THE MESS THEY’VE MADE
How can it be that an administration that has pursued policies that have exacerbated inequalities in society, undermined public institutions and civil liberties, lowered the intelligence and thoughtfulness of public discourse, pursued foreign policy adventures which have proved foolhardy and counterproductive, governed with consistently cynical, dishonest, and secretive stratagems, and exacerbated the worst aspects of cronyism and corruption in government patronage, continues to be seen as legitimate and even marginally deserving of another four years to do more of the same?
Another proud Bush achievement: poverty up, more people uninsured
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35175-2004Aug26.html?nav=rss_nation
The number of Americans living in poverty or lacking health insurance rose for the third straight year in 2003, the Census Bureau announced yesterday, reflecting a job market that failed to match otherwise strong economic growth…Overall, the median household income remained stagnant at $43,318, while the national poverty rate rose to 12.5 percent -- 35.9 million people -- last year, from 12.1 percent in 2002. Hit hardest were women, who for the first time since 1999 saw their earnings decline, and children. By the end of 2003, 12.9 million children lived in poverty…As expected, the number of people without health insurance grew last year, to 45 million -- an increase to 15.6 percent from 15.2 percent.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-08-26-census-poverty_x.htm
The White House said the report was old news, reflecting an economy struggling from three tough years of stock market drops, corporate scandals, wars and unprecedented terrorist attacks. The median income is rising slowly in 2004 as the economy picks up speed; jobs have been added in fits and starts…The report "does not include all the data from the past 11 months, when our economy created 1.5 million new jobs," Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said. He noted that poverty rates are still below the average of the 1980s and '90s and said the growing ranks of the uninsured reflect a trend that the White House has offered several plans to counter.
Release of report timed to minimize attention it might receive
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/26/national/26cnd-cens.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position
Some Democrats saw political manipulation in the fact that the administration issued the new numbers a month before their usual late-September release…Publishing the numbers now, at a greater remove from Election Day, "invites charges of spinning the data for political purposes," said Representative Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York.
The real force in Iraq: Sistani does in a few hours what Allawi, U.S. couldn’t accomplish after weeks of fighting Sadr
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/international/middleeast/27iraq.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=
Hamed al-Khaffaf, an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said that Moktada al-Sadr, the rebel cleric whose fighters have held the Imam Ali Shrine since early August, had agreed to the conditions set forth by Ayatollah Sistani to end the siege…The proposal, which the interim Iraqi government quickly accepted, calls for the withdrawal of Mr. Sadr's fighters from Najaf and the neighboring city of Kufa, as well as a pullout of American forces and the introduction of Iraqi police officers into Najaf. The agreement would allow Mr. Sadr and his fighters to keep their guns and go free…"We pray today that Najaf will recover,'' Kassem Hameed, a 52-year-old oil worker who came from Basra on Thursday to support Ayatollah Sistani, told Reuters. "The military operations have only brought destruction."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34370-2004Aug26.html
In exchange for Sadr's compliance, the government pledged to pull U.S. military forces out of Najaf and to allow Sadr, who had been wanted by the former U.S. occupation authority on murder charges, to participate in politics…"He is as free as any Iraqi citizen to do whatever he would like in Iraq," said Qasim Dawood, a minister of state, after announcing the government's acceptance of the peace plan arranged by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.
http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=25612
"God is great. This is democracy, this is the new Iraq, this is the greatest defeat we could have inflicted on the Americans. It’s the most beautiful day in my life," he shouted, hurrying inside the main mausoleum to pray.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-najaf27aug27,1,2893072.story?coll=la-home-headlines
By dusk Thursday, U.S. troops were holding their positions 50 to 100 yards from the mosque, awaiting word from commanders on their next move. With the exception of occasional gunfire, the cease-fire appeared to be holding…"It's surreal," said Capt. Patrick McFall of the Army's 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, standing about a block from the mosque and surveying the rows of broken buildings and littered streets…"I don't know why we're doing this. And I look at the other side and wonder why they are doing it, too."…At a U.S. military base on the northern edge of Najaf, exhausted troops in the mess hall abruptly grew quiet during a television report about the talks between Sistani and Sadr. Nearly every head in the tent turned to listen to the update…"I just want to have this solved so we can get out of here," one soldier said.
[It is becoming increasingly clear that what Bush has accomplished by ousting Hussein is simply to lay the groundwork for another Islamist state in the region. The only question remaining is how anti-U.S. it will turn out to be.]
Analysis: this shows how little influence the U.S. has on the unfolding dynamics in Iraq (and how Iran’s is growing). What a stunning catastrophe this is becoming
http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002396.html
http://www.juancole.com/2004_08_01_juancole_archive.html#109359005659851262
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003675
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001062.html
http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/08/the_kindness_of.html
Bush acknowledges mistakes in Iraq (sort of)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/politics/campaign/27bush.html?ex=1251259200&en=9f0c907a26349c89&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
Mr. Bush also acknowledged for the first time that he made a "miscalculation of what the conditions would be'' in postwar Iraq. But he insisted that the 17-month-long insurgency that has upended the administration's plans for the country was the unintended by-product of a "swift victory'' against Saddam Hussein's military, which fled and then disappeared into the cities, enabling them to mount a rebellion against the American forces far faster than Mr. Bush and his aides had anticipated…Mr. Bush deflected efforts to inquire further into what went wrong with the occupation, suggesting that such questions should be left to historians, and insisting, as his father used to, that he would resist going "on the couch'' to rethink decisions.
[So, you see, the problem was that the war went so well, they were thrown into a post-war scenario sooner than they expected. This is not only an obvious falsehood, it doesn’t even make sense. But he probably believes it.]
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004577.php
After three and a half years, we’re all well aware of the president’s peculiar style of leadership--his aggressive ignorance, the cocky way he asserts obvious falsehoods, his seeming indifference to the negative consequences of his policies…[T]hey shouldn’t come anymore as a shock…And yet they do.
The Environmental President: Bush doesn’t even know his own administration’s reports on global warming
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/politics/campaign/27bush.html?ex=1251259200&en=9f0c907a26349c89&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
On environmental issues, Mr. Bush appeared unfamiliar with an administration report delivered to Congress on Wednesday that indicated that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases were the only likely explanation for global warming over the last three decades. Previously, Mr. Bush and other officials had emphasized uncertainties in understanding the causes and consequences of global warming…The new report was signed by Mr. Bush's secretaries of energy and commerce and his science adviser. Asked why the administration had changed its position on what causes global warming, Mr. Bush replied, "Ah, we did? I don't think so."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37232-2004Aug26.html
A Bush administration report suggests that evidence of global warming has begun to affect animal and plant populations in visible ways, and that rising temperatures in North America are due in part to human activity…The report to Congress, issued Wednesday, goes further than previous statements by President Bush. He has said more scientific research is needed before he imposes new restrictions on greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide…
Several administration officials characterized the study as a routine annual summary of scientific research on global warming. John H. Marburger, the president's science adviser, said the report has "no implications for policy."…But environmentalists and conservatives said the report reveals contradictions within the administration's stance on global warming…Jeremy Symons, who heads the National Wildlife Federation's global warming program, characterized the study as "nothing new in terms of the science of global warming, but this is definitely new in terms of the administration's position."…Myron Ebell, director of global warming policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, also said it signals a change. "We're frustrated and disappointed the administration seems to have an incoherent global warming policy”
Abu Ghraib report paints a big red “X” on General Ricardo Sanchez’s chest
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/politics/27abuse.html?ex=1251259200&
Classified parts of the report by three Army generals on the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison say Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former top commander in Iraq, approved the use in Iraq of some severe interrogation practices intended to be limited to captives held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan…Moreover, the report contends, by issuing and revising the rules for interrogations in Iraq three times in 30 days, General Sanchez and his legal staff sowed such confusion that interrogators acted in ways that violated the Geneva Conventions, which they understood poorly anyway…But classified passages of the Army report say the procedures approved by General Sanchez on Sept. 14, 2003, and the revisions made when the Central Command found fault with the initial policy, exceeded the Geneva guidelines as well as standard Army doctrines.
General Geoffrey Miller too
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003684
One of the more gruesome details of abuse described in the Fay/Jones report is the use of dogs to scare and torture inmates. In one incident, soldiers used Army dogs to play a bizarre game in which they scared teenage detainees into defecating and urinating on themselves. This incident is but one example in which Geneva Convention prohibitions against torture and inhumane treatment were clearly violated at Abu Ghraib…But whose authority sanctioned these soldiers to loose dogs on the teens?
We know from the Fay/Jones Report that Military Intelligence officers from the 205th Battalion didn't have any dogs of their own, so they asked soldiers from the 372nd Military Police Company to use MP dogs to scare prisoners. For his part in this, the head of Military Intelligence in Iraq, Col. Thomas Pappas, has been recommended for official rebuke. Thus far, he is the highest-ranking officer that anyone has suggested be reprimanded (though, importantly, the Fay/Jones report does not recommend a criminal proceeding against him)…Pappas, however, testified in the Taguba report that scaring prisoners with dogs was a technique that he personally discussed with Gen. Geoffrey Miller when the then-commander of Guantánamo visited Abu Ghraib in August 2003.
Miller denies this, but the former head of Abu Ghraib, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, has sided with Pappas. Last May she told the Washington Post that Miller was sent to Abu Ghraib to “Gitmoize” the prison. And this, we know from the Schlesinger report, includes one technique, “exploiting individual phobias, e.g. dogs,” that was approved for use in Guantanamo between December 2, 2002, and January 15, 2003. Further, we know that this technique “migrated” to Abu Ghraib sometime after Miller visited the facility in August. Therefore, if we are to believe Pappas and Karpinski, Miller seems to be misrepresenting himself…But does this amount to perjury? Perhaps. On May 19, in sworn testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Miller responded to a question about his August 2003 trip to Iraq:
“No methods contrary to the Geneva Convention were presented at any time by the assistance team that I took to CJTF-7 [Lt. Gen. Sanchez’s command].”
This is either a curious reading of the Geneva Conventions or a blatant lie.
Higher-ups “responsible” but not “culpable” – what a crock
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36943-2004Aug26.html?nav=rss_nation
The dramatic leadership failures revealed by two investigations into the abuse of Iraqi detainees will haunt the Army for months or even years as defense attorneys explore them in court in attempts to mitigate accusations and ease punishments for more than a score who could be charged, military legal experts said yesterday.
But the senior officers cited for indirectly allowing the abuse to flourish at the Abu Ghraib prison will not face charges under the findings of an Army report issued this week -- a fact that three Army generals explained and defended yesterday in interviews. Those in the U.S. command structure who failed to supervise their subordinates, who handed down unclear and in some cases illegal policies, and who ignored signs of abuse were found in Army reports to be "responsible" for the problems but not "culpable" because they did not have a direct hand in the mistreatment…"That's the differentiation that's being made," Gen. Paul J. Kern -- who supervised the Army's most recent investigation, by Marine Gen. George R. Fay and Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones -- said in an interview yesterday
Bush tells IOC to go suck an egg
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003694
President Bush's re-election campaign refused a request by the U.S. Olympic Committee on Thursday to pull a television ad that mentions the Olympics…Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said the ads will continue through Sunday, the final day of the Athens Games…."We are on firm legal ground to mention the Olympics to make a factual point in a political advertisement," Stanzel said.
The USOC asked the campaign to pull the ads on Thursday, committee spokesman Darryl Seibel said…The International Olympic Committee and the USOC have the authority to regulate the use of anything involving the Olympics…"We own the rights to the Olympic name, and no one has asked us…"
[This is not the most important issue in the world, except for what it demonstrates about the arrogrance of the Bush administration – once again they show utter contempt for international sentiment when it runs against their stubborn pursuit of self interest]
WH refuses FOIA request for information on administration/Swift Boat contacts
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=35271
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) received a letter from the Executive Office of the President denying CREW's Aug. 24 request for records detailing White House contacts with individuals connected to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT). As grounds for the denial, the White House claimed that it was exempt from having to disclose the information.
Bush now says swift boat ads are false (but still refuses to condemn them). So I guess that means it’s okay with him that they’re spreading lies on his behalf…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/27/politics/campaign/27bush.html?ex=1251259200&en=9f0c907a26349c89&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
President Bush said on Thursday that he did not believe Senator John Kerry lied about his war record, but he declined to condemn the television commercial paid for by a veterans group alleging that Mr. Kerry came by his war medals dishonestly…Mr. Bush's comments…undercut a central accusation leveled by the veterans group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose unproven attacks on Mr. Kerry have dominated the political debate for more than two weeks.
More Bush 101: Morph an issue you don’t want to talk about into an issue you do want to talk about
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/26/politics/campaign/26CND-SWIF.html?ex=1251259200&en=b24dab1be43ee65a&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
President Bush, responding to criticism that he should act against groups attacking John Kerry's war record, will pursue legal action against all "shadowy" outside groups on both sides of the campaign's fence that use unregulated funds to finance political advertising, the White House announced today…An aide said Mr. Bush spoke of his intention during a brief telephone conversation with Senator John McCain, a prominent Republican and Vietnam War veteran who has criticized the attacks on Mr. Kerry's record in Vietnam by a group of Swift boat veterans that formed to oppose Mr. Kerry's campaign for the presidency…"The president said he wanted to work together to pursue court action to shut down all the ads and activity by these shadowy 527 groups," the chief White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, told reporters aboard Air Force One…
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003352
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Friday editorial:
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign is taking on water. Hole after hole has been blown in the group's credibility. We hope the damage is sufficient to finally sink 30-year-old anguish over the Vietnam War as a campaign issue…The campaign to smear Sen. John Kerry took three more direct hits this week…
One man who can -- and should -- blow this nasty campaign out of the water is President Bush…The answer, Mr. President, is not to restrict the use of political free speech, but to condemn its abuse.
Bush’s credibility as a champion of campaign finance reform?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003346
If President Bush is going to try to pose as an advocate of campaign finance reform to dodge the Swift Boat issue, there's a really, really, really easy rejoinder to this one: mockery…Don't get bogged down on the details. Just mockery. Full stop.
George W. Bush, Mr. Campaign Finance Reform? Please ... A laugh and a smile. Simple as that…His credibility on the issue is zero. Voters know it.
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003690
From CBS's Face the Nation, March 5, 2000:
[BOB] SCHIEFFER: Well--but the fact is that you have launched these ads and that your friends have spent $ 2 1/2 million now...
Gov. BUSH: Well, these are--these are...
SCHIEFFER: ...on a, on an ad that you say you know nothing about, attacking his environmental record. I mean, isn't that just exactly what Senator McCain says has gone haywire in America? Where somebody can come in, spend all this money, no one would have known who spent this money up there, attacking his environmental record if the reporters hadn't rooted it out? And yet he--these friends may wind up spending more in New York than you and Senator McCain are spending up there.
Gov. BUSH: Bob, there are people spending ads that say nice things about me. There are people spending money on ads that say ugly things about me.
BORGER: Should...
Gov. BUSH: That's part of the American--let me finish. That's part of the American process. There have been ads, independent expenditures, that are saying bad things about me. I don't particularly care when they do, but that's what freedom of speech is all about. And this allegation somehow that I'm involved with this is just totally ridiculous. It is uncalled for. There is no--no truth whatsoever. This--the notion that this man who ran the ads spent the night in the governor's mansion--I think Senator McCain just made that allegation--they're--they're just not true…
BORGER: ...do you think you should stop these ads?
Gov. BUSH: You know, let me--let me say something to you. People have the right to run ads. They have the right to do what they want to do, under the--under the First Amendment in America.
But McCain isn’t playing along
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/26/politics/campaign/26CND-SWIF.html?ex=1251259200&en=b24dab1be43ee65a&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
Mr. McCain said afterward that he approved of the president's decision to try to rein in third-party "soft money" groups, but he emphasized that he did not want them eliminated…"I'm very appreciative of the president's effort to do that," Mr. McCain said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I want to emphasize if I could that we're not saying that 527's should be abolished. We're just saying they should live under the same campaign finance restrictions" as so-called hard-money groups "because they are engaged in partisan activity."…"I've said before I would like for the president to specifically condemn that ad," Mr. McCain said of the Swift boat group's commercial…
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003677
“Early on I thought the ads should be condemned. I thought a number of the other ads that I saw that unfairly attacked President Bush should be condemned. And I think the President has condemned the ads. Would I like to see a more specific condemnation? Probably, because of the sensitivity of the war issue to me. I'd like to make two most important points. One is I'm sick and tired of re-fighting the Vietnam war. And most importantly I'm sick and tired of opening the wounds of the Vietnam war which I've spent the last 30 years trying to heal. Now there were a whole lot of Vietnam veterans that had trouble getting all the way home because of the divisions within the United States of America. Eighteen and nineteen year old kids didn't understand when they served honorably and came home why they were mistreated by their fellow citizens which contributed to a lot of the problem that they had. So I spent a lot of time, by the way with John Kerry, in trying to resolve the POW/MIA issue. Trying to normalize relations between our two countries. And now these wounds are being reopened in the most unsavory fashion. Meanwhile, yesterday five young American soldiers died in Iraq. We can't erase a single name of that wall on the Vietnam war memorial here. They're dead, they're gone. And now instead of trying to work together to win the war in Iraq and come up with the best ways of handling it we're spending our time re-fighting a war that was over 30 years ago. And it's offensive to me and angering to me that we're doing this. It's time to move on.”
More Bush 101: Perceptions of character are more important than the actual facts of your actions and policies
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/25/opinion/meyer/main638571.shtml
If you had any thought that the first presidential campaign after 9/11 would be especially sober and responsible, give it up. ..There are a million angles to the saga of John Kerry and his swift boat enemies and none of them reveal anything virtuous about politics. But one element that is missing from this story is surprise…Any student of Bush family campaigns could have seen the swift boat shiv shining a mile away. This old family has traditions – horseshoes, fishing, bad syntax and having the help do the dirty work in campaigns as well as the kitchen. And they are very good at getting jobs done without leaving fingerprints, without compromising their patrician image and their alleged character.
http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_26_bestof.html#109354668486060007
Bush trying to position himself as bravely pretending to disavow Kerry ads with help from slut and 2008 GOP presidential candidate John McCain…This is standard Rovian politics. After two-three weeks of unrelenting attacks on Kerry by Bush surrogates 43 will portray himself as outraged, outraged I tell you, about all these ads by "shadowy" groups. He will group all 527s together, mumble some words about Kerry's honorable service, and the media will credit him with statesmanship and fairplay.
In the meantime, the ads have (1) driven down Kerry's numbers, (2) made Kerry spend money on ads before the GOP convention while they have (3) given the Bush campaign an amazing amount of free publicity in the constant yap about the subject on cable TV and radio. They have (4) virtually made the official Abu-Ghraib report which faults the Pentagon all the way to the top disappear from airwaves and newspapers and (5) distracted Americans from the faltering economy and (6) the continuing carnage in Iraq. Plus, plus, plus.....
And one rhetorical question: when will someone in the mainstream media point out that if there was as strong as connection between Al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein as there is between the SBVFT and the Bush administration the Bushco rationale for going to war in Iraq could have been reasonably argued?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003353
Of course, it's understood as a given in Washington -- among Republicans as much as among Democrats -- that Karl Rove is behind these ads. But publicly we have to go with the ludicrous notion that he has no connection with them -- a willing suspension of disbelief that allows the president some room to express mock sympathy over the results of his own acts…A friend of mine has a magazine article coming out in a few weeks which I'm told gets some of the goods on Rove's history of political bad acts. So we'll see if that moves the bar for him at all.
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/08/con04351.html
Rove Changes Story on Contacts with Perry
August 20, the New York Times reported "Mr. Rove, Mr. Bush's top political aide, recently said through a spokeswoman that he and Mr. Perry were longtime friends, though he said they had not spoken for at least a year."…On August 24, the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the White House seeking, among other things, any documents (such as phone logs) that would show any contact between Rove and Bob Perry since the beginning of 2004…The very next day Rove told Fox News, "I don't want to leave any misimpression. But he's [Perry] not somebody that I've had, you know, any EXTENDED conversation with in years and certainly did not discuss with him or anybody else in the Swift boat leadership what they're doing."…Sure looks like Rove is now admitting that he has spoken to Perry recently and is trying to downplay the significance of the conversations. Unfortunately for Rove, you don't have to have an extended conversation to have illegal coordination
What the hell has happened to CNN?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003349
O'BRIEN: All right, we are listening to Max Cleland, former senator from Georgia and former Lieutenant Jim Rassmann, a former Green Beret whose life was saved by John Kerry in the Mekong Delta in 1969. Although, that is a point of dispute…
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003350
KAGAN: And so here comes a new ad by the Swift Boat Veterans and they're not just attacking the medals that John Kerry might have won…
You heard it here first: Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush in continual email contact during 2000 recount scandal (which they denied at the time) – computer files were destroyed to hide the evidence
http://www.discourse.net/archives/2004/08/more_evidence_that_jeb_bush_is_dangerous.html
[The point is, WHY are you hearing it here first? How can the facts of Bush’s election theft not have been a bigger scandal? And what will we face next time?]
The upcoming Republican convention: an extended exercise in hiding the true nature and agenda of the GOP
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/08/26/extreme/index.html
Just a regular guy
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/08/26/bush_may_watch_convention_from_firehouse.html
President Bush "wants to watch the Republican convention from a New York City firehouse and 'bond' with the city's Bravest," the New York Daily News reports.
NOT just a regular guy
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/26/175145/425
The Cheneys purchased nine apples, five large tomatoes, three green peppers and a dozen ears of corn. Cheney pulled a $10 bill from his pocket and gave it to Levan. Asked by a reporter whether the $10 covered the cost of the produce, Levan indicated that it did not. But he said it was an "honor" to sell the fruits and vegetables to the vice president, even if at a discount.
It's a cute little story that tells us two things most of us already know about Cheney. First, he's completely out of touch with the cost of produce. This isn't that surprising, as he probably hasn't done much shopping in at least the past three-and-a-half years. He's the Vice President of the United States, so it's to be expected that he's not popping into the Social Safeway on Wisconsin every Thursday. Now, of course, if John Kerry had done what Cheney did, and had mistakenly believed that $10 would cover a bushel of veggies, Instapundit, Sean Hannity, and Wolf Blitzer would be up in arms about how completely out of touch with America and how elitist Kerry and Teresa are…
But what struck me most about this vignette, and what is troubling to me, was the way that Cheney handed the guy a $10 without asking him what the cost of the goods were. It's as if he sized the tomatoes and corn up, sized the farmer up, decided that $10 was appropriate, and that was that. No need to say, "what's the damage?" No need to wait for the farmer to total the cost. Nope -- Dick saw the entire transaction as he might an interaction with a bellhop at the Plaza. He took a commonplace commercial transaction between vendor and consumer, and turned it into a master-servant relationship. In essence, Dick took his veggies, and tipped the guy $10. Now that's weird. Almost shakes your faith in the GOP as the defender of small business . . .
Bonus item: Apparently all that talk about challenging the intolerance of the GOP platform was just that, and nothing more. Opposition groups settled for the most inane and meaningless language change in the final document
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/conventions/articles/2004/08/27/gop_platform_stays_conservative_course_with_few_surprises/
Tightly controlled by party leaders, the meeting of the 110-member platform committee featured few disputes and most of those were at the ideological margins of party orthodoxy…Senate majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, who chaired the Republican platform deliberations, said loyalty to the president was responsible for the collegial tone during discussions in subcommittee meetings, behind the scenes, and on the floor of the full committee meetings to reach consensus. But Frist also conceded not everyone is happy with everything in the document.
The new platform, which the Republican National Convention is expected to ratify Monday, the opening day of the four-day event, is sharply different in tone and substance from its immediate predecessor…Gone is the call of 2000 for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Recession, the Bush tax cuts, and the cost of the war contributed to a record-high budget deficit. The Republican platform does not list the tax cut among the factors driving a deficit it calls "unwelcome but manageable." Instead, the new platform applauds Bush's plan to cut the deficit in half within five years and advocates a pay-as-you-go policy for programs considered essential…Similarly, soaring oil prices that are creating high gasoline prices and a drag on the economic recovery receive only a passing mention in a two-page section of this year's platform calling for "a balanced energy policy."…Four years ago, the platform, a broadside at the Clinton administration's foreign policy, included tough talk on oil.
The few moments of real drama involved a toughening of the platform's antigay rights language, not only supporting a constitutional ban on gay marriage but also expressing opposition to the extension of spousal rights, such as those legalized in same-sex civil unions in Vermont…The minority of the platform committee members favoring abortion rights experienced their quadrennial rout with minimal complaint.
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=125&sid=117918
“As the party of the open door, while steadfast in our commitment to our ideals, we respect and accept that members of our party can have deeply held and sometimes differing views…”
Thursday, August 26, 2004
DEAD ENDERS
As predicted, McCain is being dragged back into Swift Boat controversy (but still fails to hold Bush accountable)
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/08/26/mccain_will_appeal_to_bush_about_swift_boat_ads.html
In an interview with the New York Times, Sen. John McCain said "that he was so annoyed over the veterans' television advertisements attacking Mr. Kerry's war record that he intended to personally 'express my displeasure' to the president when they campaign together next week."…In an interview with the Arizona Republic, McCain said, "I'm sick and tired of reopening the wounds of the Vietnam War, which I've spent the last 30 years trying to heal. Now, these wounds are being reopened in the most unsavory of fashion."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/elections/chi-0408260255aug26,1,6521386.story?coll=chi-news-hed
With Vietnam veterans taking sides over Sen. John Kerry's war record, Republican Sen. John McCain, a Navy pilot held prisoner in Vietnam for almost six years, sharply criticized Kerry's critics Wednesday and said the long-ago war in Southeast Asia should not be an issue in the presidential campaign…"I'm sick and tired of reopening the wounds of the Vietnam War," McCain said in an interview…During a recent campaign trip in Florida, New Mexico and Arizona, McCain said he did not talk to Bush about repudiating the current ads questioning Kerry's military service, although he had previously said Bush should do so. "I stated publicly my view," he said. "It's up to him."
Bush can knock down Kerry’s popularity, but can’t revive his own 39% approval rating
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/39.html
Josh Marshall: a campaign built on lies
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003327
Josh Marshall: more on “moral cowardice”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003321
Josh Marshall: more on “bitch slap politics”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003338
Just out from the febrile GOPUSA.com: "If Kerry Can't Handle the 'Swiftees,' How's He Going to Handle the Terrorists?"
“No connection,” Chapter 12 (a.k.a. Scott McClellan, lying weasel)
http://www.tnr.com/blog/campaignjournal?pid=1960
There was a pretty good "Columbo" moment this afternoon during the press briefing down in Crawford, Texas. Most of the questions centered around the front-gate showdown between Max Cleland and Texas State Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson earlier in the day. Asked why the campaign chose Patterson to deal with the Cleland visit, Scott McClellan said, "He was here representing the campaign and speaking on behalf of veterans who support the President."…No fools, White House reporters immediately realized that McClellan's response had opened up a weak spot. Earlier in the day, Commissioner Patterson told reporters that he thought the Swift Vet ads were just fine by him, a comment that is definitely not an approved talking point for a Bushie to be using. At the briefing Dana Milbank went in for the kill:
Scott, you described Patterson as a representative of the campaign. He was out there praising the most recent Swift Boat ads, calling it a very telling ad. Presumably that's at odds with what the President thinks.
Realizing he'd been had, McClellan retreated and refused to repeat his claim, made seconds earlier, that Patterson was actually a BC04 spokesman for the day…[read on – it’s hilarious]
And yet another connection emerges
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003332
As Ken Mehlman repeated ad nauseum over the weekend…
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1197258/posts
Of the $63 million such groups have spent for campaign advertising, nearly all has targeted Mr. Bush and only $2.5 million has been aimed at Mr. Kerry, Mr. Mehlman said.
Of course, it’s good to register this complaint just before you announce two new pro-Bush 527’s funded to the tune of tens of millions of dollars
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/08/25/another_gop_527_group_emerges.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/25/20822/1919
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/1280677.html
The problem with press “even-handedness” (both sides have 527’s, both use attack ads, etc.) is that it misses the central point. The proper complaint against the Swifties isn’t that they are anti-Kerry, but that what they are saying isn’t true.
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/08/25/ginsberg/index.html
John O’Neill – proven a liar, yet still getting free air time to repeat his slanders against Kerry
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/liar_26.html
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003337
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Mr. O'Neill, just in the interest of time, look, there are so many inconsistencies here, in my view, in the swiftboat story…Look, this issue of Cambodia, you said, on George Stephanopoulos' show over the weekend that you knew that Kerry was not in Cambodia, that you could not have been in Cambodia on a swift boat, that he didn't go north of Sadak (ph). They just didn't go that far. You were 15 miles away…There's a tape of you, as you now know, in the Oval Office, saying you were in Cambodia, you said to Richard Nixon. You worked along the border, or you were in Cambodia…That seems very different than being 15 miles away and saying the swift boats didn't go to Cambodia. So they can't both be true.
O'NEILL: Alan, yes, they are, Alan. It's two different places, Alan. One place is along the Mekong River, right in the heart of the delta. The second place is on the west coast of Cambodia at a place called Hatien (ph), where the boundary is right along that border…Where Kerry was in Christmas of 1968 was on this river, the Mekong River. We got about 40 or 50 miles from the border. That's as close as we ran…Later, Kerry went, and I went to a place called Bernique's (ph) Creek -- that was our nickname for it -- at Hatien (ph). That was a canal system that ran close to the border, but that wasn't at Christmas for Kerry. That was later for him…So it's two separate places, Alan, and the story is correct.
COLMES: All right. Well, either you were in Cambodia or Kerry was in Cambodia and you claim he wasn't in Cambodia. You claimed at one point you weren't and then you claimed you were. This is very confusing to people.
O'NEILL: Well, it shouldn't be confused. I was never in Cambodia, and Kerry lied when he said he was in Cambodia.
COLMES: You said to Richard Nixon you were in Cambodia…You said to Richard Nixon, "I was in Cambodia, sir."
HANNITY: On the border.
COLMES: There's a tape of you saying that to Richard Nixon.
O'NEILL: What's the next sentence? I was along the Cambodian border…
COLMES: "I was in Cambodia," Those are your words.
O'NEILL: Yes, but you missed the next sentence. You're not reading the next sentence, Alan.
COLMES: Yes, along the border. But you're in Cambodia or you're not in Cambodia.
O'NEILL: Well, I'm sorry, Alan. I wasn't…
Schlesinger report on Abu Ghraib emphasizes “migration” of techniques – as if it happened through passive diffusion, not through intentional policy decisions
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001058.html
In seeking to explain what led to the torture committed by U.S. military police and intelligence officers at Abu Ghraib, former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and his colleagues use variants of the word "migrate" over a half-dozen times in the 92-page text. That is, the Schlesinger panel posits a simple explanation for how brutal interrogation techniques--initially reserved for Al Qaeda and Taliban "enemy combatants," whom President Bush decided were exempt from the Geneva Conventions--came to be used on Iraqi prisoners, whom the administration never determined fell outside the Geneva rules. Those techniques simply--as Schlesinger would have it--"migrated."…But, of course, no policy "migrates." Officials actively provide instructions to other officials. Or, failing such active authorization from their superiors, some officials take individual initiative based on what they judge to be relevant prior circumstances. A combination of these two factors is what Schlesinger surely means by the "migration" of interrogation policy. What his preferred euphemism glosses over are the questions of who told what to whom, with whose approval.
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003665
For all the "major failures" and "blame" that the Schlesinger report supposedly pins on top Pentagon leaders, the report doesn't recommend even the most minor disciplinary action for the top uniformed brass and civilian leaders, who the report contends "created the climate in which the abuse occurred."…In but one of many detailed examples of this kind of leadership failure, the report identifies an unexpected insurgency and limited troop resources which led to a situation in which prisoners outnumbered guards by 75-1 at Abu Ghraib. To make matters worse, as the insurgency grew Arabic translators were transferred from patrol units to military intelligence squads in charge of interrogation. This, the report contends, led to a self-perpetuating crisis in which units on patrol had no idea whom to detain, so they erred on the side of caution and arrested anyone who "looked suspicious." Meanwhile, these mass arrests led to prisoners flooding Abu Ghraib, where overwhelmed and under-supervised prison guards and military intelligence people turned sadistic in manners that will be graphically described in today’s forthcoming Fay/Jones Report.
All the while, those responsible for this kind of awful planning get off without so much as a slap on the wrist: Donald Rumsfeld still seems to be supported by his bosses, who, we shall recall, dubbed him the “best secretary of defense ever"; Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, whom the report identifies as authorizing extralegal interrogation techniques of regular Iraqi prisoners, is not even recommended for a letter of reprimand; and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who was sent in to Gitmoize Abu Ghraib, gets off scot-free.
Later in the day we'll be treated to the Fay/Jones report, which in graphic detail describes specific cases of sodomy and torture. Sane heads will call for those responsible to be brought to justice, and the report will provide 24 names of lower-level military intelligence personnel, guards, and contractors at whom the public can direct its outrage.
But Abu Ghraib could still pull down Rumsfeld
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33789-2004Aug25.html?nav=rss_nation
Both groups said they could find no evidence of policy of abuse or instructions from senior U.S. authorities approving mistreatment of detainees. But taken together, their reports provide a more complete and searing critique than before -- one likely to reverberate as additional prosecutions are launched and more congressional hearings are held to examine the question of accountability…On Capitol Hill, Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) said the Armed Services Committee, which he chairs, will seek to review officer promotions…Asked whether Rumsfeld should resign, Warner said he "essentially" agreed with Schlesinger's rejection of the idea Tuesday. But Warner noted that "the commanding officer has to take responsibility for those actions of his subordinates that are proven to be unprofessional or downright wrong."
Meanwhile, could camp commanders get immunity?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0408250269aug25,1,868017.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
A U.S. military judge warned prosecutors Tuesday that they had until Sept. 17 to file charges against former commanders at Abu Ghraib prison or he may grant the officers immunity and force them to testify at the trials of soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi detainees...Offering immunity to the officers--they have refused to cooperate with investigators on the grounds that they might incriminate themselves--could shed light on whether commanders condoned an atmosphere that led to the ridicule and beatings of Iraqi prisoners.
The warning by the judge, Col. James Pohl, came after a lawyer representing one of the accused soldiers argued that the Defense Department was attempting to cover up a policy that sanctioned harsh interrogation tactics. Pohl said the commanding officers "would have a perspective on what was authorized and what was not."…Two of the officers who may be compelled to testify are Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, and Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, who was in charge of an interrogation unit at the prison…Pohl told prosecutors that Pappas' testimony "would appear to be critical to the defendants ... that this was condoned by higher-ups."…
Pohl also denied a motion by Paul Bergrin, the lawyer for Sgt. Javal Davis, to question Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Undersecretary of Defense Stephen Cambone…Bergrin argued in court that Rumsfeld "approved of aggressive" interrogation techniques, and his support filtered through the chain of command and motivated officers and civilian contractors to set abusive conditions…"It's impossible to believe" that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was limited to the seven military police soldiers now charged, said Bergrin, who used a chart in court to try to trace how Washington policies trickled down to the prison in Iraq…Pohl replied: "I'm not saying there's not a link. I'm saying at this point you haven't shown me specific evidence."
And the story that still hasn’t been adequately investigated: the role of the CIA, Camp Cropper, and Delta Force involvement
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33805-2004Aug25.html
The U.S. Army's internal investigation into the abuse of detainees in Iraq cast a new spotlight yesterday on alleged wrongdoing by a government agency that has until now turned aside external inquiries -- from the military as well as the media -- into the actions of its personnel in Iraq: the CIA…In unusually harsh criticism of an allied agency, the report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay concluded that the CIA's detention and interrogation practices in Iraq "led to a loss of accountability, abuse, reduced interagency cooperation, and unhealthy mystique that . . . poisoned the atmosphere" in the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, in which detainees were mistreated…At a news conference, Fay went further by echoing the complaints of an independent panel on Tuesday that the CIA failed to cooperate fully with the military's effort to get to the bottom of the detainee-abuse allegations. He said that after explaining the direction of his inquiry and requesting access to CIA documents and personnel, "they made it very clear to me that they're going to conduct their own thorough, detailed investigation."…But nothing has emerged from the agency, which has repeatedly spurned requests for information about the involvement of its personnel in reported abuse.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-intel26aug26,1,3932472.story?coll=la-home-headlines
CIA operatives hid inmates, flouted rules and played a corrosive role at Abu Ghraib, the Iraqi facility where prisoners were brutalized and humiliated, according to a military report released Wednesday…The report does not implicate the intelligence agency in the sexually demeaning treatment of prisoners, which triggered an international scandal when photos of the abuse surfaced in April…But CIA agents often behaved as if they were above the rules and beyond reproach, ignoring bans on bringing weapons into interrogation booths and bypassing basic requirements on registering prisoners they had taken to the facility, the investigators found…Agents insisted that at least eight of their prisoners be kept off the books and out of reach of Red Cross inspectors, becoming so-called ghost detainees…The report disclosed new details about a case in which CIA operatives had interrogated a captive who was later found dead in a shower stall.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4917567
As the investigation expands, officials tell NBC News that special operations forces, including both Delta Force and Navy SEALs, were possibly also involved in abusing prisoners in Iraq…In fact, one prisoner, Mon Adel al Jamadi, died while being interrogated in Abu Ghraib by a CIA officer last November, shortly after being captured by Navy SEALs…An autopsy revealed al Jamadi had broken ribs and had been “badly beaten.” His CIA interrogator has told investigators the prisoner was injured before he was turned over to the CIA — something the Navy denies…In a second case, the CIA is being investigated for the death of Iraqi Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush near the Syrian border, also last November. The CIA says he died several days after they questioned him…A third CIA prisoner died last June in Afghanistan — also after a severe beating…Did the CIA or other intelligence agencies tell the guards to get the prisoners to talk?…Intelligence officials deny directing the abuse. But the Army’s investigation said military intelligence and “other government agencies” — the Army’s code for the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and special operations forces, “actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses.”…Now the CIA confirms that some of its officers hid prisoners from watchdog groups like the Red Cross — violations also under investigation.
What is Camp Cropper? We’ve discussed this before, but this is a good time to ask why it isn't mentioned at all
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5094207/
Several U.S. guards allege they witnessed military intelligence operatives encouraging the abuse of Iraqi prison inmates at four prisons other than Abu Ghraib…[including] Camp Cropper.
http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk07242003.html
Amnesty International turned up in Baghdad yesterday to investigate, as well as Saddam's monstrous crimes, the mass detention centre run by the Americans at Baghdad international airport in which up to 2,000 prisoners live in hot, airless tents. The makeshift jail is called Camp Cropper and there have already been two attempted breakouts…Both would-be escapees, needless to say, were swiftly shot dead by their American captors. Yesterday, Amnesty was forbidden permission to visit Camp Cropper.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1208078,00.html
While Washington has tried to portray the scandal as an isolated incident, The Observer has also heard of complaints that torture was carried out at other US facilities including Camp Cropper, a holding area for detainees close to Baghdad's airport.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5024068/
With attention focused on the seven soldiers charged with abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. military and intelligence officials familiar with the situation tell NBC News the Army’s elite Delta Force is now the subject of a Pentagon inspector general investigation into abuse against detainees…The target is a top-secret site near Baghdad’s airport. The battlefield interrogation facility known as the “BIF” is pictured in satellite photos…According to two top U.S. government sources, it is the scene of the most egregious violations of the Geneva Conventions in all of Iraq’s prisons. A place where the normal rules of interrogation don’t apply…
[That story was in May – have you heard anything more about this Inspector General’s investigation? The Fay report doesn’t address it.]
An ominous trend not being given enough attention: the reconstitution of the Committee on the Present Danger
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/theyre_baaaack.php
Those who thought the neocons were finished (me not being one of those Pollyannas) ought to take a look. What’s interesting about this new venture—actually a reconstituted version of the Great Original Neocon Cabal of the 1970s—is that finally the cabal has an address. Astonishingly, living at that address, besides the usual suspects (yes, Podhoretz, Kemp, Kirkpatrick, Meese, Woolsey) is one Sen. Joseph Lieberman, honorary co-chairman of the thing. It’s an interesting mix of creaky old Cold Warriors like Max Kampelman and Midge Decter, along with young upstarts like Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute and outright loonies like Laurie (“Saddam blew up Oklahoma City”) Mylroie.
http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/08/more_cpd.html
CPD is some kind of mish-mash of Likud front and clown show and it's a bit unclear how much of each. But who's the target?
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8226
The group's very name smacks of dishonesty and a preference for propaganda over serious policy analysis. The original Committee on the Present Danger was formed in the 1950s to raise awareness of the Soviet threat, but the current outfit hearkens back more to the second CPD, formed in the late 1970s around Senator Scoop Jackson of Washington. In an eerie echo of contemporary events, the CPD 2 busied itself arguing that U.S. intelligence was underestimating Soviet strength when it was, in fact, overestimating it. Politically, the CPD 2 served as a bridge for hawkish Democrats to exit the party and join the Ronald Reagan-led GOP, but they misjudged Reagan almost as badly as they misjudged the Soviet Union. In the chief accomplishment of his presidency, Reagan ultimately rejected the CPD’s counsel, recognized the underlying feebleness of the Soviet system, and agreed to work with Mikhail Gorbachev to bring the Cold War to a successful conclusion…The ostensibly new group may not be so new after all. Its membership contains significant overlap with that of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), which co-sponsored the CPD launch event, and the two groups share office space in Washington. The FDD, in turn, began life as a pro-Israel public-relations outfit tied to the Israeli Foreign Ministry…But what does the CPD want? Its public statements are maddeningly vague, describing its primary purpose as "educat[ing] the American people about the threat posed by a global Islamist terror movement," though the existence of such a threat is hardly a well-kept secret. There are indications, though, that the group's agenda is to push the United States into conflict with Iran.
http://www.alternet.org/story/19647/
[T]he Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) re-launched itself with a bang last month, proclaiming its new mission to be "dedicated to winning the war on terror."…What it didn't say is that the billionaire philanthropists behind the CPD intend to broaden this "war on terror" beyond al-Qaeda to focus on all militant jihadist groups, including Israel's perceived enemies…On the Committee's web site, one of its members, Frank J. Gaffney Jr., who heads the Center for Security Policy, sums up the reason for the resurrection thus: "The CPD brilliantly waged a 'war of ideas' against an earlier, hostile ideology with global ambitions – Soviet Communism. Now it must help defeat today's ideological threat: Islamofascism."
Bonus item: GOP adopts hard-line platform on gay marriage, abortion rights, inviting a big convention fight
http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/08/25/marriage/index.html
A panel made up largely of conservative delegates approved platform language that calls for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and opposes legal recognition of any sort for gay civil unions…The party's full platform committee was taking up the marriage plank and other planks late Wednesday, meantime seeking ways to appease Republicans who support gay rights or abortion rights without embracing their positions…"We are the party of the open door," said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who led platform deliberations on social issues.
[Yeah, as in “there’s an open door – don’t let it hit you in the ass on your way out.”]
As predicted, McCain is being dragged back into Swift Boat controversy (but still fails to hold Bush accountable)
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/08/26/mccain_will_appeal_to_bush_about_swift_boat_ads.html
In an interview with the New York Times, Sen. John McCain said "that he was so annoyed over the veterans' television advertisements attacking Mr. Kerry's war record that he intended to personally 'express my displeasure' to the president when they campaign together next week."…In an interview with the Arizona Republic, McCain said, "I'm sick and tired of reopening the wounds of the Vietnam War, which I've spent the last 30 years trying to heal. Now, these wounds are being reopened in the most unsavory of fashion."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/elections/chi-0408260255aug26,1,6521386.story?coll=chi-news-hed
With Vietnam veterans taking sides over Sen. John Kerry's war record, Republican Sen. John McCain, a Navy pilot held prisoner in Vietnam for almost six years, sharply criticized Kerry's critics Wednesday and said the long-ago war in Southeast Asia should not be an issue in the presidential campaign…"I'm sick and tired of reopening the wounds of the Vietnam War," McCain said in an interview…During a recent campaign trip in Florida, New Mexico and Arizona, McCain said he did not talk to Bush about repudiating the current ads questioning Kerry's military service, although he had previously said Bush should do so. "I stated publicly my view," he said. "It's up to him."
Bush can knock down Kerry’s popularity, but can’t revive his own 39% approval rating
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/39.html
Josh Marshall: a campaign built on lies
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003327
Josh Marshall: more on “moral cowardice”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003321
Josh Marshall: more on “bitch slap politics”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003338
Just out from the febrile GOPUSA.com: "If Kerry Can't Handle the 'Swiftees,' How's He Going to Handle the Terrorists?"
“No connection,” Chapter 12 (a.k.a. Scott McClellan, lying weasel)
http://www.tnr.com/blog/campaignjournal?pid=1960
There was a pretty good "Columbo" moment this afternoon during the press briefing down in Crawford, Texas. Most of the questions centered around the front-gate showdown between Max Cleland and Texas State Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson earlier in the day. Asked why the campaign chose Patterson to deal with the Cleland visit, Scott McClellan said, "He was here representing the campaign and speaking on behalf of veterans who support the President."…No fools, White House reporters immediately realized that McClellan's response had opened up a weak spot. Earlier in the day, Commissioner Patterson told reporters that he thought the Swift Vet ads were just fine by him, a comment that is definitely not an approved talking point for a Bushie to be using. At the briefing Dana Milbank went in for the kill:
Scott, you described Patterson as a representative of the campaign. He was out there praising the most recent Swift Boat ads, calling it a very telling ad. Presumably that's at odds with what the President thinks.
Realizing he'd been had, McClellan retreated and refused to repeat his claim, made seconds earlier, that Patterson was actually a BC04 spokesman for the day…[read on – it’s hilarious]
And yet another connection emerges
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003332
As Ken Mehlman repeated ad nauseum over the weekend…
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1197258/posts
Of the $63 million such groups have spent for campaign advertising, nearly all has targeted Mr. Bush and only $2.5 million has been aimed at Mr. Kerry, Mr. Mehlman said.
Of course, it’s good to register this complaint just before you announce two new pro-Bush 527’s funded to the tune of tens of millions of dollars
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/08/25/another_gop_527_group_emerges.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/25/20822/1919
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/1280677.html
The problem with press “even-handedness” (both sides have 527’s, both use attack ads, etc.) is that it misses the central point. The proper complaint against the Swifties isn’t that they are anti-Kerry, but that what they are saying isn’t true.
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/08/25/ginsberg/index.html
John O’Neill – proven a liar, yet still getting free air time to repeat his slanders against Kerry
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/liar_26.html
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003337
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Mr. O'Neill, just in the interest of time, look, there are so many inconsistencies here, in my view, in the swiftboat story…Look, this issue of Cambodia, you said, on George Stephanopoulos' show over the weekend that you knew that Kerry was not in Cambodia, that you could not have been in Cambodia on a swift boat, that he didn't go north of Sadak (ph). They just didn't go that far. You were 15 miles away…There's a tape of you, as you now know, in the Oval Office, saying you were in Cambodia, you said to Richard Nixon. You worked along the border, or you were in Cambodia…That seems very different than being 15 miles away and saying the swift boats didn't go to Cambodia. So they can't both be true.
O'NEILL: Alan, yes, they are, Alan. It's two different places, Alan. One place is along the Mekong River, right in the heart of the delta. The second place is on the west coast of Cambodia at a place called Hatien (ph), where the boundary is right along that border…Where Kerry was in Christmas of 1968 was on this river, the Mekong River. We got about 40 or 50 miles from the border. That's as close as we ran…Later, Kerry went, and I went to a place called Bernique's (ph) Creek -- that was our nickname for it -- at Hatien (ph). That was a canal system that ran close to the border, but that wasn't at Christmas for Kerry. That was later for him…So it's two separate places, Alan, and the story is correct.
COLMES: All right. Well, either you were in Cambodia or Kerry was in Cambodia and you claim he wasn't in Cambodia. You claimed at one point you weren't and then you claimed you were. This is very confusing to people.
O'NEILL: Well, it shouldn't be confused. I was never in Cambodia, and Kerry lied when he said he was in Cambodia.
COLMES: You said to Richard Nixon you were in Cambodia…You said to Richard Nixon, "I was in Cambodia, sir."
HANNITY: On the border.
COLMES: There's a tape of you saying that to Richard Nixon.
O'NEILL: What's the next sentence? I was along the Cambodian border…
COLMES: "I was in Cambodia," Those are your words.
O'NEILL: Yes, but you missed the next sentence. You're not reading the next sentence, Alan.
COLMES: Yes, along the border. But you're in Cambodia or you're not in Cambodia.
O'NEILL: Well, I'm sorry, Alan. I wasn't…
Schlesinger report on Abu Ghraib emphasizes “migration” of techniques – as if it happened through passive diffusion, not through intentional policy decisions
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001058.html
In seeking to explain what led to the torture committed by U.S. military police and intelligence officers at Abu Ghraib, former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and his colleagues use variants of the word "migrate" over a half-dozen times in the 92-page text. That is, the Schlesinger panel posits a simple explanation for how brutal interrogation techniques--initially reserved for Al Qaeda and Taliban "enemy combatants," whom President Bush decided were exempt from the Geneva Conventions--came to be used on Iraqi prisoners, whom the administration never determined fell outside the Geneva rules. Those techniques simply--as Schlesinger would have it--"migrated."…But, of course, no policy "migrates." Officials actively provide instructions to other officials. Or, failing such active authorization from their superiors, some officials take individual initiative based on what they judge to be relevant prior circumstances. A combination of these two factors is what Schlesinger surely means by the "migration" of interrogation policy. What his preferred euphemism glosses over are the questions of who told what to whom, with whose approval.
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003665
For all the "major failures" and "blame" that the Schlesinger report supposedly pins on top Pentagon leaders, the report doesn't recommend even the most minor disciplinary action for the top uniformed brass and civilian leaders, who the report contends "created the climate in which the abuse occurred."…In but one of many detailed examples of this kind of leadership failure, the report identifies an unexpected insurgency and limited troop resources which led to a situation in which prisoners outnumbered guards by 75-1 at Abu Ghraib. To make matters worse, as the insurgency grew Arabic translators were transferred from patrol units to military intelligence squads in charge of interrogation. This, the report contends, led to a self-perpetuating crisis in which units on patrol had no idea whom to detain, so they erred on the side of caution and arrested anyone who "looked suspicious." Meanwhile, these mass arrests led to prisoners flooding Abu Ghraib, where overwhelmed and under-supervised prison guards and military intelligence people turned sadistic in manners that will be graphically described in today’s forthcoming Fay/Jones Report.
All the while, those responsible for this kind of awful planning get off without so much as a slap on the wrist: Donald Rumsfeld still seems to be supported by his bosses, who, we shall recall, dubbed him the “best secretary of defense ever"; Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, whom the report identifies as authorizing extralegal interrogation techniques of regular Iraqi prisoners, is not even recommended for a letter of reprimand; and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who was sent in to Gitmoize Abu Ghraib, gets off scot-free.
Later in the day we'll be treated to the Fay/Jones report, which in graphic detail describes specific cases of sodomy and torture. Sane heads will call for those responsible to be brought to justice, and the report will provide 24 names of lower-level military intelligence personnel, guards, and contractors at whom the public can direct its outrage.
But Abu Ghraib could still pull down Rumsfeld
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33789-2004Aug25.html?nav=rss_nation
Both groups said they could find no evidence of policy of abuse or instructions from senior U.S. authorities approving mistreatment of detainees. But taken together, their reports provide a more complete and searing critique than before -- one likely to reverberate as additional prosecutions are launched and more congressional hearings are held to examine the question of accountability…On Capitol Hill, Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) said the Armed Services Committee, which he chairs, will seek to review officer promotions…Asked whether Rumsfeld should resign, Warner said he "essentially" agreed with Schlesinger's rejection of the idea Tuesday. But Warner noted that "the commanding officer has to take responsibility for those actions of his subordinates that are proven to be unprofessional or downright wrong."
Meanwhile, could camp commanders get immunity?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0408250269aug25,1,868017.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
A U.S. military judge warned prosecutors Tuesday that they had until Sept. 17 to file charges against former commanders at Abu Ghraib prison or he may grant the officers immunity and force them to testify at the trials of soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi detainees...Offering immunity to the officers--they have refused to cooperate with investigators on the grounds that they might incriminate themselves--could shed light on whether commanders condoned an atmosphere that led to the ridicule and beatings of Iraqi prisoners.
The warning by the judge, Col. James Pohl, came after a lawyer representing one of the accused soldiers argued that the Defense Department was attempting to cover up a policy that sanctioned harsh interrogation tactics. Pohl said the commanding officers "would have a perspective on what was authorized and what was not."…Two of the officers who may be compelled to testify are Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, and Lt. Col. Steven Jordan, who was in charge of an interrogation unit at the prison…Pohl told prosecutors that Pappas' testimony "would appear to be critical to the defendants ... that this was condoned by higher-ups."…
Pohl also denied a motion by Paul Bergrin, the lawyer for Sgt. Javal Davis, to question Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Undersecretary of Defense Stephen Cambone…Bergrin argued in court that Rumsfeld "approved of aggressive" interrogation techniques, and his support filtered through the chain of command and motivated officers and civilian contractors to set abusive conditions…"It's impossible to believe" that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was limited to the seven military police soldiers now charged, said Bergrin, who used a chart in court to try to trace how Washington policies trickled down to the prison in Iraq…Pohl replied: "I'm not saying there's not a link. I'm saying at this point you haven't shown me specific evidence."
And the story that still hasn’t been adequately investigated: the role of the CIA, Camp Cropper, and Delta Force involvement
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33805-2004Aug25.html
The U.S. Army's internal investigation into the abuse of detainees in Iraq cast a new spotlight yesterday on alleged wrongdoing by a government agency that has until now turned aside external inquiries -- from the military as well as the media -- into the actions of its personnel in Iraq: the CIA…In unusually harsh criticism of an allied agency, the report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay concluded that the CIA's detention and interrogation practices in Iraq "led to a loss of accountability, abuse, reduced interagency cooperation, and unhealthy mystique that . . . poisoned the atmosphere" in the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, in which detainees were mistreated…At a news conference, Fay went further by echoing the complaints of an independent panel on Tuesday that the CIA failed to cooperate fully with the military's effort to get to the bottom of the detainee-abuse allegations. He said that after explaining the direction of his inquiry and requesting access to CIA documents and personnel, "they made it very clear to me that they're going to conduct their own thorough, detailed investigation."…But nothing has emerged from the agency, which has repeatedly spurned requests for information about the involvement of its personnel in reported abuse.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-intel26aug26,1,3932472.story?coll=la-home-headlines
CIA operatives hid inmates, flouted rules and played a corrosive role at Abu Ghraib, the Iraqi facility where prisoners were brutalized and humiliated, according to a military report released Wednesday…The report does not implicate the intelligence agency in the sexually demeaning treatment of prisoners, which triggered an international scandal when photos of the abuse surfaced in April…But CIA agents often behaved as if they were above the rules and beyond reproach, ignoring bans on bringing weapons into interrogation booths and bypassing basic requirements on registering prisoners they had taken to the facility, the investigators found…Agents insisted that at least eight of their prisoners be kept off the books and out of reach of Red Cross inspectors, becoming so-called ghost detainees…The report disclosed new details about a case in which CIA operatives had interrogated a captive who was later found dead in a shower stall.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4917567
As the investigation expands, officials tell NBC News that special operations forces, including both Delta Force and Navy SEALs, were possibly also involved in abusing prisoners in Iraq…In fact, one prisoner, Mon Adel al Jamadi, died while being interrogated in Abu Ghraib by a CIA officer last November, shortly after being captured by Navy SEALs…An autopsy revealed al Jamadi had broken ribs and had been “badly beaten.” His CIA interrogator has told investigators the prisoner was injured before he was turned over to the CIA — something the Navy denies…In a second case, the CIA is being investigated for the death of Iraqi Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush near the Syrian border, also last November. The CIA says he died several days after they questioned him…A third CIA prisoner died last June in Afghanistan — also after a severe beating…Did the CIA or other intelligence agencies tell the guards to get the prisoners to talk?…Intelligence officials deny directing the abuse. But the Army’s investigation said military intelligence and “other government agencies” — the Army’s code for the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and special operations forces, “actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses.”…Now the CIA confirms that some of its officers hid prisoners from watchdog groups like the Red Cross — violations also under investigation.
What is Camp Cropper? We’ve discussed this before, but this is a good time to ask why it isn't mentioned at all
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5094207/
Several U.S. guards allege they witnessed military intelligence operatives encouraging the abuse of Iraqi prison inmates at four prisons other than Abu Ghraib…[including] Camp Cropper.
http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk07242003.html
Amnesty International turned up in Baghdad yesterday to investigate, as well as Saddam's monstrous crimes, the mass detention centre run by the Americans at Baghdad international airport in which up to 2,000 prisoners live in hot, airless tents. The makeshift jail is called Camp Cropper and there have already been two attempted breakouts…Both would-be escapees, needless to say, were swiftly shot dead by their American captors. Yesterday, Amnesty was forbidden permission to visit Camp Cropper.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1208078,00.html
While Washington has tried to portray the scandal as an isolated incident, The Observer has also heard of complaints that torture was carried out at other US facilities including Camp Cropper, a holding area for detainees close to Baghdad's airport.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5024068/
With attention focused on the seven soldiers charged with abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. military and intelligence officials familiar with the situation tell NBC News the Army’s elite Delta Force is now the subject of a Pentagon inspector general investigation into abuse against detainees…The target is a top-secret site near Baghdad’s airport. The battlefield interrogation facility known as the “BIF” is pictured in satellite photos…According to two top U.S. government sources, it is the scene of the most egregious violations of the Geneva Conventions in all of Iraq’s prisons. A place where the normal rules of interrogation don’t apply…
[That story was in May – have you heard anything more about this Inspector General’s investigation? The Fay report doesn’t address it.]
An ominous trend not being given enough attention: the reconstitution of the Committee on the Present Danger
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/theyre_baaaack.php
Those who thought the neocons were finished (me not being one of those Pollyannas) ought to take a look. What’s interesting about this new venture—actually a reconstituted version of the Great Original Neocon Cabal of the 1970s—is that finally the cabal has an address. Astonishingly, living at that address, besides the usual suspects (yes, Podhoretz, Kemp, Kirkpatrick, Meese, Woolsey) is one Sen. Joseph Lieberman, honorary co-chairman of the thing. It’s an interesting mix of creaky old Cold Warriors like Max Kampelman and Midge Decter, along with young upstarts like Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute and outright loonies like Laurie (“Saddam blew up Oklahoma City”) Mylroie.
http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/08/more_cpd.html
CPD is some kind of mish-mash of Likud front and clown show and it's a bit unclear how much of each. But who's the target?
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8226
The group's very name smacks of dishonesty and a preference for propaganda over serious policy analysis. The original Committee on the Present Danger was formed in the 1950s to raise awareness of the Soviet threat, but the current outfit hearkens back more to the second CPD, formed in the late 1970s around Senator Scoop Jackson of Washington. In an eerie echo of contemporary events, the CPD 2 busied itself arguing that U.S. intelligence was underestimating Soviet strength when it was, in fact, overestimating it. Politically, the CPD 2 served as a bridge for hawkish Democrats to exit the party and join the Ronald Reagan-led GOP, but they misjudged Reagan almost as badly as they misjudged the Soviet Union. In the chief accomplishment of his presidency, Reagan ultimately rejected the CPD’s counsel, recognized the underlying feebleness of the Soviet system, and agreed to work with Mikhail Gorbachev to bring the Cold War to a successful conclusion…The ostensibly new group may not be so new after all. Its membership contains significant overlap with that of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), which co-sponsored the CPD launch event, and the two groups share office space in Washington. The FDD, in turn, began life as a pro-Israel public-relations outfit tied to the Israeli Foreign Ministry…But what does the CPD want? Its public statements are maddeningly vague, describing its primary purpose as "educat[ing] the American people about the threat posed by a global Islamist terror movement," though the existence of such a threat is hardly a well-kept secret. There are indications, though, that the group's agenda is to push the United States into conflict with Iran.
http://www.alternet.org/story/19647/
[T]he Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) re-launched itself with a bang last month, proclaiming its new mission to be "dedicated to winning the war on terror."…What it didn't say is that the billionaire philanthropists behind the CPD intend to broaden this "war on terror" beyond al-Qaeda to focus on all militant jihadist groups, including Israel's perceived enemies…On the Committee's web site, one of its members, Frank J. Gaffney Jr., who heads the Center for Security Policy, sums up the reason for the resurrection thus: "The CPD brilliantly waged a 'war of ideas' against an earlier, hostile ideology with global ambitions – Soviet Communism. Now it must help defeat today's ideological threat: Islamofascism."
Bonus item: GOP adopts hard-line platform on gay marriage, abortion rights, inviting a big convention fight
http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/08/25/marriage/index.html
A panel made up largely of conservative delegates approved platform language that calls for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and opposes legal recognition of any sort for gay civil unions…The party's full platform committee was taking up the marriage plank and other planks late Wednesday, meantime seeking ways to appease Republicans who support gay rights or abortion rights without embracing their positions…"We are the party of the open door," said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who led platform deliberations on social issues.
[Yeah, as in “there’s an open door – don’t let it hit you in the ass on your way out.”]
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
DOUBLE STANDARDS
Schlesinger report: Highlights what we knew all along – Abu Ghraib responsibility goes to the very top
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30099-2004Aug24.html
A report by a blue-ribbon panel [Rumsfeld] appointed to review the military establishment's role in creating and handling detainee abuse problems at Abu Ghraib prison said that the Iraq war plan he played a key role in shaping helped create the conditions that led to the scandal...In addition, the four-member panel, which was led by one former defense secretary, James R. Schlesinger, and included another, Harold Brown, found that Rumsfeld's slow response when the Iraqi insurgency flared last summer worsened the situation…
The panel's findings…provide new support for two central criticisms of the Rumsfeld team's approach in Iraq last year: that the invasion plan called for too few troops, half as many as were used in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and that the Pentagon failed to plan smartly for occupying the country after the United States defeated the Iraqi military.
Before the war, the Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, said publicly that he thought the invasion plan lacked sufficient manpower, and he was slapped down by the Pentagon's civilian leadership for saying so. After Baghdad fell, Rumsfeld dismissed reports of widespread looting and chaos as "untidy" signs of newfound freedom that were exaggerated by the media…One of the major factors leading to the detainee abuse, Brown said yesterday, was "the expectation by the Defense Department leadership, along with most of the rest of the administration, that following the collapse of the Iraqi regime through coalition military operations, there would be a stable successor regime that would soon emerge in Iraq."… As Schlesinger, the panel's chairman, tartly put it, the leaders of the military establishment "did look at history books. Unfortunately, it was the wrong history."
[More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/25/politics/25assess.html?ex=1251086400&en=cf94dbd2788b9db0&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland]
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-prison25aug25,1,2555106.story?coll=la-home-headlines
An investigative panel said Tuesday that ultimate blame for the abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq goes all the way to the Pentagon's top civilian and military command… The panel faulted top generals, including Sanchez, for misinterpreting higher orders and issuing a series of contradictory and confusing interrogation policies. And it criticized Rumsfeld for failing to adequately assemble legal and military experts to set interrogation parameters early in the Iraq occupation…It also traced confusion over interrogation policies to a 2002 memo issued by President Bush that said Geneva Convention protections did not apply to Taliban and Al Qaeda suspects in custody. The panel said the memo led Sanchez to believe that "additional, tougher measures were warranted" in Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28862-2004Aug24.html?nav=rss_nation
Underscoring the broad scope of mistreatment, the panel said 300 abuse cases have come under investigation -- a number about three times greater than previous U.S. military statements.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2105614/fr/rss/
One point that the papers fly by—and which, in fairness, the report itself might glance over: Much of the recorded abuse didn't happen at Abu Ghraib.
And don’t miss this
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003655
I’m reading the executive summary of the Schlesinger Commission Report (PDF), fresh off the presses, and have just come across the passage in which the buck gets passed…Beginning at the bottom of page 14, the following paragraphs establish the fact that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez sanctioned the illegal torture of prisoners in Iraq. Apparently, it took an entire month for his superior, CENTCOM commander Gen. John Abizaid, to realize what Sanchez had done. Rather than clearly forbidding interrogators from torturing their prisoners, however, Abizaid met Sanchez halfway and approved of certain interrogation procedures that were included in an outdated version of an Army field manual.
[The Executive Summary: http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/dod/abughraibrpt.pdf]
So who do they go after?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30262-2004Aug24.html
The Schlesinger panel, which reviewed the Fay report and other related investigations, said disciplinary action "may be forthcoming" against Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who commanded the 800th Military Police Brigade at Abu Ghraib; and Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, which was assigned to Abu Ghraib last year.
On Kerry and Bush’s Viet Nam service: The GOP looking-glass world (thanks to Peter Suber)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/regan-j1.html
The larger truth about Kerry’s military service is as apparent as it is deeply disturbing: it was voluntarily undertaken as a self-consciously political calculation, a nearly psychotic hunt for military honors and decorations as future political currency…Kerry wasn’t likely to get any combat citations serving in the engineering department aboard the guided missile cruiser USS GRIDLEY (CG-21)…so he volunteered for swift boat duty, where he was sure to see some action.1 What can one say about a man who eagerly seeks the opportunity to engage in the use of lethal force against others, and to have others use lethal force against him? Is there a certain bravery there? Maybe. Mostly it is just insanity, though...
Now, I’m no fan of the Shrub, but if in the course of this phony debate it becomes unavoidable to do some sort of "Vietnam era service" comparison, I think this much can be said: nothing the Shrub did or didn’t do calls his sanity into question, and I don’t think he can be cited for being insufficiently brave, either: flying combat aircraft is fairly dangerous work, no matter where it takes place…Nevertheless, the fact that Bush did not volunteer for combat duty in a strange and only vaguely human effort to secure his political future, like Kerry did, merely demonstrates that he is normal by comparison. Or at least closer to normal, a quality which can be found in modern presidential politics only in quite limited degrees, let’s face it.
[Yes, you read that correctly: the fact that Kerry volunteered for dangerous duty counts against him, while the fact that Bush avoided it actually speaks to his favor. And here’s another example…]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2105593/fr/rss/
Edwards broaches the subject by saying that he wants to talk about "what's been happening" in the campaign, and everyone immediately knows what he means. Again, he says that "it's a lie" paid for by "George Bush's friends." If Bush had "backbone and courage and leadership," he would ask his friends to pull the ads from the air, Edwards says. "Yesterday he had a chance" to do that, "because he spoke for the first time, instead of having a spokesperson speak on his behalf. Instead of standing behind a front group, he spoke on his own behalf for the first time on this subject. And what did we get? We got a typical politician's answer, a non-answer." Edwards says that "every day that this goes on" he will demand that Bush tell the group to pull its ads…Then Edwards takes advantage of the controversy to take a moment to restate Kerry's heroics. This is the big plus of the Swift ads for Kerry. Without them, the stories of how the Democratic nominee saved a man's life 30 years ago would have grown tiresome and induce eye-rolling by now. But with Kerry's service being slandered, the tale still has force. Kerry's crewmates "saw him save one of his crewmates, pull him out of a river," Edwards says. "Saw him turn his boat around in the middle of battle and drive it through enemy position in order to save his crew. Strong, decisive, courageous, is that not what we deserve in our commander-in-chief?"
In response to this tactic, the Bush campaign has been reduced to comparing the president to Bill Clinton. Tuesday morning, the campaign e-mailed a statement from campaign chairman Marc Racicot to reporters that read, in part, that the Kerry campaign is trying "to divide America by who served and how—something that John Kerry said we should never do when he declared during the 1992 campaign, 'We do not need to divide America over who served and how.'" (This despite the fact that four years ago, Bush took affront when John McCain compared him to the 42nd president. "Do not compare me to Bill Clinton," Bush said…)
The Swift Boat maneuver could still backfire: new evidence of SBVT/Bush re-elect ties
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/25/politics/campaign/25swift.html?ex=1251086400&en=750d293f0962cc04&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
The Bush campaign's top outside lawyer said he had given legal advice to the group of veterans attacking Senator John Kerry's Vietnam War record and antiwar activism in a book, television commercials and countless appearances on cable news programs…The lawyer, Benjamin L. Ginsberg, said that the group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, called him in July to ask for his help and that he agreed.
[A handy diagram: http://www.newsisfree.com/iclick/i,48816319,5879,f/]
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/25/24915/0086
But since we all know this is a perception issue, not a fact-based one, let's turn to the Dallas Morning news for the last word today from columnist Ruben Navarrette:
Carry on this discussion long enough, and voters will figure out who deserves respect and who doesn't. So, if the Republicans are smart, they'll change the subject and get back to friendly terrain - making the case that President Bush has acted heroically in leading the country and the world after Sept. 11, 2001…That's a debate Republicans can win. The one they're engaged in at the moment will, sooner or later, blow up in their face…Don't get me wrong. I'm still sick of hearing about Vietnam. As someone born in 1967, I consider it a blessing to not have to carry around that baggage. And I still think this is an absolutely insane way to go about picking a president, or even a vice president…But that doesn't mean I'm anxious to rewrite history so that the valiant are painted as cowards and the cowardly as valiant.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=669&ncid=669&e=1&u=/usnw/20040824/pl_usnw/crew_foias_white_house_contacts_with_swift_boat_veterans_group137_xml
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) with the White House asking it to detail its contacts with individuals connected to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT)…CREW asked the White House to release information regarding contacts between the Executive Office of the President and: any member of SBVT; SBVT donors Harlan Crow, Bob J. Perry and Paraclete Armor & Equipment; Merrie Spaeth, who has coordinated the public relations efforts of SBVT; any employee of Stevens Reed Curcio & Poltholm, the advertising agency that has made SBVT's commercials; Rupprath and Associates, the detective agency that gathered the SBVT affidavits; SBVT fundraiser The McIntosh Company; and Kenneth Cordier, a former member of the Bush campaign's veterans steering committee.
Oh, THAT Ben Ginsburg
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004571.php
Hmm. The front-page story everywhere today is that a top lawyer for the Bush/Cheney campaign has, at the same time, been advising the infamous 527 Swift Boat Vets group. The lawyer at the center of the story, Ben Ginsberg, says that everything he's done is technically legal…But what's also true is that Ginsberg himself has attacked what he characterizes as the impropriety of individuals holding dual roles with campaigns and 527s.
An article that appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer just two weeks ago included this bit about Ginsberg: "Ben Ginsberg, a legal adviser to the Bush campaign, specifically condemned the dual roles played by Democrats Harold Ickes and Bill Richardson, who had official roles at the convention and also within prominent friendly 527s. 'They're over the coordination line,' Ginsberg said of Ickes and Richardson. 'The whole notion of cutting off links between public officeholders and soft-money groups just got exploded.'"
To make things even better, Ginsberg doesn't just advise the Swift Boat Guys -- a role he will no doubt seriously downplay over the next few days. He serves as the official chief counsel to Progress for America, another 527 that, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, exists to "form 'issue truth squads' that respond to Democratic attacks on President Bush."…I know these guys are shameless, but still.
Rove’s fingerprints
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/25/kerry/index.html
Wayne Slater isn't surprised at all. Slater, the veteran Dallas Morning News reporter who coauthored "Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential," said Tuesday that the Swift Boat Veterans attack was entirely predictable. Slater has watched Karl Rove work for nearly two decades, and he said the "mark of Rove" in a campaign is always the same: Aim nasty attacks right at your opponent's strength, but keep your own fingerprints off them… If the Rove tactic is so successful, why haven't the Democrats emulated it? Why not round up men who served -- actually served -- in the Texas Air National Guard and have them appear in an ad questioning Bush's service? "It's a good idea," said MoveOn's Eli Pariser, and he actually sounded surprised by it. But then he stopped himself. "I think we're mostly going to focus on issue stuff, on Iraq, on the big places where Bush has failed."
Why not fight fire with fire? Why not push the "deserter" issue? Why not work harder to find witnesses who can talk about Bush's pre-sobriety past? "That's never been our approach," Pariser said. "We've been fighting fire with water, which is the truth to these allegations."…Slater acknowledged that Democrats have not been as successful at attacking as Republicans have, and McMahon agreed. "I think Democrats always naively believe that elections are going to be about issues, and Republicans understand that presidential elections are about character, and issues are relevant only to the extent that they provide a more complete context for a person's character," he said.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/08/24/MNGF78DCN01.DTL
Four years ago, as George Bush struggled in the polls, supporters of his bid for the Republican presidential nomination unleashed a ferocious attack on rival John McCain, questioning his commitment to veterans and his fitness to serve…After the charges took root, Bush distanced himself from the veterans group that made the attacks, called the Arizona senator's service "noble'' and cruised to a nomination-saving victory in the South Carolina primary…Monday, in a series of events that some observers say are eerily familiar, Bush distanced himself from a veterans group running fierce attacks on John Kerry's military record and called his rival's service in Vietnam "admirable.
Let’s see, how to say this delicately? John O’Neill is a lying a**hole
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/this-week-with-john-oneill.html
JOHN O'NEILL: The whole country's watching him avoid the question. You asked about Cambodia. How do I know he's not in Cambodia? I was on the same river, George. I was there two months after him. Our patrol area ran to Sedek, it was 50 miles from Cambodia. There isn't any watery border. The Mekong River's like the Mississippi. There were gunboats stationed right up there to stop people from coming. And our boats didn't go north of, only slightly north of Sedek. So it was a made up story. He's told it over 50 times, George, that was on the floor of the Senate. He wrote articles about it, it was a malicious story because it painted all the guys above him, all of the commanding officers, in effect, as war criminals, that had ordered him into a neutral country, it was a lie.
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/oneill-in-cambodia_24.html
CNN's Newsnight just played the O'Neill-Nixon tape, with text graphic on screen:
O'NEILL: I was in Cambodia, sir. I worked along the border on the water.
NIXON: In a swift boat?
O'NEILL: Yes, sir.
Swift Boat liars call Rood’s article supporting Kerry “politically motivated”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003326
The (mostly) shameful performance of the press in all this
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/08/24/mustreads/index.html
In an analysis, the New York Times' Alessandra Stanley blames the "fog of cable" for much of the confusion over the accusations of the SBVT against Kerry. While the charges leveled against Kerry are easily checked against the record: Military documents, eyewitness accounts and the previous, contradictory statements of many of those now condemning Kerry, it's never quite that simple on cable TV, where one screaming Republican vs. one screaming Democrat somehow is supposed to equal balance, even if the truth is never ferreted out and the scurrilous charges remain unchecked…Stanley writes: "Facts, half-truths and passionately tendentious opinions get tumbled together on screen like laundry in an industrial dryer -- without the softeners of fact-checking or reflection. Somehow, on all-cable news stations -- CNN as well as Fox News -- a story that rises or falls on basic and mostly verifiable facts blurs into just another developing news sensation alongside the latest Utah kidnapping or the Scott Peterson murder trial.
[More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/politics/campaign/24watch.html]
On the plus side, USA Today begins to turn the focus back onto Bush’s National Guard “duty”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-08-23-bush-service_x.htm
This paper, meanwhile, is a LITTLE confused
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003324
From the Bloomington, Indiana Herald Times: "Bush calls anti-Kerry ad 'false and libelous."
[Don’t bother with the link – they’ve pulled the article now]
The appalling mess that was the Coalition Provisional Authority
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003649
I came across an August 6 report from Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies that provides some insight:
These figures for “trained” manpower, and the GAO analysis, make an amazing contrast to the new data that the CPA provided on 13 July 2004…The end result was a far less honest reporting system, and one that grossly exaggerated the actual level of training…There is nothing unique about this tendency to issue exaggerated statistics by omitting meaningful categories and definitions, and using meaningless measures of success. From the start, the CPA was a model of obfuscation, omission, and false imagery in every aspect of its public status reports...
Earlier in the report, Cordesman describes CPA reporting on the situation in Iraq as consisting of "half-truths, propaganda, and self-delusions."…It's not possible to succeed in any difficult endeavor unless the people charged with making it work -- meaning the president, the congress, and, ultimately, the American people -- have a clear-eyed view of where the problems are. That means that if you want to succeed, you need to be able to admit where you're failing and where you're falling short…Unfortunately, the imperatives of the president's reelection point in the opposite direction…[T]he president desperately needs to make people think the reconstruction effort is succeeding. But subverting the information-gathering and information-dissemination processes in order to make it appear successful is antithetical to making it actually succeed. As the campaign gets ever-hotter -- and as a perilous security situation makes it harder and harder for reporters on the ground to gain access to independent information -- there's every reason to believe the information situation will get worse, not better.
The Feith/Zell quagmire – why we have failed in the Middle East (warning: real journalists at work)
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001049.html
More testimony in the Plame investigation
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28286-2004Aug24.html?nav=rss_nation
A federal judge yesterday canceled a contempt-of-court order against Time magazine and one of its reporters, Matthew Cooper, after Cooper was interviewed by Justice Department prosecutors investigating who leaked the identity of a covert CIA operative to journalists…Officials at Time said Cooper, who had been threatened with jail time for refusing to respond to a grand jury subpoena, gave a deposition Monday about his conversations with a single anonymous source -- I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Cheney…Time officials said Libby was the only source of Cooper's that special counsel prosecutors asked about.
Bush’s second term: the real agenda
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/08/25/bush_second_term/index.html
President Bush's plans for a second term threaten a devastating series of far-reaching challenges to the viability of the Democratic Party itself. Under Bush's slogan of an "ownership society," the Republicans intend a long-term effort, using changes in Medicare, Social Security and taxes to pit better-off and worse-off Democrats against each other, offering all-but-irresistible incentives for some to desert the others -- and any progressive national coalition. Congressional Democrats reeling from the impact of the last four years of Republican government in the White House and Congress (apart from the brief Democratic-controlled Senate in part of 2001-02) will find no respite in the platform's subtext about the party-splitting wedges ahead. A second-term Bush agenda will constantly impale Democrats on the dilemma of abandoning their poorer, sicker, older and minority groups, or seeing their better-off, healthier and younger members lured off to the other party. If it sounds like a political nightmare for the Democrats, that's because that's what it is planned to be.
[This is to say nothing about redistricting, changes to voting laws, judicial appointments, and other changes designed to lock in a permanent Republican majority. Any Nader supporters reading this?]
Why the Bush cartel can’t afford to lose
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/opinion/24krugman.html
Almost a year ago, on the second anniversary of 9/11, I predicted "an ugly, bitter campaign - probably the nastiest of modern American history." The reasons I gave then still apply. President Bush has no positive achievements to run on. Yet his inner circle cannot afford to see him lose: if he does, the shroud of secrecy will be lifted, and the public will learn the truth about cooked intelligence, profiteering, politicization of homeland security and more.
But recent attacks on John Kerry have surpassed even my expectations. There's no mystery why. Mr. Kerry isn't just a Democrat who might win: his life story challenges Mr. Bush's attempts to confuse tough-guy poses with heroism, and bombast with patriotism.
One of the wonders of recent American politics has been the ability of Mr. Bush and his supporters to wrap their partisanship in the flag. Through innuendo and direct attacks by surrogates, men who assiduously avoided service in Vietnam, like Dick Cheney (five deferments), John Ashcroft (seven deferments) and George Bush (a comfy spot in the National Guard, and a mysterious gap in his records), have questioned the patriotism of men who risked their lives and suffered for their country: John McCain, Max Cleland and now John Kerry.
How have they been able to get away with it? The answer is that we have been living in what Roger Ebert calls "an age of Rambo patriotism." As the carnage and moral ambiguities of Vietnam faded from memory, many started to believe in the comforting clichés of action movies, in which the tough-talking hero is always virtuous and the hand-wringing types who see complexities and urge the hero to think before acting are always wrong, if not villains…After 9/11, Mr. Bush had a choice: he could deal with real threats, or he could play Rambo. He chose Rambo.
Bonus item: Great archive of classic presidential campaign TV ads
http://livingroomcandidate.movingimage.us/index.php
Schlesinger report: Highlights what we knew all along – Abu Ghraib responsibility goes to the very top
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30099-2004Aug24.html
A report by a blue-ribbon panel [Rumsfeld] appointed to review the military establishment's role in creating and handling detainee abuse problems at Abu Ghraib prison said that the Iraq war plan he played a key role in shaping helped create the conditions that led to the scandal...In addition, the four-member panel, which was led by one former defense secretary, James R. Schlesinger, and included another, Harold Brown, found that Rumsfeld's slow response when the Iraqi insurgency flared last summer worsened the situation…
The panel's findings…provide new support for two central criticisms of the Rumsfeld team's approach in Iraq last year: that the invasion plan called for too few troops, half as many as were used in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and that the Pentagon failed to plan smartly for occupying the country after the United States defeated the Iraqi military.
Before the war, the Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, said publicly that he thought the invasion plan lacked sufficient manpower, and he was slapped down by the Pentagon's civilian leadership for saying so. After Baghdad fell, Rumsfeld dismissed reports of widespread looting and chaos as "untidy" signs of newfound freedom that were exaggerated by the media…One of the major factors leading to the detainee abuse, Brown said yesterday, was "the expectation by the Defense Department leadership, along with most of the rest of the administration, that following the collapse of the Iraqi regime through coalition military operations, there would be a stable successor regime that would soon emerge in Iraq."… As Schlesinger, the panel's chairman, tartly put it, the leaders of the military establishment "did look at history books. Unfortunately, it was the wrong history."
[More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/25/politics/25assess.html?ex=1251086400&en=cf94dbd2788b9db0&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland]
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-prison25aug25,1,2555106.story?coll=la-home-headlines
An investigative panel said Tuesday that ultimate blame for the abuse of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq goes all the way to the Pentagon's top civilian and military command… The panel faulted top generals, including Sanchez, for misinterpreting higher orders and issuing a series of contradictory and confusing interrogation policies. And it criticized Rumsfeld for failing to adequately assemble legal and military experts to set interrogation parameters early in the Iraq occupation…It also traced confusion over interrogation policies to a 2002 memo issued by President Bush that said Geneva Convention protections did not apply to Taliban and Al Qaeda suspects in custody. The panel said the memo led Sanchez to believe that "additional, tougher measures were warranted" in Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28862-2004Aug24.html?nav=rss_nation
Underscoring the broad scope of mistreatment, the panel said 300 abuse cases have come under investigation -- a number about three times greater than previous U.S. military statements.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2105614/fr/rss/
One point that the papers fly by—and which, in fairness, the report itself might glance over: Much of the recorded abuse didn't happen at Abu Ghraib.
And don’t miss this
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003655
I’m reading the executive summary of the Schlesinger Commission Report (PDF), fresh off the presses, and have just come across the passage in which the buck gets passed…Beginning at the bottom of page 14, the following paragraphs establish the fact that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez sanctioned the illegal torture of prisoners in Iraq. Apparently, it took an entire month for his superior, CENTCOM commander Gen. John Abizaid, to realize what Sanchez had done. Rather than clearly forbidding interrogators from torturing their prisoners, however, Abizaid met Sanchez halfway and approved of certain interrogation procedures that were included in an outdated version of an Army field manual.
[The Executive Summary: http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/dod/abughraibrpt.pdf]
So who do they go after?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30262-2004Aug24.html
The Schlesinger panel, which reviewed the Fay report and other related investigations, said disciplinary action "may be forthcoming" against Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who commanded the 800th Military Police Brigade at Abu Ghraib; and Col. Thomas M. Pappas, commander of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, which was assigned to Abu Ghraib last year.
On Kerry and Bush’s Viet Nam service: The GOP looking-glass world (thanks to Peter Suber)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/regan-j1.html
The larger truth about Kerry’s military service is as apparent as it is deeply disturbing: it was voluntarily undertaken as a self-consciously political calculation, a nearly psychotic hunt for military honors and decorations as future political currency…Kerry wasn’t likely to get any combat citations serving in the engineering department aboard the guided missile cruiser USS GRIDLEY (CG-21)…so he volunteered for swift boat duty, where he was sure to see some action.1 What can one say about a man who eagerly seeks the opportunity to engage in the use of lethal force against others, and to have others use lethal force against him? Is there a certain bravery there? Maybe. Mostly it is just insanity, though...
Now, I’m no fan of the Shrub, but if in the course of this phony debate it becomes unavoidable to do some sort of "Vietnam era service" comparison, I think this much can be said: nothing the Shrub did or didn’t do calls his sanity into question, and I don’t think he can be cited for being insufficiently brave, either: flying combat aircraft is fairly dangerous work, no matter where it takes place…Nevertheless, the fact that Bush did not volunteer for combat duty in a strange and only vaguely human effort to secure his political future, like Kerry did, merely demonstrates that he is normal by comparison. Or at least closer to normal, a quality which can be found in modern presidential politics only in quite limited degrees, let’s face it.
[Yes, you read that correctly: the fact that Kerry volunteered for dangerous duty counts against him, while the fact that Bush avoided it actually speaks to his favor. And here’s another example…]
http://slate.msn.com/id/2105593/fr/rss/
Edwards broaches the subject by saying that he wants to talk about "what's been happening" in the campaign, and everyone immediately knows what he means. Again, he says that "it's a lie" paid for by "George Bush's friends." If Bush had "backbone and courage and leadership," he would ask his friends to pull the ads from the air, Edwards says. "Yesterday he had a chance" to do that, "because he spoke for the first time, instead of having a spokesperson speak on his behalf. Instead of standing behind a front group, he spoke on his own behalf for the first time on this subject. And what did we get? We got a typical politician's answer, a non-answer." Edwards says that "every day that this goes on" he will demand that Bush tell the group to pull its ads…Then Edwards takes advantage of the controversy to take a moment to restate Kerry's heroics. This is the big plus of the Swift ads for Kerry. Without them, the stories of how the Democratic nominee saved a man's life 30 years ago would have grown tiresome and induce eye-rolling by now. But with Kerry's service being slandered, the tale still has force. Kerry's crewmates "saw him save one of his crewmates, pull him out of a river," Edwards says. "Saw him turn his boat around in the middle of battle and drive it through enemy position in order to save his crew. Strong, decisive, courageous, is that not what we deserve in our commander-in-chief?"
In response to this tactic, the Bush campaign has been reduced to comparing the president to Bill Clinton. Tuesday morning, the campaign e-mailed a statement from campaign chairman Marc Racicot to reporters that read, in part, that the Kerry campaign is trying "to divide America by who served and how—something that John Kerry said we should never do when he declared during the 1992 campaign, 'We do not need to divide America over who served and how.'" (This despite the fact that four years ago, Bush took affront when John McCain compared him to the 42nd president. "Do not compare me to Bill Clinton," Bush said…)
The Swift Boat maneuver could still backfire: new evidence of SBVT/Bush re-elect ties
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/25/politics/campaign/25swift.html?ex=1251086400&en=750d293f0962cc04&%2338;ei=5090&%2338;partner=rssuserland
The Bush campaign's top outside lawyer said he had given legal advice to the group of veterans attacking Senator John Kerry's Vietnam War record and antiwar activism in a book, television commercials and countless appearances on cable news programs…The lawyer, Benjamin L. Ginsberg, said that the group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, called him in July to ask for his help and that he agreed.
[A handy diagram: http://www.newsisfree.com/iclick/i,48816319,5879,f/]
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/25/24915/0086
But since we all know this is a perception issue, not a fact-based one, let's turn to the Dallas Morning news for the last word today from columnist Ruben Navarrette:
Carry on this discussion long enough, and voters will figure out who deserves respect and who doesn't. So, if the Republicans are smart, they'll change the subject and get back to friendly terrain - making the case that President Bush has acted heroically in leading the country and the world after Sept. 11, 2001…That's a debate Republicans can win. The one they're engaged in at the moment will, sooner or later, blow up in their face…Don't get me wrong. I'm still sick of hearing about Vietnam. As someone born in 1967, I consider it a blessing to not have to carry around that baggage. And I still think this is an absolutely insane way to go about picking a president, or even a vice president…But that doesn't mean I'm anxious to rewrite history so that the valiant are painted as cowards and the cowardly as valiant.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=669&ncid=669&e=1&u=/usnw/20040824/pl_usnw/crew_foias_white_house_contacts_with_swift_boat_veterans_group137_xml
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a Freedom of Information Act Request (FOIA) with the White House asking it to detail its contacts with individuals connected to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT)…CREW asked the White House to release information regarding contacts between the Executive Office of the President and: any member of SBVT; SBVT donors Harlan Crow, Bob J. Perry and Paraclete Armor & Equipment; Merrie Spaeth, who has coordinated the public relations efforts of SBVT; any employee of Stevens Reed Curcio & Poltholm, the advertising agency that has made SBVT's commercials; Rupprath and Associates, the detective agency that gathered the SBVT affidavits; SBVT fundraiser The McIntosh Company; and Kenneth Cordier, a former member of the Bush campaign's veterans steering committee.
Oh, THAT Ben Ginsburg
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004571.php
Hmm. The front-page story everywhere today is that a top lawyer for the Bush/Cheney campaign has, at the same time, been advising the infamous 527 Swift Boat Vets group. The lawyer at the center of the story, Ben Ginsberg, says that everything he's done is technically legal…But what's also true is that Ginsberg himself has attacked what he characterizes as the impropriety of individuals holding dual roles with campaigns and 527s.
An article that appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer just two weeks ago included this bit about Ginsberg: "Ben Ginsberg, a legal adviser to the Bush campaign, specifically condemned the dual roles played by Democrats Harold Ickes and Bill Richardson, who had official roles at the convention and also within prominent friendly 527s. 'They're over the coordination line,' Ginsberg said of Ickes and Richardson. 'The whole notion of cutting off links between public officeholders and soft-money groups just got exploded.'"
To make things even better, Ginsberg doesn't just advise the Swift Boat Guys -- a role he will no doubt seriously downplay over the next few days. He serves as the official chief counsel to Progress for America, another 527 that, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, exists to "form 'issue truth squads' that respond to Democratic attacks on President Bush."…I know these guys are shameless, but still.
Rove’s fingerprints
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/08/25/kerry/index.html
Wayne Slater isn't surprised at all. Slater, the veteran Dallas Morning News reporter who coauthored "Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential," said Tuesday that the Swift Boat Veterans attack was entirely predictable. Slater has watched Karl Rove work for nearly two decades, and he said the "mark of Rove" in a campaign is always the same: Aim nasty attacks right at your opponent's strength, but keep your own fingerprints off them… If the Rove tactic is so successful, why haven't the Democrats emulated it? Why not round up men who served -- actually served -- in the Texas Air National Guard and have them appear in an ad questioning Bush's service? "It's a good idea," said MoveOn's Eli Pariser, and he actually sounded surprised by it. But then he stopped himself. "I think we're mostly going to focus on issue stuff, on Iraq, on the big places where Bush has failed."
Why not fight fire with fire? Why not push the "deserter" issue? Why not work harder to find witnesses who can talk about Bush's pre-sobriety past? "That's never been our approach," Pariser said. "We've been fighting fire with water, which is the truth to these allegations."…Slater acknowledged that Democrats have not been as successful at attacking as Republicans have, and McMahon agreed. "I think Democrats always naively believe that elections are going to be about issues, and Republicans understand that presidential elections are about character, and issues are relevant only to the extent that they provide a more complete context for a person's character," he said.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/08/24/MNGF78DCN01.DTL
Four years ago, as George Bush struggled in the polls, supporters of his bid for the Republican presidential nomination unleashed a ferocious attack on rival John McCain, questioning his commitment to veterans and his fitness to serve…After the charges took root, Bush distanced himself from the veterans group that made the attacks, called the Arizona senator's service "noble'' and cruised to a nomination-saving victory in the South Carolina primary…Monday, in a series of events that some observers say are eerily familiar, Bush distanced himself from a veterans group running fierce attacks on John Kerry's military record and called his rival's service in Vietnam "admirable.
Let’s see, how to say this delicately? John O’Neill is a lying a**hole
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/this-week-with-john-oneill.html
JOHN O'NEILL: The whole country's watching him avoid the question. You asked about Cambodia. How do I know he's not in Cambodia? I was on the same river, George. I was there two months after him. Our patrol area ran to Sedek, it was 50 miles from Cambodia. There isn't any watery border. The Mekong River's like the Mississippi. There were gunboats stationed right up there to stop people from coming. And our boats didn't go north of, only slightly north of Sedek. So it was a made up story. He's told it over 50 times, George, that was on the floor of the Senate. He wrote articles about it, it was a malicious story because it painted all the guys above him, all of the commanding officers, in effect, as war criminals, that had ordered him into a neutral country, it was a lie.
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/oneill-in-cambodia_24.html
CNN's Newsnight just played the O'Neill-Nixon tape, with text graphic on screen:
O'NEILL: I was in Cambodia, sir. I worked along the border on the water.
NIXON: In a swift boat?
O'NEILL: Yes, sir.
Swift Boat liars call Rood’s article supporting Kerry “politically motivated”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003326
The (mostly) shameful performance of the press in all this
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/08/24/mustreads/index.html
In an analysis, the New York Times' Alessandra Stanley blames the "fog of cable" for much of the confusion over the accusations of the SBVT against Kerry. While the charges leveled against Kerry are easily checked against the record: Military documents, eyewitness accounts and the previous, contradictory statements of many of those now condemning Kerry, it's never quite that simple on cable TV, where one screaming Republican vs. one screaming Democrat somehow is supposed to equal balance, even if the truth is never ferreted out and the scurrilous charges remain unchecked…Stanley writes: "Facts, half-truths and passionately tendentious opinions get tumbled together on screen like laundry in an industrial dryer -- without the softeners of fact-checking or reflection. Somehow, on all-cable news stations -- CNN as well as Fox News -- a story that rises or falls on basic and mostly verifiable facts blurs into just another developing news sensation alongside the latest Utah kidnapping or the Scott Peterson murder trial.
[More: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/politics/campaign/24watch.html]
On the plus side, USA Today begins to turn the focus back onto Bush’s National Guard “duty”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-08-23-bush-service_x.htm
This paper, meanwhile, is a LITTLE confused
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003324
From the Bloomington, Indiana Herald Times: "Bush calls anti-Kerry ad 'false and libelous."
[Don’t bother with the link – they’ve pulled the article now]
The appalling mess that was the Coalition Provisional Authority
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003649
I came across an August 6 report from Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies that provides some insight:
These figures for “trained” manpower, and the GAO analysis, make an amazing contrast to the new data that the CPA provided on 13 July 2004…The end result was a far less honest reporting system, and one that grossly exaggerated the actual level of training…There is nothing unique about this tendency to issue exaggerated statistics by omitting meaningful categories and definitions, and using meaningless measures of success. From the start, the CPA was a model of obfuscation, omission, and false imagery in every aspect of its public status reports...
Earlier in the report, Cordesman describes CPA reporting on the situation in Iraq as consisting of "half-truths, propaganda, and self-delusions."…It's not possible to succeed in any difficult endeavor unless the people charged with making it work -- meaning the president, the congress, and, ultimately, the American people -- have a clear-eyed view of where the problems are. That means that if you want to succeed, you need to be able to admit where you're failing and where you're falling short…Unfortunately, the imperatives of the president's reelection point in the opposite direction…[T]he president desperately needs to make people think the reconstruction effort is succeeding. But subverting the information-gathering and information-dissemination processes in order to make it appear successful is antithetical to making it actually succeed. As the campaign gets ever-hotter -- and as a perilous security situation makes it harder and harder for reporters on the ground to gain access to independent information -- there's every reason to believe the information situation will get worse, not better.
The Feith/Zell quagmire – why we have failed in the Middle East (warning: real journalists at work)
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/001049.html
More testimony in the Plame investigation
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28286-2004Aug24.html?nav=rss_nation
A federal judge yesterday canceled a contempt-of-court order against Time magazine and one of its reporters, Matthew Cooper, after Cooper was interviewed by Justice Department prosecutors investigating who leaked the identity of a covert CIA operative to journalists…Officials at Time said Cooper, who had been threatened with jail time for refusing to respond to a grand jury subpoena, gave a deposition Monday about his conversations with a single anonymous source -- I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Cheney…Time officials said Libby was the only source of Cooper's that special counsel prosecutors asked about.
Bush’s second term: the real agenda
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/08/25/bush_second_term/index.html
President Bush's plans for a second term threaten a devastating series of far-reaching challenges to the viability of the Democratic Party itself. Under Bush's slogan of an "ownership society," the Republicans intend a long-term effort, using changes in Medicare, Social Security and taxes to pit better-off and worse-off Democrats against each other, offering all-but-irresistible incentives for some to desert the others -- and any progressive national coalition. Congressional Democrats reeling from the impact of the last four years of Republican government in the White House and Congress (apart from the brief Democratic-controlled Senate in part of 2001-02) will find no respite in the platform's subtext about the party-splitting wedges ahead. A second-term Bush agenda will constantly impale Democrats on the dilemma of abandoning their poorer, sicker, older and minority groups, or seeing their better-off, healthier and younger members lured off to the other party. If it sounds like a political nightmare for the Democrats, that's because that's what it is planned to be.
[This is to say nothing about redistricting, changes to voting laws, judicial appointments, and other changes designed to lock in a permanent Republican majority. Any Nader supporters reading this?]
Why the Bush cartel can’t afford to lose
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/opinion/24krugman.html
Almost a year ago, on the second anniversary of 9/11, I predicted "an ugly, bitter campaign - probably the nastiest of modern American history." The reasons I gave then still apply. President Bush has no positive achievements to run on. Yet his inner circle cannot afford to see him lose: if he does, the shroud of secrecy will be lifted, and the public will learn the truth about cooked intelligence, profiteering, politicization of homeland security and more.
But recent attacks on John Kerry have surpassed even my expectations. There's no mystery why. Mr. Kerry isn't just a Democrat who might win: his life story challenges Mr. Bush's attempts to confuse tough-guy poses with heroism, and bombast with patriotism.
One of the wonders of recent American politics has been the ability of Mr. Bush and his supporters to wrap their partisanship in the flag. Through innuendo and direct attacks by surrogates, men who assiduously avoided service in Vietnam, like Dick Cheney (five deferments), John Ashcroft (seven deferments) and George Bush (a comfy spot in the National Guard, and a mysterious gap in his records), have questioned the patriotism of men who risked their lives and suffered for their country: John McCain, Max Cleland and now John Kerry.
How have they been able to get away with it? The answer is that we have been living in what Roger Ebert calls "an age of Rambo patriotism." As the carnage and moral ambiguities of Vietnam faded from memory, many started to believe in the comforting clichés of action movies, in which the tough-talking hero is always virtuous and the hand-wringing types who see complexities and urge the hero to think before acting are always wrong, if not villains…After 9/11, Mr. Bush had a choice: he could deal with real threats, or he could play Rambo. He chose Rambo.
Bonus item: Great archive of classic presidential campaign TV ads
http://livingroomcandidate.movingimage.us/index.php
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
HELPING THE PRESS DO THEIR JOB
This is simple, guys: He doesn’t mean what he’s saying. It makes a good sound bite, but it doesn’t answer the question, and it isn’t even a true statement of his views. It is simply a way of changing the subject from his position on the Swift Boat ads to Kerry’s position on 527s. And like crows who follow whatever is shiny that is put in front of them, you get led away from the real issue (again)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/23/bush.kerry/index.html
One reporter cited the swift boat ads and asked, "When you say that you want to stop all --" "All of them," Bush responded. "That means that ad, every other ad. Absolutely. I don't think we ought to have 527s."
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003620
MR. McCLELLAN: The President has condemned all of these ads. And when he says he condemns them all, he means it…
Q But does he condemn the actual charge within the ad?
MR. McCLELLAN: That's why I said --
Q Can I assume that, then?
MR. McCLELLAN: He condemns all of these ads --
Q So I can assume he condemns the content.
MR. McCLELLAN: Deb, he condemns all of these ads --
Q -- and the content?
MR. McCLELLAN: Let me answer your question. [HA!!] The President condemns all of these ads. And he's been very clear in that. When he says he condemns all of the ads, he means all of the ads…
Q He's condemning the content of the ad, as well?
MR. McCLELLAN: He's calling for a stop to all of these ads…
Q So can we assume that he's also denouncing the content of the ads?
MR. McCLELLAN: You've heard what he said -- he condemns all of the ads, Deb. He could not be more clear in saying that -- and when he says something, he means it…The President has been consistent from the very beginning. When he signed the campaign finance reforms into law, he thought he got rid of all of this activity and these ads. And he believes --
Q So you're condemning these ads, but not --
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, he believes we should get rid of all of this activity and ads by these shadowy groups.
Q But he's not denouncing the specific charge within the ads?
MR. McCLELLAN: How many times are you going to ask the same question, Deb?
Q You didn't answer.
[Can we get a yes or no answer here? Was he criticizing the particular ad, or not?]
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/23/politics/campaign/23CND-BUSH.html?ex=1251000000&
Mr. Bush, speaking at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., stopped short of condemning the contents of the ad, as the Kerry camp has called for. He also did not address an assertion made in a new Kerry television ad that the veteran's group is a "front group" for the Bush campaign.
http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200435#658
Nice try, Mr. President, but that doesn't quite cut it. All he's doing is repeating his previous statement. He isn't disavowing the claims in the ad or saying it should come off the air because it contains false charges against Kerry. He's only saying it should come off the air because it's an independent ad (and can a single person in America say with a straight face that this would be Bush's position if Republican 527s were outspending Democratic ones?).
THIS is the real story
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/politics/campaign/24swift.html?pagewanted=1&hp
But the White House quickly moved to insist that Mr. Bush had not meant in any way to single out the advertisement run by veterans opposed to Mr. Kerry.
[This tells you all you need to know about the story. Not only does he refuse to condemn the ad, his people bend over backwards to stress that he wasn’t condemning the ad, lest you think that his global denunciation of 527s was in any way a refutation of the ones who support him.
More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_22_digbysblog_archive.html#109333073263906834]
Or, as Mark Kleiman summarizes it
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/election_2004_/2004/08/shorter_george_w_bush.php
I'll ask my friends to stop lying about John Kerry, if he will ask his friends to stop telling the truth about me.
Does Bush really mean we should ban all 527 ads?
http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002382.html
“I can’t be more plain about it,” Bush said. “I hope my opponent joins me in condemning these activities of the 527s (political groups that sponsor to ads). I think they’re bad for the system.”…Why does the Bush campaign object to ads that the Oregon Grocery Association might run? What are they doing that is objectionable?…Sorry to keep harping on this, but it’s pretty incredible that a serious candidate would talk like this. I doubt that five people in a hundred would agree with Bush’s position if it was presented in a cooler-headed context. The right of people to organize and speak out is right at the heart of the First Amendment…And yet, this has been Bush’s talking point: ban all the ads from unregulated groups. The Sierra Club. The Club for Growth. The League of Conservation Voters. GOPAC. The National Association of Realtors. They’re all bad for the system, and none of them should be allowed to advertise at all. Bush thinks that the government should have this kind of power; he claims that he thought that he had already banned these groups from speaking...Incredible.
[More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003626]
Yes, amazingly, Bush now says he thought McCain-Feingold DID ban 527s — which tells you he didn’t even read the bill he was signing
http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002362.html
[Scott] McClellan also says “the President thought he got rid of all of this unregulated soft money activity when he signed the bipartisan campaign finance reforms into law.” Incredibly, he seems to be making the argument that Bush doesn’t understand the laws he signs. Even I know that campaign finance reform did nothing of the sort…But let’s take McClellan seriously for a second. Are we supposed to believe that Bush thought he was signing away the right of Americans to engage in “unregulated soft money activity”? I mean, we Timberites pay money for our bandwidth. We engage in political speech. And we’re completely unregulated…Did Bush think that he was outlawing this?
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003629
My colleague Matthew Yglesias rightly notes that President Bush's denunciation of 527s is hypocritical and self-contradictory. This is especially true given…that the campaign finance law the president signed just a few years ago deliberately avoided closing the 527 loophole.
What Bush said when he signed the bill
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/free-speech-bad-for-system.html
However, the bill does have flaws. Certain provisions present serious constitutional concerns…I believe individual freedom to participate in elections should be expanded, not diminished; and when individual freedoms are restricted, questions arise under the First Amendment…I also have reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising, which restrains the speech of a wide variety of groups on issues of public import in the months closest to an election.
[Yes, that is exactly the opposite of what he saying now.]
And a primer for reporters who let claims like “ban all 527’s” go by without comment
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/free-speech-bad-for-system.html
...for the reporters who are slow:
All ads are not the same.
Not all negative ads are unfair.
Not all negative ads contain explicit lies or are designed to be explicitly misleading.
No matter what your general belief about campaign finance laws, Bush has apparently adopted the extreme position which would deny any "outside group" the right to make any political ads, in contrast to his previous positions on this subject.
Many "outside groups," such as the MoveOn PAC, are subject to stringent disclosure rules.
Moreover, Bush didn’t seem to have any problem with 527’s in the past (when they were helping him)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004564.php
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003629
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003630
Josh Marshall sums it up
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003315
He won't say it. He won't embrace it. He won't denounce it. He won't say he doesn't have an opinion. He won't say he won't get drawn into the debate. Nothing. He hides behind words and behind his friends.
As it happens, as Atrios notes, this isn't even Bush's position -- at least it wasn't until it became political advantageous. He opposed the provisions he's now hanging his hat on.
But of course the bigger point is that President Bush won't denounce the ads…Everyone in the country seems to have an opinion on this -- just go see the chat shows, the opinion columns and talk radio. Everybody has an opinion but George W. Bush, the man at the center of it all…The reason, as we said earlier, is that the president is a coward -- a fact for which this dust-up constitutes merely an example…President Bush's moral cowardice -- not his physical cowardice or bravery, of which we know little and which is simply a side issue -- is the essence of this campaign.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-swiftpress24aug24,1,3137952.story?coll=la-home-headlines
The technique President Bush is using against John F. Kerry was perfected by his father against Michael Dukakis in 1988, though its roots go back at least to Sen. Joseph McCarthy. It is: Bring a charge, however bogus. Make the charge simple…But make sure the supporting details are complicated and blurry enough to prevent easy refutation…Then sit back and let the media do your work for you. Journalists have to report the charges, usually feel obliged to report the rebuttal, and often even attempt an analysis or assessment. But the canons of the profession prevent most journalists from saying outright: These charges are false. As a result, the voters are left with a general sense that there is some controversy over Dukakis' patriotism or Kerry's service in Vietnam. And they have been distracted from thinking about real issues (like the war going on now) by these laboratory concoctions…
No informed person can seriously believe that Kerry fabricated evidence to win his military medals in Vietnam. His main accuser has been exposed as having said the opposite at the time, 35 years ago. Kerry is backed by almost all those who witnessed the events in question, as well as by documentation. His accusers have no evidence except their own dubious word…Not limited by the conventions of our colleagues in the newsroom, we can say it outright: These charges against John Kerry are false. Or at least, there is no good evidence that they are true. George Bush, if he were a man of principle, would say the same thing.
No connection?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003322
If President Bush really wants to tell the Swift Boat group's funder, Bob Perry, that he doesn't like the ads he's paying for, maybe he can bring it up at the fundraiser Perry is cohosting in New York next week…President Bush, Karl Rove, and Tom DeLay are all scheduled to be there.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/politics/campaign/24swift.html?pagewanted=1&hp
The president spoke on a day when Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, in another indication of its web of ties to the Republican Party, acknowledged that a woman who helped set it up and works for it is an officer of the Majority Leader's Fund, a political action committee affiliated with the former House majority leader Dick Armey of Texas…The name of the woman, Susan Arceneaux, is given as the contact person on the post office box that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth lists as its address. She is treasurer of the Majority Leader's Fund. Records show that like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group receives significant financing from Bob Perry, a Texan who has long supported Mr. Bush, and his company, as well as Sam and Charles Wyly, prominent Texas Republican donors. Sam Wyly, under the name "Republicans for Clean Air,'' took out advertisements in 2000 criticizing the environmental record of Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona…Mr. Perry has donated $200,000 to the Swift boat group, records show, and Merrie Spaeth, a Republican strategist who has been advising the Swift boat group, was a spokeswoman for Sam Wyly's advertising campaign in 2000.
Turning the spotlight from Kerry back to Bush/Cheney
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8388
The Washington Post should not even be running such a story…delving into the remotest arcana about what really happened on the Bay Hap River on March 13, 1969 -- in the first place. Len Downie and the paper's other editors would undoubtedly argue that the story represents the Post's tenacity for getting to the truth, without fear or favor. But what the story actually proves is that a bunch of liars who have in the past contradicted their own current statements can, if their lies are outrageous enough and if they have enough money, control the media agenda and get even the most respected media outlets in the country to focus on picayune "truths" while missing the larger story.
And the larger story here is clear: John Kerry volunteered for the Navy, volunteered to go to Vietnam, and then, when he was sitting around Cam Ranh Bay bored with nothing to do, requested the most dangerous duty a Naval officer could be given. He saved a man's life. He risked his own every time he went up into the Mekong Delta. He did more than his country asked. In fact he didn't even wait for his country to ask.
George W. Bush spent those same years in a state of dissolution at Yale, and would go on, as we know, to plot how to get out of going to Southeast Asia. On that subject, here's a choice quote. "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment," Bush told the Dallas Morning News in 1990. "Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes."…Let's parse that quotation phrase for phrase…[H]is words begin from the presumption that actually going to Vietnam was absolutely not an option. The quote is entirely about how to avoid going. He wasn't prepared to damage his hearing intentionally for the sake of securing a deferment (he probably meant a 4-F classification and confused the two). And he wasn't willing to go to Canada. So he took the third option, the Air National Guard. And note how the choice was about bettering himself, not about thinking of a way to best render service that this child of privilege might -- had he been possessed of the moral fiber and sense of duty of, say, John Kerry -- have considered his obligation, especially considering that, on paper at least, he supported the war.
Dick Cheney is another who, on paper at least, supported the war. But we know Cheney's story: A series of deferments going back to 1963, when he was a student at Casper College in Wyoming…Everyone knows Cheney's quote, delivered to the Senate committee that was vetting him for service as George H.W. Bush's Defense Secretary, that he "had other priorities" than going to fight for his country. But he made another comment at that hearing that's less known and more damning: He said he "would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called." That, as John Nichols notes in his recent book Dick, is not just an obfuscation or a tap dance; it's a lie. He was called, and he ducked.
So now we're having a debate about whether the man who did the honorable thing may have embellished his record a little (although nothing in the documentary record suggests he did this), while we have two cowards who did everything they could to stay miles away from the place Kerry demanded he be sent. This is the fundamental truth. And while yes, Kerry has made his war service a centerpiece in a way that Bush and Cheney for obvious reasons did not, is it really Kerry who deserves scrutiny for how he behaved in 1968 and 1969? Why shouldn't the major media be doing comparisons of how Kerry, Bush, and Cheney passed those years? Why shouldn't The Washington Post be devoting 2,700 words to a comprehensive look at Cheney's deferments? Nichols identifies three young men from Casper who did die in Vietnam: Robert Cardenas, Walter Elmer Handy, and Douglas Tyrone Patrick. Did one of them die because Cheney had "other priorities"?
But The Washington Post won't do that, because there exists no Vietnam Veterans for the Truth About Deferments, financed by wealthy Democratic donors and out peddling its wares. Which is the moral of the story. Our media can sort through the facts in front of their nose and determine, at least some of the time, who's lying and who's not. But they are completely incapable of taking a step back and describing the larger reality…You'd think a press corps that has now officially acknowledged that it was had by this administration on the pre-Iraq war propaganda would think twice before letting itself get used one more time.
And while we’re helping the press do their job, here is a little tidbit called “Ten Lies About Bush’s National Guard Service.” It just took a few minutes to put together. I only chose whoppers where there is NO DOUBT that they are false or, at the very least, less than the entire truth.
(1) Says “I don't believe I received special treatment” to get into the Texas National Guard
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/08/10_military.html
(2) He volunteered to go to Viet Nam (via Marc Racicot)
http://www.hillnews.com/marshall/022604.aspx
(3) Says he was in the Air Force
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_08_digbysblog_archive.html#109235273468488250
(4) Says he served out his term with the Texas Air National Guard
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_08_digbysblog_archive.html#109234114476052192
(5) Says that after completing training in 1970, “I continued flying with my unit for the next several years”
http://www.members.tripod.com/~pearly-abraham/htmls/GWB2.html
(6) Says he went to Alabama to "finish up his commitment”
http://www.calpundit.com/archives/003303.html
(7) Says he attended military drills in Alabama
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0205-10.htm
(8) Says, "I was there on temporary assignment and fulfilled my weekends at one period of time. I made up some missed weekends. I can't remember what I did, but I wasn't flying because they didn't have the same airplanes.”
http://uggabugga.blogspot.com/2003_01_12_uggabugga_archive.html#87590816
(9) Says he “chose” not to take his flight physical
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/006177.html
(10) Says he has released all of his military records
http://www.awolbush.com/
[More National Guard lies: http://www.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=165]
Now the GOP is telling the press that they plan to lie before they actually do it (and they will still get away with it)
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003314
[NYT] Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president.
[H]ere we have Nagourney's sources telling him they plan to make the case for a demonstrably false proposition.
[Also caught by Mathew Gross: http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000557.html
Bush aides happily admit they are going to LIE and claim that American citizens they know to be independent are working with the Democrats. And the Times doesn't even blink.]
More GOP plain speaking about their intentions, while the press keeps reporting their lies at face value
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003316
From The Financial Times, December 9th, 2003...
In the early going, when it appeared Mr Kerry would emerge as the frontrunner, one senior Republican commented wryly: "By the time the White House finishes with Kerry, no one will know what side of the (Vietnam) war he fought on."
And from Bush campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, yesterday on Meet the Press...
The fact is this campaign is unprecedented in our praise of our opponent's service during Vietnam.
Yet another independent eyewitness comes forward to corroborate Kerry’s record
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003313
On Kerry’s “superficial” wounds: has anybody bothered to look up what a Purple Heart actually signifies?
http://slate.msn.com/id/2105532/fr/rss/
In the future, Bush attacks on Kerry’s proposed cuts to the intelligence budget will have to carry this footnote
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_08_22_atrios_archive.html#109331802505119150
President Bush's nominee to be the director of central intelligence, Rep. Porter J. Goss, sponsored legislation that would have cut intelligence personnel by 20 percent in the late 1990s…The Bush reelection campaign has been blasting Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry as deeply irresponsible for proposing intelligence cuts at the same time. A Bush campaign ad released on Aug. 13 carried a headline: "John Kerry . . . proposed slashing Intelligence Budget 6 Billion Dollars."…But the cuts Goss supported are larger than those proposed by Kerry…
The upcoming Schlesinger Committee report: bad news for the Bushies (and something else to talk about besides swift boats)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/politics/24abuse.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position
A high-level outside panel reviewing American military detention operations has concluded that leadership failures at the highest levels of the Pentagon, Joint Chiefs of Staff and military command in Iraq contributed to an environment in which detainees were abused at Abu Ghraib prison and other facilities, Defense officials said Monday…The report, set to be released Tuesday, does not explicitly blame Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the misconduct or for ordering policies that condoned or encouraged it. But the panel implicitly faults Mr. Rumsfeld, as well as his top civilian and military aides, for not exercising sufficient oversight over a confusing array of policies and interrogation practices at detention centers in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq, officials said.
[The Bush response? I can write it for you now: “We are not focused on the past and laying blame. We are focused on learning from what happened and guaranteeing that it never happens again”]
Bush Co.’s failure to deal with Boykin’s outrageous comments (Why? Because he’s a hero to the people whose support they need – people who LIKE to hear their officials say “my god is bigger than yours,” and think that speaks the truth)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24997-2004Aug22.html
Those damn French, always screwing us up
http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_24_bestof.html#109332442472074832
Thanks to Atrios for retrieving this out of the memory hole:
So Ambassador Bremer has been talking about a seven-step plan: constitution, followed then by elections and then by the transfer of sovereignty. And it makes perfectly good sense to do this as soon as possible, but to do it in a way that is responsible. And I think that the -- as all of us have said, the French plan, which would somehow try to transfer sovereignty to an un-elected group of people, just isn't workable.
-- Condi Rice, 9/22/2003
New Plame investigation rumor. Good news: someone is supposedly singing to the investigators and three Bushies are in the sling (reportedly including Scooter Libby). Bad news: charges won’t be filed until after the election
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/23/16503/6468
Bush lacks a clear economic plan (but no worry – he’ll get around to specifics during the convention…or maybe right afterwards, or perhaps during the debates, but soon, for sure)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27055-2004Aug23.html
High oil prices, a stagnant labor market -- and the lack of a more forceful response from the Bush campaign -- have sparked worry among White House allies that the administration's economic team has been too content cheerleading in defense of past policies instead of setting more detailed plans for a second term…Responding to such pleas, the Bush campaign recently began advertising the "ownership agenda," with the president intoning, "One of the most important parts of a reform agenda is to encourage people to own something: own their own home, own their own business, own their own health care plan or own a piece of their retirement."…But the advertisement did little to quell the concern. Voters, in fact, received few details.
Bonus item: Judge reopens filing in Louisiana Fifth District to allow others to run against Alexander. Now let’s find someone who can beat him…
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/08/23/alexander/index.html
This is simple, guys: He doesn’t mean what he’s saying. It makes a good sound bite, but it doesn’t answer the question, and it isn’t even a true statement of his views. It is simply a way of changing the subject from his position on the Swift Boat ads to Kerry’s position on 527s. And like crows who follow whatever is shiny that is put in front of them, you get led away from the real issue (again)
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/23/bush.kerry/index.html
One reporter cited the swift boat ads and asked, "When you say that you want to stop all --" "All of them," Bush responded. "That means that ad, every other ad. Absolutely. I don't think we ought to have 527s."
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003620
MR. McCLELLAN: The President has condemned all of these ads. And when he says he condemns them all, he means it…
Q But does he condemn the actual charge within the ad?
MR. McCLELLAN: That's why I said --
Q Can I assume that, then?
MR. McCLELLAN: He condemns all of these ads --
Q So I can assume he condemns the content.
MR. McCLELLAN: Deb, he condemns all of these ads --
Q -- and the content?
MR. McCLELLAN: Let me answer your question. [HA!!] The President condemns all of these ads. And he's been very clear in that. When he says he condemns all of the ads, he means all of the ads…
Q He's condemning the content of the ad, as well?
MR. McCLELLAN: He's calling for a stop to all of these ads…
Q So can we assume that he's also denouncing the content of the ads?
MR. McCLELLAN: You've heard what he said -- he condemns all of the ads, Deb. He could not be more clear in saying that -- and when he says something, he means it…The President has been consistent from the very beginning. When he signed the campaign finance reforms into law, he thought he got rid of all of this activity and these ads. And he believes --
Q So you're condemning these ads, but not --
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, he believes we should get rid of all of this activity and ads by these shadowy groups.
Q But he's not denouncing the specific charge within the ads?
MR. McCLELLAN: How many times are you going to ask the same question, Deb?
Q You didn't answer.
[Can we get a yes or no answer here? Was he criticizing the particular ad, or not?]
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/23/politics/campaign/23CND-BUSH.html?ex=1251000000&
Mr. Bush, speaking at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., stopped short of condemning the contents of the ad, as the Kerry camp has called for. He also did not address an assertion made in a new Kerry television ad that the veteran's group is a "front group" for the Bush campaign.
http://gadflyer.com/flytrap/index.php?Week=200435#658
Nice try, Mr. President, but that doesn't quite cut it. All he's doing is repeating his previous statement. He isn't disavowing the claims in the ad or saying it should come off the air because it contains false charges against Kerry. He's only saying it should come off the air because it's an independent ad (and can a single person in America say with a straight face that this would be Bush's position if Republican 527s were outspending Democratic ones?).
THIS is the real story
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/politics/campaign/24swift.html?pagewanted=1&hp
But the White House quickly moved to insist that Mr. Bush had not meant in any way to single out the advertisement run by veterans opposed to Mr. Kerry.
[This tells you all you need to know about the story. Not only does he refuse to condemn the ad, his people bend over backwards to stress that he wasn’t condemning the ad, lest you think that his global denunciation of 527s was in any way a refutation of the ones who support him.
More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_22_digbysblog_archive.html#109333073263906834]
Or, as Mark Kleiman summarizes it
http://www.markarkleiman.com/archives/election_2004_/2004/08/shorter_george_w_bush.php
I'll ask my friends to stop lying about John Kerry, if he will ask his friends to stop telling the truth about me.
Does Bush really mean we should ban all 527 ads?
http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002382.html
“I can’t be more plain about it,” Bush said. “I hope my opponent joins me in condemning these activities of the 527s (political groups that sponsor to ads). I think they’re bad for the system.”…Why does the Bush campaign object to ads that the Oregon Grocery Association might run? What are they doing that is objectionable?…Sorry to keep harping on this, but it’s pretty incredible that a serious candidate would talk like this. I doubt that five people in a hundred would agree with Bush’s position if it was presented in a cooler-headed context. The right of people to organize and speak out is right at the heart of the First Amendment…And yet, this has been Bush’s talking point: ban all the ads from unregulated groups. The Sierra Club. The Club for Growth. The League of Conservation Voters. GOPAC. The National Association of Realtors. They’re all bad for the system, and none of them should be allowed to advertise at all. Bush thinks that the government should have this kind of power; he claims that he thought that he had already banned these groups from speaking...Incredible.
[More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003626]
Yes, amazingly, Bush now says he thought McCain-Feingold DID ban 527s — which tells you he didn’t even read the bill he was signing
http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002362.html
[Scott] McClellan also says “the President thought he got rid of all of this unregulated soft money activity when he signed the bipartisan campaign finance reforms into law.” Incredibly, he seems to be making the argument that Bush doesn’t understand the laws he signs. Even I know that campaign finance reform did nothing of the sort…But let’s take McClellan seriously for a second. Are we supposed to believe that Bush thought he was signing away the right of Americans to engage in “unregulated soft money activity”? I mean, we Timberites pay money for our bandwidth. We engage in political speech. And we’re completely unregulated…Did Bush think that he was outlawing this?
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003629
My colleague Matthew Yglesias rightly notes that President Bush's denunciation of 527s is hypocritical and self-contradictory. This is especially true given…that the campaign finance law the president signed just a few years ago deliberately avoided closing the 527 loophole.
What Bush said when he signed the bill
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/free-speech-bad-for-system.html
However, the bill does have flaws. Certain provisions present serious constitutional concerns…I believe individual freedom to participate in elections should be expanded, not diminished; and when individual freedoms are restricted, questions arise under the First Amendment…I also have reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising, which restrains the speech of a wide variety of groups on issues of public import in the months closest to an election.
[Yes, that is exactly the opposite of what he saying now.]
And a primer for reporters who let claims like “ban all 527’s” go by without comment
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004/08/free-speech-bad-for-system.html
...for the reporters who are slow:
All ads are not the same.
Not all negative ads are unfair.
Not all negative ads contain explicit lies or are designed to be explicitly misleading.
No matter what your general belief about campaign finance laws, Bush has apparently adopted the extreme position which would deny any "outside group" the right to make any political ads, in contrast to his previous positions on this subject.
Many "outside groups," such as the MoveOn PAC, are subject to stringent disclosure rules.
Moreover, Bush didn’t seem to have any problem with 527’s in the past (when they were helping him)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_08/004564.php
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003629
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/08/index.html#003630
Josh Marshall sums it up
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003315
He won't say it. He won't embrace it. He won't denounce it. He won't say he doesn't have an opinion. He won't say he won't get drawn into the debate. Nothing. He hides behind words and behind his friends.
As it happens, as Atrios notes, this isn't even Bush's position -- at least it wasn't until it became political advantageous. He opposed the provisions he's now hanging his hat on.
But of course the bigger point is that President Bush won't denounce the ads…Everyone in the country seems to have an opinion on this -- just go see the chat shows, the opinion columns and talk radio. Everybody has an opinion but George W. Bush, the man at the center of it all…The reason, as we said earlier, is that the president is a coward -- a fact for which this dust-up constitutes merely an example…President Bush's moral cowardice -- not his physical cowardice or bravery, of which we know little and which is simply a side issue -- is the essence of this campaign.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-swiftpress24aug24,1,3137952.story?coll=la-home-headlines
The technique President Bush is using against John F. Kerry was perfected by his father against Michael Dukakis in 1988, though its roots go back at least to Sen. Joseph McCarthy. It is: Bring a charge, however bogus. Make the charge simple…But make sure the supporting details are complicated and blurry enough to prevent easy refutation…Then sit back and let the media do your work for you. Journalists have to report the charges, usually feel obliged to report the rebuttal, and often even attempt an analysis or assessment. But the canons of the profession prevent most journalists from saying outright: These charges are false. As a result, the voters are left with a general sense that there is some controversy over Dukakis' patriotism or Kerry's service in Vietnam. And they have been distracted from thinking about real issues (like the war going on now) by these laboratory concoctions…
No informed person can seriously believe that Kerry fabricated evidence to win his military medals in Vietnam. His main accuser has been exposed as having said the opposite at the time, 35 years ago. Kerry is backed by almost all those who witnessed the events in question, as well as by documentation. His accusers have no evidence except their own dubious word…Not limited by the conventions of our colleagues in the newsroom, we can say it outright: These charges against John Kerry are false. Or at least, there is no good evidence that they are true. George Bush, if he were a man of principle, would say the same thing.
No connection?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003322
If President Bush really wants to tell the Swift Boat group's funder, Bob Perry, that he doesn't like the ads he's paying for, maybe he can bring it up at the fundraiser Perry is cohosting in New York next week…President Bush, Karl Rove, and Tom DeLay are all scheduled to be there.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/politics/campaign/24swift.html?pagewanted=1&hp
The president spoke on a day when Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, in another indication of its web of ties to the Republican Party, acknowledged that a woman who helped set it up and works for it is an officer of the Majority Leader's Fund, a political action committee affiliated with the former House majority leader Dick Armey of Texas…The name of the woman, Susan Arceneaux, is given as the contact person on the post office box that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth lists as its address. She is treasurer of the Majority Leader's Fund. Records show that like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the group receives significant financing from Bob Perry, a Texan who has long supported Mr. Bush, and his company, as well as Sam and Charles Wyly, prominent Texas Republican donors. Sam Wyly, under the name "Republicans for Clean Air,'' took out advertisements in 2000 criticizing the environmental record of Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona…Mr. Perry has donated $200,000 to the Swift boat group, records show, and Merrie Spaeth, a Republican strategist who has been advising the Swift boat group, was a spokeswoman for Sam Wyly's advertising campaign in 2000.
Turning the spotlight from Kerry back to Bush/Cheney
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8388
The Washington Post should not even be running such a story…delving into the remotest arcana about what really happened on the Bay Hap River on March 13, 1969 -- in the first place. Len Downie and the paper's other editors would undoubtedly argue that the story represents the Post's tenacity for getting to the truth, without fear or favor. But what the story actually proves is that a bunch of liars who have in the past contradicted their own current statements can, if their lies are outrageous enough and if they have enough money, control the media agenda and get even the most respected media outlets in the country to focus on picayune "truths" while missing the larger story.
And the larger story here is clear: John Kerry volunteered for the Navy, volunteered to go to Vietnam, and then, when he was sitting around Cam Ranh Bay bored with nothing to do, requested the most dangerous duty a Naval officer could be given. He saved a man's life. He risked his own every time he went up into the Mekong Delta. He did more than his country asked. In fact he didn't even wait for his country to ask.
George W. Bush spent those same years in a state of dissolution at Yale, and would go on, as we know, to plot how to get out of going to Southeast Asia. On that subject, here's a choice quote. "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment," Bush told the Dallas Morning News in 1990. "Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes."…Let's parse that quotation phrase for phrase…[H]is words begin from the presumption that actually going to Vietnam was absolutely not an option. The quote is entirely about how to avoid going. He wasn't prepared to damage his hearing intentionally for the sake of securing a deferment (he probably meant a 4-F classification and confused the two). And he wasn't willing to go to Canada. So he took the third option, the Air National Guard. And note how the choice was about bettering himself, not about thinking of a way to best render service that this child of privilege might -- had he been possessed of the moral fiber and sense of duty of, say, John Kerry -- have considered his obligation, especially considering that, on paper at least, he supported the war.
Dick Cheney is another who, on paper at least, supported the war. But we know Cheney's story: A series of deferments going back to 1963, when he was a student at Casper College in Wyoming…Everyone knows Cheney's quote, delivered to the Senate committee that was vetting him for service as George H.W. Bush's Defense Secretary, that he "had other priorities" than going to fight for his country. But he made another comment at that hearing that's less known and more damning: He said he "would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called." That, as John Nichols notes in his recent book Dick, is not just an obfuscation or a tap dance; it's a lie. He was called, and he ducked.
So now we're having a debate about whether the man who did the honorable thing may have embellished his record a little (although nothing in the documentary record suggests he did this), while we have two cowards who did everything they could to stay miles away from the place Kerry demanded he be sent. This is the fundamental truth. And while yes, Kerry has made his war service a centerpiece in a way that Bush and Cheney for obvious reasons did not, is it really Kerry who deserves scrutiny for how he behaved in 1968 and 1969? Why shouldn't the major media be doing comparisons of how Kerry, Bush, and Cheney passed those years? Why shouldn't The Washington Post be devoting 2,700 words to a comprehensive look at Cheney's deferments? Nichols identifies three young men from Casper who did die in Vietnam: Robert Cardenas, Walter Elmer Handy, and Douglas Tyrone Patrick. Did one of them die because Cheney had "other priorities"?
But The Washington Post won't do that, because there exists no Vietnam Veterans for the Truth About Deferments, financed by wealthy Democratic donors and out peddling its wares. Which is the moral of the story. Our media can sort through the facts in front of their nose and determine, at least some of the time, who's lying and who's not. But they are completely incapable of taking a step back and describing the larger reality…You'd think a press corps that has now officially acknowledged that it was had by this administration on the pre-Iraq war propaganda would think twice before letting itself get used one more time.
And while we’re helping the press do their job, here is a little tidbit called “Ten Lies About Bush’s National Guard Service.” It just took a few minutes to put together. I only chose whoppers where there is NO DOUBT that they are false or, at the very least, less than the entire truth.
(1) Says “I don't believe I received special treatment” to get into the Texas National Guard
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/08/10_military.html
(2) He volunteered to go to Viet Nam (via Marc Racicot)
http://www.hillnews.com/marshall/022604.aspx
(3) Says he was in the Air Force
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_08_digbysblog_archive.html#109235273468488250
(4) Says he served out his term with the Texas Air National Guard
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_08_08_digbysblog_archive.html#109234114476052192
(5) Says that after completing training in 1970, “I continued flying with my unit for the next several years”
http://www.members.tripod.com/~pearly-abraham/htmls/GWB2.html
(6) Says he went to Alabama to "finish up his commitment”
http://www.calpundit.com/archives/003303.html
(7) Says he attended military drills in Alabama
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0205-10.htm
(8) Says, "I was there on temporary assignment and fulfilled my weekends at one period of time. I made up some missed weekends. I can't remember what I did, but I wasn't flying because they didn't have the same airplanes.”
http://uggabugga.blogspot.com/2003_01_12_uggabugga_archive.html#87590816
(9) Says he “chose” not to take his flight physical
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/006177.html
(10) Says he has released all of his military records
http://www.awolbush.com/
[More National Guard lies: http://www.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=165]
Now the GOP is telling the press that they plan to lie before they actually do it (and they will still get away with it)
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003314
[NYT] Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president.
[H]ere we have Nagourney's sources telling him they plan to make the case for a demonstrably false proposition.
[Also caught by Mathew Gross: http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000557.html
Bush aides happily admit they are going to LIE and claim that American citizens they know to be independent are working with the Democrats. And the Times doesn't even blink.]
More GOP plain speaking about their intentions, while the press keeps reporting their lies at face value
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003316
From The Financial Times, December 9th, 2003...
In the early going, when it appeared Mr Kerry would emerge as the frontrunner, one senior Republican commented wryly: "By the time the White House finishes with Kerry, no one will know what side of the (Vietnam) war he fought on."
And from Bush campaign manager, Ken Mehlman, yesterday on Meet the Press...
The fact is this campaign is unprecedented in our praise of our opponent's service during Vietnam.
Yet another independent eyewitness comes forward to corroborate Kerry’s record
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_08_22.php#003313
On Kerry’s “superficial” wounds: has anybody bothered to look up what a Purple Heart actually signifies?
http://slate.msn.com/id/2105532/fr/rss/
In the future, Bush attacks on Kerry’s proposed cuts to the intelligence budget will have to carry this footnote
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_08_22_atrios_archive.html#109331802505119150
President Bush's nominee to be the director of central intelligence, Rep. Porter J. Goss, sponsored legislation that would have cut intelligence personnel by 20 percent in the late 1990s…The Bush reelection campaign has been blasting Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry as deeply irresponsible for proposing intelligence cuts at the same time. A Bush campaign ad released on Aug. 13 carried a headline: "John Kerry . . . proposed slashing Intelligence Budget 6 Billion Dollars."…But the cuts Goss supported are larger than those proposed by Kerry…
The upcoming Schlesinger Committee report: bad news for the Bushies (and something else to talk about besides swift boats)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/politics/24abuse.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position
A high-level outside panel reviewing American military detention operations has concluded that leadership failures at the highest levels of the Pentagon, Joint Chiefs of Staff and military command in Iraq contributed to an environment in which detainees were abused at Abu Ghraib prison and other facilities, Defense officials said Monday…The report, set to be released Tuesday, does not explicitly blame Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the misconduct or for ordering policies that condoned or encouraged it. But the panel implicitly faults Mr. Rumsfeld, as well as his top civilian and military aides, for not exercising sufficient oversight over a confusing array of policies and interrogation practices at detention centers in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq, officials said.
[The Bush response? I can write it for you now: “We are not focused on the past and laying blame. We are focused on learning from what happened and guaranteeing that it never happens again”]
Bush Co.’s failure to deal with Boykin’s outrageous comments (Why? Because he’s a hero to the people whose support they need – people who LIKE to hear their officials say “my god is bigger than yours,” and think that speaks the truth)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24997-2004Aug22.html
Those damn French, always screwing us up
http://bestoftheblogs.com/2004_08_24_bestof.html#109332442472074832
Thanks to Atrios for retrieving this out of the memory hole:
So Ambassador Bremer has been talking about a seven-step plan: constitution, followed then by elections and then by the transfer of sovereignty. And it makes perfectly good sense to do this as soon as possible, but to do it in a way that is responsible. And I think that the -- as all of us have said, the French plan, which would somehow try to transfer sovereignty to an un-elected group of people, just isn't workable.
-- Condi Rice, 9/22/2003
New Plame investigation rumor. Good news: someone is supposedly singing to the investigators and three Bushies are in the sling (reportedly including Scooter Libby). Bad news: charges won’t be filed until after the election
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/8/23/16503/6468
Bush lacks a clear economic plan (but no worry – he’ll get around to specifics during the convention…or maybe right afterwards, or perhaps during the debates, but soon, for sure)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27055-2004Aug23.html
High oil prices, a stagnant labor market -- and the lack of a more forceful response from the Bush campaign -- have sparked worry among White House allies that the administration's economic team has been too content cheerleading in defense of past policies instead of setting more detailed plans for a second term…Responding to such pleas, the Bush campaign recently began advertising the "ownership agenda," with the president intoning, "One of the most important parts of a reform agenda is to encourage people to own something: own their own home, own their own business, own their own health care plan or own a piece of their retirement."…But the advertisement did little to quell the concern. Voters, in fact, received few details.
Bonus item: Judge reopens filing in Louisiana Fifth District to allow others to run against Alexander. Now let’s find someone who can beat him…
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2004/08/23/alexander/index.html
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