Labels: Iraq

Labels: Mitt Romney

Labels: bloggers, Keith Olbermann

When Barbara Bush took her 13-year-old son and his best friend, Doug Hannah, to play golf at her Houston club, George would start cursing if he didn't tee off well. His mother would tell him to quit it. By the third or fourth hole he would be yelling "Fuck this" until he had ensured that his mother would send him to the car.

"It fit his needs," says Hannah. "He couldn't lose."

Once, after his mother banished him from the golf course, she turned to Hannah and declared, "That boy is going to have optical rectosis." What did that mean? "She said, 'A shitty outlook on life.'"

Even if he loses, his friends say, he doesn't lose. He'll just change the score, or change the rules, or make his opponent play until he can beat him. "If you were playing basketball and you were playing to 11 and he was down, you went to 15," says Hannah, now a Dallas insurance executive. "If he wasn't winning, he would quit. He would just walk off.… It's what we called Bush Effort: If I don't like the game, I take my ball and go home. Very few people can get away with that." So why could George get away with it? "He was just too easygoing and too pleasant."

Another fast friend, Roland Betts, acknowledges that it is the same in tennis. In November 1992, Bush and Betts were in Santa Fe to host a dinner party, but they had just enough time for one set of doubles. The former Yale classmates were on opposite sides of the net. "There was only one problem—my side won the first set," recalls Betts. "O.K., then we're going two out of three," Bush decreed. Bush's side takes the next set. But Betts's side is winning the third set when it starts to snow. Hard, fat flakes. The catering truck pulls up. But Bush won't let anybody quit. "He's pissed. George runs his mouth constantly," says Betts indulgently. "He's making fun of your last shot, mocking you, needling you, goading you—he never shuts up!" They continued to play tennis through a driving snowstorm.

It is something of an in-joke with Bush's friends and family. "In reality we all know who won, but George wants to go further to see what happens," says an old family friend, venture capitalist and former MGM chairman Louis "Bo" Polk Jr. "George would say, 'Play that one over,' or 'I wasn't quite ready.' The overtimes are what's fun, so you make your own. When you go that extra mile or that extra point … you go to a whole new level."

U.S. military commanders said Friday the troop buildup in Iraq must be maintained until at least next summer and they may need as long as two years to ensure parts of the country are stable.

The battlefield generals' pleas for more time come in the face of growing impatience in the United States and a push on Capitol Hill to begin withdrawing U.S. troops as soon as this fall.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, said in an interview that if the buildup is reversed before next summer, the military will risk giving up the security gains it has achieved at a cost of hundreds of American lives over the past six months.

"It's going to take through summer, into the fall, to defeat the extremists in my battle space, and it's going to take me into next spring and summer to generate this sustained security presence," said Lynch, who commands U.S. forces south of Baghdad.

U.S. forces are working to build the Iraq military's ability to hold the gains made during the latest combat operations.

The White House said it still expects top commanders to deliver a report in September assessing the progress in Iraq, including whether the Iraqi government and its security forces have met 18 political and security benchmarks.

Labels: George W. Bush

Nothing unites the Republican candidates for president or excites the conservative base more than their bellicose barking about war and confrontation. The GOP presidential debates often sound like a tough-man competition, with Rudolph Giuliani denouncing the "cut-and-run" Democrats, Mitt Romney demanding a double-size Guantánamo detention camp, and the rest of the pack struggling to keep pace with the snarling alpha dogs.

Yet while their rhetoric is invariably loud and aggressive, none of these martial orators has seen a day of military service -- except for John McCain, whose prospects are rapidly deflating, and Duncan Hunter, whose campaign never got enough air for a single balloon. Unfortunately for those two decorated veterans, their party seems to prefer its hawks to be of the chicken variety.

None of this may matter much. Most of the Democratic candidates lack military experience, too. But when the most belligerent Republicans start to beat the war drums, it's important to look at what they're trying to hide.

Consider Giuliani, the former New York mayor who has remained among the most vocal supporters of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He never hesitates to suggest that politicians with differing opinions simply lack guts. When he spoke at the 2004 Republican convention, he gleefully insinuated that Democratic nominee John Kerry lacked the fortitude to combat terrorism. Now he denigrates the supposedly spineless Democrats running for president in 2008.

But he has always confined his enthusiasm for war to podium speeches and position papers. Born in 1944, young Rudy was highly eligible for military service when he reached his 20s during the Vietnam War. He did not volunteer for combat -- as Kerry did -- and instead found a highly creative way to dodge the draft.

During his years as an undergraduate at Manhattan College and then at New York University Law School, Giuliani qualified for a student deferment. Upon graduation from law school in 1968, he lost that temporary deferment and his draft status reverted to 1-A, the designation awarded to those most qualified for induction into the Army.

At the same time, Giuliani won a clerkship with federal Judge Lloyd McMahon in the fabled Southern District of New York, where he would become the United States attorney. He naturally had no desire to trade his ticket on the legal profession's fast track for latrine duty in the jungle. So he quickly applied for another deferment based on his judicial clerkship. This time the Selective Service System denied his claim.

That was when the desperate Giuliani prevailed upon his boss to write to the draft board, asking them to grant him a fresh deferment and reclassification as an "essential" civilian employee. As the great tabloid columnist Jimmy Breslin noted 20 years later, during the former prosecutor's first campaign for mayor: "Giuliani did not attend the war in Vietnam because federal Judge Lloyd MacMahon [sic] wrote a letter to the draft board in 1969 and got him out. Giuliani was a law clerk for MacMahon, who at the time was hearing Selective Service cases. MacMahon's letter to Giuliani's draft board stated that Giuliani was so necessary as a law clerk that he could not be allowed to get shot at in Vietnam."

[snip]

If Giuliani has a draft problem, Romney's may be even worse. The former Massachusetts governor, whose supporters object strenuously to any discussion of his religious beliefs, got his military service deferred thanks to the Mormon church.

Like Giuliani and millions of other young American men at the time, Romney started out with student deferments. But he left Stanford after only two semesters in 1966 and would have become eligible for the draft -- except that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Michigan, his home state, provided him with a fresh deferment as a missionary. According to an excellent investigative series that appeared last month in the Boston Globe, that deferment, which described Romney as a "minister of religion or divinity student," protected him from the draft between July 1966 and February 1969, when he enrolled in Brigham Young University to complete his undergraduate degree. Mormons in each state could select a limited number of young men upon whom to confer missionary status during the Vietnam years, and Romney was fortunate enough to be chosen. (Coincidentally, or possibly not, Mitt's father, George W. Romney, was governor of Michigan at the time.)

Now Romney echoes Giuliani by asserting that if he had been called, he would have served. "I was supportive of my country," he told Globe reporter Michael Kranish. "I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam and be representing our country there and in some ways it was frustrating not to feel like I was there as part of the troops that were fighting in Vietnam." Perhaps. But it is hard to blame Romney for choosing missionary work over military service. After all, the Mormons didn't send him to proselytize in the slums of the Philippines, Guatemala or Kenya.

They sent him to France.

This, sir, is your war.

Sen. Clinton has reinforced enemy propaganda? Made it impossible for you to get your ego-driven, blood-steeped win in Iraq?

Then take it into your own hands, Mr. Bush.

Go to Baghdad now and fulfill, finally, your military service obligations.

Go there and fight, your war. Yourself.

Labels: chickenhawks, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani

In a coordinated public relations offensive, the White House is using reliably friendly pundits — amazingly, they still exist — to put out the word that President Bush is as upbeat and confident as ever. It might even be true.

What I don’t understand is why we’re supposed to consider Mr. Bush’s continuing confidence a good thing.

Remember, Mr. Bush was confident six years ago when he promised to bring in Osama, dead or alive. He was confident four years ago, when he told the insurgents to bring it on. He was confident two years ago, when he told Brownie that he was doing a heckuva job.

Now Iraq is a bloody quagmire, Afghanistan is deteriorating and the Bush administration’s own National Intelligence Estimate admits, in effect, that thanks to Mr. Bush’s poor leadership America is losing the struggle with Al Qaeda. Yet Mr. Bush remains confident.

Sorry, but that’s not reassuring; it’s terrifying. It doesn’t demonstrate Mr. Bush’s strength of character; it shows that he has lost touch with reality.

Actually, it’s not clear that he ever was in touch with reality. I wrote about the Bush administration’s “infallibility complex,” its inability to admit mistakes or face up to real problems it didn’t want to deal with, in June 2002. Around the same time Ron Suskind, the investigative journalist, had a conversation with a senior Bush adviser who mocked the “reality-based community,” asserting that “when we act, we create our own reality.”

People who worried that the administration was living in a fantasy world used to be dismissed as victims of “Bush derangement syndrome,” liberals driven mad by Mr. Bush’s success. Now, however, it’s a syndrome that has spread even to former loyal Bushies.

Yet while Mr. Bush no longer has many true believers, he still has plenty of enablers — people who understand the folly of his actions, but refuse to do anything to stop him.

Labels: Paul Krugman

Sorry, Thomas. Anything having to do with green technology can be outsourced in about five minutes. Our "high-wage engineers and programmers" can make their innovative designs, than pass the work on to H-1B tech workers here in the US or to tech workers throughout the world for implementation or further refinements. And does Friedman really think that the nuts and bolts manufacturing of these contraptions will never be outsourced overseas? The total output of our "green collar" Americans would hardly even be measurable in our GDP statistics.

[snip]

Are we supposed to advise our students to enter into "green collar" professions the way we advised them to enter into engineering and computer sciences in 1990? In the year 2020, would we be advising these same students to re-invent themselves and retrain themselves for other professions?

Labels: idiocy, outsourcing, Thomas Friedman

Labels: music

Labels: bloggers

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has suppressed warnings from its own Gulf coast field workers since the middle of 2006 about suspected health problems that may be linked to elevated levels of formaldehyde gas released in FEMA-provided trailers, lawmakers said today.

At a hearing this morning of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, investigators released internal e-mails indicating that FEMA lawyers rejected environmental testing out of fear that the agency would then become legally liable if health problems emerged among as many as 120,000 families displaced by Hurricane Katrina who lived in trailers.

FEMA's Office of General Counsel "has advised that we do not do testing," because this "would imply FEMA's ownership of this issue," wrote a FEMA logistics specialist on June 16, 2006, three months after news reports surfaced about the possible effects of the invisible cancer-causing compound and one month after the agency was sued.

Another FEMA attorney on June 15 advised, "[d]o not initiate any testing until we give the OK. . . . Once you get results and should they indicate some problem, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them."

Committee Chairman Henry L. Waxman (D-Calif.) called FEMA's bureaucratic neglect of storm victims "sickening."

Nearly 5,000 pages of documents turned over to the committee "expose an official policy of premeditated ignorance," Waxman charged. "Senior officials in Washington didn't want to know what they already knew, because they didn't want the legal and moral responsibility to do what they knew had to be done."

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said FEMA obstructed the 10-month committee investigation and "mischaracterized the scope and purpose" of the agency's actions.

"FEMA's reaction to the problem was deliberately stunted to bolster the agency's litigation position," Davis said. The documents "make it appear FEMA's primary concerns were legal liability and public relations, not human health and safety."

About 60,000 households affected by Katrina remain in trailers.

The Pentagon told Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton that her questions about how the U.S. plans to eventually withdraw from Iraq boosts enemy propaganda.

In a stinging rebuke to a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman responded to questions Clinton raised in May in which she urged the Pentagon to start planning now for the withdrawal of American forces.

A copy of Edelman's response, dated July 16, was obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

"Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia," Edelman wrote.

He added that "such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks."

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004. I hereby order:

Section 1. (a) Except to the extent provided in section 203(b)(1), (3), and (4) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(1), (3), and (4)), or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the date of this order, all property and interests in property of the following persons, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense,

(i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of:

(A) threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq; or

(B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people;

(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or

(iii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.

(b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.

Sec. 2. (a) Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.

(b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.

Sec. 3. For purposes of this order:

(a) the term "person" means an individual or entity;

(b) the term "entity" means a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization; and

(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.

Sec. 4. I hereby determine that the making of donations of the type specified in section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)) by, to, or for the benefit of, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by section 1 of this order.

Sec. 5. For those persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that, because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 1(a) of this order.

Sec. 6. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, is hereby authorized to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may redelegate any of these functions to other officers and agencies of the United States Government, consistent with applicable law. All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order and, where appropriate, to advise the Secretary of the Treasury in a timely manner of the measures taken.

Sec. 7. Nothing in this order is intended to affect the continued effectiveness of any rules, regulations, orders, licenses, or other forms of administrative action issued, taken, or continued in effect heretofore or hereafter under 31 C.F.R. chapter V, except as expressly terminated, modified, or suspended by or pursuant to this order.

Sec. 8. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right, benefit, or privilege, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers or employees, or any other person.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,

July 17, 2007.

The selection of the wrong war, in the wrong time, in the wrong place the most disastrous a geo-political tactic since Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia in 1914 and destroyed itself in the process that had nothing to do with the overwhelming crisis Iraq has become it isn't Mr. Bush's fault.

The criminal lack of planning for the war the total "jump-off-a-bridge-and-hope-you-can-fly" tone to the failure to anticipate what would follow the deposing of Saddam Hussein that had nothing to do with the chaos in which Iraq has been envelopped it isn't Mr. Bush's fault.

The utter, blinkered idiocy of "staying the course", of sending Americans to Iraq, and sending them a second time, and a third, and a fourth, until they get killed or maimed the utter de-prioritization of human life, simply so a politician can avoid having to admit a mistake that had nothing to do with the tens of thousand individual tragedies darkening the lives of American families, forever it isn't Mr. Bush's fault.

The continuing, relentless, remorseless, corrupt and cynical insistence that this conflict somehow is defeating, or containing, or just engaging the people who attacked us on 9/11 the total "Alice Through The Looking Glass" quality that ignores that in Iraq, we have made the world safer for Al-Qaeda it isn't Mr. Bush's fault!

The fault, brought down as if a sermon from this mount of hypocrisy and slaughter ,by an nearly anonymous Under-Secretary of Defense the fault has tonight been laid on the doorstep of Senator Hillary Clinton and, by extension, at the doorstep of every American the now vast majority of us who have dared to criticize this war or protest it or merely ask questions about it or simply, plaintively, innocently, honestly, plead "don't take my son; don't take my daughter."

Labels: domestic terrorism, George W. Bush, totalitarianism

Labels: blogging

Labels: bloggers

In the National Intelligence Estimate titled "The Terrorist Threat to the Homeland," which was released Tuesday, there's an intriguing section that suggests an impending push for more domestic surveillance.

Most of the report (which I analyzed here) concerns an alleged resurgence of al-Qaida. But toward the end, the authors mention a small but expanding number of "violent Islamic extremists inside the United States" who are "becoming more connected ideologically, virtually, and/or in a physical sense to the global extremist movement."

The report also notes dangers posed by "non-Muslim terrorist groups," "single-issue groups," and "even small numbers of alienated people" who might "find and connect with one another, justify and intensify their anger, and mobilize resources to attack—all without requiring a centralized terrorist organization, training camp, or leader."

---

---

Then comes the point:

The ability to detect broader and more diverse terrorist plotting in this environment will challenge current U.S. defensive efforts and the tools we use to detect and disrupt plots. It will also require greater understanding of how suspect activities at the local level relate to strategic threat information and how best to identify indicators of terrorist activity in the midst of legitimate interactions.

One aspect of this is uncontroversial—the need to integrate city and state law enforcement ("suspect activities at the local level") to national watch lists and other databases ("strategic threat information"). This effort falls under the Department of Homeland Security, and it's a disgrace that, with such a large budget, nobody has yet devised a systematic method of doing this.

However, the other part of this passage ("how best to identify indicators of terrorist activity in the midst of legitimate interactions") pushes a very hot button.

A year and a half ago, passionate arguments broke out over reports about the National Security Agency's "data-mining" technologies. A couple of years earlier, the Pentagon attempted to fund a still-more intrusive program called the "Total Information Awareness" network. (The latter effort failed, but the concept was almost certainly re-routed to the NSA or elsewhere.) Concerns were raised about privacy rights, the abuse of power, and the worth of such networks to begin with.

Judging from the NIE (not just from these key passages but from its general assessment of a "persistent and evolving terrorist threat"), the debate over these vast surveillance systems will soon be renewed. So, it's worth making some distinctions that tended not to be made the last time around, at least in much of the public discussion.

The key distinction is the one between data-mining and wiretapping.

In data-mining, the NSA casts a vast "net" across the global communications system, encompassing, at least in theory, every phone call, e-mail, electronic signal, and so forth. The idea is not to monitor all these calls (there's not enough time or manpower to do that, in any case) but rather to detect patterns. If someone makes or receives a number of calls to or from, say, Pakistan, Iraq, or Syria—or if someone is in frequent contact with someone else who makes or receives such calls—this pattern would set off alarm bells. At that point, an intelligence officer might want to start monitoring that person or those people to see who they are, what they're doing, and whether anything about them or their behavior seems ominous.

I don't think anyone, other than libertarians, should have a problem with this sort of data-mining. Nor do I think there should be a problem with the idea of monitoring people whose calling patterns set off alarm bells.

Labels: Bush Administration, totalitarianism

President Bush yesterday rejected entreaties by his Republican allies that he compromise with Democrats on legislation to renew a popular program that provides health coverage to poor children, saying that expanding the program would enlarge the role of the federal government at the expense of private insurance.

The president said he objects on philosophical grounds to a bipartisan Senate proposal to boost the State Children's Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over five years. Bush has proposed $5 billion in increased funding and has threatened to veto the Senate compromise and a more costly expansion being contemplated in the House.

"I support the initial intent of the program," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post after a factory tour and a discussion on health care with small-business owners in Landover. "My concern is that when you expand eligibility . . . you're really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government."

The 10-year-old program, which is set to expire on Sept. 30, costs the federal government $5 billion a year and helps provide health coverage to 6.6 million low-income children whose families do not qualify for Medicaid but cannot afford private insurance on their own.

About 3.3 million additional children would be covered under the proposal developed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Republican Sens. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) and Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), among others. It would provide the program $60 billion over five years, compared with $30 billion under Bush's proposal. And it would rely on a 61-cent increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes, to $1 a pack, which Bush opposes.

[snip]

A recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the program would require about $14 billion in new money over five years -- on top of the current $5 billion in annual funding -- merely to keep covering the same number of children, in part because of rising health-care costs. Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt, accompanying Bush yesterday, said: "We disagree with that number."

Labels: health care

" I was very reluctant to write this letter because it is so negative, but I've reached the point in which I can no longer stay silent. With your last column, I've decided to stop reading WorldNetDaily. That fact probably means nothing to you since I've never been able to support you financially. But it means something to me. For over eight years I have faithfully read WND every day. I trusted you. I believed you.

To suggest that the press coverage of Abu Ghraib and the reduction of "interrogation" has caused us to "lose" (support for) the war is nonsense. We are losing in Iraq because we haven't defined the enemy and we aren't there to "win." What would winning look like, anyway? This undeclared "war" was never meant to be "won," but to secure a large American presence in Iraq. And why do you and all of the other so-called "conservative" news media ignore the president of Iraq's statement that they are ready for us to leave?

You and others who claim to stand for conservative Christians have gone down that terrible road of endorsing deception, violence and fiscal irresponsibility to justify the actions of a president (whom I voted for twice) who is not only out of touch with his country, but close to becoming our first dictator.

Now the drumbeats are calling for us to "take care of" Iran next. Hitler had his scapegoat in the Jews and Bush has his in the Muslims. And my fellow Christians are happily following him down a terrible path laced with lies, torture, violence and genocide. After it is all over and the dust has cleared, what will we do when they tell the world that the Christians are now the enemy? Haven't we learned anything from history? When we condemn and entire group of people for the actions of a few, we are no better than those who have turned away from God.

You and the others who support the evolution of our political process into essentially a one-party system are guilty of contributing to the destruction of our beloved republic. I am so sorry that you of all people bought into this madness. I really used to enjoy reading WND, but now I've deleted it from my database because you have become like the rest of the people who claim to follow Jesus: You lust for war, violence, torture and injustice. You will say anything to justify these things, which you know go against the teachings of Jesus. Which Jesus supports these things? Not the Jesus I follow, and I have been a Bible-believing traditional conservative Christian for 24 years. Go ahead and rationalize it all you want. We all have to answer to God for our actions, and I will no longer stand with my fellow Christians and endorse this insanity because after four years, I have come to the conclusion that we were deceived right from the start."

Labels: Dick Cheney, dictatorship, George W. Bush

Both men are hawks who defy the international community, scorn the U.N. and are unpopular at home because of incompetence and recklessness — and each finds justification in the extremism of the other.

“Iranians refer to their new political radicals as ‘neoconservatives,’ with multiple layers of deliberate irony,” notes Gary Sick, an Iran specialist at Columbia University, adding: “The hotheads around President Ahmadinejad’s office and the U.S. foreign policy radicals who cluster around Vice President Cheney’s office, listen to each other, cite each others’ statements and goad each other to new excesses on either side.”

So one of the perils in the final 18 months of the Bush administration is that Mr. Cheney and Mr. Ahmadinejad will escalate provocations, ending up with airstrikes by the U.S. against Iranian nuclear sites.

Already we’re seeing a series of leaks about Iran that echo leaks in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The reports say that Iran is turning a blind eye to Al Qaeda, is using Hezbollah to wage a proxy war against U.S. forces in Iraq, is transferring bomb-making skills to Iraq insurgents and is handing out armor-piercing bullets to fighters in Iran and Afghanistan so as to kill more Americans.

Yet the jingoists aren’t all in our government: These leaks may well all be accurate, for Mr. Ahmadinejad is a perfect match for Mr. Cheney in his hawkishness and contempt for the international community.

It’s worrying that Iran has just recalled its most able diplomat — Javad Zarif, ambassador to the U.N. — and sent him out to pasture as an academic. Hard-liners always hated Mr. Zarif; goons from a mysterious Iranian security agency detained me on my last trip to Tehran and accused me of being a C.I.A. or Mossad spy, apparently because they were trying to get dirt to use against Mr. Zarif (who had given me my visa).

Mr. Zarif’s departure last week suggests that Mr. Ahmadinejad doesn’t plan to solve his nuclear confrontation with the West through diplomacy.

[snip]

A recent opinion poll in Iran found that 70 percent of Iranians want to normalize relations with the U.S., and 61 percent oppose the current Iranian system of government. Any visitor to Iran knows that it is — at a people-to-people level — the most pro-American Muslim country in the region, and the regime is as out of touch and moribund as the shah’s was in the late 1970s.

The ayatollahs’ only hope is that we will rescue them with a military strike, which would cement them in place for many years to come. But look out, because that’s what may happen if bilateral relations are driven by those jingoistic twins, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Labels: Dick Cheney, Iran

Labels: movies

Labels: blogging

Labels: George W. Bush, idiocy

Labels: Iraq

A handful of Republicans who have distanced themselves from President Bush on the war in Iraq refused Tuesday to back a plan to withdraw American troops from the conflict, leaving Senate Democrats short of the support needed to force a vote on their proposal.

As the Senate headed into an all-night session complete with cots in Capitol meeting rooms and an antiwar vigil across the street, some Republicans who have gone public with their complaints about the war strategy also weighed in against the Democratic withdrawal plan as ill advised and driven mainly by partisan considerations.

“You wonder if they are more interested in politics than dealing with the substance of this,” said Senator George V. Voinovich, Republican of Ohio.

Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, labeled the Democratic plan calling for a troop pullout to begin within 120 days vague and unenforceable.

“If it did pass, it would lead to chaos in Iraq and a dramatic increase in casualties,” said Mr. Gregg, who is backing an alternative plan that incorporates the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

Senators Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, two senior Republicans who recently delivered a high-profile criticism of the administration’s Iraq policy, also planned to oppose the Democratic plan, aides said.

But leading Democrats and three Republicans who have joined them in pushing for the withdrawal portrayed the proposal as the most concrete of the competing plans circulating in the Senate and the surest way to force a change in administration policy.

Labels: Iraq

President Bush’s top counterterrorism advisers acknowledged today that the strategy for fighting Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan had failed, as the White House released a grim new intelligence assessment that has forced the administration to consider more aggressive measures inside Pakistan.

The intelligence report, the most formal assessment since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks about the terrorist threat facing the United States, concludes that the United States is losing ground on a number of fronts in the fight against Al Qaeda, and describes the terrorist organization as having significantly strengthened over the past two years.

In identifying the main reasons for Al Qaeda’s resurgence, intelligence officials and White House aides pointed the finger squarely at a hands-off approach toward the tribal areas by Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who last year brokered a cease-fire with tribal leaders in an attempt to drain support for Islamic extremism in the region.

“It hasn’t worked for Pakistan,” said Frances Fragos Townsend, who heads the Homeland Security Council at the White House. “It hasn’t worked for the United States.”

While Bush administration officials had reluctantly endorsed the cease-fire as part of their effort to prop up the Pakistani leader, they expressed relief today that General Musharraf may have to abandon that approach as the accord now appears to have unraveled.

But American officials make little secret of their skepticism that General Musharraf has the capability to be effective in the mountainous territory along the Afghan border, where his troops have been bloodied before by a mix of Al Qaeda leaders and tribes that view the territory as their own, not part of Pakistan.

[snip]

Ms. Townsend declined to describe what may be alternative strategies for dealing with Al Qaeda’s threat in Pakistan, but acknowledged frustration that Al Qaeda had succeeding in rebuilding its infrastructure and its links to affiliates, while keeping Mr. bin Laden and his top lieutenants alive for nearly six years since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The intelligence report, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, represents the consensus view of all 16 spy agencies that make up the American intelligence community. The report concluded that the United States will face a “persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years.”

Oh, as it turns out, they’re not on the run.

And, oh yeah, they can fight us here even if we fight them there.

And oh, one more thing, after spending hundreds of billions and losing all those lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’re more vulnerable to terrorists than ever.

And, um, you know that Dead-or-Alive stuff? We may be the ones who end up dead.

Squirming White House officials had to confront the fact yesterday that everything President Bush has been spouting the last six years about Al Qaeda being on the run, disrupted and weakened was just guff.

Last year, W. called his “personal friend” Gen. Pervez Musharraf “a strong defender of freedom.” Unfortunately, it turned out to be Al Qaeda’s freedom. The White House is pinning the blame on Pervez.

While the administration lavishes billions on Pakistan, including $750 million in a risible attempt to win “hearts and minds” in tribal areas where Al Qaeda leaders are hiding and training, President Musharraf has helped create a quiet mountain retreat, a veritable terrorism spa, for Osama and Ayman al-Zawahiri to refresh themselves and get back in shape.

The administration’s most thorough intelligence assessment since 9/11 is stark and dark. Two pages add up to one message: The Bushies blew it. Al Qaeda has exploded into a worldwide state of mind. Because of what’s going on with Iraq and Iran, Hezbollah may now “be more likely to consider” attacking us. Al Qaeda will try to “put operatives here” — (some news reports say a cell from Pakistan already is en route or has arrived) — and “acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear material in attacks.”

(Democrats on cots are ineffectual, but Al Qaeda in caves gets the job done?)

[snip]

Just as we outsourced capturing Osama at Tora Bora to Afghans who had no motive to do it, we outsourced capturing Osama in Pakistan to Mr. Musharraf, who had no motive to do it.

Pressed by reporters on why we haven’t captured Osama, especially if he’s climbing around with a dialysis machine, Ms. Townsend sniffed that she wished “it were that easy.” It’s not easy to launch a trumped-up war to reshape the Middle East into a utopian string of democracies, but that didn’t stop W. from making that audacious gambit.

The Bushies, who once mocked Bill Clinton for doing only “pinprick” bombings on Al Qaeda, now say they can do nothing about Osama because they can’t “pinpoint” him, as Ms. Townsend put it. She assured reporters that they were “harassing” Al Qaeda, making it sound more like a tugging-on-pigtails strategy than a take-no-prisoners strategy.

[snip]

W. swaggers about with his cowboy boots and gunslinger stance. But when talking about Waziristan last February, he explained that it was hard to round up the Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders there because: “This is wild country; this is wilder than the Wild West.”

Yes, they shoot with real bullets up there, and they fly into buildings with real planes.

If W. were a real cowboy, instead of somebody who just plays one on TV, he would have cleaned up Dodge by now.

Labels: George W. Bush, incompetence, Osama bin Laden, terrorism

You're here in San Francisco again for another gay rights event. Why do you support gay marriage? Why not civil unions?

I remember hearing [former GOP Sen. Rick] Santorum ranting about how homosexual marriage threatens heterosexual marriage. I could be wrong, but I think heterosexual marriage is threatened more by heterosexuals. I don't know why gay marriage challenges my marriage in any way.

But your husband feels differently; he's a civil unions guy.

Well, I think it's a struggle for him, having grown up in a Southern Baptist church where it was pounded into him. I was raised a Methodist in military churches. Poverty was talked about; I don't remember homosexuality ever being mentioned. And I don't think that Christians who aren't engaged in a political campaign ever talk about it. They talk about poverty and other issues talked about in the Bible. But in churches, in political season, there's plenty of ginning up this issue.

You came to San Francisco and gave a speech before the gay pride parade, but then you were criticized for not being on a float or marching in the parade ...

I don't care, it doesn't matter to me. People who are going to be critical about that probably aren't for my husband to begin with. But honestly, it would be an enormous luxury to come here and do a full-day event, for anything. We went to a town festival in Iowa, and they had things going on all day and we went for an hour, and then we're on to the next thing. We never get to come to an event and stay for all the activities.

I'm going to talk to you about the poverty tour, but I do have to spend five minutes on Ann Coulter. When we write about her on Salon, we have a smart, vocal minority of readers who say, Why do you bother? Why give her attention?

I've heard that too, I got that when I made the call.

So why did you bother to phone in?

Ignoring the fact that she exists doesn't make her go away. If it did, you wouldn't hear me utter her name. So I think maybe the better thing to do is simply confront people like her. Are you going to stop them? Under no circumstances will you stop them. But maybe you empower other people to stand up, and maybe that has an effect. When I travel, so many older people thank me for what I did. Because the vile kind of way Ann Coulter thinks and talks, that was not ever part of the public discourse until recently.

[snip]

When you look back at the Clinton experiment in healthcare reform back in 1993 and '94, what do you learn from what they did, or failed to do?

I remember watching an incredibly impressive appearance by Hillary before some kind of congressional committee on C-SPAN. She answered the questions really impressively. Some of them were very hostile, but I remember one thing: She kept referring to [the administration's] program, and she would gesture to this huge stack of documents that represented their "plan." It's such a long time ago, I hope I'm remembering this correctly, but it made such a visual impression on me. And one of the things they did wrong was [presenting] the visual of this big plan, that government was going to do all of that, instead of explaining it, without that visual, just to say: "If you have a Blue Cross/Blue Shield card in your pocket, and you're happy with that, nothing's changing for you, except the cost is likely to go down. There's nothing for you to be afraid of." I don't think they did a good job explaining that.

Part of it is that when we talk in complex ways we exhibit enormous command of the information; we're speaking to elite media, but we're not speaking to the people who are going to be affected by the policies and reassuring them. It is hard to simplify some of these things -- they're really complex. But this is actually what John does extraordinarily well. [As a trial attorney he learned] to describe complex medicine to people who aren't trained, and to say the doctor is wrong, in a way that respects them and doesn't talk down, and moves them. And he can never be dishonest because there's another lawyer sitting right there, ready to take away what he needs, which is their trust, if he's dishonest. So I'm convinced he has the capacity to explain these complicated things in a way that people understand -- and not to be subject to that guy who's paid to call him a liar.

[snip]

I can't wrap this up without asking about your health. Were you prepared for the criticism you got for continuing to campaign?

I had no idea I'd get that kind of criticism. But you know, people who've been in this situation haven't criticized me. And the people who haven't -- I just hope they never go through it. And it got worse after [the] Coulter [incident]. Well, we were talking about home-schooling the kids anyway, before I got sick. John's gone all the time, I'm gone a lot, and it was going to be the only way for us to be together as a family.

But you know, after all I've been through, I realize: You don't know exactly what life lessons you taught your kids until much later. You don't. And maybe the most important life lesson for them is for me to say, When bad things happen, you don't let them take you down. If I hadn't continued to campaign, I'd be sending the opposite message: When bad things happen, go hide. Do I know with absolute certainty we're doing the right thing? I don't. Having been through what I've been through, I hope people trust I wouldn't risk my relationship with my children. I think this is the right choice.

Labels: Elizabeth Edwards

Far from being beleaguered, Bush was assertive and good-humored. While some in his administration may be looking for exit strategies, he is unshakably committed to stabilizing Iraq. If Gen. David Petraeus comes back and says he needs more troops and more time, Bush will scrounge up the troops. If GeneralPetraeus says he can get by with fewer, Bush will support that, too.

Bush said he will get General Petraeus’s views unfiltered by the Pentagon establishment. He feels no need to compromise to head off opposition from Capitol Hill and is confident that he can rebuild popular support. “I have the tools,” he said.

I left the 110-minute session thinking that far from being worn down by the past few years, Bush seems empowered. His self-confidence is the most remarkable feature of his presidency.

All this will be taken as evidence by many that Bush is delusional. He’s living in a cocoon. He doesn’t see or can’t face how badly the war is going and how awfully he has performed.

But Bush is not blind to the realities in Iraq. After all, he lives through the events we’re not supposed to report on: the trips to Walter Reed, the hours and hours spent weeping with or being rebuffed by the families of the dead.

Rather, his self-confidence survives because it flows from two sources. The first is his unconquerable faith in the rightness of his Big Idea. Bush is convinced that history is moving in the direction of democracy, or as he said Friday: “It’s more of a theological perspective. I do believe there is an Almighty, and I believe a gift of that Almighty to all is freedom. And I will tell you that is a principle that no one can convince me that doesn’t exist.”

Second, Bush remains energized by the power of the presidency. Some presidents complain about the limits of the office. But Bush, despite all the setbacks, retains a capacious view of the job and its possibilities.

Labels: David Brooks, hack journalism, idiocy

For liberals, there's something satisfying in demonstrating that the sex lives of certain right-wing moral crusaders turn out to be less than exemplary. It's certainly an outrage when straight politicians who deplore homosexuality as an affront to the sanctity of marriage and the family take a less than sacred view of their own responsibilities.

But if we are to get out of this habit of destroying the distinctions between public and private lives, liberals need to give the conservative hypocrites a break.

We should acknowledge that the outing process is erratic and leaves many falls from grace safely shielded from public view. We should also admit that we are tougher on the moral flaws of politicians who belong to a party other than our own.

The essential point, however, is that believing in a wall between the public and the private makes you a traditionalist, not a libertine. The traditionalist embraces a strict moral code but sees it as best enforced in the personal realm. We should judge public figures by how they meet their public responsibilities, and leave it to spouses, pastors, children and friends to praise or punish their private behavior.

Labels: David Vitter, hypocrisy

Labels: bloggers

The White House said on Saturday that President Bush would veto a bipartisan plan to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program, drafted over the last six months by senior members of the Senate Finance Committee.

The vow puts Mr. Bush at odds with the Democratic majority in Congress, with a substantial number of Republican lawmakers and with many governors of both parties, who want to expand the popular program to cover some of the nation’s eight million uninsured children.

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said: “The president’s senior advisers will certainly recommend a veto of this proposal. And there is no question that the president would veto it.”

Labels: conservatives, health care

The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.

The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo."

The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.

Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. "The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern," the source said this week.

Nick Burns, the undersecretary of state responsible for Iran and a career diplomat who is one of the main advocates of negotiation, told the meeting it was likely that diplomatic manoeuvring would still be continuing in January 2009. That assessment went down badly with Mr Cheney and Mr Bush.

"Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact," said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively. They are also reluctant for Israel to carry out any strikes because the US would get the blame in the region anyway.

"The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is adamant it will attack, the US will have to take decisive action," Mr Cronin said. "The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or do the job yourself."

Almost half of the US's 277 warships are stationed close to Iran, including two aircraft carrier groups. The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise left Virginia last week for the Gulf. A Pentagon spokesman said it was to replace the USS Nimitz and there would be no overlap that would mean three carriers in Gulf at the same time.

No decision on military action is expected until next year. In the meantime, the state department will continue to pursue the diplomatic route.

Labels: Iran

• A vacuum cleaner attachment that's a lint brush
  
• The Honda Civic hatchback with automatic transmission as the entry-level car of the Honda line
  
• Ambervision sunglasses
  
• The Dodge Dart
  
• Indestructable saddle leather Coach handbags
  
• Coca-Cola in a green glass bottle that required a bottle opener, delivered ice-cold out of a red vending machine in front of a gas station
  
• Orange-its candy

Labels: ephemera

I am still not sure that I believe it: The Iraqi parliament is going on vacation during the month of August.

The White House offers the lame excuse that, after all, Baghdad is hot in August – sometimes 130 degrees.

May I ask a follow-up?

How much hotter do you suppose it is if you are a wearing a helmet, full body armor, carrying ammunition and walking foot patrols through Baghdad?

The last I heard, that is how American troops are spending their August in Iraq.

For me, this does it.

God help the Iraqi people because there is not much America can do to help a government that leaves Americans dying in the streets while the parliament escapes to cooler climes.

Does this mean we should pull out immediately?

No. A sudden withdrawal could set the entire region aflame. The truth is there are no good options left. But from here on, we need to put aside the dream of building a democracy in Iraq and focus solely on what is in our national interest.

It won't be pretty, but for all our good intentions, about all we can do now is try to contain this mess, pull our troops back from the middle of this civil war, and concentrate instead on the terrorist threat that this country faces around the world.

As for what kind of government Iraq needs, let their parliament figure it out. They can get right on it when the Baghdad weather turns cooler.

Labels: Bob Schieffer, Iraq, Rachel Maddow

Labels: comedy