McCain, Obama & the press corps

David Broder makes an observation:

“McCain benefits from a long-established reputation as a man who says what he believes,” writes Broder. “His shifts in position that have occurred in this campaign seem not to have damaged that aura." (emphasis in blog post)

Gee, could it be that the press corps is carrying McCain's water for him? Could it be that the press corps is doing its best to cover for their man and are determined NOT to cover his many flip-flops? Broder goes on to observe that Obama "has tapped into a rich vein of small contributors using the Internet" while poor, poor John McCain (*Sob!* Weep! Wail!) "has lagged all year in his private fundraising." Broder then suggests that townhall-style debates would help the "credibility of the election process." The same blog post notes that Broder didn't seem very concerned about the "credibility of the election process" when it came to the Voter ID case in Indiana, where nuns in their 80s and 90s, lifelong voters, were prevented from voting because they didn't have photo IDs. Broder seems to have a highly selective concern for the "credibility of the election process." Sometimes, when credibility is sacrificed and it helps Republicans, no biggie. But when it helps Democrats, we get all sorts of tsk-tsking.

Media Matters has a piece on how Obama and McCain are covered by the press corps when it comes to campaign finance laws.

John McCain said he would take public financing for the Republican primaries. Then he used the promise of that public financing to help secure a loan for his campaign. Then, after he wrapped up the Republican nomination, he abruptly decided he did not want to be bound by the limits on campaign fundraising and spending that accompany public financing, so he announced that he had changed his mind.

But Federal Election Commission chairman David Mason sent McCain a letter saying that he cannot unilaterally opt out of the public financing system without FEC approval -- a letter the McCain campaign ignored. If McCain cannot opt out of the system unilaterally, he has broken the law by raising and spending funds in excess of legal limits, and continues to do so each day. Even if McCain isn't breaking the law, he has already broken his word and "reversed himself" on the question of whether he would take public funding for the primaries.

This history got a passing mention on ABC and NBC News, but neither station went into any detail and both quickly went on to other subjects without dwelling what McCain's on-again, off-again relationship with the public campaign-financing system meant. Other news sources didn't cover it at all.

One of the reasons Obama claims that he wants to stay outside the public financing system is so that he can respond to attacks from 527s (The Swift Boat Veterans who successfully attacked John Kerry and dominated the news in August 2004 were a 527 group). The AP, The Politico and the Washington Post all claim that there are no 527s currently attacking Obama. Obviously, these organizations do not have very good news-reporting staffs, because Media Matters identifies Freedom's Watch and Vets for Freedom as being 527s that are currently attacking Obama.

And this one's actually pretty funny. A conservative blog post screams out the headline "Obama Would Be A Clinton Third Term" 1!!1!! Umm, okay. And for America to get a relatively peaceful presidential term and an economic boom and a reasonably corruption-free government would be a bad thing? Seems to me that by far the worst thing about things under Clinton were all the attacks by Republicans!

The failure of Goldwater-Reagan conservatism

I agree with Jonathan Lasts' assertion ("Bush isn't evil or stupid, just a bad manager" Jun 20) that President Bush cannot be both evil and stupid. That's like saying "We can't swim in that lake because it's polluted and it's full of fish." I come down on the side that says Bush is evil, but I explain Bush's failure by saying that the Republican conservatism of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan is a deeply flawed philosophy.
The flooding problems of the Midwest (And the collapse of the I35W bridge over the Mississippi in Minnesota, Katrina-New Orleans and the wildfires of California) can be explained in the words of Grover Norquist "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." The two goals of maintaining the infrastructure of modern industrial society and keeping government small and cheap are utterly incompatible and mutually contradictory
Like Communism in Russia, the flawed ideas of Republican conservatism have been implemented without any concern for the human cost of doing so. What we're witnessing now is the utter bankruptcy of that philosophy. Hopefully, Barack Obama can act as Franklin D. Roosevelt did and save capitalism from its own excesses.

Strange Bedfellows

Concerns FISA and the Democrats who act as traitors to the Democratic Party and the US Constitution.

Tell Congress "No Deal on Telecom Immunity!"

Further info on Congress' attempt to set aside US Constitution on the warrantless wiretapping issue.

Update: ACLU's press release

Contributions as of Wednesday at 5:00pm have raised $90,000 in the past 24 hours ($170,000 total) The campaign the money will go towards is aimed at three backers of the bill.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) "is now offering the excuse that he had no choice but to negotiate it because 'conservative' Democrats were threatening to support the Rockefeller/Cheney Senate bill and Hoyer was thus forced to negotiate the best deal he could." This excuse is ridiculous.

Update: Many Congresspeople less than pleased with "compromise"

New wiretapping bill dubbed ‘repugnant’ and ‘a capitulation.’

"The Beltway establishment needs to be trained to understand that there is a real constituency for defending our constitutional framework."

Contribute to ActBlue to fight telecom immunity

The candidates: How different?

A buddy of mine sent me the following:

Now the Democrats seem to be focused on one particular candidate, I hope that you are all aware what this really means. It means that David Rockefeller again has managed to set the agenda and is on track for his.

Thanks,
RonL
Shebuté

CFR Stacks The Deck With Both Democrat And Republican Presidential Candidates

Michelle Obama is on the Board of Directors in the Chicago branch of the CFR.

Obama Economic Controller Is Skull And Bones Member

Barack Obama CFR info

Barack Obama and the Council on Foreign Relations

I haven't read any of the stories at these links for two reasons. First off, RonL is a pretty reliable source and tends to read widely and deeply. Second, Dean Baker is an economist I've read for quite some time and whom I have found to be thoroughly reliable. From his piece bemoaning the fact (A bit tongue in cheek, of course) that he wasn't chosen to be one of Obama's economic advisers:

When it comes to economic issues the tone this crew sets is decidedly more in line with Wall Street than Main Street. This can be seen on issue after issue.

In other words, yes, Obama is choosing to follow an Establishment economic model. However, does this indicate, in Ralph Nader's words: "...there is no real difference between the two major-party candidates"?

I don't think so. Observe the very positive and heartening decision by the Supreme Court to re-affirm basic, fundamental, American, Constitutional values by their decision that "...foreign nationals held at Guantánamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights."

Lawyer & blogger Glenn Greenwald points out how critical this next election could be to our rights:

Three of the five Justices in the majority -- John Paul Stevens (age 88), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (age 75) and David Souter (age 68) -- are widely expected by court observers to retire or otherwise leave the Court in the first term of the next President. By contrast, the four judges who dissented -- Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Sam Alito -- are expected to stay right where they are for many years to come.

John McCain has identified Roberts and Alito as ideal justices of the type he would nominate, while Barack Obama has identified Stephen Breyer, David Souter and Ginsberg (all in the majority today). It's not hyperbole to say that, from Supreme Court appointments alone, our core constitutional protections could easily depend upon the outcome of the 2008 election. [emphasis added]

We're talking about very fundamental differences that remain quite important, even if Obama and McCain see eye-to-eye on economic issues.

The Senate Phase 2 report on misuse of available intel on Iraqi WMD

The first part of the Senate Report on Iraqi WMD Intelligence was put out on 9 Jul 2004. Democrats on the Intelligence Committee pointed out at the time that:

...the report painted an incomplete picture, because the Committee had put off until phase two of the investigation the key question of "how intelligence on Iraq was used or misused by Administration officials in public statements and reports."

This phase of the Senate report (PDF) was finally issued on 5 Jun 2008. How did our local paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, cover it? A search of Philly.com for the report showed a single hit from an AP piece on the day it was issued. A decent round-up, it concentrates on the second part (PDF) of the Phase 2 report, the part that focuses on the meeting in Rome between various characters. The author doesn't appear to be aware of, or ignores, the first part that concentrates on where the speeches of members of the Bush Administration contradicted or went beyond the available intelligence on the threat posed by Iraq, starting in late 2002. It's not clear whether the AP piece was published in the Inquirer, The Daily News or simply on the web. The paper copy of the Inquirer for Thursday doesn't have any sign of the report. The paper copy for Friday has a New York Times piece "Bush overstated threat, Senate committee says" on page A6. The NY Times title was: "Bush Overstated Iraq Evidence, Senators Report." The only other sign in the Inquirer that the report was ever published is a Tony Auth cartoon on Sunday the 8th.

One reason that the Inquirer may have for underplaying the report is an issue that crops up several times in the Republican response to the report. This issue was articulated in President Bush's nonresponsive answer to a series of charges of incompetence made by Senator Kerry (D-MA) in the 30 Sep 2004 debate between them:

BUSH: My opponent looked at the same intelligence I looked at and declared in 2002 that Saddam Hussein was a grave threat.

On 14 Nov 2005, Kerry responded to that assertion:

The very worst that Members of Congress can be accused of is trusting the intelligence we were selectively given by this Administration, and taking the President at his word. But unlike this Administration, there is absolutely no suggestion that we intentionally went beyond what we were told were the facts. That is the greatest offense by the Administration. Just look at their most compelling justification for war: Saddam’s nuclear program and his connections with Al Qaeda.

The facts speak for themselves. The White House has admitted that the President told Congress and the American public in the State of the Union Address that Saddam was attempting to acquire fuel for nuclear weapons despite the fact that the CIA specifically told the Administration three times, in writing and verbally, not to use this intelligence. Obviously, Democrats didn’t get that memo. In fact, similar statements were removed from a prior speech by the President, and Colin Powell refused to use it in his presentation to the UN. This is not relying on faulty intelligence, as Democrats did; it is knowingly, and admittedly, misleading the American public on a key justification for going to war. [emphases added]

The fact of the matter was, and this was known at the time, the Democrats didn't (and still don't) have an independent intelligence service, they had to rely upon the statements given to them by the government and those statements had to be approved by the Chief Executive, President Bush.Once this single fact is taken into account, most of the Republican objections to the report fall apart.
One other objection might be that this is all terribly overblown. The blogger Glenn Greenwald reports that columnist David Broder is just oh-so-terribly bored and unfazed by the whole controversy as Broder states:

I am reluctant to see every big policy dispute turned into a criminal or impeachable affair. There needs to be accountability but there also needs to be proportionality.

Greenwald explains this reaction on Broder's part by pointing out that Broder is complicit in Bush's crimes as he was supportive of them at the time. Naturally, calling too much attention to the criminality of the Bush Administration calls into question Broder's own dereliction of duty in not raising objections to the war before it began.

And was the propaganda campaign waged by the Bush Administration in late 2002 and early 2003, a criminal matter? As a matter of fact, it was.

Since 1951, Congress has enacted an annual, government wide prohibition on the use of appropriated funds for purposes of "publicity or propaganda."
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The bottom line seems to be that any "covert" program by the government to shape the news, or disseminate false news, to the domestic American audience constitutes a violation of both the Appropriations Act prohibitions as well as the Anti-Deficiency Act.

PRAWN, the Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network has long been interested in protesting the Inquirer for it's shoddy and conservatively-biased coverage of the news. Members have felt that they need a specific complaint to focus their protest around. I'd say this constitutes a very good focus.

Update: FireDogLake has a post that links to two WaPo pieces. The first is Fred Hiatt, a reliable right-wing water carrier, who notes the many times that the Senate report notes that Bush Administration talking points were generally substantiated by the intel. Very true, the report does indeed note that there is a high degree of correlation between reality and the talking points, but there are enough discrepancies and Scott McClellan describes the White House sales job well enough, nah, we don't have to scrape off the "Bush lied, soldiers died" bumperstickers.

The second is a report by Walter Pincus (Whose report is published, predictably, on page A15) that details the evidence that the Senate did not review. Both are worth reading, if only to add depth to the initial reading of the Senate report.

Jun10 update: The Inquirer delivered a satisfactory piece on the Senate report in today's paper, covering all of the essential details of the issue.

The value of mea culpas (Not much)

Glenn Greenwald acknowledges the sort-of mea culpa offered by the Politico's John Harris in which Harris admits that he and his organization focused too much on:

Trivial stories -- the kind that are tailor-made for forwarding to your brother-in-law or college roommate with a wisecracking note at the top -- can dominate the campaign narrative for days. . . .

As leaders of a new publication, Politico's senior editors and I are relentlessly focused on audience traffic. The way to build traffic on the Web is to get links from other websites. The way to get links is to be first with news -- sometimes big news, sometimes small -- that drives that day's conversation. [emphasis added by Greenwald]

It's all very fine and well that Harris is now sorry over his and his organization's misguided emphasis on going after audience traffic at the expense of serious reporting, but I'm reminded of another scandal in the political media:

On May 26, 2004 -- more than a year after the invasion of Iraq -- the Times published a belated semi-mea-culpa article by two top editors, including executive editor Bill Keller. The piece contended that the Times, along with policy makers in Washington, were victims rather than perpetrators: “Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations -- in particular, this one.”

But the Times did not “fall for misinformation” as much as jump for it. The newspaper eagerly helped the administration portray deceptions as facts.

Even worse, on 10 Feb 07, the NY Times reporter Michael Gordon published a piece on how Iran was sending a diabolical device into Iraq that was killing American soldiers, i.e., Iran was waging a proxy war against the US by arming Iraqi insurgents. Media Matters reports that Gordon was permitted to issue this without any hint of skepticism or even any voices other than those of government spokespeople. On 5 May 08, Gordon did it again, acting as a stenographer for anonymous government sources and passing on the scary, scary tale of how Iraqi insurgents were receiving training in Iran. In a slight modification (Owing to the skepticism that the EFP story had received, such as in: "EFPs are Made in Iraq by Iraqis") the story now read:

In a possible effort to be less obtrusive, it appears that Iran is now bringing small groups of Iraqi Shiite militants to camps in Iran, where they are taught how to do their own training, American officials say.

The militants then return to Iraq to teach comrades how to fire rockets and mortars, fight as snipers or assemble explosively formed penetrators, a particularly lethal type of roadside bomb made of Iranian components, according to American officials. The officials describe this approach as “training the trainers.”

Of course, one could also say "In an effort to make our propaganda less blatantly obvious, we're just saying that Iranians are teaching Iraqis how to make EFPs as opposed to saying the Iranians are producing EFPs." The point is that although the NY Times issued a "semi-mea-culpa article" on Judith Miller and her fanciful WMD tales they haven't changed their essential mode of reporting and are still putting out highly questionable stories that seem designed to lead to war.
Only time will tell if Harris' reporting in the Politico will change for the better. All we have now is a "semi-mea-culpa article" that may or may not lead to any changes in how they cover the issues.

Bush Administration and the art of diplomacy

"Two Audiences, Two Speeches" May 19

Speculation in Jerusalem was that Bush will return in October, this time to try to push the parties over the finish line, and the White House was not discouraging that view Sunday. [emphasis added]

The "parties" are the Israelis and the Palestinians. Hmm, and just what is the status of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks?

However, the US's failure in rolling back Syrian and Iranian influence in Lebanon pales in comparison with the withering away of the US-sponsored Arab-Israeli "peace process". The latter hung like an albatross's cross on Bush's Middle East tour. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' credibility has greatly suffered; Fatah has been eliminated from Gaza; Hamas is significantly gaining ground in the West Bank after its consolidation in Gaza. Thus, there were no takers when Bush told the Arab audience in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Friday, "All nations in the region must stand together in confronting Hamas, which is attempting to undermine efforts at peace with continued acts of terror and violence."

What might be one of the reasons that negotiations aren't going anywhere? Well,

In particular, Elliott Abrams, Mr. Bush's deputy national security adviser, has cautioned against an Israeli-Syria negotiation, according to Israeli and Bush administration officials. Administration officials said they feared that such a negotiation would appear to reward Syria at a time when the United States was seeking to isolate it for its meddling in Lebanon and its backing of Hezbollah. [emphasis added]

This appears to be a real theme in how the Bush Administration deals with those who are outside their inner circle. CBS News asked in August 2005: "Should President Bush take an hour out of his vacation to sit down for a chat with Cindy Sheehan?" Bush somehow couldn't make any room in his tremendously busy summer vacation schedule to tell Ms Sheehan just what the glorious cause was that her son, US Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, died for. CBS got in some snark: "[Bush] ... found time to go mountain biking and went to one of the regional Little League playoff games." Bush's stated reason as to why he wouldn't see her was

‘‘And I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say.''

‘‘But,'' he added, ‘‘I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life.''

In other words, it's a privilege for citizens to have an audience with their president and the president gets to pick and choose who gets to receive that privilege.

As with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, if the administration considers merely talking to be a reward that they are free to grant or withhold, then it shouldn't be terribly surprising when serious negotiations never really get off the ground.

As with First Lady Laura Bush and the Myanmar/Burma junta and Cyclone Nargis, the Bush Administration doesn't seem to have any real clue (3rd letter) as to how to conduct negotiations. Fortunately, Laura Bush appears to have backed down a bit on her earlier heavy-handed efforts to get US aid into that country.
From yesterday's interview with Voice of America:

Q. "Now, there's some who have said that there should be no criticism of the Burmese regime in the context of trying to get aid there. Should -- in the course of the aid relief efforts, should it just be sort of hands off and no criticism of the regime at all?"

Bush: "Well, you know, if that would make the regime accept aid -- and I'm sure that that's the point -- but the regime knows that many, many countries have been critical, that many leaders of many countries have already been critical, long before this disaster.

"I think it's just important now to focus on the needs of these people who have been -- whose lives have been destroyed by the cyclone and try to get as much aid as possible there. But I think we can't lose sight of the real long-term goals for Burma, and that is a free Burma and a democracy that can be a part of the world."

If I were a member of the junta, I'd be concerned with this talk about "real long-term goals" and the possible desire of the US to conduct another "regime change," keeping in mind that the Iraq War was preceded with many protestations that the US just wanted to see to the safety of America.

The Bush Administration appears to have very serious problems conducting diplomacy. The possible reasons could fill up a good-sized book, but the feeling on their part that merely communicating with both inconveniently petitioning citizens and various "bad guys" appears to reward them seems to be a really large part of it.

Obama, McCain and Bush mix it up!

Ah, gone, we hope forever, are the days when first Mike Dukakis, then Al Gore and then John Kerry responded to attacks by remaining silent! Dukakis said nothing as the elder George Bush hammered him with Willie Horton and disparaged his manhood in failing to respond to the hypothetical rape of his wife. Gore was actually hammered more by the media than he was by the younger George Bush. Constant repetitions of "I invented the Internet" and complaints about his audible sighing as Bush told lie after lie dominated that campaign. Kerry was done in by the media collaboration with the Swift Boat Veterans and by Bush focusing the campaign on anything but his own record.

Presidential candidate Barack Obama has taken the speech given by President Bush in the Israeli Knesset (Their equivalent of the British Parliament) wherein Bush said:

Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century. Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.)

Of course, as (of all people, we lefty bloggers didn't expect words of wisdom to come out of this guy) Chris Matthews pointed out:

...there's a difference between talking to the enemy and appeasing. What Neville Chamberlain did wrong, most people would say, is not talking to Hitler, but giving him half of Czechoslovakia in '38. That's what he did wrong, not talking to somebody. . . . Appeasement is giving away things to the enemy.

But Obama has not stood silently by as Bush has questioned his wisdom and manliness:

"I'm a strong believer in civility and I'm a strong believer in a bipartisan foreign policy, but that cause is not served with dishonest, divisive attacks of the sort that we've seen out of George Bush and John McCain over the last couple days," he said.

Obama said McCain had a "naive and irresponsible belief that tough talk from Washington will somehow cause Iran to give up its nuclear program and support for terrorism."

And yes, Obama is very consciously and deliberately trying (successfully) to tie Bush and McCain together as strongly as possible. He's very clearly attempting to paint a John McCain presidency as a third Bush term. Oh, and by the way, there really isn't any doubt that Bush was speaking of Obama in the Knesset. CNN's Ed Henry reported that:

White House aides privately acknowledged the remarks were aimed at the presidential candidate and others in his party.

Is attacking a presidential candidate from a foreign parliament standard operating procedure? Not according to Democrats:

Democrats accused Mr. Bush of breaching protocol by playing partisan politics overseas. . . .

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic [Senate Majority] leader, called Mr. Bush's remarks "reckless and irresponsible." Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said Mr. Bush had behaved in a manner "beneath the dignity of the office of president."

Apparently, Republicans are rattled by this response and aren't quite sure how to answer a non-doormat Democrat. Governor Mike Huckabee "joked" (At least that's his explanation) about Obama having to duck a gunman. Huckabee quickly apologized, but it clearly shows a very scattered and confused GOP.

Santorum's word choices

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum has a gig writing a monthly column for the Philadelphia Inquirer. His latest column had some interesting choices of words. He said that the words "jihadist or mujahedeen or Islamo-fascist" are all now in the category of forbidden terms. Folks are officially advised not to use these terms anymore. Putting jihadist or mujahedeen into this category strikes me as very peculiar as I don't think either term has ever been considered insulting. In fact, mujahedeen was the term used by Osama bin Laden and his fellow fighters against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. This may be the State Departments' way of saying "Don't glorify our enemies."

"Islamo-fascist" on the other hand, was very clearly a silly term when it was first coined. As Paul Krugman pointed out:

[T]here isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t.

I commented on this a few months back in response to David Horowitz's "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week." I had a commenter make the very earnest argument that because various Arab groups have declared themselves to be fascists, that they were then fascists. Well, 'fraid it's not that simple.

David Neiwert on the blog Orcinus responded to Jonah Goldberg's book "Liberal Fascism" by doing a lengthy series of posts delineating precisely what fascism is and is not. One of the best posts for readers who aren't entirely clear on the concept is largely written by "Woodrowfan," a guest blogger who runs through Goldberg's chapter that calls President Woodrow Wilson a fascist. Woodrowfan examines Wilson's actions against 13 criteria and finds Wilson only took the fascist position four times. More than is proper for a American president, but not a good reason to award him that particular title.

Do Arab Muslims fit the Orcinus definition of fascism? Hardly.

-- the right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group's prowess in a Darwinian struggle.

Um, no. Arabs are hardly in a position to win a "Darwinian struggle" against the West. It's precisely the restraints imposed by higher ideals and principles that has been their salvation in struggle after struggle against Israel.

-- the beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group's success

Yes, Arabs have been quite violent towards national and religious opponents, but it doesn't seem to me they glorify it. They feel that wonderful things await martyrs who perish in a glorious cause, but that's hardly the same thing.

- a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions

and

-- the belief that one's group is a victim, a sentiment which justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against the group's enemies, both internal and external

No, it seems to me Arab diplomacy was characterized well by Donald Regan:

Asked what he had recommended to the President when no hostages were freed after arms shipments to Iran in February 1986, Mr. Regan said, ''I told him that we'd been snookered again, and how many times do we put up with this rug merchant type of stuff?''

The image of Iranians and Arab Muslims acting as "rug merchants" is utterly inconsistent with the idea of Arabs feeling that they are in a unique crisis sort of situation and with the sentiment that "Ordinary moral strictures don't apply to us because we're victims." A "rug merchant" in Regan's view, is someone who carefully calculates advantage and cost and opportunity and who acts accordingly. A "rug merchant" is a supremely rational actor, unlike how we could expect a fascist to behave.

Nah, the term "Islamo-Fascist" is just silly.

I'm in 100% agreement with the following sentences of Santorum's:

"We are not fighting a war on terror," I said then, "any more than we fought a war on blitzkrieg in World War II."

Blitzkrieg, of course, was a tactic. So is terrorism.

There are designated military specialties, or in the case of the Navy, there are "rates." Neither the Army nor the Marine Corps has a "terrorist" specialty, nor does the Navy have a "terrorist" rate. One cannot be a "Terrorist Second Class" as there's simply no such job description in any military service. However, Santorum goes on to say:

In World War II, we fought against German Nazism, Japanese Imperialism and Italian Fascism - militarist, totalitarian ideologies that governed these societies and motivated believers elsewhere to rally and spread these movements across the globe.

My understanding of history is that states fight for pragmatic, mostly economic reasons. Sure, ideology plays a part, but I don't really see it as actually motivating nations to start wars. Of course, fascism as defined above is not really a rational system, but as we saw, fascism doesn't apply to Muslims in today's world.

This statement puzzles me: "We are at war only with terrorists motivated by Islam who view themselves as true followers, as self-described holy warriors." Obviously, this does not describe anywhere close to all of the people US forces are battling either in Iraq or Afghanistan. Most of those people are fighting strictly because the US has invaded their homeland and with Iraq, because the people of Iraq have suffered horribly with over a million dead, several million displaced and shortages of all sorts of necessities. The declaration that the US is battling jihadists who are fighting as holy warriors is certainly true for a large number of people over there, but I doubt that it describes all that many.

"In speeches I give across the country, I ask basic questions about the ideology and motivation of the enemy. The response? Blank stares." Well yeah, when one describes the enemy as motivated by ideology but when no one really knows what that ideology is, yes, confusion will result. If the Iraq War is simply a colonialist war to obtain Iraq's oil, yes, it will result in blank stares when one tries to paint it as an ideological struggle. Describing the war as something it's not will indeed result in confusion.

More scary stories on Iran from the NY Times

The NY Times passes on a report that's, on first read, very scary. It charges that "four Shiite militia members" (From what country? From which militia?) have provided details on training camps in Iran that have taught Iraqi insurgents such subjects as "how to fire rockets and mortars, fight as snipers or assemble explosively formed penetrators, a particularly lethal type of roadside bomb made of Iranian components, according to American officials."

To take the last item first, there is no evidence that the "explosively formed penetrators" (EFPs) they refer to have been manufactured exclusively in Iran or even that only Iran is capable of making these. There is much evidence that Iraqis are perfectly capable of manufacturing EFPs in local machine shops. Second, Iraq fought a very lengthy war with Iran from 1980 to 1988. The skills of "how to fire rockets and mortars [and to] fight as snipers" are simply not difficult to obtain there. Iraq has millions of veterans of that war that have been more than capable of passing on this kind of knowledge.

The Mideast is a heavily militarized place that has seen much fighting over the last several decades. There is no reason that jihadists can't "hit the ground running," i.e., arrive in Iraq fully competent, equipped and ready to start fighting Americans. There is no reason to think they have to make a stop-off in Iran first. As Juan Cole points out about the weapons themselves:

After all, Iran has a well developed criminal black market in arms (Ronald Reagan once got involved in it). So the presence of Iran-made weapons proves nothing about Iranian government intentions. The ayatollahs in Tehran have been openly siding with the al-Maliki government against the Mahdi Army militia.

The really important point to make about this article is that every single, solitary scrap of information included in it comes second-hand from anonymous American "officials." Some also makes its way from Iraqi officials, who were in turn briefed and shown "captured Iranian equipment" by, you guessed it, anonymous American "officials." Absolutely nothing, none of the interrogated prisoners, none of the "captured Iranian equipment," has been personally viewed by reporters or by anyone who might provide anything approaching an objective, non-deeply-compromised point of view.

Everything in the article comes from a Presidential administration that has shown a very deep interest in launching a war against Iran. As Glenn Greenwald points out:

Worse, despite noting that "there has been debate among experts about the extent to which Iran is responsible for instability in Iraq," the article does not contain a single skeptical word about any of these accusations, nor does it quote a single "expert" who questions or disputes them. This omission is particularly glaring in light of this McClatchy article from yesterday reporting that "the Iraqi Government seemed to distance itself from U.S. accusations towards Iran," which echoes an Agence-France-Press report that "Iraq said on Sunday it has no evidence that Iran was supplying militias engaged in fierce street fighting with security forces in Baghdad." There's not a word about any of that in Gordon's article (though it does note that the Iraqi government "announced Sunday that it would conduct its own inquiry into accusations of Iranian intervention in Iraq and document any interference").

This article ratchets up tension still further. Two NYT Public Editors have been critical of reporter Michael Gordon's work in the past, Byron Calame:

(Mr. Gordon has become a favorite target of many critical readers, who charge that the paper's Iran coverage is somehow tainted because he had shared the byline on a flawed Page 1 W.M.D. article. I don't buy that view, and I think the quality of his current journalism deserves to be evaluated on its own merits.)

The problem with Gordon's work, however, is far more extensive than just one article. He collaborated with Judith Miller on many Saddam-Hussein-has-WMD pieces that served as justification for war with Iraq and as we've seen in today's article (May 5th), these problems with uncritically repeating administration claims have hardly stopped. Public Editor Clark Hoyt also criticizes Gordon and Gordon's style of reporting Administration claims:

...as the newspaper has slipped into a routine of quoting the president and the military uncritically about Al Qaeda’s role in Iraq — and sometimes citing the group itself without attribution.

And in using the language of the administration, the newspaper has also failed at times to distinguish between Al Qaeda, the group that attacked the United States on Sept. 11, and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, an Iraqi group that didn’t even exist until after the American invasion.

As to claims about Iranian involvement in Iraq being presented by Iraqis as credible, believable sources the Christian Science Monitor reports that Iraqis are feeling squeezed between America and Iran.

"We do not want to start a conflict with Iran," says Iraqi spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh. "We need our own government documentation of this interference, not from the Americans, not from the media."

He suggested Sunday that Iraq had no "hard evidence" of Iran's involvement or of the 2008 markings on seized weaponry, and that a top-level committee would be formed to investigate. 

Very interestingly, this statement appears nowhere in the NY Times article cited above.

Accomplishments?

Several years back, I heard about a high school girls cross-country track team. For a reason I forget, it didn't have much in the way of leadership for a whole school year. The girls slacked off and ran at a leisurely pace, didn't really try and didn't push themselves. Their poor performance really made itself felt at their year-end party. They realised that they had nothing to celebrate as they hadn't accomplished anything.

I remembered that story when reading about this years White House Correspondents' Association dinner. It was apparently a complete drag as the Bush Administration had nothing it had accomplished in the past seven-plus years that it could openly brag about. Katrina/New Orleans is something they may have regarded as a success, but obviously, they can't brag (at least not openly) about it. I mean, besides voter suppression and initiating bogus "voter fraud" (i.e., anti-likely-Democratic-voter cases) and getting the Iraq War extended into the next president's term, what can loyal Republicans brag about?

The press corps? The statement by the evening's entertainer was "It is your task to watch the government, to make sure they do not exceed their power. Well done on that, by the way, the last eight years." But the press corps did nothing of the sort. On March 8th of this year, President Bush vetoed a bill that would have outlawed waterboarding. That very evening, Bush attempted some off-key warbling and the press corps stood to applaud him. One could perhaps argue that the correspondents were applauding his singing and that his veto of the bill wasn't considered to be relevant, but it's not like their publications made a big fuss over the veto, either (Our local paper covered it, but it's hard to say where in the paper the story appeared. A Yahoo search shows many, many more alternative media sources on the story than it does traditional media sources).

The story of networks using retired generals as TV commentators, generals who were still working for the Pentagon to spread the Bush Administration's stories, was put out on the 20th of April. On the 24th of April,

Judy Woodruff stated:"[W]e invited Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and NBC to participate, but they declined our offer or did not respond."
----------
Media Matters for America previously noted that, in contrast with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, as of 11:59 p.m. on April 22, none of the following outlets had covered the Times report on shows whose transcripts are available in the Nexis database: PBS, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, and NPR. A follow-up search* on April 25 determined that as of 11:59 p.m. ET on April 24, ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox News had still not covered the report during news programs whose transcripts are available in the Nexis database.**

So no, it really can't be said that the traditional media had anything to celebrate, either. But Froomkin gets in a good one:

Throngs surrounded aging professional floozy Pamela Anderson, a guest of Bloomberg, who happily posed for countless photos in a dress that exposed the preponderance of her two most outstanding achievements.

Ooooh! Snap!!

Armed Liberal's flawed argument

Whiskey Fire introduces us to Armed Liberal, who tries to argue that for the Pentagon to hire retired military officers to testify on the TeeVee that Bush's war is a-okay and peachy-keen and is a necessary step to defeating the Iraqi insurgency (Which apparently includes both the Palestinian Authority and Hezbollah). AL appears to see the other side as engaging in propaganda. Okay, sure, I'll go with that. But as Iraqi insurgents don't have direct access to the American public, and as AL is apparently arguing that they are degrading the fighting spirit of our public, then that of course means that our traditional media is complicit in carrying their message to us. A quick look at any day's worth of output from Media Matters makes the very strong case that the traditional media is very much an Establishment institution, dedicated to bringing us the word of the day as seen from a deeply Republican national power structure.

But what I find very disturbing about AL's viewpoint is his apparent belief that it's okay to manipulate American public opinion to support whatever war the Establishment chooses to fight at the moment. According to "Betz," whom AL quotes:

Third, by contrast, we do not focus enough effort on winning and maintaining the hearts and minds of the most critical and accessible population: our own. [emphasis in original]

This of course presumes that the war that the US is fighting is a just one and that the cause is a good one. The Establishment certainly thought Vietnam was a good cause, the American public disagreed. Certainly the Establishment under President Ronald Reagan thought it was a good idea to get involved in Lebanon, at least until the Marine barracks was blown up with nearly 300 Marines inside. They supported President Bill Clinton getting involved in Somalia until the "Black Hawk Down" incident occurred.

See, the problem is that the American public is supposed to act as a brake on leaders who want to get our country involved in unwinnable conflicts. We're supposed to act as a "check" or a "balance" against overeager warmongers. AL doesn't seem to understand that there is something deeply undemocratic about treating our own population as a dumb audience to be manipulated. It's explained in the Whiskey Fire comments section that AL is not a liberal at all, he's a libertarian, which is a different creature altogether.

This problem is compounded by AL's refusal to recognize the distinction between a government PIO (Public Information Officer), who clearly and explicitly speaks on behalf of the government and between a covert spokesperson who is allegedly speaking as an individual. The manipulation that the Marine PIOs engage in in the movie Full Metal Jacket or that the "Five O'Clock Follies" (Public briefings given in Saigon) engaged in is not a danger to democracy as the public can easily see where the information is coming from and can weigh it and judge it accordingly.

ALs view of the American and Islamic audiences is an interesting one;

Basically, if you need to target your base and find that it is fractured and lacks purpose, lacks the attention span for in-depth appeal to argument but is exquisitely sensitive to manipulation and possesses an innate mastery of semiotics then you have a problem. And if, moreover, your opponent’s base is unified, has a sense of purpose, a rich oral tradition which lends itself well to story-listening (and telling) and is fairly credulous when it comes to conspiracy theories then you have got a very serious problem.

First off, we've known since very early in the Iraq War that the Iraqi insurgency is made up of many different groups with many divergent viewpoints and strategies. The problem for the US has been that they all agree on ejecting US troops from what is, after all, their country. Second, this is a very, VERY insulting way to describe the American public! Obviously, someone who describes us as a population that "lacks the attention span for in-depth appeal to argument but is exquisitely sensitive to manipulation and possesses an innate mastery of semiotics" is someone who simply doesn't believe in democracy. Period.

There's a reason we liberals keep saying that conservatives worship Gee Dubya Bush, their "Dear Leader."

The 16 April Obama-Clinton debate

George Stephanopoulos defends the 16 April so-called "debate" between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but really, it was largely just an attack on Obama by Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson. Clinton caught some flak as well, but she joined in a few times, thereby occasionally making it a three-to-one fight.

“The vote for the president,” Stephanopoulos said, “is one of the most personal” decisions that someone makes.

“When people make that choice, they take into account how candidates stand on the issues,” he said, but also are concerned with “experience, character [and] credibility.”

“You can’t find a presidential election where those issues didn’t come into play,” he said.

Stephanopoulos explained that since the candidates are not far apart policy-wise, the “core of the nomination fight” has been about these issues.

“They’ve been fighting it out on this turf,” he said, adding that these are things that “came up between this debate and the last one.”

But as Media Matters has pointed out more than once, the media really can't be relied upon to assess character with any accuracy.

Of course character is important in choosing a president; of course personality will always play a role. The problem isn't that journalists think character and personality matter, it is that they are spectacularly bad at assessing these traits, and even worse at predicting how the candidates will govern as a result.

One example was the case of Al Gore and Naomi Wolf. It was charged during the 2000 presidential election that Wolf was advising Gore to wear "earth tones." Well, Wolf was indeed working with Gore as a campaign adviser, but she wasn't hired to provide clothing advice. And if she had been doing so? Well, John McCain was heard to complain just a few months back that his campaign adviser instructed him to wear what he called "gay" sweaters, so it would hardly be a dramatic break with tradition for Wolf to have provided that advice.

In their attempt to assess Gore's character, the media messed up the Gore-Wolf story on two levels. One, it wasn't even true. Two, even if it were true, so what?

As to experience, G W Bush was an MBA, the CEO of several companies and Governor of Texas. We can see where all that experience got us.

The Obama-Clinton "debate" spent almost a full hour on such idiotic trivialities as to what Obama's pastor said during a sermon shortly after 9-11 (Obama says he wasn't there and nobody considered the speech significant enough to have told him about it, a quick look at Wright's biography shows that the attitude expressed in the speech was a very minor part of his life) and Obama's being on same board of directors with a former Weather Underground member who made a really stupid statement about 40 years ago (Obviously, if the fellow was serving on a board of directors, then he's apparently matured and is much less stupid these days). Clinton, to her discredit, chimed in to agree that Obama showed poor judgement in both cases.

Clinton claimed that she's faced the Republican Noise Machine in the past and so knows how to handle it. Well, I don't think it shows very good judgement to back up the other sides' talking points and attacks on your own side. Even if you agree that your ally showed poor judgement, it's a very, very bad idea to join up with the other side to attack your own side. As Allahpundit from the blog that Michelle Malkin sometimes contributes to, Hot Air, puts it: "Hillary: Why, yes, Jeremiah Wright is a legitimate campaign issue," followed by "Coming soon to a McCain campaign ad near you."

That was a major complaint about Joe Lieberman that cost him his membership in the Democratic Party. As the Jewish Daily Forward put it:

Many activists believe that Lieberman’s conciliatory approach [to Republicans] undercuts the party’s unity, consistency and confrontational posture, all of which are essential for an effective opposition party. They resent his style more than they resent his voting record, which is not very different from those of many popular Democrats.

Andrew Sullivan was less than impressed with Clinton's performance:

Clinton has exposed herself in this campaign as one of the worst shells of a cynical pol in American politics. She doesn’t just return us to the Morris-Rove era, she represents a new height for it.

The Swamp from Baltimore agrees:

...for Hillary Clinton to get so giddy about the Wright question was really just sad. She was the official purveyor of fringe talking points. Shockingly so. And, she seemed to enjoy it. There’s a reason people think Clinton is dishonest as we saw today in the findings of the Washington Post-ABC News poll. She’s not only in this to win, she’s in it to win dirty — and to destroy Obama. She invoked Louis Farrakhan tonight for no reason — just to say it.

Daily Kos was considerably less than kind to the two interrogators:

I’ll bet if they had more time, ABC anchors Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolus would probably have gotten around to asking Obama and Clinton about Willie Horton….The questions asked were not the kinds of questions Democratic primary voters care about. But they are the “gotcha” kinds of questions Republicans try to spring on Democrats in general elections.

Very interestingly, a blogger from Hot Air was very supportive of Clinton:

…The winner of this debate? John McCain. Both Democrats came out of this diminished, but Obama got destroyed in this exchange.

Jon Stewart's Daily Show for 18 April also commented on this episode:

ABC News had traveled about, taping questions from Pennsylvanians. Which question was presented to Obama? A woman asked him to explain why he doesn’t wear a lapel pin.

Should that question have been selected? You can make a case for almost anything. And it’s true—this matter has been bruited about; almost surely, there are other Pennsylvanians who are wondering about it. Some Pennsylvanians, including that woman, may even cast their vote on this basis. (People vote for every imaginable reason. See example below.)

But ABC News had less than two hours, and the world is full of complex issues. At some point, journalists have to set their priorities. And by the way: If ABC taped a lot of citizens, surely someone looked into the camera and asked Obama if he’s a Muslim—or if it’s true that he won’t swear on a Bible. Did someone ask Clinton about all her murders? At some point, a news org has to show some judgment about which questions to pick.

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In the real world, some questions are more equal than others. And some questions reflect the broken-souled culture of a broken, multimillionaire press corps.

Both The Moderate Voice and AmericaBlog have done round-ups of opinion on the web.

Bush's speech on Iran

On Iran, Bush ratcheted up his so-far rhetorical battle with that country's government. Bush said the Iranian government has a choice: It "can live in peace with its neighbor, enjoy strong economic and cultural and religious ties, or it can continue to arm and train and fund illegal militant groups which are terrorizing the Iraqi people and turning them against Iran

"If Iran makes the right choice, America will encourage a peaceful relationship between Iran and Iraq. If Iran makes the wrong choice, America will act to protect our interests and our troops and our Iraqi partners."

Very tough and clear speech. If Iran continues to meddle in Iraq, watch out! Slight problem: there doesn't appear to be any evidence that Iran is doing any such thing.

It's blame-blame-blame, blame-blame Iran. We've heard this song before. The Bush administration warbles it every time it needs to justify its failed Iraq policies and rally a skeptical public.

One of the main charges against Iran is:

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, who will also testify, accused Iran of providing some of the rockets that have struck the Green Zone in Baghdad, causing a number of U.S. casualties. "We got the tailfins of what was dropping on us ... This was quite literally made in Iran," Crocker told reporters.

But Juan Cole points out that religious pilgrims travel from Iran to Iraq and back again in very large numbers, perhaps a million a year. Weapons may indeed be traveling across the border, but it's not like the weapons would necessarily come to Iraq via a deliberate Iranian policy:

Cole also questioned U.S. claims that Iran was intentionally supplying weapons to the Mahdi Army. "There's no proof for that, and whenever the U.S. Army is pressed for evidence, they always back off." The weapons are available on the black market, and the Mahdi Army, flush with funds, can easily buy them.

Back during the Vietnam War, whenever an advanced weapon appeared in the hands of Vietnamese who were fighting the Americans, it was so plainly imported from either the Chinese or the Russians that no attempt was made to hide where any of the weapons came from. That's not the case in the Middle East. With approximately 100 million AK-47s produced worldwide (They sell for $30 to $125) and with no gun control in Iraq, an AK-47 is part of pretty much every family's arsenal. IEDs and RPGs are also pretty generic and similarly hard to trace.
Vice-President Cheney had a talk with Sean Hannity wherein he warned darkly about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad having all sorts of crazy beliefs. Beliefs about Iran's need to destroy Israel (Juan Cole has argued that Cheney is quoting from a mistranslation) and that Ahmadinejad believes in "The 12th Imam," a rather mystical notion similar to the Christian Biblical "End Times." Mid-east scholar Bernard Lewis has already predicted an Iranian attempt to bring about an Islamic version of the "End Times," but nothing happened on the predicted day of Aug 8th, 2006.

In a rather alarming statement from Bill Kristol (Whose magazine, The Weekly Standard, pressed for war with Iraq from that famous September 11th until the invasion began), he said: "I think people are overdoing how much of a lame duck the president is." Shades of the 1989 "Wimp factor" that the elder George Bush exorcised by invading Panama!

And finally, the very latest news is that "Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the U.S. will be as aggressive as possible to counter the increase in Iranian support for militias." As the Iranian support for the militias appears to be more a matter of covering all their bets as opposed to trying to push Iraq in one direction or another, it's not really clear what countering Iranian support actually means. Gates was then quite vague about whether Iran was supplying more weapons to Iraq or not, echoing Bush's "gut instinct" of the period before the Iraq War. Gates went on to claim: "I think the Iraqi government now has a clearer view of the malign impact of Iran's activities inside Iraq."

I'd say if there was an Iran War equivalent of the nuclear "Doomsday Clock," I think we can move it a bit closer to midnight.

Too good not to quote

From the WaPo's Dana Milbank:

Bush may be a loathed figure in much of the world, but one group owes him a debt of gratitude: the many opposition leaders who came to power after Bush-friendly ruling parties were voted out. Howard took his place alongside Jos¿ Mar¿a Aznar of Spain (whose party was dumped in 2004), Italy's Silvio Berlusconi (tossed out in 2006), and Britain's Tony Blair (stepped aside in favor of a Bush-skeptical understudy in 2007). Ruling parties in Poland and Japan also paid for their leaders' friendships with Bush with big defeats.
Bush's pariah status has turned his Coalition of the Willing into a retirement community and given the president an unusual role in the domestic affairs of other countries. In Australia, one of Rudd's predecessors as Labor leader, Mark Latham, got the top job after describing Bush as "the most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory." He further described members of Howard's government as a "conga line of suckholes" to Bush.
Howard, in turn, expressed a view that al-Qaeda terrorists would be praying for a 2008 victory by Democrats in general and Barack Obama in particular.
Bush enjoyed this mutual affection. "I can tell you, relations are great right now," he said last year in Sydney, which was all but shut down by security measures needed to keep him safe.

Classic statement

From the Toronto Globe & Mail:

Mr. Bush, it has been said, compares himself to Harry Truman, a president who left office dogged by an unpopular war and low public approval, but who is today viewed as one the 20th century's finest presidents.

It is possible that posterity will be equally kind to Mr. Bush. But if you're going to compare yourself to Mr. Truman, it helps to have your own equivalent of the Marshall Plan, the containment policy against Russia, the formation of NATO, the defence of South Korea and desegregation of the armed forces on your resume. What in the Bush legacy even comes close?

John McCain and foreign policy expertise

Should we listen to John McCain when he states his opinions about foreign policy matters? According to the political director of NBC News Chuck Todd:

MR. RUSSERT: McCain had some problems when he was in Jordan, he talked about al-Qaeda being trained by the Iranians.

MR. TODD: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: And then, then Lindsey Graham, who he was with, and then Joe Lieberman both tried to say to him, al-Qaeda is Sunni, not trained by the Shiite Iranian government. Does that kind of stumble hurt a McCain candidacy?

MR. TODD: . . . You know, he's -- because of the age issue, he can't ever look like he's having a senior moment. So instead, he's better off going ahead and saying, you know, OK, so he misspoke. Even if he gets dinged on the experience stuff, "Oh, he says he's Mr. Experience. Doesn't he know the difference between this stuff?" He's got enough of that in the bank, at least with the media, that he can get away with it. I mean, the irony to this is had either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama misspoke like that, it'd have been on a running loop, and it would become a, a big problem for a couple of days for them.[emphasis in blog post]

Here's Howard Kurtz's explanation as to what John McCain's foreign policy expertise consists of:

I think to say he doesn't have experience in this area is simply not true. He has more than Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush combined when they were presidential candidates. He led a Navy squadron during the Vietnam War. He's been in the forefront of national security debates for two decades. He just completed his eighth visit to Iraq. He was a major proponent of the surge.

Okay, let's take these one at a time. Does he have "more" than three other past candidates? Sure, but remember, G.W. Bush ran two oil companies, Arbusto and Spectrum 7, before becoming President. Crude oil went for $16.45 a barrel in November 2001 and went for $84.70 in January 2008 and goes for $101.73 today (March 25). So I very much question what "experience" means examined in isolation from other factors. As the administration's press spokesperson points out, Bush's policy on oil prices leaves quite a bit to be desired:

MS. PERINO: Well, as the President said yesterday, he would have liked OPEC to have made a different decision. He is disappointed that they decided not to increase production. He does not think it's a good idea for their biggest customers, such as the United States, to have an economic slowdown, in part contributable to -- because of high gas prices. We know that there is high global demand and there is tighter supply. So what we would like is to see an increase in supply from OPEC.

Obviously they decided not to do that this time. In the meantime what we need to continue to do is have more domestic exploration and production here, in environmentally friendly ways, and to do what the President just said two hours ago, which is to constantly look for alternatives in renewable energies that can help power our economy in a way that would help take the pressure off of prices.

Alternative energy would me a marvelous idea. Sure would be nice if the US actually pursued that idea.


McCain's Navy experience: Not really sure this constitutes "foreign policy experience." He flew an A-4 Skyhawk back during the Vietnam War, dropping bombs on targets in Vietnam. Now, had he been a Green Beret, dealing with Vietnamese up close and personal, that might legitimately be called "foreign policy experience."


Taking part in foreign policy debates: This certainly counts to a degree, but as with Bush's energy company experience (Remember, Arbusto and Spectrum 7 both went bankrupt) the specific details are hugely significant. Was McCain right in his predictions?

Meanwhile, in discussions over proposed U.S. action against Iraq, McCain was a strong supporter of the Bush position.^[117] He stated that Iraq was "a clear and present danger to the United States of America,"^[117] and voted accordingly for the Iraq War Resolution in October 2002.^[117] He anticipated that the U.S. forces would be treated as liberators by most of the Iraqi people.^[126] In May 2003, McCain voted against the second round of Bush tax cuts, saying it was unwise at a time of war.^[119] By November 2003, after a trip to Iraq, McCain was publicly questioning Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, saying that more U.S. troops were needed;^[127] the following year, McCain announced that he had lost confidence in Rumsfeld.^[128]

I certainly agree that Rumsfeld was a grossly incompetent Secretary of Defense, but I reached that conclusion during the sacking of Baghdad in April 2003, that opinion was cemented by the break-up of Saddam Hussein's army in May 2003, which Rumsfeld signed off on. And yes, I also agree that it was and remains an awful idea to have lower taxes in wartime. Wartime is a time for sacrifice by all concerned. If the US is going to spend $3 trillion to fight the Iraq War, that payment should be made up-front and not passed on to future generations. But I don't think McCain's position on Iraq has proven to be a wise one. At best, he was overly trusting of the Bush Administration's 935 lies as to why the war was needed.


McCain's' eight visits to Iraq: I'll let Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) answer that one:

“Have you been to Iraq?” Graham responded.

“You haven’t been to Iraq, Lindsey,” Webb riposted. “You go see the dog and pony shows, that’s what congressmen do.”

As Jonathan Finer explained: "Prescient insights rarely emerge from a few days in-country behind the blast walls."

Major proponent of the "Surge": Juan Cole explains that the "Surge" (Really an "escalation") is nothing to write home about.

But the troop escalation has failed to stop bombings in Baghdad, and the frequency and deadliness of attacks increased in February and March, after falling in January.

So, in short, I'm not really sure that Howard Kurtz makes a convincing case that McCain really has anything "in the bank" when it comes to foreign policy expertise.

Question raised by exchange

Dan Froomkin of the WaPo reprints an exchange between White House Spokesperon Dana Perino and the genuine reporter (Compared to the rest of the White House press corps) Helen Thomas:

Thomas: "The American people are being asked to die and pay for this. And you're saying they have no say in this war?"

Perino: "No, I didn't say that Helen. But Helen, this president was elected --"

Thomas: "Well, what it amounts to is you saying we have no input at all."

Perino: "You had input. The American people have input every four years, and that's the way our system is set up. . . . "

Thomas: "Supposed to be a government for the people, of the people, by the people?"

Perino: "I would submit to you that people across America, if asked what type of a President do you want: one that stands on principle or that one that chases polls? And I think that they would want --"

Thomas: "What's the principle of going to war against the people who did nothing to us?"

My question is: How many reporters knew in 2000 that this is what Bush's view of the office was, but chose to give him a pass anyway? Al Gore was described as a serial sigher and habitual exaggerator. "Gore was 'pandering' on [the Cuban boy] Elian [Gonzales], and Bush was not—though both held the exact same position." Completely normal conduct by the Bush and Gore campaigns were treated as stark, black-and-white opposites (See the final example in the referenced piece) by the Washington DC press corps.

Why were reporters in 2000 covering for Bush?

My, my, so many issues...

So many stories, where does one begin?

New York Times joins President Bush's attack on PBS by citing familiar right-wing talking points. Can't be bothered to do any original reporting, can't be bothered to get comments from PBS or PBS defenders, can't be bothered to examine how public feels about PBS (Attitudes are generally highly positive), makes lazy assertion that cable news covers much of what PBS covers (Tens of millions of Americans either can't afford cable or don't want to spend the money on cable) and

Despite the fact CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News broadcast more than 2,000 hours each month, those PBS news programs -- broadcasting less than 10 hours each month, combined -- still manage to cover issues and topics, as well as conduct interviews with prominent guests, that the cable channels ignore.

Of course, this attack occurs just when:

PBS' distinguished Frontline series will mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion by airing Bush's War, which PBS describes as television's definitive documentary analysis of the war.

Gee, I wonder if there's any connection?

----------------
In positive news, Norfolk VA had 60 people protesting the Fifth Anniversary of the start of the Iraq War (I spent from 1991 to 1996 in Norfolk as a sailor, so I recognized where they were). New Jersey protests are covered here and I did a photo-essay here. The progressive Darcy Burner helped to devise a Democratic plan for withdrawal from Iraq. Strongly recommend that anti-war forces push for this plan!

But Burner herself must take a back seat to the plan, which is perhaps even more impressive: a thorough, comprehensive approach not just to solving the immediate issues around the Iraq conflict but also the systemic issues that go deeper. The idea is not just to end the war and bring peace and stability to Iraq, but to keep such a blunder from happening again.

-------------

Asked about his meeting with family members of those killed in battle, Bush responded: "I try to get them to talk about their loved one. I want to learn about each individual person who sacrificed,...And to a person, nearly, I have been told that whatever you do, Mr. President, complete this job. Don't -- and basically what they're saying is, don't let politics, don't let the Gallup poll, don't let a focus group cause you to make a decision that is not in the best interests of our country...

And if the family members don't follow the approved script? "Chen described one encounter in August 2006, when Bush told an accusing widow: 'I'm really not here to discuss public policy with you,' " "Rather than entering into a substantive debate with angry relatives, he disengages."

------------------

Raddatz: "Two-thirds of Americans say it's not worth fighting, and they're looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives."

Cheney: "So?"

Raddatz: "So -- you don't care what the American people think?"

Cheney: "No, I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls. Think about what would have happened if Abraham Lincoln had paid attention to polls, if they had had polls during the Civil War. He never would have succeeded if he hadn't had a clear objective, a vision for where he wanted to go, and he was willing to withstand the slings and arrows of the political wars in order to get there."

--------------------
Twice now, Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has had to correct Senator John McCain (R-AZ). The latest was when McCain called the Jewish holiday of Purim the local "version of Halloween." Lieberman manfully took the blame:

And it's my fault that I said to Senator McCain that this is the Israeli version of Halloween. It is in the sense because the kids dress up and it's a very happy holiday and actually it is in the sense that the sweets are very important of both holidays.

Which is fine, but shouldn't someone who's basing his whole campaign on his national-security expertise be aware of details like that? If McCain got something wrong on price supports for wheat or the US negotiating position on steel tariffs, that would be understandable. But to confuse the Sunni al Qaeda with Shiite Iran is just absolutely amazing (In the piece, Joe Klein tries to describe McCain's mistake as a "brain fart," meaning McCain normally knows better, but just slipped up this once, Greenwald cites two more instances within the week where McCain said the same thing, meaning no, it wasn't a "brain fart," McCain is either consciously and deliberately lying or McCain, like President Bush, doesn't think the distinctions between the myriad problems in Iraq are terribly consequential.) Greenwald then examines the hesitancy of liberals to criticize McCain for statements like this, noting that this is an entirely one-sided problem. Conservatives don't seem to have any difficulty criticizing Clinton or Obama. The point where the press corps' being "in the tank" got just absolutely ridiculous was when Wolf Blitzer actually edited a tape (or demanded that a flunky edit it for him) so as to make McCain appear more on the ball than he really was. Very, very sad when one has to physically alter evidence so that the facts appear to fit one's storyline.

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Jon Stewart interviewed Grover Norquist on the 11th. Norquist is the Republican strategist who says: "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years," he says, "to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." A poster of a flooded New Orleans with this statement superimposed over it shows us what Norquists' goal actually means for us in real life. My problem with Norquists' idea is that when one walks into a shoe store (Or a motorboat shop or a real estate office, or a lawnmower shop), one brings two things in with them: a desire to purchase the product and the means to do so. Capitalism works fine when these two factors are present.

But when one needs an education, the means aren't always there. It's not the case that society can tell in advance who needs an education and who doesn't. General Ulysses S. Grant was okay at being an Army officer, but did poorly at business. He was unsuccessful at pretty much everything before he rejoined the Army and was put in charge of the Army of the Tennessee, where he took Vicksburg. In command of all Union forces, he prevailed over the South. As President, he was again pretty unsuccessful and he died broke. It's simply impossible to tell whether one is making a successful investment with the costs of an education until many, many years after the fact.

The market model doesn't really apply to health care, either. One requires medical care whether one can pay for it or not. Sure, one can limit medical care to those who can pay for it, but that means that millions of families will go broke due to elder relatives who have used up their retirement savings and who still need expensive care, which in the absence of national health care plans, will drain the family finances.

Sure, we could adopt a very cold, heartless attitude towards those who need care, but I was once watching a TV movie where a woman was trapped under a fallen section of roof. Her lover wanted to stay with her, even though the area was rapidly filling with water. I said "He can still get out. Why doesn't he take off?" The fellow with me said "Why? What would his purpose in living be if he has to live without her?" Callow youth though I was, I didn't have an answer for that and still don't. There are things that are more important than mere survival.

Douglas Feith coming out with book

Douglas Feith, the "stupidest fucking guy on the planet," is in the middle of putting out a 900-page book that praises Bush, Cheney and of course Doug Feith, and condemns Colin Powell, Paul Bremer, the whole State Department and various generals. Very notably, Feith notes that Bush made the declaration that "war [with Iraq] is inevitable" at an 18 Dec 2002 National Security Council meeting. The blogger Digby shows that Bush followed this momentous announcement with many public statements saying he hadn't made up his mind yet.

Personally, I've always thought of Bush's UN speech of 12 Sep 2002 as pretty much the raison d'etre (Latin: the reason for the existence of) speech of the Iraq War, the date when the Bush Administration's course was firmly set and Bush made it clear that he would have his war no matter what. And of course, the Bush biographer quoted in an archived Downing St Memo screenshot shows that Bush wanted to be seen as a "Commander-in-Chief" which of course could be accomplished by starting a war with Iraq.

The really amazing part of Feith's book-to-be is Feith's apparent faith in Ahmad Chalabi, the guy who was described by the young Iraqi woman blogger Riverbend as:
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..not just a puppet- he's a mercenary. He encouraged the sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and maimed the country itself. He supported the war and occupation vehemently and fabricated lies about weapons and threats to further his cause. He's a criminal- and a lousy one at that.

Chalabi's return to Iraq was hardly a "Napoleon-returning-from-Elba" kind of return. The NY Times points out that:

When the [December 2005] election came, Chalabi was wiped out. His Iraqi National Congress received slightly more than 30,000 votes, only one-quarter of 1 percent of the 12 million votes cast — not enough to put even one of them, not even Chalabi, in the new Iraqi Parliament.

And yet, this is the guy that Feith apparently thinks was the savior of Iraq:

Others have criticized Feith's plan as relying too heavily on Iraqi exile politicians, including Ahmed Chalabi. Feith says that he considered Chalabi one of the most astute and democratically minded Iraqis but that he had no special brief for him. Instead, he charges that the State Department, the CIA and the military's Central Command were pathologically opposed to the exiles and to Chalabi in particular.

But what exactly was Feith's idea for running Iraq after the invasion?

The idea to which Feith appears most attached, and to which he repeatedly returns in the book, is the formation of an Iraqi Interim Authority. Feith's office drew up a plan for the body -- to be made up of U.S.-appointed Iraqis who would share some decision-making with U.S. occupation forces -- in the months before the invasion. [emphasis added]

Gee, I wonder which "U.S.-appointed Iraqis" Feith could have in mind? What's probably the most amusing statement in the review is: "...secret information was not necessary to understand the threat Hussein posed."

Erm, actually, it was. Saddam Hussein, no matter how evil, no matter how bloodthirsty, may be an awful fellow that people wish to dispose of, but to be considered a threat requires showing, through evidence, that his country could militarily threaten the US and/or it's close allies. That proof "had to" be manufactured because there was simply no proof to be had.

And oh, yes! It seems that "Saint John The Maverick" McCain was a strong supporter of...wait for it...Chalabi!

Heads up on upcoming media narrative

Glenn Greenwald makes the case that "Tony Rezko" is threatening to become Obama's "Whitewater," that the traditional media is already starting to make noises about this fellow with a Syrian, vaguely sinister-sounding name. I did a search of the Inky on "rezko" and got 23 hits for March 4th & before.
Greenwald being a lawyer who worked in precisely the type of cases Rezko is allegedly involved in, exhaustively searched for evidence of anything sinister about the Rezko story and came up bone-dry.
Please keep an eye out for any stories involving Tony Rezko in connection with Barack Obama and subject these stories to vigorous criticism!