Seems we're about there

Concerning the raid by Iraqi Special Forces that alleged to have led to a massacre in a mosque:

Jawad Maliki, number two in the Dawa Party of Ibrahim Jaafari, the Prime Minister, read a statement which said: "US forces and Iraqi special forces committed a heinous crime by attacking the Mustafa mosque in the neighborhood of Ur. It is a serious crime with grave political and security implications which aims to provoke civil war in the country.

"Killing a large number of followers of the Prophet’s house after having bound and tortured them is unjustifiable. It is an attack on the dignity of the Iraqis and destroys the credibility of slogans of liberty and democratic and pluralism brandished by the US administration."

The alliance also demanded that the Government open an investigation into the raid, and that control of security matters be handed back to Iraqis.
[emphasis added]

This last sentence is EXTREMELY important in light of Bush's statement on January 27th of last year:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 – President Bush said in an interview on Thursday that he would withdraw American forces from Iraq if the new government that is elected on Sunday asked him to do so.

Looks to me like it's about that time.

Old media vs new media

The Washington Post tried to work with a blogger and was humiliated. Deborah Howell, the WaPo ombudsman, began all the trouble by objecting to the online column of Dan Froomkin on Washington Post-Newsweek-Interactive (WPNI). As Howell herself points out, WPNI is affiliated with, but is not the Washington Post. Nevertheless, Howell felt obliged to make the following observation:

Political reporters at The Post don't like WPNI columnist Dan Froomkin's "White House Briefing," which is highly opinionated and liberal. They're afraid that some readers think that Froomkin is a Post White House reporter.

Froomkin defended himself:

Regular readers know that my column is first and foremost a daily anthology of works by other journalists and bloggers. When my voice emerges, it is often to provide context for those writings and spot emerging themes. Sometimes I do some original reporting, and sometimes I share my insights. The omnipresent links make it easy for readers to assess my credibility.

But apparently, Howell wasn't representing just the readers of the WaPo:

John Harris: They have never complained in a formal way to me, but I have heard from Republicans in informal ways making clear they think his [Froomkin's] work is tendentious and unfair. I do not have to agree with them in every instance that it is tendentious and unfair for me to be concerned about making clear who Dan is and who he is not regarding his relationship with the newsroom.
--------------
Update: Over at E&P, Len Downie removes any doubt about which master the WaPo serves in this matter: "We want to make sure people in the [Bush] administration know that our news coverage by White House reporters is separate from what appears in Froomkin's column..."

So the WaPo decided that "in order to provide balance", they need to hire a hard-line right-wing blogger. As the blogger Billmon pointed out in the comments to The Moderate Voice

The problem (to the extent there is a problem) isn't that the Post hired a conservative blogger, but that they went out and hired themselves a Republican Party hack -- an apparatchik. I know it's often hard to tell, but there are conservative bloggers who are not Fox News-like subsidiaries of the RNC. Why couldn't the Post have tapped one of them?"

Also, the spin that baby Domenech somehow offsets Dan Froomkin is pure hokum. If you look at what Froomkin actually writes, it's not really blogging -- more like instant analysis of the day's White House-related media stories with a lefty spin. If anything, it's Froomkin who offsets Howie the Whore Kurtz's Media Notes column -- and the other oligarchs in the Beltway punditburo, who have a built-in tendency to lick the boots of the powerful, and who lately have found the taste of Republican shoe polish to be particularly yummy.

So, as per Billmon, the hiring of Ben Domenech was completely unnecessary as Howard Kurtz was already balancing Dan Froomkin before Froomkin was even hired! In fact, Froomkin was the balancing that Kurtz required. As MediaMatters pointed out:

There are, however, no progressive bloggers -- and no one left of center with the credentials of a political operative -- on washingtonpost.com to provide balance to Domenech. The Post's other bloggers are journalists, such as former washingtonpost.com editor Dan Froomkin and Post political writer Chris Cillizza.
----------
Domenech, on the other hand, while he does claim previous employment as a "political journalist," is first and foremost a partisan activist -- a Republican operative who has worked for the Bush administration and Cornyn, is currently an editor at a conservative publishing house, and who describes himself as "the youngest political appointee of President George W. Bush."

Soon turned out that the new WaPo blogger was a bit more hard-line then they had bargained for.

The President visits the funeral of a Communist
By: Augustine [Pseudonym used by Domenech]

And phones in a message to the March for Life.

I think we can get a little pissed about this.

This story shall the good man teach his son

Domenech later dismissed this comment as:

Some people have taken issue with an old two-line comment of mine on RedState.com where I referred to Coretta Scott King as a Communist on the day after her funeral.

Keep in mind the "old two-line comment" was only six weeks old. Not exactly "my salad days, when I was green in judgment." His editor James "Brady called it 'a silly comment' but said he is satisfied with Domenench's admission of error." The News Shop takes very strong issue with the comment, demonstrating that Brady has no idea as to what he's talking about and explains in detail why it's the comment of an out-and-out racist. Domenech also posted this choice remark without comment:

People who are poor and black are a drag on society. We would all be better off if there were fewer of them.

As firedoglake points out:

When you post something like that without comment — especially on a site like Red State that depends on the racist contingent for its lifeblood — it absolutely means "I agree." Or in white guy water cooler parlance, "word up."

Progressives, liberals and Democrats were also annoyed by some lines from his first post for the WaPo:

This is a blog for the majority of Americans.
----------
Democrats who have won major elections since 1992 have, with very few exceptions, been the ones who distanced themselves from the shrieking denizens of their increasingly extreme base, soft-pedaled their positions on divisive issues and adopted the rhetoric and positions of the right -- pro-free market, pro-business, pro-faith, tough on crime and strongly in favor of family values.

In other words, anyone who's not a Republican or a DLC person (Not a whole lot of difference there) is not one of the "majority of Americans", meaning progressives, liberals and Democrats from the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" (As Howard Dean would say) need not apply.

But finally, it was plagiarism that caused WaPo to pull the plug and accept Domenench's resignation. Kind of amusing to read the comments on a RedState blog entry. Commenters were taking Michelle Malkin to task for coming out and admitting that Domenech had plagiarized::

The issue with Malkin and others is not that they were ultimately right about the issue, it is that they were so quick to jump on the bandwagon and accuse.

Would it have killed anyone to wait a few hours or a day so that Ben had some time to think? The conservative web was pushing things just as fast as the left. Bloggers have a compulsion to get a position down so they can be seen as on the cutting edge of opinion or whatever.

It's sort of difficult to present plagiarism as anything but an open and shut case when one is presented with the following:

Maryann Johanson writes:

Most kids come up with plans to post flyers about recycling and such, but Trevor's brilliantly simple idea astounds even his teacher…

Ben Domenech writes:

Most kids come up with plans to put up recycling flyers or clean up the neighborhood, but Trevor's idea astounds even his teacher…

I mean, it's not that it's really difficult or complicated to determine that a sentence has been lifted almost word-for-word with a few minor, cosmetic alterations.

It's most interesting to see the reaction from those who defended Domenech, how people over the last several years have defended themselves against attackers from the left blogosphere. Very, very interesting similarities displayed by a wide variety of people.

UPDATE:

Debbie Schlussel, whom I've previously referred to as “skanky”, contributes a very good column on plagiarism. She has very little sympathy for Domenech and a whole lot of pride of authorship and respect for other peoples' work. Cheers for Schlussel!

Rush Limbaugh & perspective

Rush Limbaugh puts Iraq casualties "in perspective". First he lists the number of Americans lost in auto accidents and various other causes. They're as follows:

Auto Accidents	120000
Falling Down	45000
Poisoning	27000
Drowning	12000

So far, so good. Then he lists casualties from the Iraq War as 2300. Okay.
Let's try putting these numbers into percentages using Atrios' number of Americans as 300,000,000 and his number of 130,000 as the total American troops in Iraq.

Auto Accidents	120000	% of 300m	0.040
Falling Down	45000	% of 300m	0.015
Poisoning	27000	% of 300m	0.009
Drowning	12000	% of 300m	0.004
Casualties	2300	% of 130,000	1.769

The Memory Hole estimates that the wounded outnumber the dead by around seven to one, which means that adding that row means:

Wounded

16100

% of 130,000

12.385

Rush is right. We need to look at the Iraq War casualties in perspective. The difference is, of course, that Rush just wants to look at the raw numbers without examining what they mean.

NSA scandal and past scandals

Harper's Magazine published a piece by Gene Lyons that was later expanded into a book called Fools for Scandal, about how Whitewater started as a land deal in Arkansas and was turned into a scandal that was a constant, draining distraction for the public and that eventually paved the way for the Monica Lewinsky scandalette. The book details several facts that the national mainstream media got wrong. It's not that errors were made here and there and that they essentially did their research in a competent manner, it's that the media consistently screwed up the facts well beyond recognition and always in the same direction, always in a way to make the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, look guiltier than they were.
The main point of the book is that the Whitewater scandal was a created scandal. Republicans didn't simply wait for it to happen, they went out and made it happen. Whitewater itself didn't lead to any significant legal action against the Clintons, that had to wait until Bill made the stupid mistake of getting sexually involved outside of his marriage. Those conservatives who say that he was also immoral to do so, that he should have treated his marriage vows with more respect are entirely correct. The idea however, that that particular brand of immorality required removal from office was and remains in hindsight, a very serious overreaction. Having lived in Norfolk VA from 1992 to 1996, I always thought the conservative dislike of Clinton went way the heck overboard, far beyond any strictly reasonable basis. The bumper sticker that came out very shortly after Clinton took his oath of office "Don't blame me, I voted for Bush", struck me as a very seriously over-the-top reaction.
I'm not suggesting it's perfectly okay to go around "ginning up" scandals, but it does seem to me that for liberals and Democrats to simply wait for a scandal to unseat a president or disrupt his presidency, as in Watergate or Iran-Contra, is entirely too passive an approach. If Democrats have to "nudge" the scandal of the warrantless NSA surveillances, then so be it. Democratic politicians of all ranks and levels should get out and make speeches and write editorials about it, they should ceaselessly explain to the public exactly what the scandal is about, that it is a scandal of immense, historical proportions, that it needs to be dealt with in a serious manner.
The current approach simply proves the Republican talking point correct, the Democrats are simply too wimpy and too scared and too cautious to ever make a serious national security decision.

All Hat, No Cattle

Jim Hightower commented on visitng Bill Clinton in Arkansas long before Bill became President:

I found Governor Bill eager to be 'for the small farmers of Arkansas'--as long as this did not require him to do anything that might actually help them, such as taking on the bankers who were choking the life out of them or challenging the big processors that were cheating them. When it came time to deliver, the guy was all hat, no cattle.

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that most of the Democrats of today are in the same way concerning Senator Russ Feingold’s resolution to censure Bush for his illegal, warrantless wiretaps:

"I haven't read it," demurred Barack Obama (Ill.).

"I just don't have enough information," protested Ben Nelson (Neb.). "I really can't right now," John Kerry (Mass.) said as he hurried past a knot of reporters -- an excuse that fell apart when Kerry was forced into an awkward wait as Capitol Police stopped an aide at the magnetometer.

Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) brushed past the press pack, shaking her head and waving her hand over her shoulder. When an errant food cart blocked her entrance to the meeting room, she tried to hide from reporters behind the 4-foot-11 Barbara Mikulski (Md.). . . .

Yeesh! Whatta depressing bunch of no-accounts! Though actually, firedoglake says:

John Kerry has been saying right out of the gate he would support the resolution, Boxer's office has been confirming that she would and so has Menendez. And now Harkin (above) has signed on as a co-sponsor. Counting Feingold himself, that's five.

Unfortunately, LiberalOasis adds:

*LiberalOasis was told by a Kerry staffer that Kerry supported the Feingold resolution, yet Kerry has not made any formal statements and he ducked reporters’ questions about it yesterday.

Naturally, to nobody's surprise, Lieberman is one of three Democrats who resolutely declares that Bush's lawbreaking is OK by him.
Digby takes on a whole host of reasons for Democrats not to support Feingold and absolutely trashes them all. Yee-hah!

Molly's call to arms

I've long since liked Molly Ivins, ever since her first book came out. I've been fond of her no-nonsense demeanor, her belief that liberals were right about , well, just about everything and her firm belief that politics had to be fun or life just wasn't worth living. Today, she comes out with the bestest description of Russ Feingold's proposal to censure President Bush that I've seen yet:

Mah fellow progressives, now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party. I don’t know about you, but I have had it with the D.C. Democrats, had it with the DLC Democrats, had it with every calculating, equivocating, triangulating, straddling, hair-splitting son of a bitch up there, and that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton.
-------------
I can’t see a damn soul in D.C. except Russ Feingold who is even worth considering for President. The rest of them seem to me so poisonously in hock to this system of legalized bribery they can’t even see straight.
-----------
Every Democrat I talk to is appalled at the sheer gutlessness and spinelessness of the Democratic performance. The party is still cringing at the thought of being called, ooh-ooh, “unpatriotic” by a bunch of rightwingers.

Take “unpatriotic” and shove it. How dare they do this to our country? “Unpatriotic”? These people have ruined the American military! Not to mention the economy, the middle class, and our reputation in the world. Everything they touch turns to dirt, including Medicare prescription drugs and hurricane relief.

This is not a time for a candidate who will offend no one; it is time for a candidate who takes clear stands and kicks ass.

Molly is 100% correct. The question Bush would probably love to ask Americans (But knows he shouldn't because he'd give the game away) is: "Hey, if the Democrats won't stand up to me when I'm this low in the opinion polls, what makes you think they'll stand up to the terrists?" And you know what? Bush would be absolutely correct to ask that. If the Democrats can't find their spine over an issue as plain and as clear-cut and as unequivocally right as this one is, then what the heck will they stand up for?
It's up to us regular folks now. Here's the link to a site that can tell you how to contact your representative. Call 'em, write 'em, telegraph 'em, send 'em smoke signals, whatever!! Get these people off their fannies and have 'em do their jobs!!

Lots of good stuff at Glenn Greenwald and firedoglake.
In an entirely predictable move: "Senator Wayne 'Whiny' Allard, Republican of Colorado, accused Feingold of 'siding with terrorists' by introducing his censure resolution." Duh! What did y'all think they were going to do?!?!?! Is there anybody out there who's the slightest bit surprised?!?!
Feingold's response is entirely correct.

Problem with DLCers

Another Democratic operative, Daniel Gerstein, said his party's candidates need to proceed cautiously with rhetoric condemning the president. "If all people hear about your message is you're against taking all reasonable measures to protect the country from terrorism and you don't want the CIA listening to Al Qaeda, it puts us in an even deeper hole on this issue," he said.

Now, this is exactly what we mean when we say that people like this and Joe Lieberman and such are traitors to the Democratic Party. This is a Republican talking point through and through. No one in America is suggesting that al Qaeda members should be able to talk amongst themselves without being listened to and the Bush Administration is completely unable to present warrantless wiretapping by the NSA as being a "reasonable measure." Major problem with the latter is that the "fish" caught by the "net" are completely nonexistent. Had the program resulted in anything more than a blatant violation of Constitutional rights, the Bush people wouldn't be in so much hot water over it.
Just for the fun of it, I ran a Google search on "Daniel Gerstein" and found out, sure enough, he's a Lieberman guy, who's mentioned in DailyKos as:

First, I like how Gerstein and the rest of the DLCers throw out the term "angry activist base" as if its a derogatory epithet, as if we really have nothing to be angry about but rather are seething just for shits and giggles. The base is rightly angry precisely because the party is being pulled away from the mainstream and towards a GOP-lite by the likes of Gerstein and the other consultants.

This is in response to Gerstein referring to those who favor discarding the Fourth Amendment as "...today's electorate, which is far more independent-thinking and complex in its views on values than our side presumes." Yeah, okay, we need to appeal to people who are blithering idiots and who have no conception of what separates the United States of America from the monarchies of Europe who ruled their people with an iron fist and made the word "freedom" appear to be a holy grail. Let's go back to the absolute monarchs of the 1700s, yeah, that'll fix everything. Who needs this "democracy" stuff anyway?

Debbie Schlussel

Bleagh! James Wolcott links us to Debbie Schlussel, who's so raunchy, calling her "skanky" would be to compliment her. She refers to Sharon Stone visiting Israel by constant references to "crotch-shots", delivers furious commentary as to Stone's views on the Arab-Israeli conflict, perhaps saddest of all, Schlussel finds something negative to say about the following statement:

During her visit, Stone played football with a mixed group of Israeli and Palestinian children on Wednesday and later visited Israeli hospitals that care for Palestinian children.

Yes, Schlussel even finds something negative to say about that and called Stone "crotch-woman" while doing so!
Schlussel has obviously attracted the right advertisers, though. One of the ads beside her piece had a reasonably attractive brunette wearing a t-shirt that said: "Hippies Smell". I think the last hippies died out and became stockbrokers when? The 80s? Not only is someone wearing a t-shirt with a truly nasty message, it's about 20 years out of date! Comments from her readers are no better.
Serious bottom-feeder of a slimy website

Questions on NSA warrantless spying

Marty Lederman write in Balkanization about David Kris' many skills as a lawyer and about his deep inside-and-out knowledge of FISA. He then writes:

Another remarkable thing -- perhaps the most important thing -- about the Kris memo is that it is dated January 2006, rather than January 2003: David did not produce anything of the sort when he was actually at DOJ, when the legality of the program was being considered. That's not David's fault. Although he was the person in the DAG's office whose portfolio included FISA and electronic surveillance, and although DOJ often trotted David out to testify and speak on such matters well after September 11th, David was never so much as briefed on the NSA program. Now we have reason to understand why: Perhaps DOJ knew that if it ran its legal arguments by serious, trusted and objective lawyers in the Department -- those who knew FISA inside and out -- they would not have passed muster. It's hard to imagine any other reason why someone of David's skills, and in his position on these precise issues, would have been kept out of the loop. Once again, it's evidence of an Administration that is indifferent as to what the correct legal answers might be, but is instead looking only for some legal hook, no matter how tenuous, on which to hang its desired operational programs. See also, e.g., the legal justifications for torture and other unlawful means of interrogation that were reached without the input of those lawyers in the Administration with the most knowledge on the questions; and the finalization and use of the DoD Working Group Report without even informing the Working Group itself (which included several skeptics). This is a much more systemic problem than the particular NSA dispute at issue here.

As I detail here, the Senate Intelligence Committee has now agreed to allow the patently illegal NSA warrantless-spying program to continue. Marty then adds in a P.S. that Bush just signed an extension of the Patriot Act that included a "signing statement". These statements are legitimate as clarifications of negotiations carried out between the Executive and Legislative branches, but have never successfully been used in court to defeat the purpose of the legislation to which it's attached. Many of Bush's statements contradict or significantly alter the legislation to which they have been attached, none of them have been tested in court.

Translation: There are numerous provisions of the Act that require the Department of Justice to provide information and documents to congressional committees for purposes of oversight. We will ignore those requirements when we conclude that it will "impair" what occurs in the Executive branch. Thanks for asking, though.

Glenn Greenwald deals with the "FISA is not the exclusive means by which the President can order wiretapping" argument.

The scales fall off...

I commented here on the unfortunate propensity of reporters to rely upon inside sources for their news. The commentator John Dickerson again shows why relying upon inside souces is an awful idea. Dickerson relays how he received briefing after briefing after briefing telling him about how Bush asked sharp, penetrating, incisive questions of the people who were telling him what was going on. The video of Bush viewing the Katrina briefing starring "Brownie" came as a shock to Dickerson as it completely contradicted all of the briefings he received over the many years he has covered the Bush Administration.

Not saying of course, that inside sources are totally useless. They can be good to have. But they should be used with care and their testimony mixed in with and bounced off against other sources. The problem is not that reporters use inside sources, but that they use inside sources to the exclusion of anything else.

Digby brings it back to Bob Woodward, the guy who convinced the press corps that relying heavily upon inside sources was a good idea and goes on to remind us how heavily the press relied on the post-9/11 view of Bush as the manly man, masculine, he-man hero of our times. It's a bit sad to see the scales fall from people's eyes and to see them give up cherished notions, but for those of us who always saw Bush as the flawed, inexperienced person he was, our only real reaction can only be "What the Hell took you guys so long?!?!"

Letter to Weekly Standard

Bill Kristol came out against US performance in Iraq, suggesting that the US effort there was short of personnnel. I wrote the following letter to him:

28 February 2006

Bill Kristol
The Weekly Standard
1150 17th Street, NW Suite 505
Washington, DC 20036

Subj: Your statement on Fox News Sunday that US has “...not had a serious three-year effort to fight a war in Iraq”

Dear Mr Kristol,

As a liberal blogger, I won’t belabor the pre-war estimates of the manpower needed to overthrow Saddam Hussein AND to stabilize Iraq in the aftermath. As Rumsfeld has said [paraphrasing] “Ooh Gawwd! I’m like, sooo sick of hearing about how Shinseki was right and I was wrong!!”

My question is, how come I don’t recall you and Limbaugh and Coulter and Hannity, etc., etc., making pitches for people to enlist in the Army? It became obvious to me during the much-longer-than-planned battle at Umm Qasr that the Iraqi army America was facing was a great deal tougher than the rag-tag, unmotivated recruits we routed during the 1991 war. Granted, I had nine years in the Navy and was a military history buff long before that, but my information sources were all strictly public and non-classified. I can’t believe that I saw the significance of this and that the US chain of command didn’t.

At the time, I was unaware of the dilemma faced by the US commander at the three-square-mile ammo dump at al Qa-qaa. He apparently had to choose between making the charge towards Baghdad and between leaving behind enough troops to properly secure that dump. Again, there’s no question that people like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Feith and anybody else in that chain of command was aware of the shortage of personnel that dictated that fateful choice.

I suspected at the time but have not run across any evidence that their shortage of personnel persuaded the Army not to try and prevent the entirely predictable, wholesale orgy of looting and destruction that followed the fall of Baghdad. But I’ve simply never found credible the explanation that the folks in charge were just too stupid to realize the horrible PR black eye the chaos would give to the US occupation. The difficulty of managing the reconstruction of Iraq, heck, of maintaining Iraqi society in the meantime, also seemed obvious to me at the time. A bureaucrat without an office is like a pilot without a plane or a sailor without a ship, i.e., more or less useless.

Given that the need for more “boots on the ground” was blatantly obvious long before Bush’s aircaft carrier “Mission Accomplished” speech and that the need for more troops became even more obviously necessary once that insurgency began in earnest by August 2003, it’s a mystery to me why you and other conservative spokespeople have never once made any serious recruiting pitches to your conservative and Republican followers.

Why is that?

Richmond L Gardner
PN3(Ret), USN, 1991-2001

The US press, Rice & Mideast diplomacy

Now y'see, this is what annoys me about the US press. These are the last four paragraphs in a 10 kilobyte story about Secretary of State Rice trying to bring the blessings of democracy to the Mideast.

In the Arab world, the impression left by Rice's trip -- which also included stops in Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates -- was that she was on a mission to round up support to punish a series of U.S. enemies, such as Hamas, Iran and Syria. The campaign against Hamas, formally known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, drew particular scorn because it was seen as hypocritical to want to punish a group that had achieved power through democratic elections. The United States and the European Union have designated Hamas a terrorist organization.

The skepticism in the region was reflected in the blunt questions posed to Rice by Arab journalists.

In Saudi Arabia, a female journalist, dressed head to toe in a black abaya, demanded: "How is it possible to harmonize the U.S. position as a nation supporting freedom of expression and the right of people to practice democracy with your effort to curb the will of Hamas?"

Egyptian Television's Mervat Mohsen also rattled off a series of tough questions. "American calls for democracy have unwittingly brought unprecedented support for the Muslim Brotherhood, but you're not happy with the Muslim Brotherhood in power," he said. "Is this some kind of designer's democracy then, Dr. Rice?"

It would have been nice to have gotten Rice's answers to these very good and relevant questions, just as it would have been useful to have placed these quotes at the beginning of the piece so as to have given readers a better flavor of the obstacles that Rice was facing in trying to convince Arabs that the US was serious about democracy. As it is, the US is having a difficult time covincing Arabs that it isn't simply using democracy as a cheap talking point, as something to be dragged out when convenient and ignored when it conflicts with other foreign policy goals.

More hysterical justifications

ON SEPT. 11, 2001, three planes carried death and destruction to American targets.

Wow! That was quick! A conservative arguing that we should surrender our Constitutional rights in exchange for false promises of safety delivered by an administration that doesn't even seem to care about seaport security. Usually, people at least wait a couple of sentences before gnashing their teeth, rending their garments and screaming "9-11! 9-11!" Notice what the author then does in the next paragraph. Note especially the two passages I've emphasized:

On Sept. 14, Congress passed a resolution giving George Bush authorization to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against the masterminds of the attacks. In those dark moments, we resolved to use any means at our disposal to deter future attacks.

The first passage cites what the legislation that was passed actually said. The second cites what some citizens, by no means all citizens, felt was necessary to be safe.

Daschle, a former Democratic senator from South Dakota who helped negotiate the resolution with the White House, said the resolution did not grant President Bush authority to order warrantless spying on Americans suspected of terrorist ties. Daschle said warrantless wiretaps of Americans never came up in the negotiations.

"I did not and never would have supported giving authority to the president for such wiretaps," Daschle wrote in an article on the Post's opinion page. "I am also confident that the 98 senators who voted in favor of authorization of force against al Qaeda did not believe that they were also voting for warrantless domestic surveillance."

Daschle said the White House sought, but failed, to have included in the resolution language that would have given the president war powers within the United States. He said he refused "to accede to the extraordinary request for additional authority."

"Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text."

The following statement then, is dishonest in the extreme:

...the same body that enacted FISA issued the enabling authorization. And contrary to what some critics claim, the resolution was not limited to sending troops into Afghanistan. Read the language.

The language is quite clear and specific and, as Daschle says, does not authorize warrantless wiretaps.

It's naive to believe that the NSA controversy is about privacy.

This is a highly cynical and insulting statement. It completely denies that anybody with an opinion different from the President's could possibly be sincere or is arguing in good faith, as an American citizen who wants the best for his or her fellow citizens. Naturally, there is no attempt to prove this statement by any citation of facts or evidence.
Is this a controversy about "executive power, its limits and its prerogatives"? Of course it is, no doubt about it. Nor is there any doubt that citizen privacy and what the Constitution, specifically the 4th Amendment, says about "unreasonable searches and seizures" is also at issue. There's no reason whatsoever to suggest that Congressional opponents are being in any way dishonest or cynical.

But a clear and unbiased examination of this administration's actions shows that, at the very least, Bush and his advisers believed that they were acting under a constitutional umbrella.

There is no reason to disparage this statement. We can grant the Bush Administration the honest belief that it was and is acting within the law of the land. But their belief that what they were doing was legal does not translate into "What they were doing was legal." Somebody can sincerely, even fervently believe in something. That doesn't make it true.

The administration briefed key members of congressional oversight committees as well as the chief judges of the FISA court. If any of these individuals felt that the program crossed into illegality and, worse, unconstitutionality, they could have spoken up years ago.

Actually, they could not have done so as the following passage shows:

...according to a newly released letter sent to him that month by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.). Pelosi, the ranking Democrat on the committee, raised concerns in the letter, which was declassified with several redactions and made public yesterday by her staff. [emphasis mine]

If Pelosi's letter had to be declassified before she could share it with the public (The same article states that "The substance of Hayden's response one week later, on Oct. 17, 2001, was redacted.") then there is no mystery whatsoever as to why opponents of the program did not speak up. They were only permitted to speak privately to the Administration and the Administration didn't care very much for their views.

Not being sure of her case, the author feels obliged to close with yet more 9-11 horror:

...the screams of the innocent and the smell of burning flesh.
...their blood will not have been shed in vain.

Bush Administration vs seaport security

A mere 13 days after the attacks of September 11 in 2001, two committees, one from the Senate and one from the House, agreed to ask the Secretary of Transportation to develop recommendations for strengthening seaport security, the issue was considered that important. Four years later, the Bush Administration has aroused bipartisan fury and astonishment by trying to hand control of US seaport security over to a company wholly owned by the United Arab Emirates. "The Bush administration says it found no security risk in the deal but would not elaborate, saying the details are classified."



It is of course possible to overstate risks to US security as opportunity costs due to increased vigilance are great. "Educational visa applications in the United States fell by almost 100,000 from 2001 to 2003, reflecting in part the hassle created by homeland security." More inspections at border checkpoints may mean milllions of dollars a day in lost business and
increased immigration controls are known to hurt industry. The Bush Administration has been accused of trying to paint an image of a "border out of control." in order to sell Americans a guest-worker program that "virtually eliminates the possibility of establishing residency and citizenship for the 8 to 10 million undocumented workers and their families currently residing in the U.S."



The Bush Administration appears to have been rather stunned by opposition to the deal with the UAE as there has been little concern about the fact that "China's biggest state-owned shipper runs major ports in the United States, as do a host of other foreign companies". Still, there are concerns about the UAE and the investigation that seven members of Congress are calling for are required by law anyway.



Currently, the Bush Administration has decided to take a highly aggressive approach to defending the deal, the President even going so far as to threaten a veto if the deal is derailed.



UPDATES: The Administration appears to have taken the tack of "The President is a clueless moron" by having Bush say that he wasn't really aware of the proposal yet. Ms Seal feels
that Bush is lying.

Democrats notice: "Gee, that's funny! Many of the Republicans screaming and yelling about the deal have been opposing seaport security measures for years now!"

White House has financial ties to Dubai firm. Can we say "crony connection?"

Huh! So liberal opponents of the deal are motivated by racism, eh?

Do business and national security REALLY mix?

War with Iran? Prediction is set for March 28th

[Originally written 2/12, revised 2/17]

Is the Bush Administration trying to launch a war on Iran? With the tight secrecy and known dishonesty that the Administration has demonstrated in the past, any conclusions are necessarily tentative. There are many reasons to believe an attack is on the agenda, but strong reasons to think that an attack will never take place.

News from the AP on US posture towards Iran:

“WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is asking Congress for $75 million in an emergency spending bill to support democracy in Iran, Bush administration officials said Wednesday.”

“The money, to be included in a supplemental 2006 budget request the White House is expected to soon send Congress, will be used for radio and satellite television broadcasting and for programs to help Iranians study abroad...”

If the situation were reversed and Iran was requesting money to “support democracy” in the US and in that spirit, to fund “radio and satellite television broadcasting” from satellites and transmitters in Mexico and Canada, the likelihood is about 100% that Americans would see that as an attack on America's political institutions. The fact that the requested $75 million is termed as an “emergency” measure also suggests that the Bush Administration is in a hurry to establish a presence in Iran, whether it's to set up scouting locations to prepare for an offensive later on or to get a fifth column started up so as to weaken Iran from within.

This request continues a very disquieting trend dating from the “Axis of Evil” State of the Union speech in 2002 where Iraq, North Korea and Iran were described as partners threatening the world with Weapons of Mass Destruction (A phrase dating back to 1937, but that did not enter popular usage until the invasion of Iraq in 2003.) and which all required an aggressive response. The trend was continued in (selected passages from) the latest State of the Union speech:

“At the start of 2006, more than half the people of our world live in democratic nations. And we do not forget the other half -- in places like Syria and Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran...”

“Once again, we accept the call of history to deliver the oppressed and move this world toward peace.“

“Yet liberty is the future of every nation in the Middle East, because liberty is the right and hope of all humanity. (Applause.)”

“The same is true of Iran, a nation now held hostage by a small clerical elite that is isolating and repressing its people. The regime in that country sponsors terrorists in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon -- and that must come to an end. (Applause.) The Iranian government is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions, and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons. (Applause.) America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats.”

“Tonight, let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America respects you, and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom. And our nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran. (Applause.)”

So what is the likelihood that the US will invade Iran? According to William Engdahl, the US faces very formidable obstacles in doing so:

“Iran a vast, strategically central expanse of land, more than double the land area of France and Germany combined, with well over 70 million people, and one of the fastest population growth rates in the world, is well prepared for a new Holy War. Its mountainous terrain makes any thought of a US ground occupation inconceivable at a time the Pentagon is having problems retaining its present force to maintain the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations.”

Engdahl also documents a very close and increasingly closer trade relationship between Iran and Russia, suggesting that Russia desire to be a “global player”. Others suggest that Iran is "playing" Russia and is pursuing a hostile and contradictory course. Engdahl points out that China is also heavily involved and has sold Iran “...thousands of tanks, armored personnel vehicles, and artillery pieces, several hundred surface-to-air, air-to-air, cruise, and ballistic missiles as well as thousands of antitank missiles, more than a hundred fighter aircraft, and dozens of small warships. “

It appears then, that a US invasion of Iran would involve the US in a global conflict with the US and possibly Europe facing off against their old Cold War nemeses Russia and China. It's also noteworthy that the US appears to be fighting to maintain the hegemony of the Dollar versus the Euro. So is such a scenario likely to occur? Unfortunately, the US has not been acting like a responsible power for the last several years.

Pillar describes for the first time that the intelligence community did assessments before the invasion [of Iraq] that, he wrote, indicated a postwar Iraq 'would not provide fertile ground for democracy' and would need 'a Marshall Plan-type effort' to restore its economy despite its oil revenue. It also foresaw Sunnis and Shiites fighting for power.”

“Pillar wrote that the intelligence community 'anticipated that a foreign occupying force would itself be the target of resentment and attacks -- including guerrilla warfare -- unless it established security and put Iraq on the road to prosperity in the first few weeks or months after the fall of Saddam.' "

Yet, we see that the Bush Administration invaded Iraq anyway and appears to have relied upon a “faith-based” strategy, founded mostly upon wishful thinking.

Let's also remember the comment by an anonymous Bush aide (Who many people believe was Vice-President Cheney):

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.' ''

It would be very, very nice to believe that the Bush people have developed a sober, sensible plan based upon reality and not upon wishful thinking, but that appears to be a pretty long shot.

Copy of letter to Time Magazine

John Dickerson being interviewed by Al Franken

First off, I agree with commentators who have stated that the whole era started by Bob Woodward, the whole idea that “If we get really close to our sources, we can get great scoops” has reached the end of its' useful life. If a whistleblower needs to reveal that, say, their supervisor is an arrogant, close-minded 24-year-old who is confusing his role with that of a KGB political officer, then the whistleblower will obviously need a way to access reporters and obviously needs to have his or her identity protected.

But for reporters to be cultivating close personal relationships with Bush Administration figures like Karl Rove is just sad. If Rove needs to get a story out, I assure you he'll find a way. There's simply no need for reporters to bend over backwards in order to make it easy for Rove to get his talking points out.

I'm not arguing Rove should be betrayed or outed, I'm arguing that reporters shouldn't be cultivating close relationships with people in his position in the first place. The situation with President Bush's story about foiling a 2002 plot to attack towers on the West Coast is one that demonstrates the usefulness of an arms-length relationship with ones' sources. Reporters who were not closely associated with the Bush Administration were able to dig up the fact that the mayor of LA didn't know anything about the alleged plot. The reporters with close personal relationships could tell the public what the Rovian talking points were and that's about it.

The whole Judith Miller story is a perfect example of a reporter getting all of these great, wonderful, fantastic “scoops”, in return for the devil's bargain of giving up her skepticism and allowing herself to be used to get out the Administration's talking points. She and Time Magazine appear to have acted like victims of the “Stockholm Syndrome” and everybody in both organizations acted like they all had to preserve the personal relationship that one or a few reporters had cultivated, even if it meant lying to the American public (or the functional equivalent thereof) by simply quoting Administration stories and denials as though there were no other side to the story.

Do Administration sources offer useful information behind closed doors that help reporters understand the story better and so report it better? Perhaps, but that understanding can't be shared with the public. If reporters instead got their info from Congresspeople or other folks who have received classified briefings, but who are speaking on the record, that might be a way to square the circle. You could receive information, all of which can be shared with the public, but it would be coming from an informed source who understands how it all fits together. If politicians don't wish to reveal how decisions are made or what goes into their decisions, then they're the primary losers as the public will lose faith in them. By giving reporters insights that reporters can't share, the public loses as reporters then lose sight of who they're responsible to and of how much information can be shared.

As a member of the public I ask you, please maintain an arms-length distance from your sources. There is absolutely no percentage whatsoever in getting so close to these people that reporters start losing their skepticism and objectivity and begin lying to the American public in order to maintain their close, cozy and confidential relationships.

Gonzales attempts to defend warrantless NSA spying

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales began his opening statements as to why the Bush Administration directed the National Security Agency to spy on perhaps thousands of American citizens. Republican Senator Arlen Specter expressed skepticism about the Administration's story, Specter told Gonzales that even the Supreme Court had ruled that "the president does not have a blank check." Lawyer and liberal blogger Glenn Greenwald explains in an interview why the NSA spying case is of bipartisan concern. "The reality is-is that the scandal is about whether or not we live under the rule of law and that is not a conservative or a liberal debate-that is an American value..."

In an oft-quoted segment, Gonzales maintains that well...yes, al Qaeda members are aware that they are under surveillance, "But if they're not reminded about it all the time in the newspapers and in stories, they sometimes forget." which is apparently meant to suggest that the American people will be tipping off al Qaeda if they talk to much about such things.

Local political analyst Dick Polman points out that Democrats and liberals are all over the place on the issue. There is no one "liberal position", with progressive blogs expressing astonishment that "There are no email blasts from Senate offices, no elected rep teams organized to fling quotes and talking points at the press, no bloggers coordinating fifty possible small tasks..." to Governor Tom Vilsack declaring that "If the president broke the law, that's unacceptable. But I think it's debateable whether he did". In any event, the Attorney General seems to find disarray among the opposition very convenient as the blog firedoglake notes that Gonzales doesn't seem terribly inclined to answer questions from Democrats, even though he appears to answer very readily when Republicans ask questions.

The Bush Administration, meawhile, has made it quite clear that it intends to come out of this looking good, at all costs:

"Congressional sources said Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has threatened to blacklist any Republican who votes against the president. The sources said the blacklist would mean a halt in any White House political or financial support of senators running for re-election in November."

" 'It's hardball all the way,' a senior GOP congressional aide said."

The blogger Digby finds it very highly likely that the Administration was and is spying on domestic political opponents.

UPDATE: This story was posted on PhillyIMC and picked up by the National IMC.

Gonzales' upcoming testimony on NSA spying

DailyKos looks at the preview of Gonzales' testimony that will be delivered Monday:

Gonzales also plans to chastize the media, saying "Contrary to the speculation reflected in some media reporting, "the terrorist surveillance program is not a dragnet that sucks in all conversations and uses computer searches to pick out calls of interest."

Really? Someone forgot to tell Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff:

"Now, what we're trying to do is gather as many dots as we can, figure out which are the ones that have to be connected and we're getting them connected," he said.

While refusing to discuss how the highly classified program works, Chertoff made it pretty clear that it involves "data-mining" -- collecting vast amounts of international communications data, running it through computers to spot key words and honing in on potential terrorists.

Hey, if the Bush Administration had released the surveillance logs to people that we, the citizens of the United States could trust to tell us the truth, well maybe we wouldn't be having such a problem with speculation.

Dunno, with both a terroroist attack on the SuperBowl predicted and the Bush Administration getting increasingly impatient with Iran, seems like the testimony might never take place. AmericaBlog wonders "With what Army?" Oh, and Richard Perle argues for striking Iran sooner rather than later.

The "Environmental President"

In my posts on the SOTU, I wondered about the lack of any reaction from progressives to Bush's promises to adopt more environmentally-friendly, sustainable methods of moving our automobiles and heating our homes. Rush Limbaugh was quite convinced that liberals "ought to be having multiple orgasms" over Bush's alternative energy proposals. His analysis of those proposals appears to be right on the mark, though: "He's just putting this stuff in there to, you know, to ameliorate the -- everybody in the audience. Gotta give everybody something in a State of the Union address, even the environmentalist[s]."
So how have the alternative-energy solutions fared within two days of their being announced? Well, er, um, not so much, actually:

Diplomatically, Mr. Bush's ambitious call for the replacement of 75 percent of the United States' Mideast oil imports with ethanol and other energy sources by 2025 upset Saudi Arabia, the main American oil supplier in the Persian Gulf. In an interview on Wednesday, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said he would have to "seek an explanation" from Mr. Bush.

And today:

Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports
By Kevin G. Hall
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally. [emphasis added]

Ah well, so much for the "environmental president". Not that anyone on this side of the aisle believed him anyway.

Analysis of 2006 SOTU

From Bush's 2006 State of the Union speech:

No one can deny the success of freedom, but some men rage and fight against it. And one of the main sources of reaction and opposition is radical Islam – the perversion by a few of a noble faith into an ideology of terror and death. Terrorists like bin Laden are serious about mass murder – and all of us must take their declared intentions seriously. They seek to impose a heartless system of totalitarian control throughout the Middle East, and arm themselves with weapons of mass murder. Their aim is to seize power in Iraq, and use it as a safe haven to launch attacks against America and the world. Lacking the military strength to challenge us directly, the terrorists have chosen the weapon of fear. When they murder children at a school in Beslan … or blow up commuters in London … or behead a bound captive … the terrorists hope these horrors will break our will, allowing the violent to inherit the Earth. But they have miscalculated: We love our freedom, and we will fight to keep it.

This is a part of the speech that was delivered in a slow and sober manner, but the language here is absolutely hysterical. I don't mean hysterical in a funny “Ha-ha” sense, I mean hysterical in an arm-waving, screaming, running-naked-down-the-street sense. Are “terrorists” (This word is, as always, very vaguely defined and universally applied to the national enemy of the moment, pretty much regardless of the actual tactics or methods used.) like bin Laden “serious about mass murder”? Duh! Bin Laden engineered 9-11 (Allegedly anyway. Websites like 911Truth have serious questions about that.) so of course he's “serious” about it! As is quite normal for Bush, he engages in “straw man” arguments. He accuses people of asking questions nobody ever dreamed of asking or of making assertions that no one ever dreamed of making. Who is America is honestly under the impression that bin Laden is not serious?

“Their aim is to seize power in Iraq”. Okay, let's take this claim at face value. Is there any serious possibility that such a thing could be done? People have counted the foreign jihadists among insurgent casualties (No, there's no way to tell what proportion of the jihadists are al Qaeda.) and among prisoners taken in the field. I have yet to see a serious estimate above 7% and most of them are in the range of 3% or 5%. Now, if the jihadists wanted to take over from within a peaceful society, if they wanted to launch a surprise coup and suddenly take control, this plan might make a bit of sense. How they are supposed to wrest control of Iraq from a well-armed and organized insurgency doesn't make any sense at all. Might Zarqawi be the Dr Moriarty of Iraq, the e-e-e-evil mastermind behind the Iraq insurgency? Doubtful. The Middle East Institute published a study in August 2003 on the Iraq insurgency that remains one of the better and more sober views of the insurgency that I've seen. They estimated that there were up to 15 separate, independent groups engaged in armed combat with the American occupiers of Iraq. I find it very highly doubtful that al Qaeda will remain operating in Iraq for as much as a month after American soldiers have been driven out or after a negotiated withdrawal has taken place. To delay a withdrawal from that country for fear al Qaeda will take over is just plain silly.

The best way to break this addiction [to oil] is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly 10 billion dollars to develop cleaner, cheaper, more reliable alternative energy sources – and we are on the threshold of incredible advances.

Nearly $10 billion? Hey sounds real good! Oh, by the way, how much profit (Not gross earnings, profit) did Exxon stash away for just this last quarter? Oh, $10.7 billion. So the President thinks that putting as many research dollars into replacements for oil as a single company has profited by in a single quarter amounts to a serious program?!?!? Puh-leez!!

Oh, and...

FACT - BUSH PUSHED FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY CUTS IN LATEST BUDGET: President Bush's FY06 budget request for the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) energy efficiency and renewable energy programs envisioned "reductions totaling nearly $50 million - an overall cut of roughly four percent." [Renewable Energy Access, 2/28/05]

The reaction of the audience I watched the SOTU with was also quite interesting. Basically, their reaction was non-existent. Not surprising, as Bush has done little or nothing to press for already-proven technologies. How many wind-power station openings has Bush or any member of the Bush Administration gone to? LeftCoaster summarizes the Bush Administration approach to energy issues.

Max Blumenthal at the Huffington Post covers the incident cited by Bush as to the reason he's asking for his NSA spying program to continue. Was America's inability to put wiretaps onto suspected members of al Qaeda the reason 9-11 succeeded? Hardly. The reasons had more to do with simple ineptitude and incompetence. Tom Tomorrow also has a great piece on that.

As for Bush's earnest and heartfelt peans to liberty and democracy and all that fine stuff, firedoglake has a post on how Cindy Sheehan was treated when she wore a t-shirt to the SOTU address that conflicted with the happy-happy joy-joy images that Bush and his image-makers preferred. We mean, y'know, protest and all that is fine and dandy, but well, y'know, it's gotta be the right sort of protest, it has to fit in with the themes of the day and all.