CIVIL WAR
Much of the mainstream media finally crosses the Rubicon, starts calling the massacre in Iraq what it has been for a while now
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fg-iraq25nov25,0,159999.story
Iraq's civil war worsened Friday . . .
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/11/24/231042/81
[CNN] Michael, the Iraqi government and the U.S. military in Baghdad keep saying this is not a civil war. What are you seeing?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, firstly, let me say, perhaps it's easier to deny that this is a civil war, when essentially you live in the most heavily fortified place in the country within the Green Zone, which is true of both the prime minister, the national security adviser for Iraq and, of course, the top U.S. military commanders. However, for the people living on the streets, for Iraqis in their homes, if this is not civil war, or a form of it, then they do not want to see what one really looks like.
This is what we're talking about. We're talking about Sunni neighborhoods shelling Shia neighborhoods, and Shia neighborhoods shelling back. We're having Sunni communities dig fighting positions to protect their streets. We're seeing Sunni extremists plunging car bombs into heavily-populated Shia marketplaces. We're seeing institutionalized Shia death squads in legitimate police and national police commando uniforms going in, systematically, to Sunni homes in the middle of the night and dragging them out, never to be seen again.
I mean, if this is not civil war, where there is, on average, 40 to 50 tortured, mutilated, executed bodies showing up on the capital streets each morning, where we have thousands of unaccounted for dead bodies mounting up every month, and where the list of those who have simply disappeared for the sake of the fact that they have the wrong name, a name that is either Sunni or Shia, so much so that we have people getting dual identity cards, where parents cannot send their children to school, because they have to cross a sectarian line, then, goodness, me, I don't want to see what a civil war looks like either if this isn't one. . . .
But not all of them. . .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112401317.html
In a wave of reprisal killings, Shiite militiamen attacked Sunni mosques in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq on Friday, defying a government curfew and propelling the country further toward full-blown civil war. . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/world/middleeast/25iraq.html
“Securing Baghdad and gaining control of the violent situation will be a priority agenda item when President Bush meets with Prime Minister Maliki in just a few days,” said Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman. . . . He also repeated the administration’s insistence that Iraq was not in a civil war. “We’re constantly asked that question. . .”
Oh, this is sick
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061124/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
Shiite militiamen doused six Sunni Arabs with kerosene and burned them alive as Iraqi soldiers stood by, and killed 19 other Sunnis in attacks on their mosques Friday, taking revenge for the previous day's attack on a Sadr City slum. . .
More (and more and more and more): http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/24/114849/92
http://www.juancole.com/2006/11/233-dead-in-civil-war-carnage-health.html
http://www.juancole.com/2006/11/sunnis-set-afire-mosques-attacked.html
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9150.html
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011262
[David Kurtz] Think about that for a minute. It took two hours for American and Iraqi troops just to respond to the siege of a major governmental building in the capital. . .
Let’s see, the spike in violence in Iraq in October was cynically exploited by the Bush gang and their mouthpieces to suggest that the insurgency was making things worse because they wanted the Democrats to win. Well, now the election is over, and the insurgency has continued to get even worse. Is there some way they can manage to blame the Democrats for that too?
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/11/why-i-hate-rather-than-dislike-bush.html
Watch what happens next – this will tell you everything: Sadr and his followers tell Maliki not to meet with Bush, or they will leave the governing coalition. What will Maliki do?
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html
The silent treatment
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011269
[Josh Marshall] Is it just me or has George W. Bush checked out of the stumbling national crisis we know as 'Iraq'?
I know his name shows up in the headlines. He's meeting Iraq Prime Minister Maliki next week in Amman. Vice President Cheney is shuttling to Saudi Arabia. And all of this is being billed as a part of a new and broader 'regional' approach to getting the conflict under some measure of control.
But I don't hear the president. Not his voice. The one thing that's been a constant over the last three and a half years is the president as the voice of American Iraq policy. Whether he's the author of it is another question entirely. But the voice and pitbull of it, always.
And yet since the election he seems to have disappeared from the conversation entirely. Like he's just checked out. It's not his thing anymore. . .
[T]here's really no more cheerleading to be done for the whole effort. It's a hard slog, a tortuous battle to find some least bad outcome to the whole affair.
Back when he was riding high President Bush used to say that he 'didn't do nuance' -- a point on which he was unquestionably right. And that being the case, there's just nothing left for him to say. No more chest-thumping or rah-rah or daring his opponents to say he's wrong. So he's just gone silent. Like it's not his problem any more. . .
Losing credibility on Iraq
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_11_19_atrios_archive.html#116438911639206147
[Guess who?] Does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in Iraq? Yes we do. . .
Dead enders
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/24/202333/40
[Cliff May, NRO] But because “victory” as Bush once defined it now seems out of reach, it does not follow that the solution is to cut and run — or even to cut and stroll away, the policy euphemistically called “phased redeployment.” More modest but still significant goals can be achieved.
We can continue to fight Saddamist insurgents and al Qaeda terrorists wherever we find them — and we find them in Iraq. We can accelerate the training of Iraqi forces. We can do what is necessary to stabilize Baghdad — as we have pledged to do and tried to do but so far have failed to do because sufficient resources have not been devoted to the task. . .
[Georgia10] Thank you, Dr. May, for diagnosing the cause of our failure in Iraq is such a spot-on accurate way. Silly U.S. military. It just hasn't been training the Iraqi forces fast enough. Slackers. And it hasn't done "what is necessary"--whatever that is--to stabilize Iraq. And that $345 billion dollars poured into Iraq thus far? Not "sufficient". See all that blood in the streets? Evidently, it's because we haven't been trying hard enough. . . [read on]
In fact, right now the US is looking less and less relevant to the future of the region, even as they keep up with their bluster (thanks to Owen for the link)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6182800.stm
The killing of Lebanese politician Pierre Gemayel may be the "first shot" in a coup against the government, a top US official has said.
John Bolton, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said recent probes into political killings in Lebanon suggested Syrian involvement.
He told the BBC that if Syria was deemed to have been involved, the implications were serious. . . . "A few weeks ago the White House took the unprecedented step of saying that Syria and Iran, acting through Hezbollah, were on the verge of staging a coup d'etat against the democratically elected government of Lebanon, and I have to say that this assassination of Pierre Gemayel might well be the first shot in that coup."
He said did not want to pre-judge any investigation into Mr Gemayel's death, but proof of Syrian involvement would show it was "not just a supporter of terrorism but is a state actor in a terrorist fashion".
"I think the United States has to take that into account when it decides whether and to what extent to deal with a country like that.”
From Australia, another “Downing Street Memo” type revelation that the decision to invade Iraq (despite the Bush gang’s promises) was made and locked in long before “diplomatic alternatives” were exhausted
http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/11/memos_from_the_antipodes/
The peacemaker
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112400872.html
In 1984, Robert Gates, then the No. 2 CIA official, advocated U.S. airstrikes against Nicaragua's pro-Cuban government to reverse what he described as an ineffective U.S. strategy to deal with communist advances in Central America, previously classified documents say. . .
Under the radar
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/washington/25nsa.html
When President Bush went on national television one Saturday morning last December to acknowledge the existence of a secret wiretapping program outside the courts, the fallout was fierce and immediate.
Mr. Bush’s opponents accused him of breaking the law, with a few even calling for his impeachment. His backers demanded that he be given express legal authority to do what he had done. Law professors talked, civil rights groups sued and a federal judge in Detroit declared the wiretapping program unconstitutional.
But as Democrats prepare to take over on Capitol Hill, not much has really changed. For all the sound and fury in the last year, the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program continues uninterrupted, with no definitive action by either Congress or the courts on what, if anything, to do about it . . .
More: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/11/25/23726/527
Nancy Pelosi’s first big challenge: how will she square the circle with the Intelligence Committee chair: Hastings or Harman (or Holt)?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011263
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011264
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/24/192130/05
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/corruption_in_washington_/2006/11/pelosis_choice_on_intel.php
The national press finally takes notice of the stolen election in the Florida 13th district (Katherine Harris’s old district, surprise surprise)
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/24/73614/762
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011261
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/vote_fraud_/2006/11/deja_vu_all_over_again.php
(Not that this justifies anything, but it was apparently the ballot design, not the machine count, that was jiggered)
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/11/24/8483/3321
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/11/24/113148/80
McCain/Lieberman as a THIRD-PARTY ticket in ‘08?
Yes: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9151.html
No way: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/11/24/122443/56
A bad time to be a federal whistleblower
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9151.html
Bonus item (theocracy edition): Christian hypocrite James Dobson says he could help fellow Christian hypocrite Ted Haggard “convert” from his homosexuality into nice healthy, normal heterosexuality – but he won’t. Why not? Read and laugh
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/23/dobson-haggard-cure-gay/
More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011265
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Friday, November 24, 2006
JOB OPENINGS
Discontent on the far right with the firing of Don Rumsfeld – and with how Bush did it
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/22/AR2006112201620.html
[Bob Novak] According to administration officials, only three or four people knew he would be fired -- and Rumsfeld was not one of them. His fellow presidential appointees, including some who did not applaud Rumsfeld's performance in office, were taken aback by his treatment.
In the two weeks since the election, I have asked a wide assortment of Republican notables their opinion of the Rumsfeld sacking. Only one went on the record: Rep. Duncan Hunter, the House Armed Services Committee chairman. A rare undeviating supporter of Rumsfeld, Hunter told me that "it was a mistake for him to resign." The others, less supportive of Rumsfeld, said they were "appalled" -- the most common descriptive word -- by the president's performance.
The treatment of his war minister connotes something deeply wrong with George W. Bush's presidency in its sixth year. Apart from Rumsfeld's failures in personal relations, he never has been anything short of loyal in executing the president's wishes. But loyalty appears to be a one-way street for Bush. His shrouded decision to sack Rumsfeld after declaring that he would serve out the second term fits the pattern of a president who is secretive and impersonal. . . [Wow -- read on]
More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2006/11/bob_novak_sticks_the_shiv_in.php
[Mark Kleiman] Bob Novak sticks the shiv in . . .
Four people have turned down Condi Rice to become her Deputy after Robert Zoellick left. Why is the Bush gang having such a hard time finding people to join their mighty team?
http://politicalinsider.com/2006/11/rice_still_without_deputy.html
The Democrats get aggressive
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/24/washington/24documents.html
Seeking information about detention of terrorism suspects, abuse of detainees and government secrecy, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are reviving dozens of demands for classified documents that until now have been rebuffed or ignored by the Justice Department and other agencies.
“I expect real answers, or we’ll have testimony under oath until we get them,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont . . .
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/23/senate.intelligence/index.html
The incoming chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee says he will have a "cleanup agenda" ready when Democrats take power in January.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said the agenda will include reviews of the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping and the CIA's secret prisons.
Rockefeller said he wants to correct what he called a "lack of oversight" by the committee that gave free rein to the Bush administration in the war on terror. . . .
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Pelosi_announces_Iraq_Democratic_forum_1121.html
Incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has announced a "Democratic forum" on the Iraq war that will take place early next month . . .
On the intellectual collapse of conservatism. Aside from the politics of it, conservatism was once a fairly coherent political theory: while one could certainly argue against it, it was based in plausible assumptions and a wider theory of the world. Even Newt Gingrich was a political philosopher of a sort. Then came the era of DeLay and Rove – and what happened was that conservative ideology became nothing more than a framework of rationalizations for the maintenance of Republican power for its own sake. Government pork and fealty to lobbying groups replaced any serious or coherent plan for society. Focus-grouped slogans replaced deep thinking. The phrase “principled conservative” became an oxymoron. A self-conception as hard-headed and realistic (where liberals were fuzzy-headed and naive) became the rejection of “reality-based” politics. A positivistic faith in science was replaced by religious true belief in the most simplistic and absolutist credos, even when they clashed with the evidence. All of this reached its quintessence, of course, in George Bush, who famously said that his favorite political philosopher was “Jesus Christ,” and who embodied all the worst qualities of incuriosity and unreflectiveness. Now, increasingly, serious conservatives are distancing themselves from Bush’s legacy of failure, facing the prospect of another long season in the wilderness . . .
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_11_20/cover.html
[Austin Bramwell] Until recently, it has been almost impossible for me to speak candidly about the conservative movement, for it was my strange fate to serve as director and later trustee of the movement’s flagship journal, National Review. Earlier this year, at William F. Buckley’s request, I resigned both positions. I can therefore now declare what perhaps has oft been thought but never, at least not often enough, expressed. Notwithstanding conservatives’ belief that they, in contrast to their partisan opponents, have thought deeply about the challenges facing the United States, it is they who have become unserious. . .
More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116424137363244075
The Senate field for 2008: a lot of Republican seats within reach, few Democratic seats at risk
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/23/132649/69
McCain and Lieberman – don’t they deserve each other? How have two politicians with such a record of reshaping their positions to fit current moods maintained the reputation of plainspeaking and principled straight shooters?
http://mydd.com/story/2006/11/23/12183/507
The quagmire in Iraq: a brilliant and informative analysis of how the Bush gang got us into this mess. It will shock you to discover what they never thought about or didn’t seem to know
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19720
[Mark Danner] "You know where you begin. You never know where you are going to end." The ninety-eight-year-old George F. Kennan, sitting in the Washington nursing home as the war came on. . .
Since the first thrilling night of shock and awe, reported with breathless enthusiasm by the American television networks, the Iraq war has had at least two histories, that of the war itself and that of the American perception of it. As the months passed and the number of attacks in Iraq grew, the gap between those two histories opened wider and wider. And finally, for most Americans, the War of Imagination—built of nationalistic excitement and ideological hubris and administration pronouncements about "spreading democracy" and "greetings with sweets and flowers," and then about "dead-enders" and "turning points," and finally about "staying the course" and refusing "to cut and run"—began, under the pressure of nearly three thousand American dead and perhaps a hundred thousand or more dead Iraqis, to give way to grim reality. . . [read on!]
More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116429677469736711
Bonus item: What to say when conservatives ask you, “oh yeah, so what’s YOUR solution to the Iraq problem?”
http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=21664
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Discontent on the far right with the firing of Don Rumsfeld – and with how Bush did it
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/22/AR2006112201620.html
[Bob Novak] According to administration officials, only three or four people knew he would be fired -- and Rumsfeld was not one of them. His fellow presidential appointees, including some who did not applaud Rumsfeld's performance in office, were taken aback by his treatment.
In the two weeks since the election, I have asked a wide assortment of Republican notables their opinion of the Rumsfeld sacking. Only one went on the record: Rep. Duncan Hunter, the House Armed Services Committee chairman. A rare undeviating supporter of Rumsfeld, Hunter told me that "it was a mistake for him to resign." The others, less supportive of Rumsfeld, said they were "appalled" -- the most common descriptive word -- by the president's performance.
The treatment of his war minister connotes something deeply wrong with George W. Bush's presidency in its sixth year. Apart from Rumsfeld's failures in personal relations, he never has been anything short of loyal in executing the president's wishes. But loyalty appears to be a one-way street for Bush. His shrouded decision to sack Rumsfeld after declaring that he would serve out the second term fits the pattern of a president who is secretive and impersonal. . . [Wow -- read on]
More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/gwb_the_beloved_leader_/2006/11/bob_novak_sticks_the_shiv_in.php
[Mark Kleiman] Bob Novak sticks the shiv in . . .
Four people have turned down Condi Rice to become her Deputy after Robert Zoellick left. Why is the Bush gang having such a hard time finding people to join their mighty team?
http://politicalinsider.com/2006/11/rice_still_without_deputy.html
The Democrats get aggressive
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/24/washington/24documents.html
Seeking information about detention of terrorism suspects, abuse of detainees and government secrecy, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are reviving dozens of demands for classified documents that until now have been rebuffed or ignored by the Justice Department and other agencies.
“I expect real answers, or we’ll have testimony under oath until we get them,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont . . .
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/23/senate.intelligence/index.html
The incoming chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee says he will have a "cleanup agenda" ready when Democrats take power in January.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said the agenda will include reviews of the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping and the CIA's secret prisons.
Rockefeller said he wants to correct what he called a "lack of oversight" by the committee that gave free rein to the Bush administration in the war on terror. . . .
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Pelosi_announces_Iraq_Democratic_forum_1121.html
Incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has announced a "Democratic forum" on the Iraq war that will take place early next month . . .
On the intellectual collapse of conservatism. Aside from the politics of it, conservatism was once a fairly coherent political theory: while one could certainly argue against it, it was based in plausible assumptions and a wider theory of the world. Even Newt Gingrich was a political philosopher of a sort. Then came the era of DeLay and Rove – and what happened was that conservative ideology became nothing more than a framework of rationalizations for the maintenance of Republican power for its own sake. Government pork and fealty to lobbying groups replaced any serious or coherent plan for society. Focus-grouped slogans replaced deep thinking. The phrase “principled conservative” became an oxymoron. A self-conception as hard-headed and realistic (where liberals were fuzzy-headed and naive) became the rejection of “reality-based” politics. A positivistic faith in science was replaced by religious true belief in the most simplistic and absolutist credos, even when they clashed with the evidence. All of this reached its quintessence, of course, in George Bush, who famously said that his favorite political philosopher was “Jesus Christ,” and who embodied all the worst qualities of incuriosity and unreflectiveness. Now, increasingly, serious conservatives are distancing themselves from Bush’s legacy of failure, facing the prospect of another long season in the wilderness . . .
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_11_20/cover.html
[Austin Bramwell] Until recently, it has been almost impossible for me to speak candidly about the conservative movement, for it was my strange fate to serve as director and later trustee of the movement’s flagship journal, National Review. Earlier this year, at William F. Buckley’s request, I resigned both positions. I can therefore now declare what perhaps has oft been thought but never, at least not often enough, expressed. Notwithstanding conservatives’ belief that they, in contrast to their partisan opponents, have thought deeply about the challenges facing the United States, it is they who have become unserious. . .
More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116424137363244075
The Senate field for 2008: a lot of Republican seats within reach, few Democratic seats at risk
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/23/132649/69
McCain and Lieberman – don’t they deserve each other? How have two politicians with such a record of reshaping their positions to fit current moods maintained the reputation of plainspeaking and principled straight shooters?
http://mydd.com/story/2006/11/23/12183/507
The quagmire in Iraq: a brilliant and informative analysis of how the Bush gang got us into this mess. It will shock you to discover what they never thought about or didn’t seem to know
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19720
[Mark Danner] "You know where you begin. You never know where you are going to end." The ninety-eight-year-old George F. Kennan, sitting in the Washington nursing home as the war came on. . .
Since the first thrilling night of shock and awe, reported with breathless enthusiasm by the American television networks, the Iraq war has had at least two histories, that of the war itself and that of the American perception of it. As the months passed and the number of attacks in Iraq grew, the gap between those two histories opened wider and wider. And finally, for most Americans, the War of Imagination—built of nationalistic excitement and ideological hubris and administration pronouncements about "spreading democracy" and "greetings with sweets and flowers," and then about "dead-enders" and "turning points," and finally about "staying the course" and refusing "to cut and run"—began, under the pressure of nearly three thousand American dead and perhaps a hundred thousand or more dead Iraqis, to give way to grim reality. . . [read on!]
More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116429677469736711
Bonus item: What to say when conservatives ask you, “oh yeah, so what’s YOUR solution to the Iraq problem?”
http://www.workingforchange.com/comic.cfm?itemid=21664
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Thursday, November 23, 2006
GIVE THANKS
Give thanks that you don’t live in Iraq. 3700 innocent men, women, and children were killed there last month in their “Not a Civil War.” Let me put this in perspective, adjusting for size: imagine that each month 40,000 Americans were being blown up, or tortured and murdered (that would be more than ten 9/11s, or more than two hundred Oklahoma City bombings, every month). What would we call that? How much pressure would we be putting on our government to put an end to it?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/world/middleeast/23iraqcnd.html
More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011250
[CNN] More than 140 bodies have been found dumped across Baghdad over the past three days, police said Wednesday.
Police said 52 bullet-riddled bodies were found Wednesday, with 20 of them blindfolded, tied up and possibly tortured.
Police also discovered 29 bodies on Tuesday and 60 on Monday. . .
Give thanks that Nancy Pelosi is in charge now – here’s her “first hundred hours” game plan. It’s pretty damn good (IF they do it)
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/22/0259/2848
Give thanks that the military leadership is starting to speak out honestly: we CAN’T keep maintaining these troop levels in Iraq
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/22/us.marines/index.html
Give thanks that we still have some honesty in our political discourse
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_11_19_atrios_archive.html#116421891289656695
[Lawrence O’Donnell] Advocating war is easier when you and your family are not endangered by it. I've reached a Rangel-like breaking point with my TV pundit colleagues who championed the Iraq war and now say we can't leave even if we went there for the wrong reasons. For every one of them, I have a simple question: Why aren't you in Iraq? Or why did you avoid combat in your generation's war? The one unifying characteristic that all of us men in make-up on political chat shows share is fear of combat. Every one of us has done everything we can to avoid combat or even being fitted for a military uniform. Just like George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Dick Cheney, we are all combat cowards. It takes a very special kind of combat coward to advocate combat for others. . . .
Give thanks that you’re not "Dr." Eric Keroack right now
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/22/183538/87
Pearson also acknowledged yesterday that Keroack is not currently certified as an obstetrician-gynecologist. . .
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9138.html
[Steve Benen] It was almost as if the Bush administration was trying to find the most offensive choice possible to be the new chief of family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services. . .
[NB: It’s okay, with any luck he’ll soon be “On the Road”: http://kennedy.senate.gov/newsroom/press_release.cfm?id=f3190a42-c348-4abf-b23b-7035a5765523]
Give thanks for Tom DeLay: his policy of squeezing out Dems worked fine as long as his party held the whip hand – now that they don’t, his state of Texas has ZERO clout in the new Congress
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/22/134457/23
Give thanks that George “Macaca” Allen (R-VA) will soon be an EX-Senator
http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/2006/11/fitting-farewell.html
As a last little gift to America, Senator George Allen, who was narrowly defeated by James Webb this month, has introduced what may be his final piece of legislation: a bill that would allow the carrying of concealed weapons in national parks. . .
Give thanks that people are being vigilant about the Florida 13 election theft
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/22/122943/21
The group of nearly 18,000 voters that registered no choice in Sarasota's disputed congressional election solidly backed Democratic candidates in all five of Florida's statewide races, an Orlando Sentinel analysis of ballot data shows. . . .
Give thanks that it’s not 2008 yet: a McCain/Lieberman ticket?
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001792.php
Give thanks for the razor-sharp political instincts of the Bush clan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061121/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_defending_bush_1
Former President George H.W. Bush took on Arab critics of his son Tuesday during a testy exchange at a leadership conference . . . "My son is an honest man," Bush told members of the audience . . .
Give thanks for the Internet
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/04/politics/main586761.shtml
[2003] That beautiful golden-brown turkey President Bush held during his surprise visit to U.S. troops in Iraq was for show, not for eating, the Washington Post reports.
The photo of Mr. Bush holding the bird on a platter laden with trimmings was the most memorable image of the president's 2 1/2-hour stay with U.S. troops at the Baghdad International Airport.
The newspaper reported that in response to questions about the bird, the White House said the turkey was a decoration . . .
Give thanks for Molly Ivins
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20061122_molly_ivins_thanks_no_seriously/
It’s time to give thanks, and I want to start off with a great, big thank you for the top American movement conservatives and all the fun we’ve had since Election Day. I know I promised not to gloat after this election was over, but . . .
Bonus item: 20 more reasons to be thankful
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_allen_l__061122_20_reasons_to_be_tha.htm
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Give thanks that you don’t live in Iraq. 3700 innocent men, women, and children were killed there last month in their “Not a Civil War.” Let me put this in perspective, adjusting for size: imagine that each month 40,000 Americans were being blown up, or tortured and murdered (that would be more than ten 9/11s, or more than two hundred Oklahoma City bombings, every month). What would we call that? How much pressure would we be putting on our government to put an end to it?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/world/middleeast/23iraqcnd.html
More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011250
[CNN] More than 140 bodies have been found dumped across Baghdad over the past three days, police said Wednesday.
Police said 52 bullet-riddled bodies were found Wednesday, with 20 of them blindfolded, tied up and possibly tortured.
Police also discovered 29 bodies on Tuesday and 60 on Monday. . .
Give thanks that Nancy Pelosi is in charge now – here’s her “first hundred hours” game plan. It’s pretty damn good (IF they do it)
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/22/0259/2848
Give thanks that the military leadership is starting to speak out honestly: we CAN’T keep maintaining these troop levels in Iraq
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/22/us.marines/index.html
Give thanks that we still have some honesty in our political discourse
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_11_19_atrios_archive.html#116421891289656695
[Lawrence O’Donnell] Advocating war is easier when you and your family are not endangered by it. I've reached a Rangel-like breaking point with my TV pundit colleagues who championed the Iraq war and now say we can't leave even if we went there for the wrong reasons. For every one of them, I have a simple question: Why aren't you in Iraq? Or why did you avoid combat in your generation's war? The one unifying characteristic that all of us men in make-up on political chat shows share is fear of combat. Every one of us has done everything we can to avoid combat or even being fitted for a military uniform. Just like George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Dick Cheney, we are all combat cowards. It takes a very special kind of combat coward to advocate combat for others. . . .
Give thanks that you’re not "Dr." Eric Keroack right now
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/22/183538/87
Pearson also acknowledged yesterday that Keroack is not currently certified as an obstetrician-gynecologist. . .
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9138.html
[Steve Benen] It was almost as if the Bush administration was trying to find the most offensive choice possible to be the new chief of family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services. . .
[NB: It’s okay, with any luck he’ll soon be “On the Road”: http://kennedy.senate.gov/newsroom/press_release.cfm?id=f3190a42-c348-4abf-b23b-7035a5765523]
Give thanks for Tom DeLay: his policy of squeezing out Dems worked fine as long as his party held the whip hand – now that they don’t, his state of Texas has ZERO clout in the new Congress
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/22/134457/23
Give thanks that George “Macaca” Allen (R-VA) will soon be an EX-Senator
http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/2006/11/fitting-farewell.html
As a last little gift to America, Senator George Allen, who was narrowly defeated by James Webb this month, has introduced what may be his final piece of legislation: a bill that would allow the carrying of concealed weapons in national parks. . .
Give thanks that people are being vigilant about the Florida 13 election theft
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/22/122943/21
The group of nearly 18,000 voters that registered no choice in Sarasota's disputed congressional election solidly backed Democratic candidates in all five of Florida's statewide races, an Orlando Sentinel analysis of ballot data shows. . . .
Give thanks that it’s not 2008 yet: a McCain/Lieberman ticket?
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001792.php
Give thanks for the razor-sharp political instincts of the Bush clan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061121/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_defending_bush_1
Former President George H.W. Bush took on Arab critics of his son Tuesday during a testy exchange at a leadership conference . . . "My son is an honest man," Bush told members of the audience . . .
Give thanks for the Internethttp://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/04/politics/main586761.shtml
[2003] That beautiful golden-brown turkey President Bush held during his surprise visit to U.S. troops in Iraq was for show, not for eating, the Washington Post reports.
The photo of Mr. Bush holding the bird on a platter laden with trimmings was the most memorable image of the president's 2 1/2-hour stay with U.S. troops at the Baghdad International Airport.
The newspaper reported that in response to questions about the bird, the White House said the turkey was a decoration . . .
Give thanks for Molly Ivins
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20061122_molly_ivins_thanks_no_seriously/
It’s time to give thanks, and I want to start off with a great, big thank you for the top American movement conservatives and all the fun we’ve had since Election Day. I know I promised not to gloat after this election was over, but . . .
Bonus item: 20 more reasons to be thankful
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_allen_l__061122_20_reasons_to_be_tha.htm
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
Go Nancy!
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/21/202740/87
Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi will open the House for the first session of the 110th Congress on January 4, and keep it in session for the first several weeks of January.
While that may not sound remarkable outside-the-beltway, it is departure from tradition that is certain to prompt some teeth gnashing among Republicans. . .
Pelosi has an ambitious “first hundred hours” agenda, and will keep the House close to the grindstone. So how do the Repubs try to muck it up? By leaving billions in budget bills unfinished for the Democrats to deal with after the holidays. The Dems should make this a front-page story: the Republicans are shirking their responsibilities to punish the people for daring to vote them out
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061121/ap_on_go_co/cluttered_congress
Republicans vacating the Capitol are dumping a big spring cleaning job on Democrats moving in. GOP leaders have opted to leave behind almost a half-trillion-dollar clutter of unfinished spending bills. . . . There's also no guarantee that Republicans will pass a multibillion-dollar measure to prevent a cut in fees to doctors treating Medicare patients.
The bulging workload that a Republican-led Congress was supposed to complete this year but is instead punting to 2007 promises to consume time and energy that Democrats had hoped to devote to their own agenda upon taking control of Congress in January for the first time in a dozen years.
More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011236
[Josh Marshall] Pretty amazing stuff. And it seems like it's being treated with a near total media blackout. Stung by the voters' rebuke, the out-going Republican Congress has decided to close its doors without doing it's mandated job, finishing the budget bills for next year. By all rights they should send back their paychecks too.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_11/010274.php
[Kevin Drum] It's like watching a bunch of first graders stomp off the playground . . .
http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3600
[Swopa, the Master of Framing] Ah, but what if the Democratic message isn't just "We're going to do X, Y, and Z" but something broader -- that they're the real daddy party, the party that recognizes the moral duty of doing the people's business, the grown-ups taking over for Republicans who have betrayed their fundamental responsibilities?
Then, cleaning up the Republicans' abandoned duties doesn't "kill the Democrats' message" at all, it just reinforces it. That's what happens when you have an effective narrative.
The fight over the House Intelligence Committee: what’s wrong with Alcee Hastings?
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002023.php
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011235
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011239
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011240
What’s wrong with Jane Harman?
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001791.php
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002022.php
The New Generation of Republicans: not exactly the best and the brightest
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/21/132349/69
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/4345926.html
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/unfortunately-heather-wilson-r-nm-and.html
Are the Republicans turning themselves into a Southern regional party? Northeastern Repubs are becoming an endangered species – and several are talking about switching parties
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/21/18399/417
Who said it?
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116415245132878459
"America rejected shorthand, people are thinking again."
Ouch! Robert Reich outs John McCain
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_11_19_atrios_archive.html#116413230722829586
I talked with John McCain Sunday morning in the green room just before “This Week.” I asked him why he continued to call for more troops for Iraq when he must know it's a political non-starter. He said he thought it important for the morale of the troops. . .
More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9130.html
Why McCain better hope he doesn’t get his wish
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116413856010292584
Will Bob Gates, Rumsfeld’s replacement, end the politicization of intelligence? (don’t count on it)
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005225.html
Over time, we’re going to start to find out what the military really thought about Rumsfeld and his policies – and it won’t be pretty
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0611200195nov20,1,7360688.story
The Pentagon’s fight against domestic “terrorists” (it would be funny if it weren’t so scary)
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002021.php
Bush (see how far he’s slipped down the priority list?) does what losing Presidents always do – get out of the country for a while. Now he’s “reinvigorated,” say the press stenographers parroting Karl Rove’s Message of the Day. But the real story is, his policy against North Korea is so screwed up he can’t even get South Korea, who is directly threatened by them, to go along with it
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/strange-ap-article-on-bush-being.html
It’s a trap!
http://www.slate.com/id/2154376/
[Daniel Politi] The WP and WSJ point out the Bush administration is telling the incoming Democratic majority it wants to once again talk about Social Security with "no preconditions." Although officials deny it, this offer is leading some to speculate the White House would be willing to drop the requirement that workers be allowed to put some of their Social Security taxes into private accounts.
Oh boy. Bush is “writing” his memoirs
http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7849
[US News] To the list of those penning books about the prez add the most authoritative source of all: President Bush. Insiders say that he's been working on the project for a year. "He's doing a memoir," one insider says. "He's keenly interested in it." But here's the odd part: Bush hasn't actually written a word yet. Instead, he and his aides have been packaging the stuff he wants to reference so that he'll be ready to write when the project moves into that stage. And that probably won't happen until after he leaves office.
Bonus item: Payback time! (too mean? too partisan? I like it anyway)
http://buffalobeast.com/110/crush_kill_destroy.htm
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Go Nancy!
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/21/202740/87
Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi will open the House for the first session of the 110th Congress on January 4, and keep it in session for the first several weeks of January.
While that may not sound remarkable outside-the-beltway, it is departure from tradition that is certain to prompt some teeth gnashing among Republicans. . .
Pelosi has an ambitious “first hundred hours” agenda, and will keep the House close to the grindstone. So how do the Repubs try to muck it up? By leaving billions in budget bills unfinished for the Democrats to deal with after the holidays. The Dems should make this a front-page story: the Republicans are shirking their responsibilities to punish the people for daring to vote them out
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061121/ap_on_go_co/cluttered_congress
Republicans vacating the Capitol are dumping a big spring cleaning job on Democrats moving in. GOP leaders have opted to leave behind almost a half-trillion-dollar clutter of unfinished spending bills. . . . There's also no guarantee that Republicans will pass a multibillion-dollar measure to prevent a cut in fees to doctors treating Medicare patients.
The bulging workload that a Republican-led Congress was supposed to complete this year but is instead punting to 2007 promises to consume time and energy that Democrats had hoped to devote to their own agenda upon taking control of Congress in January for the first time in a dozen years.
More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011236
[Josh Marshall] Pretty amazing stuff. And it seems like it's being treated with a near total media blackout. Stung by the voters' rebuke, the out-going Republican Congress has decided to close its doors without doing it's mandated job, finishing the budget bills for next year. By all rights they should send back their paychecks too.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_11/010274.php
[Kevin Drum] It's like watching a bunch of first graders stomp off the playground . . .
http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3600
[Swopa, the Master of Framing] Ah, but what if the Democratic message isn't just "We're going to do X, Y, and Z" but something broader -- that they're the real daddy party, the party that recognizes the moral duty of doing the people's business, the grown-ups taking over for Republicans who have betrayed their fundamental responsibilities?
Then, cleaning up the Republicans' abandoned duties doesn't "kill the Democrats' message" at all, it just reinforces it. That's what happens when you have an effective narrative.
The fight over the House Intelligence Committee: what’s wrong with Alcee Hastings?
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002023.php
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011235
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011239
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011240
What’s wrong with Jane Harman?
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001791.php
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002022.php
The New Generation of Republicans: not exactly the best and the brightest
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/21/132349/69
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/4345926.html
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/unfortunately-heather-wilson-r-nm-and.html
Are the Republicans turning themselves into a Southern regional party? Northeastern Repubs are becoming an endangered species – and several are talking about switching parties
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/21/18399/417
Who said it?
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116415245132878459
"America rejected shorthand, people are thinking again."
Ouch! Robert Reich outs John McCain
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_11_19_atrios_archive.html#116413230722829586
I talked with John McCain Sunday morning in the green room just before “This Week.” I asked him why he continued to call for more troops for Iraq when he must know it's a political non-starter. He said he thought it important for the morale of the troops. . .
More: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9130.html
Why McCain better hope he doesn’t get his wish
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116413856010292584
Will Bob Gates, Rumsfeld’s replacement, end the politicization of intelligence? (don’t count on it)
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005225.html
Over time, we’re going to start to find out what the military really thought about Rumsfeld and his policies – and it won’t be pretty
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0611200195nov20,1,7360688.story
The Pentagon’s fight against domestic “terrorists” (it would be funny if it weren’t so scary)
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002021.php
Bush (see how far he’s slipped down the priority list?) does what losing Presidents always do – get out of the country for a while. Now he’s “reinvigorated,” say the press stenographers parroting Karl Rove’s Message of the Day. But the real story is, his policy against North Korea is so screwed up he can’t even get South Korea, who is directly threatened by them, to go along with it
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/strange-ap-article-on-bush-being.html
It’s a trap!
http://www.slate.com/id/2154376/
[Daniel Politi] The WP and WSJ point out the Bush administration is telling the incoming Democratic majority it wants to once again talk about Social Security with "no preconditions." Although officials deny it, this offer is leading some to speculate the White House would be willing to drop the requirement that workers be allowed to put some of their Social Security taxes into private accounts.
Oh boy. Bush is “writing” his memoirshttp://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7849
[US News] To the list of those penning books about the prez add the most authoritative source of all: President Bush. Insiders say that he's been working on the project for a year. "He's doing a memoir," one insider says. "He's keenly interested in it." But here's the odd part: Bush hasn't actually written a word yet. Instead, he and his aides have been packaging the stuff he wants to reference so that he'll be ready to write when the project moves into that stage. And that probably won't happen until after he leaves office.
Bonus item: Payback time! (too mean? too partisan? I like it anyway)
http://buffalobeast.com/110/crush_kill_destroy.htm
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL
We’ll see how this plays out, but for all the reviews, reassessments, and study groups, it appears right now that the only “new” idea on Iraq the Bush gang is prepared to consider seriously is INCREASING troop levels there
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/20/161648/18
[Meteor Blades] Does anybody remember that a year ago this month, the White House released its National Strategy for Victory in Iraq? Key elements of that plan, which the Administration placed in an Appendix and labeled "The Eight Pillars," were: Defeat the Terrorists and Neutralize the Insurgency; Transition Iraq to Security Self-Reliance; Help Iraqis Forge a National Compact for Democratic Government; Help Iraq Build Government Capacity and Provide Essential Services; Help Iraq Strengthen Its Economy; Help Iraq Strengthen the Rule of Law and Promote Civil Rights; Increase International Support for Iraq; Strengthen Public Understanding of Coalition Efforts and Public Isolation of the Insurgents.
Every one of those pillars has been a colossal failure. . .
More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3595
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112100171_pf.html
The U.S. military's effort to train Iraqi forces has been rife with problems, from officers being sent in with poor preparation to a lack of basic necessities such as interpreters and office materials, according to internal Army documents.
The shortcomings have plagued a program that is central to the U.S. strategy in Iraq and is growing in importance. A Pentagon effort to rethink policies in Iraq is likely to suggest placing less emphasis on combat and more on training and advising. . .
No decision
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011222
[David Kurtz] November 2006: "President Bush said Monday that he has made no decisions about altering the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, and he refused to discuss the pros and cons that would accompany such a decision."
August 2005: President Bush said Thursday no decision has been made on increasing or decreasing U.S. troop levels in Iraq, saying that as "Iraqis stand up, we will stand down" and that only conditions on the ground will dictate when it is time for a reduction in U.S. forces.
April 2004: "Gen. John P. Abizaid, the senior commander in the Middle East, has asked for contingency plans for increasing the number of troops in Iraq. No decision has been made to supplement the 134,000 troops now there, and White House officials said it was unclear whether such a move would help the situation."
November 2003: "The President is going to do what is most effective in Iraq, and he gets recommendations from his commanders on troop levels and what is needed. No decisions have been made about future troops levels," said National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
We’ve been saying for a long time that the real crunch from Iraq will come, not from declining popular support (Bush and Cheney have both said they don’t care how unpopular the war becomes), but from the simple numbers game that you can’t keep extending and multiplying tours of duty forever. Two former generals now say it: the war has “broken” the armed forces, and it’s simply impossible to sustain (or increase) troop levels for very long now
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011217
[Barry McCaffrey] “That’s how to break the Army is to keep it deployed above the rate at which it can be sustained,” he said. “There’s no free lunch here. The Army and the Marine Corps and Special Operations Command are too small and badly resourced to carry out this national security strategy.”
[William Odom] Our leaders do not act because their reputations are at stake. The public does not force them to act because it is blinded by the president's conjured set of illusions: that we are reducing terrorism by fighting in Iraq, creating democracy there, preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, making Israel more secure, not allowing our fallen soldiers to have died in vain, and others.
But reality no longer can be avoided. It is beyond U.S. power to prevent sectarian violence in Iraq, the growing influence of Iran throughout the region, the probable spread of Sunni-Shiite strife to neighboring Arab states, the eventual rise to power of the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr or some other anti-American leader in Baghdad, and the spread of instability beyond Iraq.
These realities get worse every day that our forces remain in Iraq. They can't be wished away by clever diplomacy or by leaving our forces in Iraq for several more years. . .
Here’s another mistake the geniuses who brought us this war have made: because they’re basically contemptuous of (or ignorant about) the nations and cultures we are fighting, they assume that we are the only ones doing any geopolitical strategizing. But these are the cultures of Persia and Mesopotamia: they were moving pieces around the board when most of the West was living in mud huts. Did we really think they would just sit back and let us redesign their region for them?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/20/world/middleeast/21iraqcnd.html
Iraq re-established diplomatic relations with Syria on Monday, agreeing to restore an embassy in Baghdad after more than 20 years with no formal avenues of communication. . .
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3330605,00.html
Iran has invited the Iraqi and Syrian presidents to Tehran for a weekend summit with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to hash out ways to cooperate in curbing the runaway violence that has taken Iraq to the verge of civil war and threatens to spread through the region, four key lawmakers said on Monday.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has accepted the invitation and will fly to the Iranian capital Saturday. . .
More: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-iraq21nov21,1,4310779.story
Thank you so very much (now go away)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_11/010269.php
[Kevin Drum] PIPA has released a new poll of Iraqi attitudes toward the U.S. occupation, and the takeaway is very, very clear: they want us to leave. 74% of Shiites and 91% of Sunnis want us to leave within a year (the number is 80% for Shiites in Baghdad). By wide margins, both groups believe U.S. forces are provoking more violence than they're preventing . . .
Bush finally goes to Vietnam (insert draft-dodger joke here), says it is proof that you only lose a war by quitting. But we did lose that war, and despite all the howls that Vietnam would be ruined if we withdrew, they are now a thriving nation Bush holds up as a model of development. Huh?!?? Has anybody thought this argument through?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011214
More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011220
Keith Olbermann: http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z49131C3E
Mr. Bush, there are a dozen central lessons to be derived from our nightmare in Vietnam, but "we'll succeed unless we quit" is not one of them. . . . [don’t miss it!]
How we REALLY lost Vietnam
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005220.html
Déjà vu (all over again)
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9119.html
[Steve Benen] Seymour Hersh has a rather astonishing piece in the latest edition of the New Yorker, concluding that, White House bluster notwithstanding, a draft intelligence assessment by the CIA has found “no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program.” . . . Naturally, the Bush gang isn’t terribly impressed — with either the Hersh article or the alleged CIA report.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino did not respond directly to Hersh’s assertions, but said the article was another “error-filled piece” in a “series of inaccuracy-riddled articles about the Bush administration.”
“The White House is not going to dignify the work of an author who has viciously degraded our troops, and whose articles consistently rely on outright falsehoods to justify his own radical views,” she said on Monday.
Ad hominem attacks notwithstanding, if Hersh is correct, an eerily familiar pattern is emerging. Indeed, watching Hersh on CNN yesterday, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve heard all of this before. . . .
I doubt it will happen this way, but what happens if the Republicans fail to pass Bush’s domestic spying bill before the Democrats take over?
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/061119/27surveillance.htm
More: http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2889/
Perfect timing
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/washington/21protests.html
An antiterrorist database used by the Defense Department in an effort to prevent attacks against military installations included intelligence tips about antiwar planning meetings held at churches, libraries, college campuses and other locations . . .
What did Bush know and when did he know it? (torture edition)
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005219.html
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011212
Dog bites man
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9114.html
[Steve Benen] Sometimes, the Bush gang really does resemble a jukebox that only plays one song. Karl Rove, for all of his alleged genius, has decided what the White House really needs to do is — surprise, surprise — move to the right and placate the GOP base. . .
It seemed like only two weeks ago when “bi-partisanship” was the buzz word. Oh wait, it was only two weeks ago. Since then, the White House has shown its commitment to the notion of working with congressional Dems by thumbing its nose at the new majority party, all because Karl Rove thinks Bush should “shore up his standing with conservatives.” Here’s my question: doesn’t Rove always think Bush should “shore up his standing with conservatives”? When has Rove failed to advise Bush to “shore up his standing with conservatives”? . . .
The Goofus Files (theocracy edition)
http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7835
A whole society is a society which welcomes basic freedoms, and there's no more basic freedom than the basic -- the freedom to worship as you see fit. . . .
My hope is that people all across the world will be able to express religion freedom. . . .
I believe the vast majority of people want to live in moderation and not have extremists kill innocent people. And so, therefore, our policies are to promote that kind of form of government. It's not going to look like America. . .
OK, time to start gearing up for 2008 and the inevitable John McCain juggernaut. One of the key issues will be whether he can maintain his image as a plain-talking maverick as he tacks more and more toward conventional GOP talking points on a host of issues where he previously had an independent position. If Kerry could be painted as a “flip-flopper,” what will happen to McCain?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_11/010264.php
[Kevin Drum] I see that on Sunday John "Straight Talk" McCain demonstrated once again that he's fully absorbed his lesson from 2000: straight talk doesn't win elections for Republicans. Sucking up to social conservatives does. So now he's pulled a full 180 . . .
More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/11/post_2095.html
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/11/post_2096.html
[Charles Pierce] That new cable fun show, John McCain Will Say Almost Any Damn Thing, rolled into George Stephanopoulos' joint this weekend, where the Straight Talker flipped, flopped, and flew. Gaze in awe. I swear, if I walked up to the man, and whispered that I could deliver a precinct in Manchester, he'd give me his car on the spot. That he plainly doesn't know what he's talking straight about, however, is a more alarming problem. If you throw the privacy rights of 51 percent of the American people back to the states -- and that is what the debate over choice really is, all scriptural filigree aside, an argument about the right to privacy -- you are not a "federalist," the historical antecedents of whom were the advocates of a strong central government empowered to tell the states what the national interest really was. (As best I can recall, Ronald Reagan was the first one to take this particular scam for a spin.) What you are proposing is a return to the doctrine of "states' rights," which fell partly out of favor due to all that unpleasantness at the Edmund Pettus Bridge and in the earthen dams around Philadelphia, Mississippi. It still stands in a bad odor today except within the shrinking Republican base, and in the office of the new Senate Minority Whip, who thinks it got an unfair hearing back in '48.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9111.html
McCain’s flourishing flip-flop list . . .
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9115.html
[Steve Benen] Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) stuck to the script yesterday during an appearance on ABC’s This Week, repeating his desire to see more troops sent to Iraq. What’s interesting, however, is that McCain seemed to need his notes quite a bit to get through the discussion.
Take a look and count how many times McCain looks down to read his talking points over the course of the minute. . .
Now, I can appreciate the fact that the war is complicated, but George Stephanopoulos was simply asking McCain to discuss his own position on troop deployment. Shouldn’t the senator, who believes he should be president, be able to talk about his approach to the war, and his plan to send thousands of additional troops, without literally reading talking points? . . .
I hate him, but the political world will certainly be a lot more interesting with Newt Gingrich back in it
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116405906339073688
[CNN] In casting himself as the reluctant but critical-for-these-times candidate, the former history professor is looking back to 1860, and the wildfire support for Lincoln's candidacy touched off by a series of speeches . . . "I was fascinated by Holzer's portrait of Lincoln spending three months at the Springfield state library, putting together the definitive argument about the Constitution, the Founding Fathers and slavery," Gingrich says.
"He turns it into a 7,300-word speech - gives it once in New York, once in Rhode Island, once in Massachusetts, once in New Hampshire. Then he goes home. I was struck by the sheer courage of the self-definitional moment that said, 'We are in real trouble, we need real leadership, and if that's who you think we need, here's my speech'," Gingrich says, suggesting he intends to do the same thing. . . .
'I'm going to tell you something, and whether or not it's plausible given the world you come out of is your problem'. . . 'I am not 'running' for president. I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen.' . . . .
“The black Rush Limbaugh”
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9122.html
[Steve Benen] The Bush gang intervened to make sure that outgoing Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (R) not become the next chairman of the Republican National Committee, but don’t worry, they have big plans in mind for the failed Senate candidate. According to Bob Novak, the Bush gang is urging Steele to forgo a job in government and instead try broadcasting. “Bush political strategists have told Steele a high-ranking post in the administration’s last two years would curb his independence and cramp his style. Instead, they advised, he could be ‘a black Rush Limbaugh.’”
How the Repubs will attack Pelosi (and Clinton)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/19/wus19.xml
"Two years of Pelosi gives a good idea of what four years of Hillary will be like," said Tom DeLay, the Republican powerbroker who ran his party in the House before he was caught up in a lobbyist corruption scandal. "They are both committed liberals and we will make that clear to the American people." . . .
Sexist, too: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116398055340950786
Ah, a nice overview of the vicious, corrupt way the Republicans run their campaigns these days
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/11/21/cheat_sheet/
Blunt instrument
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/corruption_in_washington_/2006/11/edsall_on_roy_blunt_a_gift_that_will_keep_on_giving.php
[Thomas Edsall] Last Friday, the Republicans gave the Democrats a gift that will keep on giving: Roy Blunt of Missouri. . . Blunt embodies the insidious, half-legal corruption that has permeated the G.O.P. majority since 1995. Blunt’s election as minority whip, by a 137-to-57 margin, was a defiant Republican rejection of calls to clean up their act. . . .
http://www.slate.com/id/2154245/
[Daniel Politi] House Democratic leaders [say] they will issue a major ethic reform package in early 2007. But instead of doing it as part of one big bill, House members are planning on putting it out "piece by piece." This would help new House members get attention from the multiple bills and it would highlight each proposal, guaranteeing they all receive a certain amount of media attention. Additional bonus: Republican members would have to vote on each issue separately. . . .
Will the Florida 13th recount issue eventually end up in the (Democratic) House of Representatives?
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2006/nov/20/fl_13_final_stage_of_house_seat_battle_could_be_the_house
Bonus item: Maybe there is hope for this country after all – OJ Simpson book/tv deal canceled after public outcry
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/20/business/21simpsoncnd.html
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
We’ll see how this plays out, but for all the reviews, reassessments, and study groups, it appears right now that the only “new” idea on Iraq the Bush gang is prepared to consider seriously is INCREASING troop levels there
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/20/161648/18
[Meteor Blades] Does anybody remember that a year ago this month, the White House released its National Strategy for Victory in Iraq? Key elements of that plan, which the Administration placed in an Appendix and labeled "The Eight Pillars," were: Defeat the Terrorists and Neutralize the Insurgency; Transition Iraq to Security Self-Reliance; Help Iraqis Forge a National Compact for Democratic Government; Help Iraq Build Government Capacity and Provide Essential Services; Help Iraq Strengthen Its Economy; Help Iraq Strengthen the Rule of Law and Promote Civil Rights; Increase International Support for Iraq; Strengthen Public Understanding of Coalition Efforts and Public Isolation of the Insurgents.
Every one of those pillars has been a colossal failure. . .
More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3595
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112100171_pf.html
The U.S. military's effort to train Iraqi forces has been rife with problems, from officers being sent in with poor preparation to a lack of basic necessities such as interpreters and office materials, according to internal Army documents.
The shortcomings have plagued a program that is central to the U.S. strategy in Iraq and is growing in importance. A Pentagon effort to rethink policies in Iraq is likely to suggest placing less emphasis on combat and more on training and advising. . .
No decision
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011222
[David Kurtz] November 2006: "President Bush said Monday that he has made no decisions about altering the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, and he refused to discuss the pros and cons that would accompany such a decision."
August 2005: President Bush said Thursday no decision has been made on increasing or decreasing U.S. troop levels in Iraq, saying that as "Iraqis stand up, we will stand down" and that only conditions on the ground will dictate when it is time for a reduction in U.S. forces.
April 2004: "Gen. John P. Abizaid, the senior commander in the Middle East, has asked for contingency plans for increasing the number of troops in Iraq. No decision has been made to supplement the 134,000 troops now there, and White House officials said it was unclear whether such a move would help the situation."
November 2003: "The President is going to do what is most effective in Iraq, and he gets recommendations from his commanders on troop levels and what is needed. No decisions have been made about future troops levels," said National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
We’ve been saying for a long time that the real crunch from Iraq will come, not from declining popular support (Bush and Cheney have both said they don’t care how unpopular the war becomes), but from the simple numbers game that you can’t keep extending and multiplying tours of duty forever. Two former generals now say it: the war has “broken” the armed forces, and it’s simply impossible to sustain (or increase) troop levels for very long now
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011217
[Barry McCaffrey] “That’s how to break the Army is to keep it deployed above the rate at which it can be sustained,” he said. “There’s no free lunch here. The Army and the Marine Corps and Special Operations Command are too small and badly resourced to carry out this national security strategy.”
[William Odom] Our leaders do not act because their reputations are at stake. The public does not force them to act because it is blinded by the president's conjured set of illusions: that we are reducing terrorism by fighting in Iraq, creating democracy there, preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, making Israel more secure, not allowing our fallen soldiers to have died in vain, and others.
But reality no longer can be avoided. It is beyond U.S. power to prevent sectarian violence in Iraq, the growing influence of Iran throughout the region, the probable spread of Sunni-Shiite strife to neighboring Arab states, the eventual rise to power of the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr or some other anti-American leader in Baghdad, and the spread of instability beyond Iraq.
These realities get worse every day that our forces remain in Iraq. They can't be wished away by clever diplomacy or by leaving our forces in Iraq for several more years. . .
Here’s another mistake the geniuses who brought us this war have made: because they’re basically contemptuous of (or ignorant about) the nations and cultures we are fighting, they assume that we are the only ones doing any geopolitical strategizing. But these are the cultures of Persia and Mesopotamia: they were moving pieces around the board when most of the West was living in mud huts. Did we really think they would just sit back and let us redesign their region for them?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/20/world/middleeast/21iraqcnd.html
Iraq re-established diplomatic relations with Syria on Monday, agreeing to restore an embassy in Baghdad after more than 20 years with no formal avenues of communication. . .
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3330605,00.html
Iran has invited the Iraqi and Syrian presidents to Tehran for a weekend summit with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to hash out ways to cooperate in curbing the runaway violence that has taken Iraq to the verge of civil war and threatens to spread through the region, four key lawmakers said on Monday.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has accepted the invitation and will fly to the Iranian capital Saturday. . .
More: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-iraq21nov21,1,4310779.story
Thank you so very much (now go away)
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_11/010269.php
[Kevin Drum] PIPA has released a new poll of Iraqi attitudes toward the U.S. occupation, and the takeaway is very, very clear: they want us to leave. 74% of Shiites and 91% of Sunnis want us to leave within a year (the number is 80% for Shiites in Baghdad). By wide margins, both groups believe U.S. forces are provoking more violence than they're preventing . . .
Bush finally goes to Vietnam (insert draft-dodger joke here), says it is proof that you only lose a war by quitting. But we did lose that war, and despite all the howls that Vietnam would be ruined if we withdrew, they are now a thriving nation Bush holds up as a model of development. Huh?!?? Has anybody thought this argument through?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011214
More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011220
Keith Olbermann: http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z49131C3E
Mr. Bush, there are a dozen central lessons to be derived from our nightmare in Vietnam, but "we'll succeed unless we quit" is not one of them. . . . [don’t miss it!]
How we REALLY lost Vietnam
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005220.html
Déjà vu (all over again)
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9119.html
[Steve Benen] Seymour Hersh has a rather astonishing piece in the latest edition of the New Yorker, concluding that, White House bluster notwithstanding, a draft intelligence assessment by the CIA has found “no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program.” . . . Naturally, the Bush gang isn’t terribly impressed — with either the Hersh article or the alleged CIA report.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino did not respond directly to Hersh’s assertions, but said the article was another “error-filled piece” in a “series of inaccuracy-riddled articles about the Bush administration.”
“The White House is not going to dignify the work of an author who has viciously degraded our troops, and whose articles consistently rely on outright falsehoods to justify his own radical views,” she said on Monday.
Ad hominem attacks notwithstanding, if Hersh is correct, an eerily familiar pattern is emerging. Indeed, watching Hersh on CNN yesterday, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve heard all of this before. . . .
I doubt it will happen this way, but what happens if the Republicans fail to pass Bush’s domestic spying bill before the Democrats take over?
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/061119/27surveillance.htm
More: http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2889/
Perfect timing
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/washington/21protests.html
An antiterrorist database used by the Defense Department in an effort to prevent attacks against military installations included intelligence tips about antiwar planning meetings held at churches, libraries, college campuses and other locations . . .
What did Bush know and when did he know it? (torture edition)
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005219.html
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011212
Dog bites man
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9114.html
[Steve Benen] Sometimes, the Bush gang really does resemble a jukebox that only plays one song. Karl Rove, for all of his alleged genius, has decided what the White House really needs to do is — surprise, surprise — move to the right and placate the GOP base. . .
It seemed like only two weeks ago when “bi-partisanship” was the buzz word. Oh wait, it was only two weeks ago. Since then, the White House has shown its commitment to the notion of working with congressional Dems by thumbing its nose at the new majority party, all because Karl Rove thinks Bush should “shore up his standing with conservatives.” Here’s my question: doesn’t Rove always think Bush should “shore up his standing with conservatives”? When has Rove failed to advise Bush to “shore up his standing with conservatives”? . . .
The Goofus Files (theocracy edition)
http://www.first-draft.com//modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7835
A whole society is a society which welcomes basic freedoms, and there's no more basic freedom than the basic -- the freedom to worship as you see fit. . . .
My hope is that people all across the world will be able to express religion freedom. . . .
I believe the vast majority of people want to live in moderation and not have extremists kill innocent people. And so, therefore, our policies are to promote that kind of form of government. It's not going to look like America. . .
OK, time to start gearing up for 2008 and the inevitable John McCain juggernaut. One of the key issues will be whether he can maintain his image as a plain-talking maverick as he tacks more and more toward conventional GOP talking points on a host of issues where he previously had an independent position. If Kerry could be painted as a “flip-flopper,” what will happen to McCain?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_11/010264.php
[Kevin Drum] I see that on Sunday John "Straight Talk" McCain demonstrated once again that he's fully absorbed his lesson from 2000: straight talk doesn't win elections for Republicans. Sucking up to social conservatives does. So now he's pulled a full 180 . . .
More: http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/11/post_2095.html
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/11/post_2096.html
[Charles Pierce] That new cable fun show, John McCain Will Say Almost Any Damn Thing, rolled into George Stephanopoulos' joint this weekend, where the Straight Talker flipped, flopped, and flew. Gaze in awe. I swear, if I walked up to the man, and whispered that I could deliver a precinct in Manchester, he'd give me his car on the spot. That he plainly doesn't know what he's talking straight about, however, is a more alarming problem. If you throw the privacy rights of 51 percent of the American people back to the states -- and that is what the debate over choice really is, all scriptural filigree aside, an argument about the right to privacy -- you are not a "federalist," the historical antecedents of whom were the advocates of a strong central government empowered to tell the states what the national interest really was. (As best I can recall, Ronald Reagan was the first one to take this particular scam for a spin.) What you are proposing is a return to the doctrine of "states' rights," which fell partly out of favor due to all that unpleasantness at the Edmund Pettus Bridge and in the earthen dams around Philadelphia, Mississippi. It still stands in a bad odor today except within the shrinking Republican base, and in the office of the new Senate Minority Whip, who thinks it got an unfair hearing back in '48.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9111.html
McCain’s flourishing flip-flop list . . .
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9115.html
[Steve Benen] Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) stuck to the script yesterday during an appearance on ABC’s This Week, repeating his desire to see more troops sent to Iraq. What’s interesting, however, is that McCain seemed to need his notes quite a bit to get through the discussion.
Take a look and count how many times McCain looks down to read his talking points over the course of the minute. . .
Now, I can appreciate the fact that the war is complicated, but George Stephanopoulos was simply asking McCain to discuss his own position on troop deployment. Shouldn’t the senator, who believes he should be president, be able to talk about his approach to the war, and his plan to send thousands of additional troops, without literally reading talking points? . . .
I hate him, but the political world will certainly be a lot more interesting with Newt Gingrich back in it
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116405906339073688
[CNN] In casting himself as the reluctant but critical-for-these-times candidate, the former history professor is looking back to 1860, and the wildfire support for Lincoln's candidacy touched off by a series of speeches . . . "I was fascinated by Holzer's portrait of Lincoln spending three months at the Springfield state library, putting together the definitive argument about the Constitution, the Founding Fathers and slavery," Gingrich says.
"He turns it into a 7,300-word speech - gives it once in New York, once in Rhode Island, once in Massachusetts, once in New Hampshire. Then he goes home. I was struck by the sheer courage of the self-definitional moment that said, 'We are in real trouble, we need real leadership, and if that's who you think we need, here's my speech'," Gingrich says, suggesting he intends to do the same thing. . . .
'I'm going to tell you something, and whether or not it's plausible given the world you come out of is your problem'. . . 'I am not 'running' for president. I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen.' . . . .
“The black Rush Limbaugh”
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9122.html
[Steve Benen] The Bush gang intervened to make sure that outgoing Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (R) not become the next chairman of the Republican National Committee, but don’t worry, they have big plans in mind for the failed Senate candidate. According to Bob Novak, the Bush gang is urging Steele to forgo a job in government and instead try broadcasting. “Bush political strategists have told Steele a high-ranking post in the administration’s last two years would curb his independence and cramp his style. Instead, they advised, he could be ‘a black Rush Limbaugh.’”
How the Repubs will attack Pelosi (and Clinton)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/19/wus19.xml
"Two years of Pelosi gives a good idea of what four years of Hillary will be like," said Tom DeLay, the Republican powerbroker who ran his party in the House before he was caught up in a lobbyist corruption scandal. "They are both committed liberals and we will make that clear to the American people." . . .
Sexist, too: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116398055340950786
Ah, a nice overview of the vicious, corrupt way the Republicans run their campaigns these days
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/11/21/cheat_sheet/
Blunt instrument
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/corruption_in_washington_/2006/11/edsall_on_roy_blunt_a_gift_that_will_keep_on_giving.php
[Thomas Edsall] Last Friday, the Republicans gave the Democrats a gift that will keep on giving: Roy Blunt of Missouri. . . Blunt embodies the insidious, half-legal corruption that has permeated the G.O.P. majority since 1995. Blunt’s election as minority whip, by a 137-to-57 margin, was a defiant Republican rejection of calls to clean up their act. . . .
http://www.slate.com/id/2154245/
[Daniel Politi] House Democratic leaders [say] they will issue a major ethic reform package in early 2007. But instead of doing it as part of one big bill, House members are planning on putting it out "piece by piece." This would help new House members get attention from the multiple bills and it would highlight each proposal, guaranteeing they all receive a certain amount of media attention. Additional bonus: Republican members would have to vote on each issue separately. . . .
Will the Florida 13th recount issue eventually end up in the (Democratic) House of Representatives?
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2006/nov/20/fl_13_final_stage_of_house_seat_battle_could_be_the_house
Bonus item: Maybe there is hope for this country after all – OJ Simpson book/tv deal canceled after public outcry
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/20/business/21simpsoncnd.html
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Monday, November 20, 2006
ALL-IN
Go Big, Go Long, or Go Home
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/19/AR2006111901249.html
The group conducting the review is likely to recommend a combination of a small, short-term increase in U.S. troops and a long-term commitment to stepped-up training and advising of Iraqi forces, the officials said. . .
Now, all of a sudden, we’re hearing more about the Powell Doctrine (the use of overwhelming force in military engagements) as an excuse for increasing troop levels now. To all these lying hypocrites (McCain, Graham, et al): (1) the time to do this is BEFORE you have a major insurgency on your hands and (2) where the hell were you when Generals Shinseki, Zinni, and others were being savaged for saying just this, at the start of the war, when it actually could have done some good? For that matter, where were you when Powell himself was fighting his lonely battles against the neo-con True Believers?
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_11_19_atrios_archive.html#116395648873521221
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_11_19_atrios_archive.html#116397370063175544
Only two little problems here: first, there just aren’t any more troops to send -- second, IT WON’T WORK
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/19/zakaria-mccain-more-deaths/
http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/11/one_last_push/
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2006/11/one_more_big_push.php
Yes, it CAN get worse
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_11/010263.php
[Suzanne Nossel] If we don't begin a planned exit, there's a good chance we'll find ourselves in an unplanned one . . .
Blaming the Iraqis for squandering the wonderful democracy we gave them; blaming the US citizens for giving up too soon
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601359.html
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011206
Just don’t blame us: the massive effort of Iraq war supporters to avoid being linked to the rotting corpse of Bush’s fiasco
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2006/11/19/ap3188590.html
Military victory is no longer possible in Iraq, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a television interview broadcast Sunday. . . "If you mean by 'military victory,' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible" . . .
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9105.html
[The New Republic] There is no policy for Iraq that will provide moral and strategic satisfaction and no reason to believe that we might achieve something that could be plausibly described as victory. The coming debate over timetables and troop levels will likely generate much anger, shattering postelection illusions of bipartisanship and provoking intra-party squabbles. But, in the end, this struggle will be over the difference between a largely intolerable outcome and a completely intolerable one.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116394799741596956
[Tristero] Ken Adelman's flack has been getting him a lot of publicity lately, the latest being the lead-off "Had I known then what I know now" guy in this Washington Post article about rats deserting the sinking ship of George Bush's state. And he seems genuinely horrified over what he contributed to, if still somewhat deluded on the subject of it being a good idea. . . However, the fact that Adelman now understands the consequences of what he so foolishly advocated doesn't change those facts, or his responsibility. . .
Ken Adelman has the blood of tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of innocents on his hands. Assuming the best, that he is at some level a moral person, he will have to live with the horror of that fact for the rest of his life, that he directly contributed to the slaughter and carnage. But that is not all.
If there are (as there should be but probably won't be) trials for the perpetrators of this illegal war, Adelman may escape indictment on a technicality but he is morally obligated to testify truthfully about all he knew and saw within the Bush administration regarding the planning and execution of the Bush/Iraq war. . .
Richard Perle. . . . head of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board at the time of the 2003 invasion, said he still believes the invasion was justified. But he resents being called "the architect of the Iraq war," because "my view was different from the administration's view from the very beginning" about how to conduct it. "I am not critical now of anything about which I was not critical before," he said. "I've said it more publicly."
In other words, Perle had a plan, a Grand Vision of exactly how to topple Saddam, install Chalabi, and transform Iraq into a land of milk and honey. Then, through some magical osmosis known only to neoconservatives, the rest of the Arab Middle East would follow. Oh, and by the way, while Israel would finally be safe unto eternity, they should hold onto those nukes they don't have (wink, wink) just in case.
God save us from all future visionaries with clear plans to transform the world. . . .
More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/19/9516/2124
The Bush gang repeats its mistakes with Iran, ignoring CIA intelligence that tells them what they don’t want to hear
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/secret-cia-report-no-evidence-that.html
McCain flip-flops on Roe v. Wade
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/19/115038/44
Fiscal sanity: it won’t be easy
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/11/fiscal_gridlock.html
Lazy reporting from the Washington Post
http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/11/reporting_please/
Theocracy watch: don’t miss this masterpiece from Garry Wills. As bad as you think the occupation of the Bush policy apparatus by religious activists has been – it’s been worse
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19590
The right wing in America likes to think that the United States government was, at its inception, highly religious, specifically highly Christian, and even more specifically highly biblical. That was not true of that government or any later government—until 2000, when the fiction of the past became the reality of the present. George W. Bush was not only born-again, like Jimmy Carter. His religious conversion came late, and took place in the political setting of Billy Graham's ministry to the powerful. He was converted during a stroll with Graham on his father's Kennebunkport compound. . .
Bush was a saved alcoholic—and here, too, he had no predecessor in the White House. Ulysses Grant conquered the bottle, but not with the help of Jesus. Other presidents were evangelicals. Three of them belonged to the Disciples of Christ—James Garfield, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan. But none of the three— nor any of the other forty-two presidents preceding Bush (including his father)—would have answered a campaign debate question as he did. Asked who was his favorite philosopher, he said "Jesus Christ." . . . Bush talks evangelical talk as no other president has, including Jimmy Carter, who also talked the language of the secular Enlightenment culture that evangelists despise. Bush told various evangelical groups that he felt God had called him to run for president in 2000: "I know it won't be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it."
Bush promised his evangelical followers faith-based social services, which he called "compassionate conservatism." He went beyond that to give them a faith-based war, faith-based law enforcement, faith-based education, faith-based medicine, and faith-based science. . .
It is common knowledge that the Republican White House and Congress let "K Street" lobbyists have a say in the drafting of economic legislation, and on the personnel assigned to carry it out, in matters like oil production, pharmaceutical regulation, medical insurance, and corporate taxes. It is less known that for social services, evangelical organizations were given the same right to draft bills and install the officials who implement them. . .
The head of the White House Office of Personnel was Kay Coles James, a former dean of Pat Robertson's Regent University and a former vice-president of Gary Bauer's Family Research Council, the conservative Christian lobbying group that had been set up as the Washington branch of James Dobson's Focus on the Family. She knew whom to put where, or knew the religious right people who knew. An evangelical was in charge of placing evangelicals throughout the bureaucracy. The head lobbyist for the Family Research Council boasted that "a lot of FRC people are in place" in the administration. The evangelicals knew which positions could affect their agenda, whom to replace, and whom they wanted appointed. This was true for the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, and Health and Human Services—agencies that would rule on or administer matters dear to the evangelical causes.
The White House was alive with piety. Evangelical leaders were in and out on a regular basis. There were Bible study groups in the White House, as in John Ashcroft's Justice Department. Over half of the White House staff attended the meetings. One of the first things David Frum heard when he went to work there as a speech writer was: "Missed you at the Bible study." . . [read on!]
More on Republican lying, vote fraud – and what to do about it
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/election_2006_/2006/11/the_phony_fliers_cant_mfume_sue.php
The Nightmare on Florida the 13th
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/19/83113/474
[Georgia 10] The recount in FL-13 is over, and Republican Vern Buchanan leads Democrat Christine Jennings by 369 votes. But it ain't over yet.
For those that haven't followed the race closely, the election in FL-13 can best be summed up by the phrase "the machine ate my vote." Or something like that.
An astounding 18,300 people in Sarasota County, or 13 percent of voters, did not cast a vote for the high-profile congressional race. When a voter does not vote in a particular race, that is called an "undervote." The undervote average in the remaining areas of FL-13? Less than five percent. . .
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/19/21654/343
Meet Kathy Dent. She's the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections in Florida. And she's doing everything she can to prevent election reform.
Earlier this year, election reform groups gathered enough signatures to place a voter-verified paper trail measure on the Sarasota County ballot. Dent, along with other Florida election officials, voiced great opposition to the measure, and they all went to court to have the measure thrown out. The judge in the case sided with election reform groups, and the measure was allowed to go before the voters of Sarasota County. The voters approved the measure. Grudgingly, Dent has now agreed to switch the county to paper ballots.
But paper ballots are for the next election. It's the machines from this election that are still causing headaches in Florida's 13th district. . . Because when you're the Supervisor of Elections and you get to fill out the paperwork, you can make up your own reality. In Dent's world, "machines don't make mistakes", and she's sticking to that story, no matter how fanciful it may be. . .
Bonus item: Mark Kleiman’s new and improved list of areas needing Congressional investigation
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/corruption_in_washington_/2006/11/no_no_no_no_no.php
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Go Big, Go Long, or Go Home
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/19/AR2006111901249.html
The group conducting the review is likely to recommend a combination of a small, short-term increase in U.S. troops and a long-term commitment to stepped-up training and advising of Iraqi forces, the officials said. . .
Now, all of a sudden, we’re hearing more about the Powell Doctrine (the use of overwhelming force in military engagements) as an excuse for increasing troop levels now. To all these lying hypocrites (McCain, Graham, et al): (1) the time to do this is BEFORE you have a major insurgency on your hands and (2) where the hell were you when Generals Shinseki, Zinni, and others were being savaged for saying just this, at the start of the war, when it actually could have done some good? For that matter, where were you when Powell himself was fighting his lonely battles against the neo-con True Believers?
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_11_19_atrios_archive.html#116395648873521221
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_11_19_atrios_archive.html#116397370063175544
Only two little problems here: first, there just aren’t any more troops to send -- second, IT WON’T WORK
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/19/zakaria-mccain-more-deaths/
http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/11/one_last_push/
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_war_in_iraq_/2006/11/one_more_big_push.php
Yes, it CAN get worse
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_11/010263.php
[Suzanne Nossel] If we don't begin a planned exit, there's a good chance we'll find ourselves in an unplanned one . . .
Blaming the Iraqis for squandering the wonderful democracy we gave them; blaming the US citizens for giving up too soon
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601359.html
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_19.php#011206
Just don’t blame us: the massive effort of Iraq war supporters to avoid being linked to the rotting corpse of Bush’s fiasco
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2006/11/19/ap3188590.html
Military victory is no longer possible in Iraq, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a television interview broadcast Sunday. . . "If you mean by 'military victory,' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible" . . .
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9105.html
[The New Republic] There is no policy for Iraq that will provide moral and strategic satisfaction and no reason to believe that we might achieve something that could be plausibly described as victory. The coming debate over timetables and troop levels will likely generate much anger, shattering postelection illusions of bipartisanship and provoking intra-party squabbles. But, in the end, this struggle will be over the difference between a largely intolerable outcome and a completely intolerable one.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116394799741596956
[Tristero] Ken Adelman's flack has been getting him a lot of publicity lately, the latest being the lead-off "Had I known then what I know now" guy in this Washington Post article about rats deserting the sinking ship of George Bush's state. And he seems genuinely horrified over what he contributed to, if still somewhat deluded on the subject of it being a good idea. . . However, the fact that Adelman now understands the consequences of what he so foolishly advocated doesn't change those facts, or his responsibility. . .
Ken Adelman has the blood of tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of innocents on his hands. Assuming the best, that he is at some level a moral person, he will have to live with the horror of that fact for the rest of his life, that he directly contributed to the slaughter and carnage. But that is not all.
If there are (as there should be but probably won't be) trials for the perpetrators of this illegal war, Adelman may escape indictment on a technicality but he is morally obligated to testify truthfully about all he knew and saw within the Bush administration regarding the planning and execution of the Bush/Iraq war. . .
Richard Perle. . . . head of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board at the time of the 2003 invasion, said he still believes the invasion was justified. But he resents being called "the architect of the Iraq war," because "my view was different from the administration's view from the very beginning" about how to conduct it. "I am not critical now of anything about which I was not critical before," he said. "I've said it more publicly."
In other words, Perle had a plan, a Grand Vision of exactly how to topple Saddam, install Chalabi, and transform Iraq into a land of milk and honey. Then, through some magical osmosis known only to neoconservatives, the rest of the Arab Middle East would follow. Oh, and by the way, while Israel would finally be safe unto eternity, they should hold onto those nukes they don't have (wink, wink) just in case.
God save us from all future visionaries with clear plans to transform the world. . . .
More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/19/9516/2124
The Bush gang repeats its mistakes with Iran, ignoring CIA intelligence that tells them what they don’t want to hear
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/secret-cia-report-no-evidence-that.html
McCain flip-flops on Roe v. Wade
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/19/115038/44
Fiscal sanity: it won’t be easy
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/11/fiscal_gridlock.html
Lazy reporting from the Washington Post
http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2006/11/reporting_please/
Theocracy watch: don’t miss this masterpiece from Garry Wills. As bad as you think the occupation of the Bush policy apparatus by religious activists has been – it’s been worse
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19590
The right wing in America likes to think that the United States government was, at its inception, highly religious, specifically highly Christian, and even more specifically highly biblical. That was not true of that government or any later government—until 2000, when the fiction of the past became the reality of the present. George W. Bush was not only born-again, like Jimmy Carter. His religious conversion came late, and took place in the political setting of Billy Graham's ministry to the powerful. He was converted during a stroll with Graham on his father's Kennebunkport compound. . .
Bush was a saved alcoholic—and here, too, he had no predecessor in the White House. Ulysses Grant conquered the bottle, but not with the help of Jesus. Other presidents were evangelicals. Three of them belonged to the Disciples of Christ—James Garfield, Lyndon Johnson, and Ronald Reagan. But none of the three— nor any of the other forty-two presidents preceding Bush (including his father)—would have answered a campaign debate question as he did. Asked who was his favorite philosopher, he said "Jesus Christ." . . . Bush talks evangelical talk as no other president has, including Jimmy Carter, who also talked the language of the secular Enlightenment culture that evangelists despise. Bush told various evangelical groups that he felt God had called him to run for president in 2000: "I know it won't be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it."
Bush promised his evangelical followers faith-based social services, which he called "compassionate conservatism." He went beyond that to give them a faith-based war, faith-based law enforcement, faith-based education, faith-based medicine, and faith-based science. . .
It is common knowledge that the Republican White House and Congress let "K Street" lobbyists have a say in the drafting of economic legislation, and on the personnel assigned to carry it out, in matters like oil production, pharmaceutical regulation, medical insurance, and corporate taxes. It is less known that for social services, evangelical organizations were given the same right to draft bills and install the officials who implement them. . .
The head of the White House Office of Personnel was Kay Coles James, a former dean of Pat Robertson's Regent University and a former vice-president of Gary Bauer's Family Research Council, the conservative Christian lobbying group that had been set up as the Washington branch of James Dobson's Focus on the Family. She knew whom to put where, or knew the religious right people who knew. An evangelical was in charge of placing evangelicals throughout the bureaucracy. The head lobbyist for the Family Research Council boasted that "a lot of FRC people are in place" in the administration. The evangelicals knew which positions could affect their agenda, whom to replace, and whom they wanted appointed. This was true for the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, and Health and Human Services—agencies that would rule on or administer matters dear to the evangelical causes.
The White House was alive with piety. Evangelical leaders were in and out on a regular basis. There were Bible study groups in the White House, as in John Ashcroft's Justice Department. Over half of the White House staff attended the meetings. One of the first things David Frum heard when he went to work there as a speech writer was: "Missed you at the Bible study." . . [read on!]
More on Republican lying, vote fraud – and what to do about it
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/election_2006_/2006/11/the_phony_fliers_cant_mfume_sue.php
The Nightmare on Florida the 13th
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/19/83113/474
[Georgia 10] The recount in FL-13 is over, and Republican Vern Buchanan leads Democrat Christine Jennings by 369 votes. But it ain't over yet.
For those that haven't followed the race closely, the election in FL-13 can best be summed up by the phrase "the machine ate my vote." Or something like that.
An astounding 18,300 people in Sarasota County, or 13 percent of voters, did not cast a vote for the high-profile congressional race. When a voter does not vote in a particular race, that is called an "undervote." The undervote average in the remaining areas of FL-13? Less than five percent. . .
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/19/21654/343
Meet Kathy Dent. She's the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections in Florida. And she's doing everything she can to prevent election reform.
Earlier this year, election reform groups gathered enough signatures to place a voter-verified paper trail measure on the Sarasota County ballot. Dent, along with other Florida election officials, voiced great opposition to the measure, and they all went to court to have the measure thrown out. The judge in the case sided with election reform groups, and the measure was allowed to go before the voters of Sarasota County. The voters approved the measure. Grudgingly, Dent has now agreed to switch the county to paper ballots.
But paper ballots are for the next election. It's the machines from this election that are still causing headaches in Florida's 13th district. . . Because when you're the Supervisor of Elections and you get to fill out the paperwork, you can make up your own reality. In Dent's world, "machines don't make mistakes", and she's sticking to that story, no matter how fanciful it may be. . .
Bonus item: Mark Kleiman’s new and improved list of areas needing Congressional investigation
http://www.samefacts.com/archives/corruption_in_washington_/2006/11/no_no_no_no_no.php
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
Sunday, November 19, 2006
ENEMIES OF THE STATE
No longer Bush’s poodle?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6160466.stm
Mr Blair was challenged by Sir David over the violence in Iraq, saying it had "so far been pretty much of a disaster".
The prime minister replied: "It has. . .”
Throwing good money after bad
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/another-127-billion-for-iraq-and.html
[USAT] The Bush administration is preparing its largest spending request yet for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a proposal that could make the conflict the most expensive since World War II. . . The Pentagon is considering $127 billion to $160 billion in requests from the armed services for the 2007 fiscal year, which began last month, several lawmakers and congressional staff members said. That's on top of $70 billion already approved for 2007.
[John Aravosis] This is ridiculous. Two-thirds of the "war on terror" money we've spent to date has gone to Iraq - meaning, it was wasted. . .
Well, now they’re just babbling. Condi Rice lectures Iraq (again), tells them to look at Vietnam as a model of reform
http://www.juancole.com/2006/11/18-dead-in-baquba-battle-rice-urges.html
[Juan Cole] Whaaat?
On the disgusting, cynical lie that simulated drowning (waterboarding) isn’t torture
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_12.php#011194
[BL] I served in the Air Force from 1982 to 1988. I was an airborne linguist and, as such, was required to go through survival school at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane. . . Part of survival school was training in interrogation resistance and how to handle oneself in the event of capture by enemy forces. . . . Our trainers were careful to instruct us on the Geneva Conventions and which interrogation techniques were covered and which were illegal. I have a very clear memory of what they said about waterboarding. As I recall, water boarding was classified as torture and was a violation of the Geneva Conventions. They told us about the technique for the simple reason that the North Vietnamese used it on American Forces. They wanted us to know about that technique in case we were ever captured by "scumbags who didn't respect the Geneva Conventions." There were no demonstrations; it was considered too traumatic.
I'm not making this up. The military trainers at our Survival School had nothing but contempt for techniques like this, and we were taught that they were international criminal offenses. We were also warned that there were groups out there who did not respect international law and wouldn't hesitate to use techniques like these to get the information they wanted. . .
Anyone who went through Survival School at the same time I did, in the mid-80's, would have been taught about water boarding and would also have been taught that it was a form of Torture. For the mouthpieces of the current administration to now pretend that waterboarding is somehow acceptable--or even somehow borderline--is a deliberate and methodical deception. I can't speak knowledgably about the interrogation resistance training of the US Military for the last 15 years, but if you were in the service in the 80's and you had any chance of being in a combat risk situation, you went through this training. And every last one of us who has completed this training knows that waterboarding is torture, pure and simple. . .
More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_12.php#011198
The new defense: yes, it’s torture, but we’ve always done things like this (even though “naive idealists” like to pretend we haven’t)
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_12.php#011200
Uh, yep
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/republicans-hate-our-system-of.html
[John Aravosis] Republicans hate the basic underpinnings of that which makes us America. They don't believe in the Constitution. They don't believe in the Bill of Rights. They don't believe in courts of law. They don't believe in anything, accept anything as law in our country, other than the Bible and their will. They are a party of extremist bullies who simply do not believe in America.
Think that’s too extreme? Read this
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9101.html
[Dick Cheney] We’re confident because the Terrorist Surveillance Program rests on firm legal ground. The Joint Authorization to Use Military Force, passed by Congress after 9/11, provides more than enough latitude for these activities. Therefore the warrant requirements of the FISA law do not apply to this wartime measure. And the program falls squarely within the constitutional powers of the President. Every appellate court to rule on this issue has recognized inherent presidential authority to conduct warrantless surveillance to counter threats directed at the country from abroad. . . . [read on]
More: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/11/dick-cheney-at-federalist-society-last.html
[Glenn Greenwald dissects Cheney’s lies, as only he can – don’t miss it]
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/11/18/18622/494
[TChris] Expecting the executive branch to obey the law and respect civil rights is "shortsighted," according to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. "Overreaching" is a good description of the president's asserted power to wiretap the conversations of American citizens on American soil without a warrant, but Gonzales accused a court of "overrreaching" when it declared the administration's warrantless surveillance program unconstitutional.
Gonzales and Cheney's attacks on the court order came as the administration was urging the lame-duck Congress to approve legislation authorizing the warrantless surveillance. The bill's chances are in doubt, however, because of Democratic opposition in the Senate, where 60 votes are required to end debate and vote.
Gonzales wouldn't "speculate" about the administration's response if Congress doesn't give the president the power he craves. Of course he wouldn't. He knows that the administration will continue the surveillance program with or without congressional approval -- and will probably ignore "overreaching" court decisions that attempt to stifle the president's lust for power. . .
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/18/20290/908
[Georgia 10] Apparently, those of us who believe in this definition of freedom are a national security threat. . . .
Gonzales told about 400 cadets from the Air Force Academy's political science and law classes that some see the program as on the verge of stifling freedom rather that protecting the country.
"But this view is shortsighted," he said. "Its definition of freedom one utterly divorced from civic responsibility is superficial and is itself a grave threat to the liberty and security of the American people."
"Grave threat." It's a heavy phrase, one traditionally reserved only for Iran, post-invasion Iraq, and North Korea.
This demonization of ideas which don't square with the notion of an imperial presidency is a failsafe tactic employed by this administration whenever it happens to find itself on shaky legal and ethical footing--which is to say, it's employed quite often. Criticism of the war was dangerous, as now, the mere idea that the government should be obey the Fourth Amendment is a "grave threat" to national security.
Call for oversight and lawfulness in domestic spying do pose a "grave threat"--to the powerful, that is. For it is they who are now finding themselves squirming in court to defend their actions, and it is their job security (and liberty) which is threatened by dissent and calls for investigations.
The day the two towers fell, a fifth column was erected in the eyes of our government. For them, the greatest impediment to the war on terrorism launched that day was never bearded men wagging their fingers on grainy videotapes and promising streets filled with blood, but a vocal citizenry fiercely dedicated to enforcing the rule of law. . . [read on]
The Republicans blasted the filibuster as something sinister when they held the majority -- and even threatened the “nuclear option” of changing the Senate rules to make it illegal. Will it surprise you to hear that now that they’re soon to be in the minority they’re singing a very different tune?
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/gop-senate-leader-mitch-mcconnell-give.html
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9100.html
After carefully cultivating the Latino vote, it only took the Republicans one election to blow it
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/latinos-quit-gop-in-2006.html
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9103.html
Actually, I hope the Republicans KEEP James Inhofe (R-OK), global warming crackpot, as their ranking member on the Senate Environment committee
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_11/010256.php
The Democrats have a real opportunity to change business as usual in Washington. Will they?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/washington/19ethics.html
Their initial proposals, laid out earlier this year, would prohibit members from accepting meals, gifts or travel from lobbyists, require lobbyists to disclose all contacts with lawmakers and bar former lawmakers-turned-lobbyists from entering the floor of the chambers or Congressional gymnasiums.
None of the measures would overhaul campaign financing or create an independent ethics watchdog to enforce the rules. Nor would they significantly restrict earmarks, the pet projects lawmakers can anonymously insert into spending bills, which have figured in several recent corruption scandals and attracted criticism from members in both parties. . .
Go!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/18/AR2006111801001.html
After retrieving control of Congress for the first time in a dozen years, Democrats will set out to redefine the domestic agenda through policies they say would address the economic needs of middle- and working-class Americans. . .
Where do the Dems start their investigations? Here’s a good list
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_11/010259.php
[Ron Suskind, who knows] (a) the energy industry, (b) lying to Congress about domestic issues like global warming and Medicare, (c) lying to the public about Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman, (d) nonterrorists who have been subjects of warrantless wiretaps, and (e) continued incompetence in the intelligence community.
More like this please
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005209.html
[AP] Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who will chair the Senate Judiciary Committee next year, asked the Justice Department to release two newly acknowledged documents, which set U.S. policy on how terrorism suspects are detained and interrogated.
The key role of women in the Democrats’ victory
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/18/164151/94
Why the Dems’ 2006 victory will resonate for years
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116363508819546221
The best and worst of 2006
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/11/18/best_and_worst_of_election_2006.html
More on Michael Steele, rising GOP star (and he’s Black!)
The myth: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/19/05647/409
The reality: http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=598&sid=979655
Fair and balanced?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200611170014
[Jamison Foser] Elections rarely present perfect tests of progressivism versus conservatism. But they are the best way we have of keeping score, and the scoreboard shows that progressives won a resounding victory last week.
Given the magnitude of that victory -- just two years after the media told us that Democrats had become a permanent minority, they won control of both houses of Congress, a majority of governorships, and denied Republicans the pickup of a single congressional district -- we might expect the media to praise the strategic brilliance of the Left, just as they spent much of the past six years lavishing praise on Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman. . .
Given the magnitude of the Republicans' loss, we might expect the journalists and pundits who have so mercilessly mocked Democrats as bumblers and fools, the political equivalent of the Washington Generals, to turn their snide comments and patronizing jokes on the GOP. . . . Better yet, given the thumpin' the GOP took at the hands of progressives -- and given the public's giddy reaction to the election results -- we might expect a rash of news reports about how out of touch the Republican Party is; how its far-right agenda has been rejected; how the GOP is now a regional party, unable to appeal to voters outside of the deep South.
Certainly the Republicans' reaction to last Tuesday's shellacking only feeds into such a narrative. Surveying the smoldering wreckage of the Republican Party . . . and presumably noting that the only one of the "big six" Senate races they won was the one in which they leveled what were widely seen as transparently racist attacks on the Democratic candidate, the Senate Republican caucus chose as its new second-in-command the party's most famous racist, Trent Lott.
We all know how the pundits would chortle if Democrats took an electoral thumpin', then responded by elevating their most liberal members to the party leadership. We'd hear how their policies and their demeanor were anathema to "real Americans" -- and how their reaction to defeat shows just how clueless these effete liberals are.
But those waiting for similar treatment of the GOP at the hands of the nation's political reporters and pundits shouldn't hold their breath. It isn't coming. . .
It's easy enough to look past the obvious, if unintentional, double standard. After all, if the public isn't well-served by the sort of inane, substance-free mockery and derision to which the media have subjected progressives in recent years, such treatment of conservatives would merely even the score, not necessarily constitute a move toward more responsible treatment of serious issues. So we might see the lack of sophomoric taunting as a positive.
That would be a mistake. The political media aren't becoming more responsible; they're simply continuing to direct their scorn at Democrats and progressives. Just this week, media have hyped purported Democratic disarray while downplaying or ignoring altogether GOP infighting; falsely suggested that Nancy Pelosi is as unpopular as President Bush; asserted that Democrats -- who do not yet actually control Congress and won't until next year -- are "starting to feel some of the pressure" of catching Osama bin Laden without explaining how Bush and the GOP let him get away; and suggested that Nancy Pelosi, who hasn't even become speaker of the House yet, is already "damaged goods." . . .
More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3591
Sunday talk show line-ups
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/18/AR2006111801033.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson.
NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN): Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.).
FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Rangel.
MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens.-elect James Webb (D-Va.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.).
LATE EDITION (CNN): Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.); Reps. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.); Sameer Shaker Sumaidaie, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations; Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute; former Pentagon official Kenneth L. Adelman; former White House speechwriter David Frum; and author Seymour Hersh.
Bonus item: Awwww. . . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/washington/19rove.html
Karl Rove, the top White House political strategist, is coming off the worst election defeat of his career to face a daunting task: saving the president’s agenda with a Congress not only controlled by Democrats, but also filled with Republican members resentful of the way he and the White House conducted the losing campaign. . .
White House officials say President Bush has every intention of keeping Mr. Rove on through the rest of his term. And Mr. Rove’s associates say he intends to stay, with the goal of at least salvaging Mr. Bush’s legacy and, in the process, his own. . .
Things have not gotten off to a great start since the election. Democrats are taking Mr. Rove’s continued influence at the White House — as well as some of its recent moves, like nominating conservative judges for the federal bench — as a sign that Mr. Bush’s conciliatory pledges of bipartisanship will prove to be fleeting. . .
Republicans on Capitol Hill said anger ran deep over Mr. Bush’s decision to announce the ouster of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld one day after the election instead of weeks before, when some say it could have kept the Senate in their party’s hands and limited Democratic gains in the House. Mr. Rove was among those at the White House who had argued that to announce Mr. Rumsfeld’s resignation before Election Day would have been tantamount to affirming criticism that the war in Iraq was failing, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.
“There is lingering resentment on that,” Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said of the timing of the announcement. Asked if he expected the White House to take as much of a lead in setting the Congressional agenda as it had in the past, Mr. Flake responded flatly, “No, I don’t.”
More broadly, many Republicans say they blame Mr. Rove for failing to heed warnings that the war was hurting their campaigns, as the president and the vice president continued making the case for it on the stump . . .
The White House seems aware of the apparently limited influence in Congress of Mr. Rove, the aide most closely identified with Mr. Bush. Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff, was dispatched to the Hill this week to hold meetings with members, suggesting that he is likely to play a more prominent role. . .
Awww. . . (part two)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/18/AR2006111801076.html
The weekend after the statue of Saddam Hussein fell, Kenneth Adelman and a couple of other promoters of the Iraq war gathered at Vice President Cheney's residence to celebrate. The invasion had been the "cakewalk" Adelman predicted. Cheney and his guests raised their glasses, toasting President Bush and victory. "It was a euphoric moment," Adelman recalled.
Forty-three months later, the cakewalk looks more like a death march, and Adelman has broken with the Bush team. He had an angry falling-out with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this fall. He and Cheney are no longer on speaking terms. And he believes that "the president is ultimately responsible" for what Adelman now calls "the debacle that was Iraq."
Adelman, a former Reagan administration official and onetime member of the Iraq war brain trust, is only the latest voice from inside the Bush circle to speak out against the president or his policies. Heading into the final chapter of his presidency, fresh from the sting of a midterm election defeat, Bush finds himself with fewer and fewer friends. Some of the strongest supporters of the war have grown disenchanted, former insiders are registering public dissent and Republicans on Capitol Hill blame him for losing Congress. . .
More: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/12/neocons200612
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/061120ta_talk_goldberg
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
No longer Bush’s poodle?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6160466.stm
Mr Blair was challenged by Sir David over the violence in Iraq, saying it had "so far been pretty much of a disaster".
The prime minister replied: "It has. . .”
Throwing good money after bad
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/another-127-billion-for-iraq-and.html
[USAT] The Bush administration is preparing its largest spending request yet for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a proposal that could make the conflict the most expensive since World War II. . . The Pentagon is considering $127 billion to $160 billion in requests from the armed services for the 2007 fiscal year, which began last month, several lawmakers and congressional staff members said. That's on top of $70 billion already approved for 2007.
[John Aravosis] This is ridiculous. Two-thirds of the "war on terror" money we've spent to date has gone to Iraq - meaning, it was wasted. . .
Well, now they’re just babbling. Condi Rice lectures Iraq (again), tells them to look at Vietnam as a model of reform
http://www.juancole.com/2006/11/18-dead-in-baquba-battle-rice-urges.html
[Juan Cole] Whaaat?
On the disgusting, cynical lie that simulated drowning (waterboarding) isn’t torture
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_12.php#011194
[BL] I served in the Air Force from 1982 to 1988. I was an airborne linguist and, as such, was required to go through survival school at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane. . . Part of survival school was training in interrogation resistance and how to handle oneself in the event of capture by enemy forces. . . . Our trainers were careful to instruct us on the Geneva Conventions and which interrogation techniques were covered and which were illegal. I have a very clear memory of what they said about waterboarding. As I recall, water boarding was classified as torture and was a violation of the Geneva Conventions. They told us about the technique for the simple reason that the North Vietnamese used it on American Forces. They wanted us to know about that technique in case we were ever captured by "scumbags who didn't respect the Geneva Conventions." There were no demonstrations; it was considered too traumatic.
I'm not making this up. The military trainers at our Survival School had nothing but contempt for techniques like this, and we were taught that they were international criminal offenses. We were also warned that there were groups out there who did not respect international law and wouldn't hesitate to use techniques like these to get the information they wanted. . .
Anyone who went through Survival School at the same time I did, in the mid-80's, would have been taught about water boarding and would also have been taught that it was a form of Torture. For the mouthpieces of the current administration to now pretend that waterboarding is somehow acceptable--or even somehow borderline--is a deliberate and methodical deception. I can't speak knowledgably about the interrogation resistance training of the US Military for the last 15 years, but if you were in the service in the 80's and you had any chance of being in a combat risk situation, you went through this training. And every last one of us who has completed this training knows that waterboarding is torture, pure and simple. . .
More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_12.php#011198
The new defense: yes, it’s torture, but we’ve always done things like this (even though “naive idealists” like to pretend we haven’t)
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2006_11_12.php#011200
Uh, yep
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/republicans-hate-our-system-of.html
[John Aravosis] Republicans hate the basic underpinnings of that which makes us America. They don't believe in the Constitution. They don't believe in the Bill of Rights. They don't believe in courts of law. They don't believe in anything, accept anything as law in our country, other than the Bible and their will. They are a party of extremist bullies who simply do not believe in America.
Think that’s too extreme? Read this
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9101.html
[Dick Cheney] We’re confident because the Terrorist Surveillance Program rests on firm legal ground. The Joint Authorization to Use Military Force, passed by Congress after 9/11, provides more than enough latitude for these activities. Therefore the warrant requirements of the FISA law do not apply to this wartime measure. And the program falls squarely within the constitutional powers of the President. Every appellate court to rule on this issue has recognized inherent presidential authority to conduct warrantless surveillance to counter threats directed at the country from abroad. . . . [read on]
More: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/11/dick-cheney-at-federalist-society-last.html
[Glenn Greenwald dissects Cheney’s lies, as only he can – don’t miss it]
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/11/18/18622/494
[TChris] Expecting the executive branch to obey the law and respect civil rights is "shortsighted," according to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. "Overreaching" is a good description of the president's asserted power to wiretap the conversations of American citizens on American soil without a warrant, but Gonzales accused a court of "overrreaching" when it declared the administration's warrantless surveillance program unconstitutional.
Gonzales and Cheney's attacks on the court order came as the administration was urging the lame-duck Congress to approve legislation authorizing the warrantless surveillance. The bill's chances are in doubt, however, because of Democratic opposition in the Senate, where 60 votes are required to end debate and vote.
Gonzales wouldn't "speculate" about the administration's response if Congress doesn't give the president the power he craves. Of course he wouldn't. He knows that the administration will continue the surveillance program with or without congressional approval -- and will probably ignore "overreaching" court decisions that attempt to stifle the president's lust for power. . .
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/18/20290/908
[Georgia 10] Apparently, those of us who believe in this definition of freedom are a national security threat. . . .
Gonzales told about 400 cadets from the Air Force Academy's political science and law classes that some see the program as on the verge of stifling freedom rather that protecting the country.
"But this view is shortsighted," he said. "Its definition of freedom one utterly divorced from civic responsibility is superficial and is itself a grave threat to the liberty and security of the American people."
"Grave threat." It's a heavy phrase, one traditionally reserved only for Iran, post-invasion Iraq, and North Korea.
This demonization of ideas which don't square with the notion of an imperial presidency is a failsafe tactic employed by this administration whenever it happens to find itself on shaky legal and ethical footing--which is to say, it's employed quite often. Criticism of the war was dangerous, as now, the mere idea that the government should be obey the Fourth Amendment is a "grave threat" to national security.
Call for oversight and lawfulness in domestic spying do pose a "grave threat"--to the powerful, that is. For it is they who are now finding themselves squirming in court to defend their actions, and it is their job security (and liberty) which is threatened by dissent and calls for investigations.
The day the two towers fell, a fifth column was erected in the eyes of our government. For them, the greatest impediment to the war on terrorism launched that day was never bearded men wagging their fingers on grainy videotapes and promising streets filled with blood, but a vocal citizenry fiercely dedicated to enforcing the rule of law. . . [read on]
The Republicans blasted the filibuster as something sinister when they held the majority -- and even threatened the “nuclear option” of changing the Senate rules to make it illegal. Will it surprise you to hear that now that they’re soon to be in the minority they’re singing a very different tune?
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/gop-senate-leader-mitch-mcconnell-give.html
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9100.html
After carefully cultivating the Latino vote, it only took the Republicans one election to blow it
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/latinos-quit-gop-in-2006.html
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/9103.html
Actually, I hope the Republicans KEEP James Inhofe (R-OK), global warming crackpot, as their ranking member on the Senate Environment committee
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_11/010256.php
The Democrats have a real opportunity to change business as usual in Washington. Will they?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/washington/19ethics.html
Their initial proposals, laid out earlier this year, would prohibit members from accepting meals, gifts or travel from lobbyists, require lobbyists to disclose all contacts with lawmakers and bar former lawmakers-turned-lobbyists from entering the floor of the chambers or Congressional gymnasiums.
None of the measures would overhaul campaign financing or create an independent ethics watchdog to enforce the rules. Nor would they significantly restrict earmarks, the pet projects lawmakers can anonymously insert into spending bills, which have figured in several recent corruption scandals and attracted criticism from members in both parties. . .
Go!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/18/AR2006111801001.html
After retrieving control of Congress for the first time in a dozen years, Democrats will set out to redefine the domestic agenda through policies they say would address the economic needs of middle- and working-class Americans. . .
Where do the Dems start their investigations? Here’s a good list
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_11/010259.php
[Ron Suskind, who knows] (a) the energy industry, (b) lying to Congress about domestic issues like global warming and Medicare, (c) lying to the public about Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman, (d) nonterrorists who have been subjects of warrantless wiretaps, and (e) continued incompetence in the intelligence community.
More like this please
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/005209.html
[AP] Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who will chair the Senate Judiciary Committee next year, asked the Justice Department to release two newly acknowledged documents, which set U.S. policy on how terrorism suspects are detained and interrogated.
The key role of women in the Democrats’ victory
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/11/18/164151/94
Why the Dems’ 2006 victory will resonate for years
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116363508819546221
The best and worst of 2006
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/11/18/best_and_worst_of_election_2006.html
More on Michael Steele, rising GOP star (and he’s Black!)
The myth: http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/19/05647/409
The reality: http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=598&sid=979655
Fair and balanced?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200611170014
[Jamison Foser] Elections rarely present perfect tests of progressivism versus conservatism. But they are the best way we have of keeping score, and the scoreboard shows that progressives won a resounding victory last week.
Given the magnitude of that victory -- just two years after the media told us that Democrats had become a permanent minority, they won control of both houses of Congress, a majority of governorships, and denied Republicans the pickup of a single congressional district -- we might expect the media to praise the strategic brilliance of the Left, just as they spent much of the past six years lavishing praise on Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman. . .
Given the magnitude of the Republicans' loss, we might expect the journalists and pundits who have so mercilessly mocked Democrats as bumblers and fools, the political equivalent of the Washington Generals, to turn their snide comments and patronizing jokes on the GOP. . . . Better yet, given the thumpin' the GOP took at the hands of progressives -- and given the public's giddy reaction to the election results -- we might expect a rash of news reports about how out of touch the Republican Party is; how its far-right agenda has been rejected; how the GOP is now a regional party, unable to appeal to voters outside of the deep South.
Certainly the Republicans' reaction to last Tuesday's shellacking only feeds into such a narrative. Surveying the smoldering wreckage of the Republican Party . . . and presumably noting that the only one of the "big six" Senate races they won was the one in which they leveled what were widely seen as transparently racist attacks on the Democratic candidate, the Senate Republican caucus chose as its new second-in-command the party's most famous racist, Trent Lott.
We all know how the pundits would chortle if Democrats took an electoral thumpin', then responded by elevating their most liberal members to the party leadership. We'd hear how their policies and their demeanor were anathema to "real Americans" -- and how their reaction to defeat shows just how clueless these effete liberals are.
But those waiting for similar treatment of the GOP at the hands of the nation's political reporters and pundits shouldn't hold their breath. It isn't coming. . .
It's easy enough to look past the obvious, if unintentional, double standard. After all, if the public isn't well-served by the sort of inane, substance-free mockery and derision to which the media have subjected progressives in recent years, such treatment of conservatives would merely even the score, not necessarily constitute a move toward more responsible treatment of serious issues. So we might see the lack of sophomoric taunting as a positive.
That would be a mistake. The political media aren't becoming more responsible; they're simply continuing to direct their scorn at Democrats and progressives. Just this week, media have hyped purported Democratic disarray while downplaying or ignoring altogether GOP infighting; falsely suggested that Nancy Pelosi is as unpopular as President Bush; asserted that Democrats -- who do not yet actually control Congress and won't until next year -- are "starting to feel some of the pressure" of catching Osama bin Laden without explaining how Bush and the GOP let him get away; and suggested that Nancy Pelosi, who hasn't even become speaker of the House yet, is already "damaged goods." . . .
More: http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/3591
Sunday talk show line-ups
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/18/AR2006111801033.html
FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
THIS WEEK (ABC): Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson.
NEWSMAKERS (C-SPAN): Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.).
FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Rangel.
MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens.-elect James Webb (D-Va.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.).
LATE EDITION (CNN): Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.); Reps. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.); Sameer Shaker Sumaidaie, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations; Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute; former Pentagon official Kenneth L. Adelman; former White House speechwriter David Frum; and author Seymour Hersh.
Bonus item: Awwww. . . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/washington/19rove.html
Karl Rove, the top White House political strategist, is coming off the worst election defeat of his career to face a daunting task: saving the president’s agenda with a Congress not only controlled by Democrats, but also filled with Republican members resentful of the way he and the White House conducted the losing campaign. . .
White House officials say President Bush has every intention of keeping Mr. Rove on through the rest of his term. And Mr. Rove’s associates say he intends to stay, with the goal of at least salvaging Mr. Bush’s legacy and, in the process, his own. . .
Things have not gotten off to a great start since the election. Democrats are taking Mr. Rove’s continued influence at the White House — as well as some of its recent moves, like nominating conservative judges for the federal bench — as a sign that Mr. Bush’s conciliatory pledges of bipartisanship will prove to be fleeting. . .
Republicans on Capitol Hill said anger ran deep over Mr. Bush’s decision to announce the ouster of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld one day after the election instead of weeks before, when some say it could have kept the Senate in their party’s hands and limited Democratic gains in the House. Mr. Rove was among those at the White House who had argued that to announce Mr. Rumsfeld’s resignation before Election Day would have been tantamount to affirming criticism that the war in Iraq was failing, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.
“There is lingering resentment on that,” Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, said of the timing of the announcement. Asked if he expected the White House to take as much of a lead in setting the Congressional agenda as it had in the past, Mr. Flake responded flatly, “No, I don’t.”
More broadly, many Republicans say they blame Mr. Rove for failing to heed warnings that the war was hurting their campaigns, as the president and the vice president continued making the case for it on the stump . . .
The White House seems aware of the apparently limited influence in Congress of Mr. Rove, the aide most closely identified with Mr. Bush. Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff, was dispatched to the Hill this week to hold meetings with members, suggesting that he is likely to play a more prominent role. . .
Awww. . . (part two)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/18/AR2006111801076.html
The weekend after the statue of Saddam Hussein fell, Kenneth Adelman and a couple of other promoters of the Iraq war gathered at Vice President Cheney's residence to celebrate. The invasion had been the "cakewalk" Adelman predicted. Cheney and his guests raised their glasses, toasting President Bush and victory. "It was a euphoric moment," Adelman recalled.
Forty-three months later, the cakewalk looks more like a death march, and Adelman has broken with the Bush team. He had an angry falling-out with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this fall. He and Cheney are no longer on speaking terms. And he believes that "the president is ultimately responsible" for what Adelman now calls "the debacle that was Iraq."
Adelman, a former Reagan administration official and onetime member of the Iraq war brain trust, is only the latest voice from inside the Bush circle to speak out against the president or his policies. Heading into the final chapter of his presidency, fresh from the sting of a midterm election defeat, Bush finds himself with fewer and fewer friends. Some of the strongest supporters of the war have grown disenchanted, former insiders are registering public dissent and Republicans on Capitol Hill blame him for losing Congress. . .
More: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/12/neocons200612
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/061120ta_talk_goldberg
***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).
I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
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