using techniques to jam bills through even when they don't have to . . . simply because they can," is how congressional expert Norman Ornstein characterized the GOP's screw-the-minority tactics from 1994 to the present, according to a 2004 Washington Post article.
Republicans "have taken every one of the techniques that Democrats employed when they were in the majority, and ratcheted them up to another level," said the American Enterprise Institute scholar. . . .
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002257.php
In a "Dear Colleague" letter circulated to fellow Republicans, three House GOPers are trying to push a "Minority Bill of Rights" -- based on a two-year-old proposal by then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). . .
When Pelosi made her proposal to protect Democrats in 2004, GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert (IL) refused to entertain the idea, let alone reply to her correspondence.
More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9496.html
. . . . and the media dutifully starts bemoaning Democratic “partisanship”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010201003.html
Democratic leaders set to take control of Congress tomorrow are facing mounting pressure from liberal activists to chart a more confrontational course on Iraq and the issues of human rights and civil liberties, with some even calling for the impeachment of President Bush. . . .
More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200701030002
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116779881680828741
http://sideshow.me.uk/sjan07.htm#01031301
Well, I suppose its good that we didn’t get rid of ALL the racist Republican yahoos in the 2006 election
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9493.html
Bill Kristol, so wrong, so often
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/bill-kristol-pundit-superstar.html
2008 could be FUN
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011763
[Greg Sargent] GOP Primary 2008 begins! . . . A McCain aide takes a swipe at Rudy over that leaked campaign memo laying out Rudy's top-secret plan for taking the White House. . . .
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010504.php
[Steve Benen] Somebody's getting fired. . .
Bonus item: CNN needs to start firing some people, too
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/CNN_comments_on_Obama_gaffe_in_0101.html
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/3/12347/97927
***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.***
If you ever read military history, you know that the last gasp of a dying campaign is when the leaders start firing the generals who have been loyally implementing their own policies. Well, guess what?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011761
[Josh Marshall] According to the White House, the person to blame for Iraq is Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., the top American commander in the country. And Casey's so bad that President Bush is probably going to can him before his current tour concludes this summer. Probably as soon as next month.
In so many words, Casey's policy (which, reading between the lines, it's pretty clear Casey thought was Bush's desired policy) was maintain current troop levels and 'standing down as the Iraqis stand up'. You may have thought that was the Bush policy. But apparently not. "Over the past 12 months," the Times now tells us, "as optimism collided with reality, Mr. Bush increasingly found himself uneasy with General Casey’s strategy." . . .
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/2/131513/3672
[Kos] See? We're losing the war because our top general in Iraq doesn't want to win, he wants to get out. And since withdrawal equals defeat, any effort to reduce our military footprint in Iraq is, by definition, defeat. It's that simple!
More: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/01/white_house_dri.html
http://www.first-draft.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8146
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005368.html
Dysfunctional Iraqi govt to “investigate” its own bungled Saddam execution
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/world/middleeast/03iraq.html
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116779556496615765
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116782064141521313
[Attaturk] You have to hand it to the Bush Administration, they've managed to oversee the creation of an Iraqi government ("government?" let's be generous) that was obviously put together to handle situations with the same level of "competence" and "integrity" as their patrons.
[NYT] ...a prosecutor at the trial that condemned Mr. Hussein to death, said that one of two men he had seen holding a cellphone camera aloft to make a video of Mr. Hussein’s last moments — up to and past the point where he fell through the trapdoor — was Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Mr. Maliki’s national security adviser.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070103/ap_on_re_mi_ea/world_saddam_execution
Grainy cell phone video of Saddam Hussein's execution triggered international criticism Tuesday, with Britain's deputy prime minister calling the leaked images "unacceptable" and the Vatican decrying the footage as a "spectacle" violating human rights. . .
http://www.slate.com/id/2156833/fr/rss/
[Daniel Politi] Even though the video seems to have been shot by someone who was happy with what was taking place, the Post decides to take a leap and states, "[T]he video was the latest example of how amateurs using modern technology are exposing abuses and holding the powerful to account."
TWO videos: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/uh-there-were-obviously-two-videos-of.html
[John Aravosis] The article keeps talking about the "unofficial" cell phone video. First off, we don't know for a fact that the video was unofficial. In fact, I'd wager that the White House and the Iraqi Prime Minister both wanted that video taken and distributed, just as Bush wanted the pictures of Saddam's dead sons publicly disseminated to "prove" their death.
Was the execution rushed because Maliki feared that Saddam would escape from their custody?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011762
Why it's useful to the Bush gang that Saddam can no longer reveal what he knows (thanks to Warren C for the link)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2114403.ece
And before we start throwing ALL the blame on the Iraqis, let’s remember our own glass house
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/3/75548/78659
[Devilstower] If you were seeking one sterling example of the overwhelming pettiness, the sheer cruelty, the staggering ignorance, and the absolute dedication to erasing everything good that America ever stood for found in the black heart of the current administration, you need look no further than the case of Jose Padilla. . .
FBI admits detainee abuses at Gitmo
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070103/D8MDFOQ80.html
More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010201219_pf.html
Here’s the first of many, many attempts by the Bush gang to stonewall document requests from the Democratic congress
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002262.php
Olbermann on Bush’s call for “sacrifice”
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/01/02/olbermann-special-comment-on-sacrifice/
What do the Republicans REALLY think about Bush’s troop escalation?
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9490.html
[Steve Benen] * Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.): “It’s Alice in Wonderland. I’m absolutely opposed to sending any more troops to Iraq. It is folly.”
* Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) came out against an escalation.
* Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) returned from a recent Baghdad trip opposing more troops.
* Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) returned from the same trip saying the same thing.
* Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.), after returning from her own visit to Iraq, is a strong opponent of escalation.
* Sen. Chuck Lugar (R-Ind.) hasn’t formally taken a position, but said political conditions “could get ugly” if the White House doesn’t consult more with Congress on the issue.
* Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) said, “A short-term buildup in troops, if it simply is to impose military order without the possibility of political equilibrium, that doesn’t seem to me to be too farsighted.”
* Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) have both expressed reservations, and shared their concerns with the White House.
I love this, coming from Kagan
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9490.html
AEI resident scholar Frederick Kagan, a leading proponent of escalation, told the WSJ, “If we surge and it doesn’t work, it’s hard to imagine what we do after that. But we’re already in a very bad spot, and if we don’t do anything defeat is imminent.”
Looks like Bush is headed for the same fate with Republicans that Jimmy Carter got from the Democrats (“he has nothing to do with us!”)
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116776713093235884
http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/2/17562/58401
Bush writes an op-ed (yawn)
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/bush-wrote-op-ed-in-todays-wall-street.html
The Republicans start whining already . . .
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002257.php
[Justin Rood] Republicans aren't yet an official minority in the House, but they're already beginning a campaign to portray themselves as victims of a heartless Democratic majority. . .
"Unfortunately, as you are well aware, the Democrats' forty-year reign over the House was plagued by consistent, systematic efforts to usurp the rights and privileges of the Republican minority," write Reps. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Tom Price (R-GA).
They don't mention their party's own strongarm tactics -- which is striking, given that since 2002 Cantor himself was a member of the House GOP leadership, which was known for ruthlessly engineering legislative victories. "[R]eveling in the power they have, [Republicans] are using techniques to jam bills through even when they don't have to . . . simply because they can," is how congressional expert Norman Ornstein characterized the GOP's screw-the-minority tactics from 1994 to the present, according to a 2004 Washington Post article.
Republicans "have taken every one of the techniques that Democrats employed when they were in the majority, and ratcheted them up to another level," said the American Enterprise Institute scholar. . . .
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002257.php
In a "Dear Colleague" letter circulated to fellow Republicans, three House GOPers are trying to push a "Minority Bill of Rights" -- based on a two-year-old proposal by then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). . .
When Pelosi made her proposal to protect Democrats in 2004, GOP House Speaker Dennis Hastert (IL) refused to entertain the idea, let alone reply to her correspondence.
More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9496.html
. . . . and the media dutifully starts bemoaning Democratic “partisanship”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/02/AR2007010201003.html
Democratic leaders set to take control of Congress tomorrow are facing mounting pressure from liberal activists to chart a more confrontational course on Iraq and the issues of human rights and civil liberties, with some even calling for the impeachment of President Bush. . . .
More: http://mediamatters.org/items/200701030002
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116779881680828741
http://sideshow.me.uk/sjan07.htm#01031301
Well, I suppose its good that we didn’t get rid of ALL the racist Republican yahoos in the 2006 election
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9493.html
Bill Kristol, so wrong, so often
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/bill-kristol-pundit-superstar.html
2008 could be FUN
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011763
[Greg Sargent] GOP Primary 2008 begins! . . . A McCain aide takes a swipe at Rudy over that leaked campaign memo laying out Rudy's top-secret plan for taking the White House. . . .
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010504.php
[Steve Benen] Somebody's getting fired. . .
Bonus item: CNN needs to start firing some people, toohttp://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/CNN_comments_on_Obama_gaffe_in_0101.html
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/3/12347/97927
***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.***
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
CLUELESS
How telling that the climactic moment of the Iraq misadventure – the bringing to justice of the tyrant who was the cause of it all (no, I mean Saddam not Dubya), was bungled and turned into a horrible farce. Don’t miss these stunning analyses of the lawlessness, brutality, and sheer stupidity of Saddam’s execution
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011753
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/cell-phone-turned-saddams-execution-in.html
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116767742097818867
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/iraqis-learn-art-of-legal-workarounds.html
http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/01/richard_falk_on_the_flawed_execution_of_saddam_hussein.html
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011757.php
http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/452/Hijacking_Eid_and_Hanging_Saddam
My friend tells me more about Eid
[FR] The symbolism of executing Saddam on Eid ul-Adha is even more disturbing once it is realized that "Eid ul-Adha is celebrated by Muslims worldwide as a commemoration of Prophet Ibrahim's (Abraham) willingness to sacrifice his son Ismael for God." It is a day that Ismael's life was spared, and Abraham passed the test of his belief in God. It is thus a day of marking forgiveness, and recognizing that God wants peace among his people. In recent years Eid ul-Adha has become associated with Hajj, but Hajj itself is the celebration of Abraham's act of selflessness.
This is of course a biblical story shared by all of 'the people of the desert' which should bring together Christians, Jews and Muslims through their commonalities. I can't imagine what the Iraqi and American governments were thinking when they decided to execute Saddam on Eid.
This story has legs, as they say, and in my view we have not heard the last of it.
More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/2/03251/37698
You’ve got to be kidding me
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6223923.stm
US President George W Bush intends to reveal a new Iraq strategy within days . . . The speech will reveal a plan to send more US troops to Iraq to focus on ways of bringing greater security, rather than training Iraqi forces. . . .
The BBC was told by a senior administration source that the speech setting out changes in Mr Bush's Iraq policy is likely to come in the middle of next week.
Its central theme will be sacrifice. . . .
Already one senior Republican senator has called it Alice in Wonderland.
More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/2/24613/52806
[BarbinMD] So let's talk about sacrifice. . . .
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/2/03251/37698
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_stevegilliard_archive.html#116772106683608476
Republicans don’t think much of Bush’s “surge”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/31/AR2006123100931.html
[Bob Novak] What to do about Iraq poses not only a national policy crisis but profound political problems for the Republican Party. Disenchantment with George W. Bush within the GOP runs deep. Republican leaders around the country, anticipating that the 2006 election disaster would prompt an orderly disengagement from Iraq, are shocked that the president now appears ready to add troops. . .
Putting Bush on the couch (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1230-21.htm
[Katherine Van Wormer] "You've got to work at it." This is a commonly heard saying of George W. Bush. One thing he has not worked at, however, is what is sometimes called in alcoholism treatment parlance, "the second recovery." Treatment centers specialize in cognitive work, as does A.A., in effect, aiding persons in recovery to replace irrational, grandiose, and self-centered thoughts, with healthier and more moderate ways of thinking. . . .
More: http://www.buzzflash.com/store/reviews/316
This will make you laugh, cry, and then put your fist through the wall. You see, the Bush gang had a perfectly good plan for victory in Iraq. Could have worked. Should have worked. But, damn, they just didn’t realize how bad things were over there. . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/washington/02war.html
President Bush began 2006 assuring the country that he had a “strategy for victory in Iraq.” He ended the year closeted with his war cabinet on his ranch trying to devise a new strategy, because the existing one had collapsed.
The original plan, championed by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Baghdad, and backed by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, called for turning over responsibility for security to the Iraqis, shrinking the number of American bases and beginning the gradual withdrawal of American troops. But the plan collided with Iraq’s ferocious unraveling, which took most of Mr. Bush’s war council by surprise.
In interviews in Washington and Baghdad, senior officials said the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department had also failed to take seriously warnings, including some from its own ambassador in Baghdad, that sectarian violence could rip the country apart and turn Mr. Bush’s promise to “clear, hold and build” Iraqi neighborhoods and towns into an empty slogan. . . .
Mr. Bush came to worry that it was not just his critics and Democrats in Congress who were looking for what he dismissed last month as a strategy of “graceful exit.” Visiting the Pentagon a few weeks ago for a classified briefing on Iraq with his generals, Mr. Bush made it clear that he was not interested in any ideas that would simply allow American forces to stabilize the violence. Gen. James T. Conway, the Marine commandant, later told marines about the president’s message.
“What I want to hear from you is how we’re going to win,” he quoted the president as warning his commanders, “not how we’re going to leave.” . . .
Mr. Bush still insists on talking about victory, even if his own advisers differ about how to define it. “It’s a word the American people understand,” he told members of the Iraq Study Group who came to see him at the White House in November, according to two commission members who attended. “And if I start to change it, it will look like I’m beginning to change my policy.”
More: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/iraq-in-nutshell.html
They’ve learned nothing. Nothing
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011756
[JB] As I watch TV news and commentary and listen on NPR, I see the face of Fred Kagan, Dan Senor, even the voice of Richard Perle, and I wonder if it is a new year at all. We have seen some of these faces before, and they all represent past failures. . . .
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9489.html
[William Safire] “The Iraq story is obviously the big story of the year. And I look at the Trumanesque quality in the White House now. You have a president who is facing all this bad news coming out of Iraq and the casualties and the brink of civil war. And he’s hanging in there and he’s not admitting defeat, he’s not embracing defeatism. And he’s coming up with another approach, and who knows, he may turn it around.”
[Steve Benen] It prompted Kate O’Beirne, of all people, to counter Safire, saying, “In 2004, being steadfast like that served him well. The contrast was John Kerry is a flip-flopper and George Bush is steadfast. But by 2006, that was no longer an asset. What they considered steadfast, I think, looked stubborn and out of touch.”
When O’Beirne has to intervene with a dose of reality, you know Safire has reached a breathtaking state of denial.
On a related note, Russert reminded Safire (and all of us) that the former Times columnist predicted in 2005 that by the end of 2006, we’d see evidence of victory in Iraq, a troop withdrawal would have begun, and a civil war would fail to develop. Asked to respond, Safire said he remains “optimistic,” and added, “One of these days I’m going to be right.”
Maybe someone could explain to me why Safire keeps getting invited back to Sunday morning public affairs shows . . .
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9488.html
[Steve Benen] If you missed the NYT’s Nick Kristof’s year-end piece yesterday, it was a sight to behold.
Kristof noted that the president’s legacy “doesn’t look good right now,” and imagined a future obituary that described Bush leaving office “vilified and disgraced.” Kristof proceeded to offer 10 suggestions for the president to pursue in 2007 that might help him “rescue” his legacy. It’s quite a list.
* Negotiate with Iran and Syria, and “renounce permanent military bases in Iraq.”
* Start working on an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.
* Confront the genocide in Darfur.
* Dump Dick Cheney and get a new VP.
* Expand the government’s efforts to combat AIDS.
* Address climate change.
* Give up on the idea of attacking Iran.
* Give up on privatization and embrace a Clinton-like approach to Social Security reform.
* Address our disgraceful inequities in health care and pursue Carter’s idea of comprehensive coverage for children up to age 5.
* “Steal [policy ideas] from your critics and rivals.”
It’s enough to make me wonder if Kristof has been watching the same president as the rest of us the last six years.
It’s not that I’m opposed to Kristof’s suggestions; but rather it’s rather silly to offer the president advice that he would almost certainly find amusing. Most of these prescriptions might even work, but they are entirely antithetical to everything the Bush White House has done and believed.
As Matt Yglesias put it: “I agree with Nick Kristof — George W. Bush would be a pretty good president if he reversed, um, all of his ideas about public policy and started governing like a liberal Democrat.”
I suspect this isn’t going to happen. Call it a hunch.
http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8140
[Richard Lugar, R-IN] In the past the administration has been inclined, not to disregard Congress, but not to take Congress very seriously. I think this time Congress has to be taken seriously, there's been an election, Republicans lost the election. There's going to be a change in leadership on my committee, and likewise on the House side. What I would advise, would be maybe a retreat, it could be right here in Washington, but for several hours, in which the Foreign Relations Committee, just to take our group, really studies, what is the President's plan? Understands, specifically, who is to be trained, how would the politics affect what we've just been talking about...the devolution of the country, the oil money, or anything else. In other words that there be at least be at least some study of this by all of us, before suddenly we are all asked to comment: 'Are you in favor or surge, are you in favor of withdrawal?' Six months, three months, all the clichés. These are not going to be very relevant.
[Athenae] So it's about respect for Congress, right? Respect for the rule of law? Now, after six years of the most lawless presidency this country has ever known, now, after the president and his lawyers have essentially said, we're gonna do what we want and screw you sideways with a copy of Robert's Rules, now apparently is the time to remind the president that Congress exists, that it has power, and that he should respect its authoriTAH. Now.
You're kidding me. This is a New Year's joke, is what this is. . . .
A seminar on universal health care
http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/negotiating_with_ourselves/
http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2006/12/reds_everywhere.html
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116766766698358643
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2347.html
http://sideshow.me.uk/sjan07.htm#01020418
http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/1/131055/9172
Good
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/01/AR2007010100784.html
As they prepare to take control of Congress this week and face up to campaign pledges to restore bipartisanship and openness, Democrats are planning to largely sideline Republicans from the first burst of lawmaking.
House Democrats intend to pass a raft of popular measures as part of their well-publicized plan for the first 100 hours. They include tightening ethics rules for lawmakers, raising the minimum wage, allowing more research on stem cells and cutting interest rates on student loans.
But instead of allowing Republicans to fully participate in deliberations, as promised after the Democratic victory in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, Democrats now say they will use House rules to prevent the opposition from offering alternative measures, assuring speedy passage of the bills and allowing their party to trumpet early victories. . .
House Republicans have begun to complain that Democrats are backing away from their promise to work cooperatively. They are working on their own strategy for the first 100 hours, and part of it is built on the idea that they might be able to break the Democrats' slender majority by wooing away some conservative Democrats. . .
The Democrats have a chance to set a new ethical tone on government, and it’s what people want
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/1/171513/8412
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/01/AR2007010100696.html
Bonus item: The best of the “Best (or Worst) of 2006” lists (thanks Mike)
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/12/31/mikes-blog-roundup-49/
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
How telling that the climactic moment of the Iraq misadventure – the bringing to justice of the tyrant who was the cause of it all (no, I mean Saddam not Dubya), was bungled and turned into a horrible farce. Don’t miss these stunning analyses of the lawlessness, brutality, and sheer stupidity of Saddam’s execution
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011753
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2007/01/cell-phone-turned-saddams-execution-in.html
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116767742097818867
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/iraqis-learn-art-of-legal-workarounds.html
http://www.discourse.net/archives/2007/01/richard_falk_on_the_flawed_execution_of_saddam_hussein.html
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011757.php
http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/452/Hijacking_Eid_and_Hanging_Saddam
My friend tells me more about Eid
[FR] The symbolism of executing Saddam on Eid ul-Adha is even more disturbing once it is realized that "Eid ul-Adha is celebrated by Muslims worldwide as a commemoration of Prophet Ibrahim's (Abraham) willingness to sacrifice his son Ismael for God." It is a day that Ismael's life was spared, and Abraham passed the test of his belief in God. It is thus a day of marking forgiveness, and recognizing that God wants peace among his people. In recent years Eid ul-Adha has become associated with Hajj, but Hajj itself is the celebration of Abraham's act of selflessness.
This is of course a biblical story shared by all of 'the people of the desert' which should bring together Christians, Jews and Muslims through their commonalities. I can't imagine what the Iraqi and American governments were thinking when they decided to execute Saddam on Eid.
This story has legs, as they say, and in my view we have not heard the last of it.
More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/2/03251/37698
You’ve got to be kidding me
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6223923.stm
US President George W Bush intends to reveal a new Iraq strategy within days . . . The speech will reveal a plan to send more US troops to Iraq to focus on ways of bringing greater security, rather than training Iraqi forces. . . .
The BBC was told by a senior administration source that the speech setting out changes in Mr Bush's Iraq policy is likely to come in the middle of next week.
Its central theme will be sacrifice. . . .
Already one senior Republican senator has called it Alice in Wonderland.
More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/2/24613/52806
[BarbinMD] So let's talk about sacrifice. . . .
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/2/03251/37698
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_stevegilliard_archive.html#116772106683608476
Republicans don’t think much of Bush’s “surge”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/31/AR2006123100931.html
[Bob Novak] What to do about Iraq poses not only a national policy crisis but profound political problems for the Republican Party. Disenchantment with George W. Bush within the GOP runs deep. Republican leaders around the country, anticipating that the 2006 election disaster would prompt an orderly disengagement from Iraq, are shocked that the president now appears ready to add troops. . .
Putting Bush on the couch (thanks to Buzzflash for the link)
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1230-21.htm
[Katherine Van Wormer] "You've got to work at it." This is a commonly heard saying of George W. Bush. One thing he has not worked at, however, is what is sometimes called in alcoholism treatment parlance, "the second recovery." Treatment centers specialize in cognitive work, as does A.A., in effect, aiding persons in recovery to replace irrational, grandiose, and self-centered thoughts, with healthier and more moderate ways of thinking. . . .
More: http://www.buzzflash.com/store/reviews/316
This will make you laugh, cry, and then put your fist through the wall. You see, the Bush gang had a perfectly good plan for victory in Iraq. Could have worked. Should have worked. But, damn, they just didn’t realize how bad things were over there. . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/washington/02war.html
President Bush began 2006 assuring the country that he had a “strategy for victory in Iraq.” He ended the year closeted with his war cabinet on his ranch trying to devise a new strategy, because the existing one had collapsed.
The original plan, championed by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Baghdad, and backed by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, called for turning over responsibility for security to the Iraqis, shrinking the number of American bases and beginning the gradual withdrawal of American troops. But the plan collided with Iraq’s ferocious unraveling, which took most of Mr. Bush’s war council by surprise.
In interviews in Washington and Baghdad, senior officials said the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department had also failed to take seriously warnings, including some from its own ambassador in Baghdad, that sectarian violence could rip the country apart and turn Mr. Bush’s promise to “clear, hold and build” Iraqi neighborhoods and towns into an empty slogan. . . .
Mr. Bush came to worry that it was not just his critics and Democrats in Congress who were looking for what he dismissed last month as a strategy of “graceful exit.” Visiting the Pentagon a few weeks ago for a classified briefing on Iraq with his generals, Mr. Bush made it clear that he was not interested in any ideas that would simply allow American forces to stabilize the violence. Gen. James T. Conway, the Marine commandant, later told marines about the president’s message.
“What I want to hear from you is how we’re going to win,” he quoted the president as warning his commanders, “not how we’re going to leave.” . . .
Mr. Bush still insists on talking about victory, even if his own advisers differ about how to define it. “It’s a word the American people understand,” he told members of the Iraq Study Group who came to see him at the White House in November, according to two commission members who attended. “And if I start to change it, it will look like I’m beginning to change my policy.”
More: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/iraq-in-nutshell.html
They’ve learned nothing. Nothing
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011756
[JB] As I watch TV news and commentary and listen on NPR, I see the face of Fred Kagan, Dan Senor, even the voice of Richard Perle, and I wonder if it is a new year at all. We have seen some of these faces before, and they all represent past failures. . . .
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9489.html
[William Safire] “The Iraq story is obviously the big story of the year. And I look at the Trumanesque quality in the White House now. You have a president who is facing all this bad news coming out of Iraq and the casualties and the brink of civil war. And he’s hanging in there and he’s not admitting defeat, he’s not embracing defeatism. And he’s coming up with another approach, and who knows, he may turn it around.”
[Steve Benen] It prompted Kate O’Beirne, of all people, to counter Safire, saying, “In 2004, being steadfast like that served him well. The contrast was John Kerry is a flip-flopper and George Bush is steadfast. But by 2006, that was no longer an asset. What they considered steadfast, I think, looked stubborn and out of touch.”
When O’Beirne has to intervene with a dose of reality, you know Safire has reached a breathtaking state of denial.
On a related note, Russert reminded Safire (and all of us) that the former Times columnist predicted in 2005 that by the end of 2006, we’d see evidence of victory in Iraq, a troop withdrawal would have begun, and a civil war would fail to develop. Asked to respond, Safire said he remains “optimistic,” and added, “One of these days I’m going to be right.”
Maybe someone could explain to me why Safire keeps getting invited back to Sunday morning public affairs shows . . .
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9488.html
[Steve Benen] If you missed the NYT’s Nick Kristof’s year-end piece yesterday, it was a sight to behold.
Kristof noted that the president’s legacy “doesn’t look good right now,” and imagined a future obituary that described Bush leaving office “vilified and disgraced.” Kristof proceeded to offer 10 suggestions for the president to pursue in 2007 that might help him “rescue” his legacy. It’s quite a list.
* Negotiate with Iran and Syria, and “renounce permanent military bases in Iraq.”
* Start working on an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.
* Confront the genocide in Darfur.
* Dump Dick Cheney and get a new VP.
* Expand the government’s efforts to combat AIDS.
* Address climate change.
* Give up on the idea of attacking Iran.
* Give up on privatization and embrace a Clinton-like approach to Social Security reform.
* Address our disgraceful inequities in health care and pursue Carter’s idea of comprehensive coverage for children up to age 5.
* “Steal [policy ideas] from your critics and rivals.”
It’s enough to make me wonder if Kristof has been watching the same president as the rest of us the last six years.
It’s not that I’m opposed to Kristof’s suggestions; but rather it’s rather silly to offer the president advice that he would almost certainly find amusing. Most of these prescriptions might even work, but they are entirely antithetical to everything the Bush White House has done and believed.
As Matt Yglesias put it: “I agree with Nick Kristof — George W. Bush would be a pretty good president if he reversed, um, all of his ideas about public policy and started governing like a liberal Democrat.”
I suspect this isn’t going to happen. Call it a hunch.
http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8140
[Richard Lugar, R-IN] In the past the administration has been inclined, not to disregard Congress, but not to take Congress very seriously. I think this time Congress has to be taken seriously, there's been an election, Republicans lost the election. There's going to be a change in leadership on my committee, and likewise on the House side. What I would advise, would be maybe a retreat, it could be right here in Washington, but for several hours, in which the Foreign Relations Committee, just to take our group, really studies, what is the President's plan? Understands, specifically, who is to be trained, how would the politics affect what we've just been talking about...the devolution of the country, the oil money, or anything else. In other words that there be at least be at least some study of this by all of us, before suddenly we are all asked to comment: 'Are you in favor or surge, are you in favor of withdrawal?' Six months, three months, all the clichés. These are not going to be very relevant.
[Athenae] So it's about respect for Congress, right? Respect for the rule of law? Now, after six years of the most lawless presidency this country has ever known, now, after the president and his lawyers have essentially said, we're gonna do what we want and screw you sideways with a copy of Robert's Rules, now apparently is the time to remind the president that Congress exists, that it has power, and that he should respect its authoriTAH. Now.
You're kidding me. This is a New Year's joke, is what this is. . . .
A seminar on universal health care
http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/01/negotiating_with_ourselves/
http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2006/12/reds_everywhere.html
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_12_31_atrios_archive.html#116766766698358643
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/01/post_2347.html
http://sideshow.me.uk/sjan07.htm#01020418
http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/1/1/131055/9172
Good
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/01/AR2007010100784.html
As they prepare to take control of Congress this week and face up to campaign pledges to restore bipartisanship and openness, Democrats are planning to largely sideline Republicans from the first burst of lawmaking.
House Democrats intend to pass a raft of popular measures as part of their well-publicized plan for the first 100 hours. They include tightening ethics rules for lawmakers, raising the minimum wage, allowing more research on stem cells and cutting interest rates on student loans.
But instead of allowing Republicans to fully participate in deliberations, as promised after the Democratic victory in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, Democrats now say they will use House rules to prevent the opposition from offering alternative measures, assuring speedy passage of the bills and allowing their party to trumpet early victories. . .
House Republicans have begun to complain that Democrats are backing away from their promise to work cooperatively. They are working on their own strategy for the first 100 hours, and part of it is built on the idea that they might be able to break the Democrats' slender majority by wooing away some conservative Democrats. . .
The Democrats have a chance to set a new ethical tone on government, and it’s what people want
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/1/1/171513/8412
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/01/AR2007010100696.html
Bonus item: The best of the “Best (or Worst) of 2006” lists (thanks Mike)
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/12/31/mikes-blog-roundup-49/
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Monday, January 01, 2007
LOOKING AHEAD
Happy new year. Here’s the cheery spirit six years of Bush rule has inspired in people (thanks to Miss Laura for the link)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061231/ap_on_re_us/2007_predictions_ap_poll
Six in 10 people think the U.S. will be the victim of a terrorist attack. An identical percentage thinks it likely that a biological or nuclear weapon will be unleashed somewhere else in the world.
Seventy percent of people in the U.S. predict a major natural disaster in the country and an equal percentage expects worsening global warming. Also, 29 percent think it likely that the U.S. will withdraw its troops from Iraq.
Among other predictions for the U.S. in 2007:
35 percent predict the military draft will be reinstated.
35 percent predict a cure for cancer will be found.
25 percent anticipate the second coming of Jesus Christ. . . .
More predictions: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/12/31/131934/25
In Iraq, U.S. troop deaths pass 3000
http://icasualties.org/oif/
More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_12/010496.php
So now we’re supposed to believe that the U.S. was appalled by the means and timing of Saddam’s execution. Even if this is true, what chain of circumstances did we precipitate, and how can people now claim to be surprised at the way it played out?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/world/middleeast/01iraq.html
Iraqi and American officials who have discussed the intrigue and confusion that preceded the decision late on Friday to rush Mr. Hussein to the gallows have said that it was the Americans who questioned the political wisdom — and justice — of expediting the execution, in ways that required Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to override constitutional and religious precepts that might have assured Mr. Hussein a more dignified passage to his end.
The Americans’ concerns seem certain to have been heightened by what happened at the hanging, as evidenced in video recordings made just before Mr. Hussein fell through the gallows trapdoor at 6:10 a.m. on Saturday. A new video that appeared on the Internet late Saturday, apparently made by a witness with a camera cellphone, underscored the unruly, mocking atmosphere in the execution chamber. . . .
From Owen, one of our regular readers
What I'm struck by in the sickening flow of images from Saddam Hussein's execution is how similarly staged it was to the executions of "infidels" by "extremist terrorists", complete with Arabic-text flag on the back wall, black ski masked group of executioners, only they weren't holding rifles and swords . . . .
Josh too: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011745
From Riverbend, in Iraq
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#116759318228411422
It's official. Maliki and his people are psychopaths. This really is a new low. It's outrageous- an execution during Eid. Muslims all over the world (with the exception of Iran) are outraged. Eid is a time of peace, of putting aside quarrels and anger- at least for the duration of Eid.
This does not bode well for the coming year. No one imagined the madmen would actually do it during a religious holiday. It is religiously unacceptable and before, it was constitutionally illegal. We thought we'd at least get a few days of peace and some time to enjoy the Eid holiday, which coincides with the New Year this year. We've spent the first two days of a holy holiday watching bits and pieces of a sordid lynching.
America the savior… After nearly four years and Bush's biggest achievement in Iraq has been a lynching. Bravo Americans.
Maliki has made the mistake of his life. His signature and unhidden glee at the whole execution, especially on the first day of Eid Al Adha (the Eid where millions of Muslims make a pilgrimage to Mecca), will only do more to damage his already tattered reputation . . .
This doesn’t surprise me: the Republicans are having a much tougher time than the Democrats in figuring out where to stand on Bush’s troop escalation
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/31/AR2006123100948.html
Republican lawmakers appear uneasy about -- and in some cases outright dismissive of -- the idea of sending many more troops to Iraq, as President Bush contemplates such a "surge" as part of his new strategy for stabilizing the country.
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), a leading GOP presidential contender for 2008, has been aggressively promoting a plan to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq . . . But the proposition generates far less enthusiasm among rank-and-file Republicans, many of whom must face the voters again in 2008 . . .
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011749
[Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM)] "We need a hard-nosed assessment of what we need, not what we wish," Wilson said. "Sometimes I think our national objectives in Iraq— including by our president— are described in pretty broad terms. . . . I want Iraqi people to live in a free and democratic society, but that's not our military mission there ... that's an aspiration, that's not a vital national interest for the United States."
They’re going to hang this escalation around McCain’s neck – and if it goes badly, his presidential campaign will be over
http://tinyurl.com/saezu
Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, targeting a potential Republican rival in 2008, dubbed plans for a short-term U.S. troop increase in Iraq "the McCain doctrine," in an interview aired on Sunday. . . .
Richard Lugar (R-IN): “this could get ugly”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_12/010495.php
What’s ahead in the fight over the contested Florida 13th district election
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/12/31/155159/31
Bonus item: Steve Benen’s end-of-2006 awards. Relive the highlights and lowlights of life under Republican rule
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9486.html
Breathtaking spin of the year: After literally years of insisting that he will “stay the course” in Iraq, no matter what, Bush announced in October, “We’ve never been ’stay the course.’” It was an amazing attempt at rewriting history.
Runners-up include the Hoekstra-Santorum argument that “we found WMD in Iraq,” and Frances Fragos Townsend arguing that our inability to get Osama bin Laden isn’t a failure, it’s “a success that hasn’t occurred yet.” . . . [read on!]
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Happy new year. Here’s the cheery spirit six years of Bush rule has inspired in people (thanks to Miss Laura for the link)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061231/ap_on_re_us/2007_predictions_ap_poll
Six in 10 people think the U.S. will be the victim of a terrorist attack. An identical percentage thinks it likely that a biological or nuclear weapon will be unleashed somewhere else in the world.
Seventy percent of people in the U.S. predict a major natural disaster in the country and an equal percentage expects worsening global warming. Also, 29 percent think it likely that the U.S. will withdraw its troops from Iraq.
Among other predictions for the U.S. in 2007:
35 percent predict the military draft will be reinstated.
35 percent predict a cure for cancer will be found.
25 percent anticipate the second coming of Jesus Christ. . . .
More predictions: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/12/31/131934/25
In Iraq, U.S. troop deaths pass 3000
http://icasualties.org/oif/
More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_12/010496.php
So now we’re supposed to believe that the U.S. was appalled by the means and timing of Saddam’s execution. Even if this is true, what chain of circumstances did we precipitate, and how can people now claim to be surprised at the way it played out?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/world/middleeast/01iraq.html
Iraqi and American officials who have discussed the intrigue and confusion that preceded the decision late on Friday to rush Mr. Hussein to the gallows have said that it was the Americans who questioned the political wisdom — and justice — of expediting the execution, in ways that required Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to override constitutional and religious precepts that might have assured Mr. Hussein a more dignified passage to his end.
The Americans’ concerns seem certain to have been heightened by what happened at the hanging, as evidenced in video recordings made just before Mr. Hussein fell through the gallows trapdoor at 6:10 a.m. on Saturday. A new video that appeared on the Internet late Saturday, apparently made by a witness with a camera cellphone, underscored the unruly, mocking atmosphere in the execution chamber. . . .
From Owen, one of our regular readers
What I'm struck by in the sickening flow of images from Saddam Hussein's execution is how similarly staged it was to the executions of "infidels" by "extremist terrorists", complete with Arabic-text flag on the back wall, black ski masked group of executioners, only they weren't holding rifles and swords . . . .
Josh too: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011745
From Riverbend, in Iraq
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#116759318228411422
It's official. Maliki and his people are psychopaths. This really is a new low. It's outrageous- an execution during Eid. Muslims all over the world (with the exception of Iran) are outraged. Eid is a time of peace, of putting aside quarrels and anger- at least for the duration of Eid.
This does not bode well for the coming year. No one imagined the madmen would actually do it during a religious holiday. It is religiously unacceptable and before, it was constitutionally illegal. We thought we'd at least get a few days of peace and some time to enjoy the Eid holiday, which coincides with the New Year this year. We've spent the first two days of a holy holiday watching bits and pieces of a sordid lynching.
America the savior… After nearly four years and Bush's biggest achievement in Iraq has been a lynching. Bravo Americans.
Maliki has made the mistake of his life. His signature and unhidden glee at the whole execution, especially on the first day of Eid Al Adha (the Eid where millions of Muslims make a pilgrimage to Mecca), will only do more to damage his already tattered reputation . . .
This doesn’t surprise me: the Republicans are having a much tougher time than the Democrats in figuring out where to stand on Bush’s troop escalation
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/31/AR2006123100948.html
Republican lawmakers appear uneasy about -- and in some cases outright dismissive of -- the idea of sending many more troops to Iraq, as President Bush contemplates such a "surge" as part of his new strategy for stabilizing the country.
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), a leading GOP presidential contender for 2008, has been aggressively promoting a plan to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq . . . But the proposition generates far less enthusiasm among rank-and-file Republicans, many of whom must face the voters again in 2008 . . .
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_12_31.php#011749
[Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM)] "We need a hard-nosed assessment of what we need, not what we wish," Wilson said. "Sometimes I think our national objectives in Iraq— including by our president— are described in pretty broad terms. . . . I want Iraqi people to live in a free and democratic society, but that's not our military mission there ... that's an aspiration, that's not a vital national interest for the United States."
They’re going to hang this escalation around McCain’s neck – and if it goes badly, his presidential campaign will be over
http://tinyurl.com/saezu
Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, targeting a potential Republican rival in 2008, dubbed plans for a short-term U.S. troop increase in Iraq "the McCain doctrine," in an interview aired on Sunday. . . .
Richard Lugar (R-IN): “this could get ugly”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_12/010495.php
What’s ahead in the fight over the contested Florida 13th district election
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/12/31/155159/31
Bonus item: Steve Benen’s end-of-2006 awards. Relive the highlights and lowlights of life under Republican rule
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9486.html
Breathtaking spin of the year: After literally years of insisting that he will “stay the course” in Iraq, no matter what, Bush announced in October, “We’ve never been ’stay the course.’” It was an amazing attempt at rewriting history.
Runners-up include the Hoekstra-Santorum argument that “we found WMD in Iraq,” and Frances Fragos Townsend arguing that our inability to get Osama bin Laden isn’t a failure, it’s “a success that hasn’t occurred yet.” . . . [read on!]
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