Apologies and Updates

Yes, I know, I know, there hasn't been anything up for the last week, and the top of the blog has been an unabashed plug for Looney Tunes: Back in Action, not exactly a fate-of-the-world topic. Still, it's not always easy to keep up with the constant outrages of the administration, especially when it is at the same time a recursive loop: rampant cronyism, creeping fascism, and sheer incompetence.

The energy bill, of course, gets top marks for all of the above. If you're an outrageous polluter, system-gaming corporation, or just plain gouger, this bill's for you. For the rest of us, as always, Molly Ivins has the scoop:

This is an amazing energy bill because it does not: A) reduce our dependence on foreign oil, B) provide significant new energy sources, C) create many jobs, D) improve the grid system so we won't have more blackouts, E) promote energy efficiency or conservation or F) do anything about global warming.

BUT, it will cost at least $20 billion in subsides to fossil fuel companies. Those poor li'l oil, gas, coal and nuclear companies like Exxon/Mobil and General Electric need our help -- this is compassionate conservatism.

Then, of course, there's Medicare "reform." Of course, by reform, they mean "ways to bilk taxpayers, cheat the needy, and feed bloated megacorps." And by "they," of course, I mean Republicans. But you knew that.

From the very same article by Ms. Ivins:

The Health Reform Program of Boston University estimates that of the bill's $400 billion price tag, $139 billion will go to increase drug-company profits over eight years, a 38 percent increase in what is already the world's most profitable industry.

Personally, I find the revolt among AARP rank-and-file members over this behemoth the most interesting aspect of the Medicare controversy. Officially, the AARP backs this bill. Thousands of members are leaving the group, however, and many more are expressing their outrage. This may even result in a widespread power struggle within the enormous organization:

Card-burnings and protests were also reported in such places as Washington, D.C., Webster Groves, Mo., and San Francisco.

"We don't think AARP in the least represents seniors on this issue," said Bruce Livingston, executive director of Senior Action Network in the San Francisco area. "We're going to encourage people to quit. This is just the beginning."

Oh, and November has been the bloodiest month of the Iraq war, with Italy and Spain both taking significant casualties and reconsidering their participation. And the long, ugly stream of dead among Americans and Iraqis continues.

But who cares? Michael Jackson's been arrested! Bush spent two hours in Baghdad in absolute secrecy! Now that's news!

As an aside, I feel compelled to note that child molestation is a horrific crime, and if Jackson is in fact guilty he should spend a long time in a small cage, preferably with a big hairy cellmate. Oh, and unlike many of my fellow bloggers, I feel no particular need to excoriate Dubya for sane security precautions taken while actually doing something decent, even if it was a naked ploy to film a campaign commercial.

Fact, however, is a far more stubborn thing than mere news. If we don't convince the latter to cover the former, the facts are going to become unpleasant indeed. We had better start dealing with these facts soon, since our Dear Leaders seem so unwilling to do so.

(/) Roland X
Perhaps Dubya thinks that the facts are just "testing our will."

Did you Tune out Revolutions? Get Back In Action

Yes, I know that this blog has been almost exclusively political, but this is good enough that I want to share with everyone. 8^)

Unlike most other fans I've heard and/or read, I won't utterly pan Revolutions. It was good in respectable chunks. However, I found it disappointing at times, on several levels. At other times, it was very depressing.

As a result, I was trying to keep my expectations manageable for other movies, like Looney Tunes: Back in Action, which was next on our list. (Due to finances, we've got to pick and choose when it comes to movies, though our situation could easily be far worse.) The trailer was drop-dead hilarious, however, so I figured that those laughs alone were worth the price of admission.

To paraphrase the Comic Book Guy: Funniest...movie...ever. And I say that as a HUGE fan of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit."

I saw it Friday, for opening day. I saw it again today. This movie is sheer comic genius from start to finish, as Daffy Duck grabs this movie and strolls away with it in a fashion that makes Hugo Weaving's brilliant theft of Matrix Revolutions as the delightfully evil Agent Smith look positively ham-handed. I have to imagine that, if these characters really did exist in our own world, Daffy (if he could ever have really been jealous of Bugs) would be thoroughly cured of any envy. Of course, the daffy Daffy is fantastically abetted by Brendan Fraser, who shows us what a phenomenal actor he is simply by keeping up with the little black duck. Together, they craft the most clever, outrageous, and surprisingly human "buddy flick" duo in ages.

To say that Bugs is in fine form is to say that things fall when you drop them, but his droll wit contrasts magnificently both with longtime partner Daffy as well as with Bugs' human co-star, Jenna Elfman. Ms. Elfman is a magnificent straight woman to humans and toons alike. Her slightly goofy chemistry with Fraser is perfect for Action, but for Bugs' brand of humor she proves an ideal foil, which is even more vital for a Looney Tunes movie. She even gets the better of the rabbit once (sort of) by hitting the rabbit's soft spot for a distressed dame.

Cameos abound, of course, for the denizens of the WB Looniverse -- but that's not all, folks. It seems that Director Joe Dante is a real film buff, and packs this comic masterpiece with references to film genres ranging from spy flicks to pulp adventure to cheesy 50s sci-fi to the Hollywood world itself. Steve Martin has a blast playing the over-the-top Mr. Chairman, who will never endanger Judge Doom as the most menacing villain of the cartoon cosmos, but he easily out-funnies the genuinely disturbing Judge. You never take Mr. Chairman seriously -- but you're not supposed to (though I found myself wondering with a chuckle how Marvin Acme's company had fallen so low). Rounding out the major human cast members are Heather Locklear as Bond Girl Dusty Tails, now playing in the majors (spy-wise, that is), Joan Cusack as the wacky "Mother," top genius of the nebulous spy agency at the center of the good guys' efforts, and Timothy Dalton playing himself playing James Bond playing himself. All three turn out excellent performances, particularly Dalton, who displays a surprisingly deft comic talent (I would have liked to see more of him).

There is literally too much good stuff in this movie to explain it all without providing a blow-by-blow account of the film, which wouldn't do its manic genius justice. The closest I can come is to say that it is drop-dead funny without detracting from any of the lesser plot lines at work in the movie, which are (in descending order of importance) the character interaction between DJ (Fraser), Kate (Elfman), Bugs, and Daffy; the action-adventure (which is surprisingly well-done); and the goofy-yet-wonderful romance between DJ and Kate, which could have easily felt (and become) pro forma yet didn't.

If you can't figure out why people think a rabbit and a duck are so funny, avoid this film like the plague. On the other hand, if you have ever laughed at a Looney Tunes short, go see this movie. You'll thank me, if you can stop laughing long enough for it.

(/) Roland X
An enormous fan of the little black duck who is not angry, fat, or living in a basement, and can't wait for the DVD.

Lying Liars

I try to avoid engaging in blog wars, but Instapundit is the Big Dog of not only conservatarian pundits, but the blogosphere in general. And he has this to say about the nutjobs on both sides:

I've drawn the distinction repeatedly, but the fact is that the real energy in the antiwar movement comes from people who don't like America. A.N.S.W.E.R. is central to the movement. Nobody else can organize the protests or turn out the bodies. It's as if the religious right relied on Fred Phelps to do their organization, then tried to claim that they weren't like him. But they've been very careful to distance themselves from guys like him. I don't see similar care from the antiwar movement -- I see happy solidarity until someone makes an issue, followed by righteous indignation when this stuff is pointed out.

This is clear, utter, total and obvious bull.

Orcinus provides us with a few examples in a post on neofascism that probably has nothing to do -- directly -- with Instapundit's absurd bloviating:

This is not mere hyperbole; it is an exercise in eliminationism. As Buzzflash recently observed, talk like this is part of an increasing trend in conservative rhetoric: Pat Robertson wishing to "nuke" the State Department, Bill O'Reilly saying Peter Arnett should be shot, Coulter wishing Tim McVeigh had set off his bomb at the New York Times Building, John Derbyshire wishing for Chelsea Clinton's demise. Unsurprisingly, the same kind of talk is now heard on the "street" level, and it often pops up on talk radio. As we learned in Oklahoma City, eventually this kind of "hot talk" translates into all-too-real tragedy.

The religious right has mainstream leadership like Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell and Franklin Graham. The top neocon pundits are hitmen (and women) like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. And then we have the "with us or against us" nutcases in the administration, which includes men like David "read the Bible for PMS" Hager , John "what Bill of Rights" Ashcroft, and the man himself, Dick "we don't need no steenkin' facts" Cheney.

And the best Instapundit can come up with is ANSWER? Yeah, we all know how much pull ANSWER has with the Democratic party...

(/) Roland X
They really do just make crap up

Never Mess With The Spooks

The Calpundit has the slam dunk on this one:

* If the CIA report was circulated early this month, it was surely being written early last month. Reports like this take at least a few weeks to prepare.

* The report is incredibly bleak, and since facts on the ground don't change on a dime that means the situation in Iraq must have already seemed pretty dicey in early October.

* Even so, the White House went ahead with push back.

* No one is stupid enough to mount a PR campaign like this if they know that the facts on the ground are likely to make them look like idiots within a few short weeks. So the White House didn't know.

...

The problem is that trying to blame this kind of stuff on the CIA is getting less and less credible with every passing day: after all, if it really is the CIA's fault, their incompetence has now endangered the interests of the United States and badly embarrassed the president so many times that it's simply beyond belief that there haven't been wholesale firings in Langley.

Which also explains some of the sheer outrage from current and former members of the intelligence community: they're being trashed by an administration that's trying to find an excuse for the mess it's in, when they wouldn't be in this mess if they had just listened to the people they're trashing in the first place.

You know, I'd be a little peeved too. Come to think of it, I am peeved, and I'm just one of the folks watching this idiocy unfold.

You know it's bad when you're a liberal and you miss Poppy. A lot.

(/) Roland X
Too disgusted to .sig

Potential Military Installations

It's getting harder to tell the parody from the real thing:

Afterward, attack helicopters cruised throughout the day over Saddam's hometown, swooping low over villages and farms as rescuers picked through the charred wreckage of the aircraft.

Late Friday, U.S. troops fired mortars and a U.S. jets dropped at least three 500-pound bombs around the crash site, rattling windows over a wide area in an apparent show of force. Other U.S. jets streaked over Tikrit after sundown.

As opposed to:

NUMBER TWO: I have declared war on the next continent.
FORD: Declared war? But there's no one even living there.
NUMBER TWO: Yes, but there will be one day. So we've left a sort of open-ended ultimatum.
FORD: What?
NUMBER TWO: And blown up some military installations.
CAPTAIN: Military instillations, Number Two?
NUMBER TWO: Yes, sir. Well, potential military installations. (pause) All right. Trees. And we interrogated a gazelle.

Still, Billmon has the best comparison of the hour:

In retaliation, American troops backed by Bradley fighting vehicles swept through Iraqi neighborhoods before dawn Saturday, blasting houses suspected of being insurgent hideouts with machine guns and heavy weapons fire.

"This is to remind the town that we have teeth and claws and we will use them," said Lt. Col. Steven Russell, commander of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment...

Compared to:

Captain Carpenter: We've been on red alert for three days sir, and still have no sign of Mr. Neutron.

General: Have we bombed anywhere? Have we shown 'em we got teeth?

Captain Carpenter: Oh yeah, sir. We've bombed a lot of places flat, sir.

The latter quote from the "Mr. Neutron" sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus. Only the joke and the real thing are virtually indistinguishable.

Aside from the fact that real people are dead, that is.

Billmon, of course, has more.

(/) Roland X
"It's all hoo-hoo, yuck-yuck, and then BAM WHAM BLAM!" --Daffy Duck, "Looney Tunes, Back In Action"

And So It Begins

Tom DeLay has all but declared open war on debate:

House Democrats will get no projects for their home districts in a huge education and health spending bill because none of them voted for an initial version of the measure last summer, majority Republicans say.

...

"We're doing business as usual," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said Friday. "If you don't support a bill, you have no right to say what's in the bill."

The Republicans, of course, insist there's precedent for this. If they cited any, the article fails to mention it.

This is a really big deal, as appropriations are typically handled in a relatively bipartisan manner. The majority party gets the largest chunk of money, of course -- but not every penny. The message is unsubtle: Democratic districts -- actually, dissenting districts (the nine Republicans and one Independent who voted against are also frozen out) -- won't get federal funding. Period.

I have found comparisons to pre-Civil War America chilling, but premature. Things hardly seemed that bad yet, especially with September 11th still looming in America's recent history. No more. The Republican leadership is out to crush all opposition, and is rapidly proving that they don't care how they do it. The Democrats have clearly had enough.

War has been declared. The only question remaining is whether it can be ended before the guns come out.

(/) Roland X
Still Giving Peace A Chance...for now.

Scheer Says It All

...in a nutshell:

Some pundits and politicians, even those who may have been skeptical about the war to begin with, now argue that we must "finish the job," even if it means increasing our commitment of troops or ruling Iraq indefinitely. This is, however, exactly the kind of stubborn and mushy thinking that led us into the hell of the Vietnam War and the deaths of 58,000 Americans and more than 2 million Vietnamese and Cambodians.

We must help the Iraqis rebuild their nation, both financially and politically. There is no question of that. However, the occupation is proving more convincingly with each passing day that a military solution to this problem...is no solution at all.

(/) Roland X
And that isn't even starting on Afghanistan.

Bring the Boys Back Home (when it's politically expedient)

I've seen several bloggers comment on the "March Surprise;" hints that Bush may pull troops out of Iraq in the spring to boost his chances of being elected to the office he's currently sitting in. So far, though, I don't think I've seen anyone connect these stories to Atrios' comments on Mercs:

Contractors' deaths aren't counted among the tally of more than 350 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. No one is sure how many private workers have been killed, or, indeed, even how many are toiling in Iraq for the U.S. government. Estimates range from under 10,000 to more than 20,000 - which could make private contractors the largest U.S. coalition partner ahead of Britain's 11,000 troops.

...

To the consternation of U.S. lawmakers, there is little or no Congressional oversight of contractors hired by the executive branch of government - whether through the State Department, Pentagon or the CIA.

What's the best way to bring troops home while keeping someone on the US payroll in country to watch over Halliburton's interests? Hire someone who'll do their job while you look good bringing all those young men and women back to their families.

Morgan
who isn't happy that circumstances have turned her into such a cynic

The Schools Are On, But Everyone's Home

A Guardian article has an interesting side comment amid the story about today's spate of attacks:

The escalating violence has unnerved many of Baghdad's 5 million people. Many parents are not sending their children to school for fear of further bombings.

"Today most of my friends did not come to school," said 18-year-old Duha Khalid at the Al-Khalisa girl's high school, located near a police station. "We heard rumors about big bombs that will go off at the start of next week."

Congratulations, Dubya, Halliburton's making millions on building schools. Too bad that they're practically empty.

The "Good News" offensive is pretty much a joke at this point. Any ideas on what Karl "Luthor" Rove has left up his sleeve?

(/) Roland X
If he had Kryptonite, he'd have used it by now. Hmm...sure, I'm a Deanie, but didn't Gen. Clark fall ill recently? ;^)

We Are All Atrios

Billmon has this to say about the recent brouhaha between The Poor and Stupid Stalker and Atrios:

Luskin's mouthpiece just sent a letter to Atrios threatening him with all kinds of legal mayhem if he doesn't remove certain posts from his blog, posts which Luskin -- the mentally unbalanced right-wing blogger with a bizarre fetish about Paul Krugman -- finds objectionable.

...

And, because it's not fair for Atrios to take the heat for all of us, let me just repeat what I've already said in several earlier posts: Donald Luskin is a stalker -- in the conventional dictionary meaning of one who "follows or observes (a person) persistently, especially out of obsession or derangement."

...

Or, to paraphrase one of my favorite gladiator movies: I'm Atrios!

No, I'm Atrios!

Special kudos to the conservative bloggers, Instapundit and the Rottweiler in particular, who have come out against this idiocy.

To recap for those unfamiliar with the case: Atrios uses a term for Luskin that he used for himself in a link to one of Gollum Luskin's articles, and some people wrote things in the comments that make Luskin feel bad. So now Luskin is saying Atrios has to take the offending post down, or he'll sue. And subpoena to get his real name.

This isn't about whether Luskin's obsessive, Paul Krugman is right or wrong, or even if Atrios is a bad man or not. Anyone who reads this blog semi-regularly know what answers I would give, but that's not the point. The point is that this is a direct assault on the unprecedented freedom of the blogosphere, and if this ever happens to a conservative blogger I hope I have the guts to say the exact same thing. Today, however, we should all be Atrios.

Pass it on.

(/) Roland X
Hope is a phoenix

Democracy For Sale

The Nation covers a frightening trend in a recent Editor's Cut column:

Can America Afford The Price Of Democracy?

...

In Colorado, Governor Bill Owens (R) cancelled the primary on March 5th, saving the state $2.2 million. The Republican-controlled Utah legislature followed suit, cancelling the 2004 primary--a measure supported by their Republican Governor. And in Kansas, Democratic Governor Kathleen Sebelius cancelled her state's 2004 primary, saving approximately $1.75 million next year. But critics have pointed out that partisan politics also contributed to these measures because cancellations prevent the field of Democratic candidates from getting much public attention.

Shame on Governor Sebelius for joining this trend -- but the real issue here is yet another Republican attack on the democratic process. This goes beyond mere partisan politics. Denying the Democrats in Colorado and Utah the right to participate in the most important decision their party will make next year is an attack on the right to vote itself.

Alas, Democrats are responding by selling out:

Paul Sanford, counsel for the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics, said selling space on election materials is probably legal, though he's troubled by the possibility. "I don't really think it's a good thing to commercialize the voting process." As David Donnelly of Campaign Money Watch, adds: "Imagine if South Carolina had the ballot initiative process and there was a health care question before voters, and HMOs and pharmaceutical companies contributed big money to pay for the election, and then they sponsored get-out-the vote campaigns or ran ads at polling places?"

Sure, they need the money, but is this the right way to get it? The argument for publicly funded elections is looking better by the day.

(/) Roland X
After all, a lot of Bush's campaigning is being paid for with tax dollars...

What's wrong with this picture?

Good lord.

The 9/11 Commission is getting better and more complete cooperation from the Government of Pakistan, than from the Bush administration.

And lest the Justice Log simply become Counterspin West, here's another gem from our Dear Leader courtesy of Talking Points Memo and the Washington Post:

"The more progress we make on the ground, the more free the Iraqis become, the more electricity is available, the more jobs are available, the more kids that are going to school, the more desperate these killers become, because they can't stand the thought of a free society."

Free? Exactly how is an occupation-appointed council that answers to the US military related to freedom? As for electricity, jobs, and schools, I seem to recall Iraqis having all those things under Saddam Hussein. None of those aspects of society are related to freedom; on the contrary, dictators are said to "make the trains run on time." And as it isn't in any Iraqi's best interest to bomb the Red Cross, trying to pin this one on the so-called "dead-enders" is pathetic at best.

The irony is staggering, of course. The enemy that actually attacked us on September 11th is the most likely culprit, and yet mention of Al-Qaeda is rare. This really isn't all that surprising. If foreign terrorists are responsible, then these attacks are actually part of the "jihadi Woodstock" rather than desperate last-ditch insurgency.

The Post's pithy response to Bush's spin?

Experts in public opinion said it would be difficult for Bush to convince Americans that the violence was a byproduct of success.

As TPM put it, "Fresh from the Department of Sublime Understatement." Heh.

(/) Roland X
Well, we knew Bush was fuzzy on the whole "freedom" thing...

Admin note

The archives have been changed from monthly to weekly. While this means smaller page load times, it also means that the permalinks have changed. So, if you have any links or bookmarks to individual posts, you'll probably need to update them.

A Hunka Hunka Burnin' Pain

My apologies to all for my long absence. Between a shattered wisdom tooth and the Fire Pits of Apokolips (aka southern California), it's been a hectic (and often unpleasant) week. Still, this too(th) shall pass, and though I am less "wise," I'm much happier now that I'm short one molar appendix. Anyway, here's wisdom for ya: there's a reason the scariest torturers in spy fiction are evil dentists, though all divinity bless those who use their powers for good.

On a more serious note, the fires that are still raging through California are taking lives, destroying homes, and stretching firefighters past their limits. Despite heroic efforts (over a thousand faced the "Old Fire" alone), units were forced to abandon hundreds of homes to the several infernos. Ten of the current wildfires are considered "major," have consumed nearly half a million acres between them, and only one has been contained. (Data from an AP article; it can be found at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution among other places.)

This is the definition of a non-partisan issue. Governor Davis and Governor-Elect Schwarzenegger have admirably set aside their differences regarding this issue, splitting the work appropriately -- Davis handling the details here while Ahnold lobbies Washington for disaster relief. As tempted as I am to take a funding swipe at Dubya, there are better issues to do that with. Lives and homes are at stake, and we can point fingers later. Or better yet, not at all, though that seems unlikely.

(/) Roland X
Feeling cynical today. At least one of the fires was a case of arson, and a few of the others probably were as well.

Emulating the President -- How Patriotic

Unsurprisingly, some of our troops don't want to go back to the war zone when their leaves are up. This is human nature, the survival instinct kicking in on top of any of the other reasons these soldiers might have.

But what to do about them?

Soldiers failing to return from leave on schedule is an old story for the military, but nonetheless potentially a significant problem for commanders. Soldiers could face demotion or jail time for the offense.

"We had the same problem in Vietnam," said retired Marine officer Gary Solis, who commanded a company in Vietnam and later wrote a history on military law during that war.

On the other hand, they can rightly claim that they're following the example set by their Commander In Chief.

Maybe the wingnuts were right. They claimed that having a draft dodger in the White House encouraged young people to avoid the draft (though this was all theoretical, since there wasn't one). And now, we have an AWOL reservist for a pResident, and look what's happening...

Nixon vs. McGovern, Round Two?

Hesiod is a genius:

IS DEAN THE NEW MCGOVERN?: I am still trying to figure out why people think equating Howard Dean with a decent, brave, highly-respected public servant, who EVERYONE WITH A BRAIN IN THEIR HEAD wishes to God had won the 1972 election...is some kind of slur.

Note to Howard Dean -- RUN WITH IT. Actually incorporate the McGovern comparison into your stump speech, and tell people how proud and flattered you are to be compared to such a great American.

Then REMIND people who he lost to in 1972.

Then point out that WE, the American people, will not make that kind of mistake again. Because, to take the analogy to its logical conclusion, if Howard Dean is George McGovern...who does that make George W. Bush?

You rock, m'man.

Of course, the analogies don't quite fit perfectly. The so-called "McGovern slur" is meant to make Dr. Dean seem too liberal to be elected, while he's really just slightly left of center on most issues. And, of course, Bush makes Nixon look like a piker.

Still, Hesiod cuts to the heart of the issue, doesn't he? Nixon won the '72 election handily, true, but look what happened next.

(/) Roland X
My real devotion, however, is to ABBA in '04.

Go Yanks Go

It's been interesting reading the political blogs of late. One thing seems to have been uniting liberal and conservative bloggers alike -- hatred of the Yankees.

Well, I'm against Microsoft, AOL, and Dubya, but I'm a lifelong Yankees fan and proud of it. I stuck with them through the lean years (Don Mattingly, one of the truly great players and gentlemen of the game, never got his ring) and knowing that they vanquished our old foes, the spiteful Red Sox, gives me most of the satisfaction I want. Most, but not all.

Though I am conflicted about the Cubs. On the one hand, I feel truly badly for Cubs fans that their team stumbled so close to the Series. On the other hand, how would they have felt if the Yankees crushed the Cubs?

As for the "Evil Empire" cracks, just remember this. No matter how much money Steinbrenner has, no matter what kind of mojo may be at work, no matter what kind of coverage or marketing or spin is at work, at the end of the day baseball games are won by the players. All the advertising, obfuscation, and high-priced contracts in the world can't buy victory. Only a team can win games. And that's exactly what the Yankees do: win. Not by buying TV time or using monopoly tactics, but by playing great baseball.

I'm predicting Yanks in six. Even if they lose, however, I'll bleed pinstripe blue until they plant me. Fair-weather fandom is for wannabes. Go Yankees.

(/) Roland X
Two-Fisted Yankee Fan ;^)

Why Does George Bush Sr. Hate America?

Well, I'm glad to be back to blogging, after a long (and unintended) break due to the dreaded Real Life Attack syndrome. I went to my first protest (a truly wonderful experience, though I left when our side's wingnuts began baiting the cops), ran a lot of errands, did some other writing, and spent time with my family.

Meanwhile, however, life goes on. And sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction:

...the news from College Station, Texas, this week -- that the First Father, former President George H.W. Bush, has given his own most treasured award to Senator Edward Kennedy -- is nearly as astonishing.

When it was announced (with amazingly little fanfare) that the pugnaciously anti-Iraq war Democrat Kennedy had been awarded the 2003 George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service, so many jaws dropped all over Washington that usually voluble politicians were only heard swallowing their real thoughts.

Since the current President Bush veered away from the real war against terrorism in Afghanistan and went a'venturing in Iraq, much to his father's dismay, just about everybody close to Washington politics has known of the policy schism between father and son.

Maybe this Valerie Plame business has upset Poppy a little. Those familiar with him may recall that he has an aversion to people who betray American operatives.

Or perhaps it's his son's deceitful, unilateral war in Iraq. The PNAC crusaders who pushed this conflict are anathema to the old diplomat, as is their rude and belligerent style.

Then again, it could be the Orwellian style that the administration uses to spin facts into oblivion and shamelessly deceive the American people. Bush the First was a lot of things, but by political standards he was a pretty straight shooter.

Whatever the reason, he just threw sonny-boy over his knee and spanked him hard. Good for Poppy. It's about time someone did it.

(/) Roland X
Yeah, I'm a two-fisted liberal. Sanity first, ideology second, however.

I've Got Your Good News Right Here

Oh, yeah, things are going really well in Iraq.

From the article Hesiod quotes:

A broad survey of U.S. troops in Iraq by a Pentagon-funded newspaper found that half of those questioned described their unit's morale as low and their training as insufficient, and said they do not plan to reenlist.

Now, the survey in question was not conducted with scientific accuracy. So let's conduct a little thought experiment. Let's give the survey a gigantic margin of error -- 10%. Let's say that the "librul media" (and we all know how liberal the Stars and Stripes is, right?) skewed the results positive.

Even being that friendly to the results, we're still looking at a minimum of (130,000 * 40%) 52,000 members of our armed forces who are planning on bailing once their tours are up. Given the massive manpower problems we're facing now...what is that going to do to the War on Terra?

(/) Roland X
Way to support our troops, Dubya

Hypocrisy Becomes Them

In the too ironic for words department:

"There are a lot of things that are said by people that are their views," [Donald Rumsfeld] said, "and that's the way we live. We are free people and that's the wonderful thing about our country, and I think for anyone to run around and think that can be managed or controlled is probably wrong."

No comment necessary.

I will note, however, that this is in regards to the comments by Lt. General Boykin regarding his views on the war on terror. Why is this relevant?

This summer, Boykin was promoted to deputy undersecretary of defense, with a new mission for which many say he is uniquely qualified: to aggressively combine intelligence with special operations and hunt down so-called high-value terrorist targets including bin Laden and Saddam.

...

"Well, is he [bin Laden] the enemy? Next slide. Or is this man [Saddam] the enemy? The enemy is none of these people I have showed you here. The enemy is a spiritual enemy. He's called the principality of darkness. The enemy is a guy called Satan."

To his credit, Lt. General Boykin has promised to avoid such comments while he serves in his current position. In other words, the guy who made the above comment seems to have a better grasp of the problems that kind of language could cause than the people he works for. I think the situation says far more about the views of the administration than the general's ability to do his job.

(/) Roland X
Support our troops...
NOT the Unelected Fraud who puts them in harm's way!

Who Will Be Our Next Frankenstein's Monster?

You know, a lot has been said about how evil Saddam is, and there's no denying it. It's even marginally justifiable for the US to claim that since we made him, we had a duty to unmake him. (Though they try not to argue that too much, since it reminds everyone just how responsible the Bushes are for him.) Much like bin Laden himself, I imagine.

The funny thing is, we created Hussein while trying to fight the evil Khomeini. We also created bin Laden to serve as one of our many proxies against the evil Soviets. For that matter, the current state of Iran can be traced almost directly to our overthrow of Musaddiq and the subsequent installation of the Shah.

So who have we created this time, in the quest to destroy the evil Saddam? Are we going to have to fight some Kurdish or Shi'a general in ten years, after giving him billions of dollars in weapons and aid?

(/) Roland X
Hubris is always the downfall of men who think they can play God with impunity

The Credibility Gap Widens

(By Morgan)

USNews, that radical liberal rag, mentions that Joe Wilson "plans to circulate the text of a briefing by analyst Sam Gardiner that suggests the White House and Pentagon made up or distorted over 50 war stories." This looks like some interesting stuff. While I expect the right-leaning media and blogosphere to dismiss the contents of this report because "Wilson is a partisan" (yeah, people have this tendency to turn on those who hurt their loved ones -- go figure), the retired Air Force Colonel who wrote it seems to have credentials to back it up.

They have a PDF of the "Pentagon war story credibility briefing," but through the magic of Google you can also read HTML versions:

p. 1-10: Truth from These Podia (HTML)

p. 11-20: Anthrax US/UK Stories (HTML)

p. 21-30: Chemical Cluster Bombs Chemical Cluster Bombs: Assessment (HTML)

p. 31-40: Punishing the French Punishing the French (HTML)

p. 41-50: Psychological Operation? Psychological Operation? (HTML)

p. 51-56: Organizing for Combat (HTML)

Shorter Uriah Kriegel

We should give Ariel Sharon a break and let him expel Arafat, because his strategy of being more brutal than the terrorists is working.

Ye Gods.

(/) Roland X
Does that sound as insane to the rest of you as it does to me?

Facts Trump Spin

Orcinus does a stellar job of covering the important details.

Accompanying the White House spin, of course, is the predictable chorus from his media apologists: Pay no mind, move along, folks. The Plame matter is a mere "partisan" affair that will evaporate when the smoke clears.

If Republicans have proven incredibly incompetent at running the country, they at least have continued to display a knack for ruthless hardball politics and manipulation of the media. That the media more often than not seem all too happy to oblige is another matter.

Facts are to spin like garlic to vampires: effective, but only in well-coordinated bunches. Anyone interested in seeing justice done in the Plame matter -- which is to say, anyone interested in the integrity of national security and the rule of law -- will have to counter the spin of Bush apologists with some talking points of their own.

I am not usually given to simply pointing my readers at other blogs, but this entry is particularly insightful and effective in unspinning the Rovian talking points. It's also chock full of links to relevant data.

Perhaps the best is this one explaining just why this betrayal is so serious:

Larry Johnson - a former CIA and State Department official who was a 1985 classmate of Plame's in the CIA's case officer-training program at Camp Peary, Va., known as "the Farm" - predicted that when the CIA's internal damage assessment is finished, "at the end of the day, (the harm) will be huge and some people potentially may have lost their lives."

"This is not just another leak. This is an unprecedented exposing of an agent's identity," said former CIA officer Jim Marcinkowski, who's now a prosecutor in Royal Oak, Mich., and who also did CIA training with Plame.

Larry Johnson, incidentally, is a Republican who appeared on PBS' NewsHour to condemn Ms. Plame's outing.

It's no surprise that Bush's numbers are falling. The surprise is that they're still as high as they are.

(/) Roland X
If reporters do their job, though, Dubya's in trouble...

Hypocrisy On Parade Yet Again

The parade continues.

Consider:

Democrats lash Bush 'lunacy' on missiles
Tuesday September 11, 2001

The future of missile defence, an array of anti-missile missiles likely to cost over $100bn, is expected to be one of the major political battlefields of the Bush presidency. The Pentagon has requested a budget of $8.3bn for the scheme next year. The Democrat-run Senate armed services committee has voted to cut that total to $7bn, which would still mark a $1.7bn increase over the current year's budget. But the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said over the weekend that he would advise the president to veto any spending bill that cut the scheme's budget.

Senator Biden said yesterday that the proposed spending on the unproven technology would draw resources away from programmes aimed at confronting other more serious threats, such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. "The very day they send up a budget that tells they are going to increase by eight-point-some billion our missile defence initiative, they cut the programme that exists between us and Russia to help them destroy their chemical weapons, keep their scientists from being for sale and destroy their nuclear weapons," the senator said in a speech at Washington's National Press Club.

All emphasis mine.

That was then, this is now:

The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.

Indeed, despite the most damning report imaginable (given that David Kay was their hand-picked inspector) regarding WMDs, VP Cheney is trying to spin it into a justification for war based on the mere possibility that Iraq could have produced them:

Cheney outlined several findings from the Kay report yesterday that, while finding no actual weapons of mass destruction, found items that could have been used to create such weapons. The vice president cited equipment "suitable for" chemical and biological weapons research; prison laboratories "possibly used" for human testing of biological weapons; a microorganism "which can be used" to make biological weapons; "BW-applicable" materials; "not fully declared" aerial drones; and "design work" for missiles and "attempts" to acquire missile technology.

Never mind that any industrialized country has the same "capacity," we had to go to war to protect America from this terrible danger.

However, the more things change, the more they stay the same:

The only recipient of a leak about the identity of Wilson's wife who went public with it was Novak, the conservative columnist, who wrote in The Washington Post and other newspapers that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, "is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."

The entire excuse for the Iraq war was its supposed weapons of mass destruction. Theoretically, strategic goal #1 in the War on Terra is to keep WMDs out of the hands of terrorists. If it's politically expedient, however, burning a CIA operative (yes, operative) to threaten dissenters is more important than protecting America from massive, deadly attacks.

Both before and after the September 11th attacks, the Bush administration has proven just how much they really care about really fighting terrorism.

(/) Roland X
War On Terra: Bush vs. the Earth

SNL Says It All

So just to recap, here are the things President Bush can’t find:

The White House leak,
Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq,
Saddam Hussein,
Osama bin Laden,
a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden,
the guy who sent the anthrax through the mail,
and his own butt with two hands and a flashlight.

Tina Fey, SNL Weekend Update.

In dark times, comedians often tell us the important truths better than the Great and Powerful Keepers of Information. I don't know that there's ever been a better Exhibit A.

(/) Roland X
Although the Fox Ministry of Information hiring one of their counterparts from the old Iraqi regime is almost as good. No, wait, that actually happened...

Speaking Truth To Power

Paul Krugman rocks.

In the months after 9/11, a shocked nation wanted to believe the best of its leader, and Mr. Bush was treated with reverence. But he abused the trust placed in him, pushing a partisan agenda that has left the nation weakened and divided. Yes, I know that's a rude thing to say. But it's also the truth.

And that, my friends, is the source of the "hate" that "liberals" (aka everyone who can see the truth clearly) have for President Bush. In the wake of the most terrible attack on America in almost sixty years, the president asked us to trust him to fight the most important battle of our time. Overwhelmingly, we gave it to him.

And he betrayed us.

Once Bush is gone, we could care less about him (unlike some we could mention who still make a living on Clinton-bashing). In the meantime, however, the most powerful man in the world is a dangerous, incompetent fool who cherishes his ignorance. If speaking truth to power is hate, then I'll hate with a clear conscience.

Except, of course, that caring about the truth is not hatred. It is honesty, and all the spin in creation can't change that. Hm, I wonder where the hate really comes from.

(/) Roland X
Actually, George W. Bush isn't worth the trouble to hate. NuCons just wish he was. Not even as good as Clinton at that part of the job...poor boy...

First Vietnam Redux; Is Bay Of Pigs II Next?

Is he nuts?

Mr Bush said the current Cuban regime, the only one-party communist government in the Americas, would never change its policies.

"The Castro regime will not change by its own choice - but Cuba must change," Mr Bush promised.

Seriously, is Bush freakin' psycho? Why aren't Republicans raising holy hell about this? Their boy is trying to emulate the two worst foreign policy decisions by Democratic presidents in the previous century -- first Lyndon Johnson, and now John F. Kennedy!

Okay, yeah, he's trying to swing the Cuban refugee vote in Florida. But this is the latest exhibit in the case that Bush has absolutely no bloody idea about how to handle international politics. He's got his hand in an angry beehive, so what does he do? He kicks a damn hornet's nest!

There's so much wrong with the Bush administration, it would take five people working full-time to catalog it all. Still, isn't it enough that he's obscenely incompetent?

(/) Roland X
Hoping the world reaches November of 2004

CA Elects Governor Groper, Life Goes On

Well, the Gropenator is now Governor of California. Ugh.

Still, this doesn't mean that Bush can take California. It does mean that, barring a successful Total Recall of the Running Man that Terminates his Predatory candidacy, Californian progressives will have to spend more time ensuring that California remains true blue and less time working to help other states burn the Bush.

And the previous sentence uses up my entire allotment of punning Schwarzenegger references, so you can read on in safety. ;^)

Meanwhile, the rest of the world moves on. Alas, there's not much good news:

The Iraqi Governing Council has failed to reach agreement with the US-led coalition that controls the country over Turkey's decision to send troops to Iraq.

Opposition to the Turkish deployment threatens to bring about the most serious public split so far between the governing council and the American authorities, correspondents say.

...

Although it is in charge, the coalition wants to be seen as sympathetic to Iraqi views.

The council knows its credibility will be badly damaged if it expressed strong opposition to Turkish troops and they were deployed anyway.

That's right, the Colonial Provincial Authority (sic) can't even keep its own puppet council on message. I suppose that's what you get for clinging to ignorance in the face of the facts.

And oh yeah, we're still losing people in Iraq:

In the first attack on Monday night, two soldiers and their Iraqi translator died and several were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded south of Baghdad, a statement from US Central Command said.

An hour earlier, one US soldier was killed and another wounded in a separate bomb attack west of the Iraqi capital.

But it's all Saddam loyalists. Really.

At least the Bush administration is finally admitting the truth, even if its defensive pundits can't -- it's an occupation, and it's going badly.

No one expected Iraq's post-war reconstruction to be easy or even straightforward.

However, the US administration's problems in Iraq have continued to mount in the five months since President George W Bush declared an end to the war.

...

The creation of an Iraq Stabilisation Group, run by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is designed to ensure better White House co-ordination.

...

White House officials deny that the authority of the Pentagon is being diminished, but some observers see Ms Rice's new powers as an implicit acknowledgement that US policy in Iraq has not been working.

Well, Bush said that he doesn't read the news, but who'd imagine that he would have lumped the right wing of the blogosphere in with such liberal bastions as Fox News and the Wall Street Journal?

Let's just hope that Condi can remember some of the minor details, like not to use the word "crusade," and that there is in fact nuclear material in Iraq -- that used to be under IAEA seal. Talk about your "dirty bomb" security risks. Klono's Tungsten Teeth, woman, buy a PDA. Or at least some post-em notes.

You know, all things considered, the Governator doesn't look so bad, comparatively speaking. At least California hasn't been occupied by Rumsfeld's Rough Riders.

Yet.

(/) Roland X
I could actually gloat about bad news for NuCons, if it were good news for anyone else...

Did America Go Nuts While I Was Away, Part Deux

The ever-amazing Kos has the scoop:

So while Texas Democrats were camped out in New Mexico, what were their Republican counterparts doing back in Austin? Because they sure as hell weren't working on a redistricting map.

Today is the drop-dead deadline for a new map, or else Texas would have to postpone the state's primaries. Yet the GOP still has no map.

Amazing. Simply amazing. The Texas GOP pillories the Dems for being obstructionist -- then, after having several months to get their act together...they don't.

Of course, this could be an evil plot to deny Texas its place in the national primaries:

Gov. Rick Perry has said the Legislature must give him a map sometime Monday to avoid postponing the state's primaries. But state lawmakers were bumping up against internal legislative deadlines for producing a compromise over the weekend.

...

Staples agreed: "If a deal is not done by midnight (Saturday), it is almost inevitable that the primary election date will have to be moved."

Or, you know, they could stop trying to gerrymander the Texas district maps.

Amazing.

(/) Roland X
Ahnold's not the Terminator -- Tom DeLay is

Did America Go Nuts While I Was Away?

Media Whores Online and Buzzflash use the following article to claim that Arnold Schwarzenegger has -- get this -- a love child.

http://www.nationalenquirer.com/stories/feature.cfm?instanceid=59509

You know what? I want to bring down the Gropenator as much as the next sane liberal, but come on. We've got fifteen women coming forward through the LA Times. We have one of Ahnold's own colleagues quoting him as admiring Hitler. This is legitimate stuff, legitimately sourced.

And some on the left are crowing about an article in the National Enquirer? The freakin' National Enquirer?!

Come on, team. We're better than this. Stick to the known facts -- Arnold's a womanizer, fascism-friendly, and completely clueless on how to run a government. Isn't that enough?

(/) Roland X
No on Recall, Yes on Bustamante!

Weekend Roundup

Well, I'm leaving until Sunday, so here are a few tidbits for what little readership I have. 8^)

First of all, there's the Rush Meltdown. I was as disgusted as most Americans at Rush's overt display of racism. However, learning that he's addicted to pain medication (and has been acquiring it illegally) and that he's going deaf bring me no particular schadenfreude. The man is about to go down the crapper, and while I say farewell with a heartfelt "good riddance," that anyone should suffer this level of ignominy is simply sad. I must admit to being slightly disappointed in some of my fellow lefty bloggers' joy at his fate. Yeah, yeah, he's a Big Fat Idiot(tm Al Franken) and he's supremely hypocritical, we know. Can we move on, please?

On the other hand, watching certain right-wingers (like oh, say, the President here) make political hay out of this has sickened me. From Media Whores Online:

JAMES CARVILLE: [Rush Limbaugh] is a human being, we should express compassion for him and hope that he gets treatment and gets rid of what could be a serious addiction to a very addictive drug. Rush, I hope you get well soon.

TUCKER CARLSON: I don't think your fellow Democrats will take up your offer to be compassionate and decent. I'm sure they're savaging him right now on the Internet for some addiction that's probably beyond his control.

Now, Carlson's later comment on MWO does have a small amount of merit. But here's Carville trying to be dignified, bearing an olive branch, and Carlson smacks him with it. Dis-graceful.

And our favorite revisionist historian, no less a person than George W. "Uniter not Divider" Bush, called Limbaugh a "national treasure. Excuse me? This racist, divisive attack-pundit is a "national treasure?" You know, I'm all for not kicking a man when he's down, but this whitewash is appalling.

Then there's the official word: no WMDs, just early releases predicted. So much for Kay's September Surprise. Kay insists that they're still looking, and Bush is asking for more money, but Schwarzenegger isn't the only Republican to end up with egg on his face recently.

Finally, speaking of the Governator, the T-1000 and T-X have seemingly come from the future to reveal his past:

The superstar actor, who has been dogged throughout the recall campaign over allegations about sexist attitudes, said that many of the stories were politically motivated. "I will say most of it is not true," he said while visiting an elementary school in San Bernardino, east of Los Angeles. "Other things may be true, and in case it's true I apologize."

...

Asked for reaction on Thursday, Schwarzenegger told ABC: "I cannot remember any of these. All I can tell you is that I despise everything Hitler stood for. I despise everything the Nazis stood for."

Well, there is something, um, interesting about the timing of these releases, but quite frankly, things look bad for Ah-nold. Schwarzenegger may end up being the first man to be undergoing impeachment proceedings before he's sworn in. (Sexual harassment is a very serious crime in California.) And while Republican hacks can say he's a "big man" for admitting his guilt, excuse me, he says "most of it is not true," clearly in (fearful?) anticipation of criminal charges being filed. The most recent occurrence, involving British TV host Anna Richardson, is being blamed on the woman by Schwarzenegger's staff.

Possible? Maybe. Arnold, however, was caught on film groping yet another British interviewer. The article above was written well before the recall was even conceived.

During his promotional visit to Britain this week Arnold Schwarzenegger groped Denise Van Outen on the Big Breakfast and behaved in a similarly oversexed and over here fashion with a clearly panicked Melanie Sykes on ITV's Celebrity.

...

Marty Singer, Schwarzenegger's lawyer called all the complaints an "outrageous fabrication" by "people trying to get their 15 minutes of fame. Quite frankly, my client didn't do anything inappropriate."

Thank God for film. Look at the expression on his face. Look at her face. What you are looking at ladies and gentlemen is what Marty Singer likes to call an outrageous fabrication.

Given this blatant lie, it's hard to take Arnie's defense seriously.

Actually, I think it's a pity that Arnold the Barbarian is such a hopeless candidate -- he's liberal on a wide variety of social issues, and I think he could have been a major force in reforming the Republican Party. Alas, between the obvious Rovian power play, the Phantom Governor ("Plutonium Pete"), and his egregious history (which I learned of well before the LA Times caught up with the blogosphere), it's No on Recall and Yes on Bustamante for me, all the way.

And Terminate Arnold if he actually wins. (Shudder)

(/) Roland X
See you all on Sunday! 8^)

Arguing the meaning of "is"

Outside Probe of Leaks Is Favored:

"Confronted with little public support for the White House view that the investigation should be handled by the Justice Department, Bush aides began Wednesday to adjust their response to the expanding probe. They reined in earlier, sweeping portrayals of innocence in favor of more technical arguments that it is possible the disclosure was made without knowledge that a covert operative was being exposed and therefore may not have been a crime."

Uh, no. It's a crime. If they "didn't know" they were exposing a covert operative, that's criminal negligence on top of their criminal venality and stupidity. (Nor, as I understand it, would it provide any defense against the existing laws. I don't believe that Poppy's law provides any defense for sheer idiocy.) They're lying, tap-dancing, and proving as evasive as Slick Willie himself. So much for the grown-ups and the "party of personal responsibility."

At least some Republicans get it, though.

"'He has that main responsibility to see this through and see it through quickly, and that would include, if I was president, sitting down with my vice president and asking what he knows about it,' the outspoken [Senator Chuck] Hagel [R-Neb.] said Wednesday night on CNBC's Capital Report."

The White House's response? Slime Wilson.

"'He is someone, given his politics, who is obviously prone to think the worst of this White House,' Gillespie said by telephone."

Yeah, someone who donated a FREAKIN' GRAND to their campaign is going to naturally think the worst of them. Sure.

(/) Roland
Bush/Cheney '04: The last vote you'll ever have to cast.

Ashcroft's Bias Exposed

The Gray Lady has finally gotten on the job with a vengeance:

Deep political ties between top White House aides and Attorney General John Ashcroft have put him into a delicate position as the Justice Department begins a full investigation into whether administration officials illegally disclosed the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer.

Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, whose possible role in the case has raised questions, was a paid consultant to three of Mr. Ashcroft's campaigns in Missouri, twice for governor and for United States senator, in the 1980's and 1990's, an associate of Mr. Rove said on Wednesday.

...

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, said she was particularly concerned about the past campaign work that Mr. Rove did for Mr. Ashcroft. "Given allegations about the involvement of senior White House officials and the past close association between the attorney general and those officials, the investigation should be headed by a person independent of the administration," Ms. Pelosi said.

Apparently, so have the Democrats.

Sooner or later, the Rovians are going to realize that this isn't going to go away, no matter how much they slime Ambassador Wilson or do "classified information" hand-waving. The only question is, will any of them still be in office by then?

(/) Roland X
Two-Fisted Liberals, Unite! (And keep swinging!)

Blair Is History

Hesiod has the scoop:

MAGGIE MAY DAY: Simply splendid. Noted pinko, anti-American, soft-on terrorist, Al-Qaeda sympathizer, Margaret Thatcher, has come out against the war in Iraq. Or, at least, Britain's participation in same.

Do the Tories want to make political hay out of this? Absolutely. But they backed the war initially.

So, who are the Lib Dems putting forth for prime minister? ;^)

Note: Here's what Baroness Thatcher had to say (from the article linked above):

"Britain should never have been involved and it will be very difficult to get our troops out in anything like the near future," she told Tory peers at a private meeting last week.

She also believes a judicial inquiry should be set up into the Iraq conflict rather than the "tightly defined" Hutton inquiry.

Aside: apparently, my favorite counterspinner got this from the equally excellent Alterman:

You know you've got a stupid war if you can't even get Maggie Thatcher to get behind it. I know what Bush's problem is, but what in the world could have possessed Tony Blair?

IMO, the only real question remaining is this: how badly will Blair's now-inevitable fall damage Bush?

(/) Roland X
Don't hold back, Your Excellency, tell us how you really feel.

Rove and Ashcroft, sitting in a tree...

Short post, since it's late and some of us have to work for a living.

However, after seeing this post by Billmon, I had to pick up the challenge. It was tough tracking down the connection, but lo and behold, that left wing rag comes through again:

Ashcroft was not an accidental choice for attorney general. Before Sept. 11, his conservative credentials on judicial nominees, enforcing federal pornography laws and protecting gun owners' rights were good. Karl Rove, Bush's trusted political adviser, had handled Ashcroft's political campaigns and Majority Leader of the Senate Trent Lott, R-Miss., favored his nomination.

And Tom DeLay wants us to believe that there's no conflict of interest here. Riiight. This is why Janet Reno investigated Monica Lewinsky, after all. No, wait...

(/) Roland X
Being that hypocritical must be hard work, but they make it look so easy...

Real Republicans Tell The Truth

Republicans as a whole are not our enemies. Neither are real, classic conservatives. They are our rivals, but many are noble and honorable people. Larry Johnson, former CIA official, is one of them:

To hear Bob Novak parsing words like a Clinton lawyer defining sex is outrageous. Sure, they didn't call him, he called them but they volunteered the information. They took the initiative to divulge the CIA officer's name. And that is outrageous.

...

Let's be very clear about what happened. This is not an alleged abuse. This is a confirmed abuse. I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been undercover for three decades, she is not as Bob Novak suggested a CIA analyst.

...

I say this as a registered Republican. I'm on record giving contributions to the George Bush campaign. This is not about partisan politics. This is about a betrayal, a political smear of an individual with no relevance to the story. Publishing her name in that story added nothing to it. His entire intent was correctly as Ambassador Wilson noted: to intimidate, to suggest that there was some impropriety that somehow his wife was in a decision making position to influence his ability to go over and savage a stupid policy, an erroneous policy and frankly, what was a false policy of suggesting that there were nuclear material in Iraq that required this war. This was about a political attack. To pretend that it's something else and to get into this parsing of words, I tell you, it sickens me to be a Republican to see this.

Incidentally, I actually watched this episode of News Hour. Mr. Johnson's words, direct as they are, don't quite convey the barely restrained outrage of this clearly honorable man who is furious to see knives sticking out of the backs of two good people (Mr. and Mrs. Wilson).

Meanwhile, Newsmax, that left-wing rag (that's sarcasm, son), had this to say:

13) We need to reverse things: if the Clinton White House had sold out an active-duty CIA agent as 'payback' for some whistle-blowing article, we would be outraged. This crime is no less serious because it was done in a Republican White House.

14) Long ago, in a piece entitled "Bush's Achilles Heel," I wrote that this Bush's weakness was the entire mystery, secrecy and sometimes-illegality of the intelligence community. This Plame leak now threatens to become a huge story - involving lawbreaking, revenge, abuse of power and the inevitable cover-up. Plus the 10 Democrats running for President and the media are going to have a field day with it.

And here's a quote from an American he saved during his standoff in Baghdad:

Wilson may laugh now, but in the eyes of hostages, he was a hero. "He stuck his neck out in our behalf . . . He worked so hard to keep us from falling apart," recalled Roland O. Bergheer, 75, a Bechtel Corp. manager who was trapped in Baghdad.

A conservative who lives in Las Vegas, Bergheer added: "I love Joe Wilson. . . . I don't give a damn what his politics are."

The same article has this to say on the first page:

In 1990, while sheltering more than a hundred Americans at the U.S. Embassy and diplomatic residences, he briefed reporters while wearing a hangman's noose instead of a necktie -- a symbol of defiance after Hussein threatened to execute anyone who didn't turn over foreigners.

The message, Wilson said: "If you want to execute me, I'll bring my own [expletive] rope."

This toughness impressed President George H.W. Bush, who called Wilson a "truly inspiring" diplomat who exhibited "courageous leadership" by facing down Hussein and helping to gain freedom for the Americans before the 1991 war began.

Yeah, now there's a man who hates the Bush family.

So it is in everyone's interest, not just progressives, to see Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. We're just more likely to enjoy it.

(/) Roland X
Two-Fisted Liberal (who respects honest conservatives, two-fisted or otherwise 8^)

Plame Defenses Quickly Evaporating

Plame was important:

"CIA lawyers followed up the notification this month by answering 11 questions from the Justice Department, affirming that the woman's identity was classified, that whoever released it was not authorized to do so and that the news media would not have been able to guess her identity without the leak, the senior officials said."

Um...ouch. So much for "she was no big deal" and "everyone knew who she was."

Oh, and here's an opinion from a hardcore neocon in the know:

"This is a serious leak," former CIA Director James Woolsey said. "You can endanger intelligence and people's lives by revealing the identities of CIA case officers, so it's a serious matter."

So when are the apologists going to smear James "World War IV" Woolsey?

Better practice your hop, Karl.

(/) Roland X
Maybe they can argue what the word "leak" means

The Empire Strikes Back...Badly

Well, I have to admit, I'm impressed. It's not every day that you see a group of people display arrogance and desperation...simultaneously.

Arrogance:

McClellan said White House officials were not trying to determine on their own what had happened or who was involved. "Are we supposed to chase down every anonymous report in the newspaper? We'd spend all our time doing that."

Desperation:

In particular, McClellan said it was "ridiculous" to suggest that Karl Rove, Bush's top political operative, was involved, as once alleged by Wilson. "He wasn't involved," McClellan said of Rove. "The president knows he wasn't involved. ... It's simply not true."

I hope that it goes without saying that if the latter statement is accurate, it means that Bush knows who exposed Valerie Plame.

Meanwhile, the right wing of the blogosphere is going apesh*t. Several neocon apologists are coming up with the most pathetic excuses for their masters, from "s/he asked for it" (now there's a classic) to blaming others for the leak...after the leak was leaked (WTF?) to "why would they bother?" Another National Review article (The National Review appears to be the NuCon mouthpiece) claims that it's no big deal, because everyone who's anyone in Washington already knew about Valerie Wilson nee Plame. So there, nyah.

If I had enough time to riposte every NuCon screed, I'd be a happy (and rather wealthy) man. Suffice to say that I don't feel any particular need to argue these points, as they all take massive detours around the real issue: which two top White House officials outed an undercover CIA operative?

This, by the way, is according to another senior administration official.

If this is the best Act Two the New American Empire can come up with, Act Three is going to be awfully one sided.

(/) Roland X
Awww, and I was hoping for a big Dean/Bush lightsaber duel in October of '04... ;^)

Addendum: Morgan's excellent list of articles on the Plame scandal will likely fall behind fast now that the mainstream media is (finally) on the case, but it's an excellent primer for the first two months of the story's development.

The Other Guy Rule

While I am enjoying the (long overdue) Rove/Bush meltdown regarding Wilsongate, I am more than a little disconcerted by some of the rhetoric in my (left) half of the blogosphere. Are we really talking about forcing reporters to blow the anonymity of sources, here? Do we really want to go there?

Fellow bloggers, reporters' privilege exists for a reason. Imagine if this scandal were, instead, an Office of Special Plans' plot to overthrow Lula a la Chile in 1973. Imagine that a CIA source with the cojones to do something about it leaked the plot anonymously to Robert Scheer. Cheney would be howling with rage, demanding the offending agent's head on a plate, and the NuCon shills would be parroting along dutifully. And there's the real-world parallel to consider: an administration official confirmed that Novak's sources are legit. Anonymously. The White House could insist on a "fair and balanced" revelation, forcing NBC to out its resource as well.

The anonymity of sources is one of the most important tools in a reporter's arsenal when it comes to gathering facts. A journalist who gives up a source is not only committing career seppuku, they're weakening the entire press and its ability (such as it is) to get us the intel we need to be informed.

Patience, my friends. McClellan was just torn to shreds during the daily gaggle. The reporters know whodunit, and they're throwing themselves into making sure we learn who the culprits are as well. Sooner or later, the truth will out -- and if all goes well, not one source will have to be compromised.

After all, isn't such indiscretion what got Rove into this mess in the first place?

(/) Roland X
Who doesn't know what being "frogmarched" is, but looks forward to learning by watching Rove ;^)

Bush's Last Blunder?

Taking one for Rove wasn't his smartest move:

"He wasn't involved," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said of Rove. "The president knows he wasn't involved. ... It's simply not true."

Which pretty much says outright that the president does know who it is. And is covering up for them. Which would make him an accessory after the fact.

And this is assuming that Rove's actually innocent.

He'll never be impeached. He can lose the '04 election, though.

Anyone care to place bets on the chances that a Democratic president would pardon Dubya?

(/) Roland X
The Meltdown Continues...

Wilsongate Goes Mainstream

NBC, the Washington Post, Time Magazine, CBS, and the New York Times are all on this story.

The Washington Post story is the most damning:

A senior administration official said two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and revealed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. That was shortly after Wilson revealed in July that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson's account eventually touched off a controversy over Bush's use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.

"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.

Holy Jeebus. For those of you playing our home game, a major White House player just came out and busted two of his or her colleagues. That is one of those things that Simply Isn't Done in the Rove/Bush White House. Someone is seriously unhappy with the way this has developed. Prime suspects include Powell and Tenet, who have often seemed like voices of sanity in the crazed wilderness of the PNAC rush to conquest. Both have also been scapegoats for the administration's failures, Powell for "losing" the UN in the run-up to war and Tenet falling on his sword (yet missing all the major organs) regarding those "16 words."

As for the news corps' sudden escape from their drugged stupor, is this a brief respite, or has our SCLM finally woken up? Let us hope they're permanently back on the job. Team Bush has gotten a free ride for far too long, and the outing of Valerie Plame is one of their most despicable acts -- which, for this administration, is really saying something.

(/) Roland X
Support Our Spooks

No WMDs

None. Nada. Zero. Zip. Nil.

No WMDs. No facilities for making WMDs. No materials for making WMDs. Not even a plan for making WMDs.

All they've got is that Hussein wanted his people to develop a plan to make WMDs. Someday. Eventually. If they could ever get the US and the UN to stop crawling up his butt. Remember when the threat was so dire that we couldn't give inspectors two bloody weeks back in March?

You know our country is in a sad state when Al Franken is a better source of news about our government than the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN combined. Lying liars indeed.

If this is the big David Kay "you'll be sorry" surprise, I'd like to see their idea of a letdown.

(/) Roland X
Can we finally bury the myth of "Honest George" now?

Winner of the Recall Debate: Gray Davis

I like this guy more and more with each passing day:

"I will tell you this: His ads say more about Mr. Schwarzenegger than they do about anyone else," Davis said. "He said he would not take special interest money, and now he's taking it. He said he would not run attack ads, now he has. He said he'd debate people, but now will only do it if he gets the questions in advance."

You said it, Governor.

Schwarzenegger's performance in his only debate proved that even having the questions in advance was no help to a man whose only political skill is in reciting talking points. His answers, even on his marquee subjects like business and education, were unfocused, unhelpful, and pale reflections of the McClintock wing of the Republican party. It's really too bad that McClintock is such a wingnut on most other issues.

Thus, I've finally figured Schwarzenegger's platform out: he's Ueberroth, only without the brains.

When Arianna refused to let Ahnuld speak over her, she said: "This is the way you treat women, we know that. But not now." The moderator called that a personal attack (true, though that doesn't address the accuracy of her comment 8^). Ahnuld's reply?

"I just realized that I have a perfect part for you in Terminator 4."

This was, apparently, a reference to the scene he enjoyed so much, where he "got away with" smashing a woman's head into a toilet. That, of course, was the Terminatrix, so "it wasn't really a woman."

Let us hope that Arianna proves to be the Terminatrix of his campaign.

"I need a lot of help," Schwarzenegger says. Boy, is he right.

Peter Camejo was as passionate and articulate as always. It's a pity he doesn't have a chance in Hades.

Which leaves, of course, Cruz Bustamante. The long-suffering Lieutenant Governor maintained his patience and good humor, waiting for Schwarzenegger to stop ranting over his opportunities to speak. When the excellent (if justifiably frazzled) moderator inevitably returned to him, Cruz finished making his points clearly and effectively. Unless viewers were completely blinded by Schwarzenegger's fame and his well-scripted closing statement, this is a two horse race now -- and the horses are named Davis and Bustamante.

(/) Roland X
No On Recall, Yes On Bustamante!

No On Recall, Yes On Bustamante

The election is on.

In less than two weeks, Californians will decide whether or not to recall Governor Gray Davis, and if they do, who will replace him.

Now, I love Arianna Huffington. I was registered Green myself until the 2000 election, and Peter Camejo sounded great in the first debate.

The truth is, however, that this election is down to three men: Gray Davis, Cruz Bustamante, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. This means we have two chances out of three to keep California out of play in the 2004 Presidential election. Governor Davis is not perfect -- what man is -- but he's turned his administration around, fighting the Enrons and working to stabilize the budget. And Lt. Governor Bustamante, meanwhile, is notably more progressive than Davis, which is why Issa is urging his supporters to vote "No" on the recall if Ahnold and McClintock are both in the race on October 7th.

Of equal importance is Proposition 54, the so-called "racial privacy" initiative. This abomination is basically intended to suppress data that proves the continuing racial bias evident in our country.

We have to beat these guys. If you live in California, get out and vote -- no on recall, yes on Bustamante, and no on 54. If not, please support us however you can. It may be a circus to the rest of you, but we have to live with the clowns once the tents come down.

(/) Roland X
Plus, expect a 24-hour recall cycle if Davis loses

This Is How You Run A Primary

Here's a look at why I'm for Clean Dean:

Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi was less critical. "I know we were surprised yesterday [Thursday] when we heard he said he would have voted for the resolution," he said. "But, look, he just got in the race. This is a new world of politics, and I think you've got to give him some time so we can learn where his positions are. But we think he's going to have an impact on the race, and other candidates should take him seriously. We do."

http://www.msnbc.com/news/971241.asp

PRESS: ...Now, OK, I'm Howard Dean. I'm anti-war, and I come along, and I'm Wesley Clark, and I'm anti-war, but I'm a four-star General. Checkmate, right?

STEVE MCMAHON, SENIOR STRATEGIST, DEAN CAMPAIGN: Do you think so? Well, I think that's something that the voters are going to have to decide... I mean, listen, we were one of the first people in this race to say the truth, which is that Wesley Clark is going to be a strong candidate. He has a lot to offer our party and our country and Howard Dean welcomed him into the race. His experience as a general is important, and it's significant. We think Howard Dean's experience as a governor is important and significant. He's got quite a few accomplishments as well, so, you know, the voters are going to make this decision.

Yeah, that Dean, he'll do anything to win, won't he?

(Quotes found at Billmon and The Horse.)

He's honest, he's honorable, he says what he stands for, and he states outright that practically no one is going to agree with him on every single issue. However, we've seen that he will listen to the American people and fight like hell for us. Dean's even willing (as the quotes above show) to put the all-important victory over Bush well ahead of his own ambition.

Oh yeah, and I agree with him on almost every single issue.

Check him out.

I'll back the eventual nominee with everything I've got. For now, however, Go Dean Go!

(/) Roland X
Take Your Country Back

Holy Jeebus

What the heck are you doing here? Go read Atrios.

"Vorlons or Shadows," "Moon Stick" (follow Bad Moon on the rise to Salon), and "The Accused Have Rights" cover the State of the Union better than Dubya ever did.

(/) Roland X
Brrr...someone turn down those chilling effects, willya?

Clark Wars I: The Phantom Clenis

Well, they're already at it:

WHEN WILL Wesley Clark stop telling tall tales? In the current issue of Newsweek, Howard Fineman reports Clark told Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and University of Denver president Mark Holtzman that "I would have been a Republican if Karl Rove had returned my phone calls."

Unfortunately for Clark, the White House has logged every incoming phone call since the beginning of the Bush administration in January 2001. At the request of THE DAILY STANDARD, White House staffers went through the logs to check whether Clark had ever called White House political adviser Karl Rove. The general hadn't. What's more, Rove says he doesn't remember ever talking to Clark, either.

Unfortunately for Mr. Continetti, the blogosphere is all over this. As pretty much anyone who stops here to read no doubt knows already, Clark was joking. (Look at his stands on the issues. Yeah, Rove'd love Clark.) The claim that this was serious comes from Owens and Holtzman. So basically, the White House has proved that they have a problem with reality, not General Clark.

As other bloggers have noted, the real question here is when the administration started having a more open policy regarding White House information, given how much trouble the bloody GAO has had dragging paperwork out of Cheney regarding his (blatantly corrupt) "Energy Task Force" meetings. Rove's talking points are trying to leak out as "news," but his Keystone Korps of press agents are trampling them to death in their panic over Clark's strong showing. (Hint: Clark is already beating Bush in polls.

A couple of other quick rebuttals based on this "article's" accusations:

Last June, the latest Democratic candidate for president implied that he "got a call" on 9/11 from "people around the White House" asking the general to publicly link Saddam Hussein to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

This sentence construction creates an outright lie. What Clark said was that "people around the White House" were spreading the false "Saddam was behind 9/11" meme, and he "got a call" from a Canadian think-tank that asked him to back that on CNN. Which Continetti knows the source of:

While it turns out Clark did receive a call "on either Sept. 12 or Sept. 13," the call wasn't from the White House. It was from Israeli-Canadian Middle East expert Thomas Hecht, who told the Toronto Star that he called to invite Clark to give a speech in Canada.

So Mr. Continetti's quote combination above is, basically, a deliberate lie. Or unimaginably incompetent, take your pick.

Finally, there's this gem of skilled reporting:

As for Clark's accusation that the White House tried to have him fired from CNN--well, the general admits he has no proof. "I've only heard rumors about it," he said.

Pretty damning, huh? Except he writes it so that the "admission" seems like it came later. Here's the full quote from the interview in question:

"The White House actually back in February apparently tried to get me knocked off CNN and they wanted to do this because they were afraid that I would raise issues with their conduct of the war," Clark told Newsradio 620 KTAR. "Apparently they called CNN. I don't have all the proof on this because they didn't call me. I've only heard rumors about it."

Shocking! That anyone could possibly accuse Resident Bush of such a thing!

Rick Blaine: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Captain Louis Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[A croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Louis Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much. [aloud] Everybody out at once!

The attack dogs are after Clark already. Fortunately, they've started by biting each other.

(/) Roland X
"Mad Dogs and Englishmen" -- and Blair's already frying...

What's This Knife Doing In My Back?

I don't usually just point people at other blogs without something of my own to say, but Josh "TPM" Marshall slam-dunks this one:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/sept0304.html#092303154pm

He says:

It's come to this. A US Congressman, Jim Marshall, Democrat from Georgia's 3rd District, says media bias is responsible for US troop deaths in Iraq.

From a column he penned the Atlanta Journal Constitution earlier this month, some of the highlights: "I found myself wondering whether the news media were somehow complicit in [Sgt. Trevor A. Blumberg's] death ... We may need a few credible Baghdad Bobs to undo the harm done by our media. I'm afraid it is killing our troops."

It really doesn't get much lower than that.

In fact, it does get worse. The "good" Congressman claims that the media isn't covering good news now, and that during the "hot" part of the war, "embedded journalists reported the good, the bad and the ugly." He also says, after hearing from a soldier with a positive attitude, "No one I spoke with said anything different." Well, duh. How many soldiers are going to ask for a court-martial by telling a Congresscritter what they really think of a war being increasingly screwed up? I guess the rest of us are just hallucinating the increasing sound of "this is bull" shots from the guys on the ground.

In what little defense I can muster for Congressman Marshall, he's a Vietnam veteran, so he sees the coverage through that bias. Nevertheless, in an age of Faux News and round-the-clock wingnut radio, how can he possibly make this claim with any seriousness?

(/) Roland X
Betrayal Knows No Party

Uncivil Conflict

So. Our Dear Leader is actually having to deal with (gasp!) criticism, now that Iraq is in shambles and the fearmongers can no longer silence America's voice. His policies are finally being exposed to the harsh light they deserve, and his rhetoric is being routinely dismantled by progressives, moderates, and classic conservatives.

Naturally, his response was to go to his party's propaganda machine, i.e. Faux News. An exclusive interview with a slavish reporter, however, was not enough to save Dubya...from himself.

Bush reveals his opinion of "objectivity" with this gem:

"I appreciate people's opinions, but I'm more interested in news," the president said. "And the best way to get the news is from objective sources, and the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world."

This, obviously, is how opinion peddlers can proclaim their rivals "objectively" pro-Saddam. Or something.

And then there's this beauty:

"But, you know, I don't think we're serving our nation well by allowing the discourse to become so uncivil that people say - use words that they shouldn't be using."

This, to accuse Edward Kennedy of dragging down political discourse.

"The Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people." --George W. Bush, showing his respect for the United States Senate

"Now, there are some who would like to rewrite history —- revisionist historians is what I like to call them." --George W. Bush, on people who dare to note his contradictions

"And we gave him [Saddam] a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in." --George W. Bush, revisionist historian

"My answer is bring them on." --George W. Bush, supporting our troops

"It's an old Texas expression, show your cards when you're playing poker. France showed their cards," Bush said. "They said they were going to veto anything that held Saddam to account." --George W. Bush, master of international diplomacy

"I say it's pure politics. And that's just the nature of democracy. Sometimes pure politics enters into the rhetoric." --George W. Bush, trying to preserve the sanctity of rhetoric

"When you hear about war all the time on your TV screens, the speculation of war and the discussion of war, it's not conducive to a confident tomorrow." --George W. "Irony-Proof" Bush, on freedom of the press

"You see, the Senate wants to take away some of the powers of the administrative (sic) branch." --George W....ah, heck, you know. Something about separation of powers and all that.

With a tip o' the keyboard to The Complete Bushisms and DubyaSpeak for some of these. I wish he was still just a joke.

Okay, so we're going to have violently partisan politics for the foreseeable future. (Well, maybe there will be a cooling off period in early '05. Don't count on it, though.) You know what? I'm okay with that. Democrats are hitting back hard, and it should come as no surprise that the GOoPers aren't taking it lying down.

On the other hand, it is absolutely disgusting -- abjectly appalling -- that the Rovies are trying to claim the high ground after slamming the patriotism of genuine war heroes like John Kerry, Max Cleland (a man who left THREE LIMBS in Vietnam), and now Wesley Clark. Democrats, and the left as a whole, gave our "wartime president" a free pass on September 12, 2001. Rove used it to butcher our civil liberties and wage an uncivil war on dissent.

And now they're whining because the opposition party is behaving like an opposition party? Moaning because they're taking these plunderers to task for lying us into war, stealing from Iraq and America, and betraying our armed forces for financial and political gain? Pathetic. Their hypocrisy is displayed for America and the world to see. They chose the battlefield and they chose the weapons, so if they can't stand the heat then let 'em fry.

(/) Roland X
*snif snif* What's That Smell?