Open letter to Rep Schwartz

Honorable Representative Allyson Schwartz,

First of all, let me say that I'm extremely pleased to see your name among the "Nays" on Congress' Roll Call Vote 836 on S.1927, the bill that allows unlimited warrantless surveillance of American citizens with no meaningful oversight whatsoever. We're essentially now in a pre-FISA era, with the government able to spy on us at its leisure.
The WaPo's Dan Froomkin tells us a very sad tale of Democrats trusting in a Bush official to be non-partisan, high-minded and disinterested (i.e., willing to act without regard to the Republican Party's self-interest). I'm aghast and astonished to see that Democrats were expecting any such thing from any Bush loyalist. Regardless of how Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell performed in his job prior to this vote, Democrats should have known that nobody serving under this President could be trusted a single inch. McConnell's spokesperson claims that McConnell's arm was not twisted and that there was no back-room pressure applied to make him cooperate with Bush to bamboozle the Democrats. I believe the spokesperson. I see McConnell as enthusiastically and joyfully participating in a long-arranged plan to put one over on the hapless Democrats.
Why was FISA gutted? The progressive blogger Digby points out that the "existential threat" that stampeded the Democrats into cooperating with Bush & McConnell doesn't come from abroad, but from right here at home:
"It's coming from within, from a governing class of both parties who are creating a national security apparatus that is going to end up squeezing the lifeblood of liberty right out of this country --- all in the name of keeping us safe."
The blog Crooks & Liars relates the extremely depressing tale of where America appears to be headed. A group of "non-stop transit" passengers who never had the slightest intention of setting foot outside the gates of the airport where they were transferring from one flight to another, go through hours and hours of annoying and humiliating "processing." All of the passengers left with the determination never to enter US territory ever again.
I've reproduced the email conversation I had with my fellow PRAWN members because I'd like for you to inform your fellow Democrats in the House how very badly this vote has hurt them. It also shows that no, it's not at all impossible for Democrats to be "outflanked on the left." There is the Green Party to consider. I never saw a single Democratic button or banner or sign at an anti-war demonstration until about six months prior to the 2004 election and I don't remember seeing very many at the last big protest either. Standing up for Constitutional rights shouldn't be a left vs center issue. It should, if anything, be a far-right vs everybody issue.

Herewith, the conversation:

From:	Anne Ewing	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
		[This is spam]
To:	Anne Ewing
Subject:	Don't let Congress off the hook for letting Bush wiretap our phone calls
Date:	Aug 7, 2007 8:06 PM

Hi,

The Democratic-controlled Congress did the unthinkable on Saturday night: They gave President Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales more unchecked power to wiretap Americans without a warrant. Yes, that's the same Attorney General who is currently mired in scandal and probably committed perjury on this very issue.

Enough is enough. We have to send a strong message to Congress that there is no trade-off between fundamental liberties and security. Preserving our Constitution is essential to our security--we can't lead on freedom around the world when we're actively undermining the rule of law at home.

I signed onto this petition demanding that Congress reverse this capitulation to Bush and the politics of fear. (I also suggested that I would not want to vote for anyone who voted for this disgraceful legislation.) Can you join me? Just click here:

http://pol.moveon.org/capitulation/?r_by=-1477991-qLFpLu&rc=mailto

Thanks!

Anne

Anne Ewing

---

Ignore this email address. For some reason I need to use this mac.com account in RI, but don;t intend to use it otherwise, and I receive verizon.net just fine.

From:	"John A. Murphy"	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 8:54 PM
Attachments:	Nader for pres 08.jpg

The trouble is that MoveOn is just a Democrat front organization looking for your name and e-mail address so they can put you on their mailing list of potential activists. They said absolutely nothing when the Democrat controlled Congress voted to continue the war and nothing when Pelosi said "impeachment is off the table".

The Democrats know that they don't have to pay any attention to anything that comes from MoveOn because MoveOn will ultimately support them. If you want to protest what the Democrats have done, call voter services in your county and ask them to send you a voter's registration form and then change your voter's registration from Democrat Party to Green Party. That will send them a message they understand, otherwise they will simply say to you "what are you going to do, vote for a Republican".

Vive La Résistance,

John A. Murphy

"To live as if our choices make any real difference in the long run may be the act of a fool, but to live as if they do not, that is the act of a coward."

— Albert Camus

From:	Rich		Flag Message | Mark Unread
To:	"John A. Murphy", prawn@lists.riseup.net
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 9:09 PM

Yeah, I notice that MoveOn pieces aren't often on this list serve, but I figured
this was an especially infuriating move by the Democrats.  I'm not really ready
to sign up for a third party quite yet.  I'd like to see some evidence that
it would accomplish more than trying to reform the Democrats. 
Rich

From:	"John A. Murphy"	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	Rich, prawn@lists.riseup.net
Cc:	Camden County Green Party
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 10:21 PM
Attachments:	Nader 2008.jpg Clear Day Bkgrd.jpg

What kind of evidence do you need Rich? People have been trying to reform the Democratic Party since 1972. Back in 1972 they actually listened to us. They gave us an antiwar candidate in the person of George McGovern. As soon as George McGovern got the nomination, every one of the Democratic Party's corporate donors jumped ship. The Democrats at that point should have said, "look at how much power the corporations have, let's pass legislation doing away with the concept of 'corporate personhood' and make sure that we pass legislation to publicly fund all federal elections". But that's not what the Democratic Party said. What the Democratic Party said is that it would no longer listen to its constituencies but it would do whatever its corporate sponsors wanted it to do. That's why we have no universal single-payer health care, no tuition free education and that's why the Democrats have backed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to approve the Patriot Act and gave us Bill Clinton the most violent president in the 20th century who killed over one million innocent men, women and children in Iraq with bombs and sanctions.

If the Democratic Party simply had a problem with organization, it could be changed from within. The Democratic Party however is fatally flawed. Look what it has done to the labor movement, the women's movement, the civil rights movement and now the antiwar movement!

I'm sick to death of hearing "why don't the Democrats... if only the Democrats... if the Democrats were smart..." if I hear one more Democrats say "don't the Democrats see they could win by going a different way"; I'm going to puke.

Stop fearing what will happen if you give up on the Democrats. Your fear of what will ensue if they wither away is really all they have left at this point. Stop pretending the system isn't broken. Unless you like sham democracy and one party politics, I mean.

Stop pretending the Democrat Party is interested in fixing itself or being fixed or changed. In other words stop trying to fix the Democrat Party -- because, according to the thinking of the "real" Democrats, the ones who own and operate the party, it isn't broken and it doesn't need to be changed. And please quit all the moaning about the "stupid Democrat leaders" blowing chances. The Democrat leaders are not stupid. But if you are still bedding down with them and expecting something to change, you do have every reason to wonder about yourself.

Vive La Résistance,

John A. Murphy

"To live as if our choices make any real difference in the long run may be the act of a fool, but to live as if they do not, that is the act of a coward."

— Albert Camus

From:	Monique Frugier	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 10:39 PM
Attachments:	unknown-3 KB unknown-25 KB Forwarded-Message

While it is true that MoveOn members are mainly Democrats, it does not mean that all members embrace MoveOn silence re: Impeachment. In fact one of my group: "Main Line Citizens for Impeachment" (most of our members are also MoveOn members) sent them a letter stating our position and that we wanted them to take a stand on this.

We had a conference call yesterday and MoveOn is calling for August to be a month to organize rallies all over the country, reach out in communities, organize rallies at our representatives' offices, and tell them that they will get the heat come next elections if they do not push for the end of the war in September.

Yes, it is true that nothing is being said re: Pelosi and the impeachment "off the table", but the way I see it is that while MoveOn is gathering many new members, I am also making many new personal connections and just got the names of 8 people interested in joining the group I moderate "Rapid Response Pa.", a group of letter-writers. And guess what? Among the 20 people present at our meeting yesterday, only one does not support impeachment.

One can be a MoveOn member and yet make her/his OWN voice heard.

Come the presidential elections, for me I do not see the need to change party in order to support my anti-war candidate and be part of the Résistence At the end, Green and/or Independent party will do what I will do. So what is the difference? That I will be accused of giving a vote to the Republican party?

Monique.

From:	larry petkov	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 10:49 PM

John;

I think Monique is using the correct strategy here to build the anti-war movement. We should put the pressure on the Democrats to come out for Impeachment and stop funding the war. We can back Dennis Kucinich who has the courage to stand up for these issues.

If the Democrats don't come around and try to ram Hillary down our throats(which I think they will), then we can talk about planning an independent run.

I think the Greens are too diffuse and marginal to really shake the Democratic establishment.

Let's hope another independent candidate will step forward like former Senator Mike Gravel to challenge.

But if noone does I would certainly vote for Nader rather than Hillary the Hawk!

The Greens hurt themselves badly in the 2004 election by not backing Nader 100 percent. Supporting Cobb was a disaster.

Larry

From:	"John A. Murphy"	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 10:59 PM
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You must disassociate yourself from MoveOn just as you have disassociated yourself from the Democratic Party. MoveOn is just as bad as UFPJ which has surrendered the antiwar movement into the hands of the Democratic Party.

John Murphy

From:	David Kalkstein	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 11:03 PM
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You must disassociate yourself from MoveOn ...

Must we all do that, or are Monique and Rich the only ones who must do that?

Please let me know so i can proceed.

david

From:	"John A. Murphy"	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 11:16 PM
Attachments:	nader living wage lg.jpg Clear Day Bkgrd.jpg

We must not back any Democratic candidate -- especially Dennis Kucinich. Dennis Kucinich is the Judas goat of the Democratic Party. It is people like him and John Conyers who keep the so-called progressive Democrats (which is like saying virgin prostitutes) from leaving the Democratic Party.

In 2004 the so-called antiwar Dennis Kucinich threw his support to John Kerry instead of the antiwar candidate Ralph Nader with whose positions he agreed entirely. He told his supporters than that it was not about the war it was all about party unity. Anything you see done by people like Kucinich is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. You don't fight Nazism by joining the SS. Neither do you fight the neoliberal, imperialist policies of the Democratic Party by being one of its members let alone one of its elected officials.

You don't build a strong antiwar movement by supporting the pro-war Democratic Party which maneuvered us into World War I, World War II, Korea and who gave us Lyndon Johnson -- remember good old Lyndon -- the guy who'd lied to us about the Gulf of Tonkin and then killed 3 million innocent men, women and children in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam? And don't forget our old friend Harry Truman who dropped nuclear weapons on the civilian populations of two Japanese cities just in order to send the old Soviet Union a message (not to end World War II sooner as your high school history textbook might have told you). The last thing you want to do in order to stop a war you support a Democrat. That's like becoming a prostitute in order to promote virginity!

John Murphy
Green Party Pennsylvania: Steering Committee
GNC: National Delegate

Candidate: Representative in Congress

District 16: Pennsylvania

VOTE PEACE: VOTE GREEN: VOTE NADER '08

From:	Monique Frugier	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 11:26 PM
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Speaking to a French who is old enough to speak about occupation and Résistence( having been born in North Africa in 1944, and whose father died defending his country), I will tell you that in order to be effective, changes do not happen in disassociation but

rather in speaking out and in actions.

Monique.

From:	David Kalkstein	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 8, 2007 11:31 PM
Attachments:	unknown-7 KB unknown-63 KB Forwarded-Message

We must not back any Democratic candidate --

Who is the "we" that must not back any Democrtic candidate? Is it just Rich, Larry and Monique, or is it required that all of PRAWN must not back any Democratic candidate?

I need to know, so I can behave according to the rules.

From:	Rich		Flag Message | Mark Unread
To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 12:16 AM

1. I'd like to collect this conversation into a single blog post and forward the link to Rep Allyson Schwartz, who thankfully voted against S.1927, the bill that surrenders our Constitutional liberties to warrantless wiretapping. Please let me know if anyone objects. I'll put it all on http://www.prawnblog.blogspot.com/ sometime tomorrow.
2. Markos "Kos" Moulitsas of DailyKos reacted to Bill O'Reilly's charge that Kos intended to overthrow the government. Kos responded "Why would we do that? We have one third of it now and next election, we'll pick up another third." The point being that the "netroots" project has been far more successful than any previous attempt at changing our government. The other two big pushes, the Jesse Jackson and Ross Perot campaigns, were both personality-based campaigns that collapsed as soon as the personalities failed to keep the momentum going. Yeah, it's a long and rocky road ahead, but I just don't see any other way being anywhere near as successful as the "netroots" campaign has been.
Rich

From:	Monique Frugier	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 12:32 AM
Attachments:	unknown-9 KB Forwarded-Message message-footer.txt

No objection from me.

Monique.

From:	"John A. Murphy"	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 1:36 AM
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Then you are well aware of what happened in occupied France during the 1930s and 40s. The Weimar Republic essentially gave France two choices: they could accept the Vichy government (controlled by French Nazis) or have a government directly imposed upon them from Berlin.

Many French chose to collaborate with the Germans through the Vichy government. Other Frenchmen including Albert Camus, fully aware of the consequences of their actions, joined La Résistance. They realized that a Nazi was a Nazi whether he spoke French or German. There was no difference between French Nazis and German Nazis. Similarly today there is no significant difference between the corporate driven, imperialist war machine of the Republican Party and the corporate driven, imperialist war machine of the Democratic Party. You do not collaborate with the enemy. La Résistance saved the lives of countless Allied forces which ultimately liberated France, not from within but from without.

The real problem in the United States is the two-party system which of course is nothing more than a one party system. Noam Chomsky calls it "the corporate party", Cindy Sheehan calls it "the war party", Ralph Nader calls it "the duopoly". This system cannot be altered or changed from within; it can only be opposed and resisted from without.

You might also ask yourself what did Gandhi do in occupied India? The United States has been occupied by a political elite which is controlled by 1,300 corporations -- 57,000 people decide what happens in this nation. They do not care how many antiwar demonstrations in which you participate because they can be sure if they look in your wallet they'll find a credit card from Chase or Bank of America or some other financial institution which continues to fund the war parties.

The corporate war party must be resisted. Join the resistance; join the Greens not the collaborators.

Vive La Résistance,

John A. Murphy

"To live as if our choices make any real difference in the long run may be the act of a fool, but to live as if they do not, that is the act of a coward."

— Albert Camus

From:	"John A. Murphy"	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 1:54 AM
Attachments:	democrats-scared.jpg Clear Day Bkgrd.jpg

The last thing you want to do is have any communication with the elected officials of an imperialist war party. what are you looking for - a pat on the head and a kick in the ass? That's all you'll get form them!

The Democrat Party is a reactionary, pro-war party. It is now and it has always been so. It has backed every war in the history of the United States since it came into existence. It is the proslavery party which has now destroyed the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the labor movement and most recently the antiwar movement. It is where social movements go to die.

Want to work for peace? Join the Greens! The Democrat Congress is worth less than 3 grams of bottled syphilitic whore spit.

John Murphy

Candidate: Representative in Congress
District 16: Pennsylvania

From:	Rich		Flag Message | Mark Unread
To:	"John A. Murphy"
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 6:59 AM

John,
I'll certainly take your message under advisement.  BTW, the main point I intend
to make with my proposed post to Schwartz is going to be "Look at the mess
the Democrats have gotten themselves into!  See how much your fellow Democrats have
damaged themselves!"
The netroots don't just want a seat at the table of the Democratic Party, they
want to change the conversation so that we can turn it into an engine of social
change.  ALL of the new people elected in 2006 are in the anti-globalization camp,
f'rinstance. 
Rich

From:	Joseph Gauger	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 7:01 AM
Attachments:	message-footer.txt

If Kos says that "we have control" of Congress and will soon have the presidency, he is obviously not speaking as a member of the anti-war or progressive movements. As we've established, the Congress belongs to the Democratic wing of the Establishment. Despite all the rhetoric about changing direction and ethics reform, the Democratic leadership is well aware of how things are run in this country and have shown that they are quite comfortable with that arrangement.
The problem with organizing effective resistance to the Establishment is that the latter is skilled at coopting any burgeoning political movement. The essential power structure of American politics has remained intact through every supposed reform movement. Supporters of extensive, top-down reform are forced to continually reorganize as their groups go "mainstream". Groups like the Green Party, which are constructed so that corporate/Establishment influence is minimal, are denied access in other ways. But I agree that our best hope lies with them as opposed to Democratic candidates.

Joseph Gauger

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the
final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are
not clothed." -- Dwight Eisenhower

From:	Rich		Flag Message | Mark Unread
To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 11:38 AM

Joseph,
You make some very good points, but allow me to present someone who speaks for the netroots (from http://www.horsesass.org/?p=3283 )


What’s the difference between a true netroots Democrat and an establishment Democrat? The willingness to criticize members of one’s own party when it really counts.
In her latest web ad WA-08 netroots “rock star” Darcy Burner not only sticks it to her Republican opponent Dave Reichert for handing warrantless wiretapping powers to President Bush, Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales… she also takes on the 41 Democratic House members who voted with him.

“When Republicans like Dave Reichert give George Bush everything he wants, that’s bad enough. But too many people in my own party aren’t listening either. The warrantless wiretapping bill won’t make us safer, but it will strip us of the rights so many of our families have fought to preserve, including mine.”

This race is about bringing new leadership to the House, not just padding the Democratic majority. No doubt Burner would like DCCC support and the money that comes with it, but anybody who thinks she’s taking her cues from the other Washington, just isn’t listening.

------------------------
Just plain battling Republicans isn't the point. We're also into reforming the Democrats. We're not satified with the Democratic Party as it is.
Rich

From:	larry petkov	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 10:56 AM
Attachments:	unknown-64 KB

Monique:

I like the way John conveniently ignores the candidacies of Eugene McCarthy, Bobby Kennedy, George McGovern, and the huge anti-war movement in the Democratic Party in 1968 and 1972. There were plenty of anti-war Senators back then: Bayh, Proxmire, Church, Hughs, Gravel, Moorse, Gruening, etc.

Many people who lived through that period are certainly disgusted with the Democratic response today to the crisis. But to ignore splits in the Democratic Party on the war is foolish.

larry

From:	+Steve Bozzone	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Cc:
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 11:52 AM
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To throw some thoughts in:

I have always believed that the pathos of "We don't work with them because _______" is contrary to building a popular movement. If there's something you don't like about an organization, work from the inside to change it. If we continue to remain exclusive and seperatist, we won't reach the masses. I really like what John Murphy has to say, but I agree with Monique. If a minority opinion isn't represented in an organization, then it won't have an opportunity to examine other viewpoints.

Beyond a blog post, it sounds like PRAWN could use a message board!

Best,

Steve

From:	"John A. Murphy"	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation: Monique right again!
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 1:08 PM
Attachments:	play democrat.jpg unknown-63 KB

I didn't ignore those people -- the Democratic Party ignored the people. I went "clean for Gene" back in 1968. But they didn't give us gene McCarthy they gave us Hubert Humphrey the man who would continue the slaughter in Vietnam and as a result we got Richard Nixon! (In retrospect of course Richard Nixon was to the left of William Clinton.) But as I said in an earlier note which you apparently did not read, back in the Democratic Party still listened to us and indeed they gave us George McGovern in 1972. But as it is McGovern got the nomination every corporate donor left the Democratic Party and McGovern sank like a slug. That's when the Democratic Party made his decision to ignore its constituency and to do only the will of its corporate sponsors. To believe anything other at this point in time is either perverse, insane or rampant ignorance.

John Murphy

From:	Joseph	[Add to Address Book]	Flag Message | Mark Unread
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To:	prawn@lists.riseup.net,
Subject:	Re: [prawn] MoveOn Petition about Congressional capitulation
Date:	Aug 9, 2007 3:01 PM
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Weimar Republic ended before Nazis came to power.

Joe

How to judge progress?

I saw the NY Times Letters Page today (2 Aug 07) that commented on the now-infamous O'Hanlon & Pollock op-ed in which they describe themselves, falsely, as war critics. Naturally, the letters the NY Times chose to print either did not breathe a word of this particular controversy or had their comments edited out.

What I found especially interesting was that all of the conservative/pro-war letters accused liberals of not wishing to recognize progress when it happened. They ascribed this liberal hesitation to various factors, mostly having to do with denial and with the wish to see the US lose the Iraq War.

Well, pardon me, but I was going through some old papers today and happened across one from 9 Jun 06.

Naturally, everybody remembers the glorious day before that? What? No one recalls the glorious, decisive turning point of the Iraq War? That magnificent day when just as all seemed lost, that marvelous victory was achieved? Granted, the front-page headline "How big a blow?" was appropriately skeptical, but with around six newspaper pages of coverage, the US had clearly struck a mighty blow indeed.

That was the famous day that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed! What? No one remembers the terrible scourge of the leader of "al Qaeda in Iraq" and his awful end?

Problem is, there's really no reason people should remember. Even though that day's paper showed the dead Zarqawi, even though it showed a happy, joyous President Bush dashing through the halls, even though the lead editorial featured the title "Now that the beast is slain," the effect of Zarqawi's death in the following weeks and months was pretty hard to even detect.

Not surprising, really. The Iraq Coalition Casualty Count showed a very slight dip, May06 - 69, Jun06 - 61, Jul06 - 43, but Aug06 shot right back up to 65 and Sep06 was 72. If Zarqawis death had any effect, it was a very short-lived one. The losses suffered by American soldiers and Marines were in the triple digits from April to June. Sure the number fell to 82 in July, but is that a temporary lull or is it a significant drop?

Why are progressives skeptical of reports that Iraq is solving its problems? Why do they always take a "wait and see" attitude? Why can they never simply celebrate when a success has been obtained? I think the Bush Administration's overselling of each and every drop in the casualty rate, each and every glimmer of potential success and each and every possibility of breakthrough has thoroughly drained us of any enthusiasm that the more progressive, anti-war segments of the population might ever feel.

I agree with the pro-war partisans whose letters were printed in the NY Times, we progressives are quite skeptical of any victory announcements and we're quite slow to celebrate any "good news." The problem lies in our news. We have a propaganda service, not a news service. We're being told over and over that O'Hanlon & Pollock are "critics" of the Iraq War. They're no such thing. We progressives are catching on or have long since caught on. As Germans told us after World War II "We could tell the war was lost because the 'Glorious Victories' kept occurring closer and closer to home."

Update: Juan Cole explains how the pro-war people were viewing things and how things actually are. He confirms the skeptic's point of view.

A generation's call to duty

Glenn Greenwald quotes a writer from the Weekly Standard:

In the 1960s, history called the Baby Boomers. They didn't answer the phone.
Confronted with a generation-defining conflict, the cold war, the Boomers -- those, at any rate, who came to be emblematic of their generation -- took the opposite path from their parents during World War II.
...
Few of the leading lights of that generation joined the military.
...
But now, once again, history is calling. Fortunately, the present generation appears more reminiscent of their grandparents than their parents.

Er, sorry, but no, the young people of the "9-11 Generation" are no more likely to join the military than those of the Vietnam Generation were. In 1996, the number of personnel in the Army was a little over 490,000, in 2005, it was almost 489,000. The number stayed between 475,000 and 500,000 between those years.

Total numbers for the armed services as a whole were
1996: Over 1,470,000,
2005: Over 1,378,000.

We're constantly hearing stories like the following:

...as the war in Iraq rolls into its fifth year, the escalating cycle of combat deployments is wearing on the children and their families...

In other words, not only have the armed forces not expanded, they can't even bring in enough new people to replace those who are worn out and who are suffering from PTSD and really need to quit and allow others to take their places.

Nah, Greenwald accurately nails the problem. The Vietnam Generation had three components, those who went off to fight the war, those who stayed home and opposed it and the third, least honorable group, the chickenhawks, who enthusiastically supported the war, but who remained at a safe distance from the battlefield. Unfortunately, it's the chickenhawks who now run the country and the Iraq War. The "9-11 Generation" was told by their President to "Go shopping," so they did. There's nothing particularly wrong with the 9-11 Generation, but nothing particularly heroic, either.

More reasons Bush's Mideast peace push will go nowhere

From yesterday's briefing with Press Secretary Tony Snow:

"Q Who drew up this plan? Was it Israelis and Saudis and our -- or State Department worked with them --

"MR. SNOW: Who drew up this plan?

"Q Yes.

"MR. SNOW: Well, typically something like this -- you're talking about what the President will be describing today? We worked it out within the administration. That involves the NSC, it involves the Department of State, but it is not something that has been vetted or run by other governments.

"Q Why not?


"MR. SNOW: Because they --


"Q And how about with Congress?



"MR. SNOW: Members of Congress will get some notification, they will have a chance to see it."



----------

Y'see, the whole theory behind the idea called groupthink is that members of a group get along too well. They sit down with each other and sort of outbid one another in a not-really-conscious process, each one "daring" the other to get more extreme and more casual about being extreme.

The way to defeat groupthink? It's well-established that the best way to break up that sort of thinking is by bringing in outsiders, by opening up the group to fresh viewpoints and new ways of seeing things.

Reading the above, it's pretty clear that the Bush Administration will do no such thing. The quote below is from a story about how President Bush wants a Mideast summit. Sounds good, but the quote here reveals the catch:

"Palestinians [are] divided between the Fatah-controlled West Bank and Hamas-controlled Gaza. Hamas is unlikely to be invited: Mr Bush said it must first renounce violence and recognise Israel."

In other words, "we'll deal with our friends (i.e., people who are predisposed to agree with us) and ignore our enemies (i.e., people likely to stand up for their own national interests)."

Same-old, same-old. This is going to be strictly a photo-op summit.

Media vs government

Marcy "Emptywheel" Wheeler comments on The Next Hurrah about Michael Isikoff's story on Bush's decision to commute I. Lewis "Scooter' Libby's just and richly-deserved prison sentence. Warning: Marcy is a loud and proud DFH Blogger, so don't read her account if you like your language clean.

Th main question that occurred to me as I read Emptywheel's account was "Why do we still have confessional insider-type accounts in the mainstream media? The media that's allegedly full of Very Serious people?" Emptywheel makes it clear right off the bat that Isikoff does not consult any sources other than the people he interviewed and it's also quite clear a few paragraphs into reading Isikoff's article that it's absolutely chock-full of unverifiable, alleged facts that Isikoff simply takes the word of his sources for. Many years back, first Ronald Reagan and then the Elder Bush and then to a lesser extent Bill Clinton and then to a huge extent GW Bush, all decided that the handling of the press was an extremely important task that required serious study and education and long, late-night talks.

We lefty bloggers don't think much of Joe Klein, who wrote Primary Colors, but the movie effectively pointed out how politicians view the press. When "Hillary Clinton" was apprised of a scandal, her first thought was of which media source was the best one to leak the news to. The Elder Bush made it very clear during his time in office that his wife Barbara, was keeping careful track of "friendly" and "non-friendly" reporters. Those reporters who were not considered friendly, i.e., those who wrote critical stories, were denied access to the President. Friendly reporters, of course, got unlimited access.

When a reporter is getting an "inside account," we need to keep in mind that these interviews occur after the President's PR people have thoroughly discussed "the mark" and his "tells," his liquor preferences, his level of knowledge on the issues and his favorite conversational topics, etc. They know how to make their "insider" stories convincing and gather afterwards to talk over what worked, what didn't, what the reporter found convincing and what he appeared skeptical of. What this means is that the much-admired reporter I.F. Stone got it right. When he was told that counter-insurgency warfare was being given primacy in Vietnam and bombing was being phased out, Stone looked up the respective budgetary figures and found out that the US was spending less on counter-insurgency per year than it was on B-52 bombing per month.

Reporting on the President requires of reporters a stubborn refusal to be manipulated, a keen awareness of the many tricks presidential administrations will use to steer reporters towards favored narratives and a deep appreciation for the subject the reporters is reporting on.

My solution? There are many stories that can be covered adequately by a single person, but I'd like to see teams on many other stories. To have a reporter being close to sources and to do a lot of personal interviews in Washington DC, over cocktail weenies and over glasses of expensive scotch is not a bad thing in and of itself. Even "bad guys," however one defines the term, deserve to be heard and to be able to relay their stories in an up-close and personal manner. What I'd like to see, though, would be for the interviewing reporter to turn over his or her notes and observations and conclusions to a blogger up in Minnesota or down in Alabama and for the blogger to take those notes and put them into context, with other facts and opposing viewpoints. The editor can then make sure that the resulting story flows well and isn't choppy and disjointed. As I said, I'd like to see a real team effort on important stories.

The "Libby Motion"

Defendants in criminal cases involving lying are taking note of President Bush's defense of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, convicted felon who will now serve no time behind bars. The Alberto Gonzales Justice Department wants to throw the book at Democrats and decorated veterans, but appears to want special treatment for Republicans accused of similar crimes. We get some serious snark from Digby on the agony of President Bush as he seeks to decide between commuting Libby's sentence and between full pardon. Hint: If Libby is fully pardoned, he cannot "take the Fifth" if brought up to Congress to testify about the Valerie Plame Wilson case. If his sentence is "merely" commuted, he can still claim that he risks self-incrimination by speaking about it. The WaPo did a "Clinton accused" special on impeachment and the intent of the Founding Fathers in constructing the President's pardon powers. James Madison assured his fellow framers that "[I]f the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds [to] believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty. . ."
Dan Froomkin of the WaPo is collecting a list of questions to ask at press conferences about the commuting of Libby's sentence. One very good one is "When did [Bush] find out that Karl Rove and Libby had both leaked Plame's identity? Before or after he vowed that any leakers would be fired? Did anyone lie to him about their role? Why didn't he fire them?" Froomkin's email address.
A strongly pro-Bush article in the NY Times raises many more questions about the purposes of the commutation. The author comments several times about how unusual the case was and how unprecedented Bush's actions were. Question: If Bush felt that Libby's sentence was "excessive," why wait until long after the verdict to say so? Libby was sentenced on 5 June. President Bush commuted his sentence on 2 July. Funny, but I don't remember Bush commenting that Libby's sentence was too harsh until he needed to cast about for a reason to free a crony of his.

Update: Tony Snow, the President's Press Secretary, said: "The president believes pardons and commutations should reflect a genuine determination to strengthen the rule of law and increase public faith in government."
Fine words, but his actions did precisely the opposite. His action in commuting Libby's sentence demonstrated that no such determination had been made, that it weakened the rule of law and that it decreased the public's faith in the government.
"Presidents have customarily commuted sentences only when someone has served substantial time." As Libby didn't serve as much as a single day, it's hard to credit Bush's explanation that he merely considered Libby's sentence to be excessive. BTW, the usual sentence for the obstruction of justice charge is 70 months. Libby was scheduled to serve 30.
Finally, just how much concern has Bush shown towards those appealing for pardons? Answer: Not much. The question of special favors, of a quid pro quo, is very much alive.

Comparison-contrast

I thought this was pretty interesting:

One Reader's View

Be up-front about your political bias

Re: "Compromising a precious asset," editorial, Tuesday:
Personally I don't have a problem with journalists' giving donations to political candidates, parties and causes. Even if they don't act it sometimes, they're American citizens and are afforded the same First Amendment rights as all citizens.
All I ask is that the consumer of the news be told what the journalists' political leanings are. We conservatives aren't shocked by the study done by MSNBC. We've been preaching in the wilderness about political bias for decades. It was the journalists, of all people, trying to tell us not to believe our lying eyes. "You Republicans are just paranoid."
Ninety percent of polled Washington journalists voted for Bill Clinton? Coincidence! From Walter Cronkite to Dan Rather to Katie Couric, the bias was plain to see. Whether it's the New York Times, Time magazine, the Washington Post or The Inquirer, adjectives are selectively placed to give an impression.
While Gloria Steinam is "witty and cordial," Phyllis Shlafly is "shrill and bitter." George W. Bush provides a "huge" tax cut and a "small" increase in education spending.
Sometimes it's not what is put into a news report but what is not: The American treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib is reported, but without equal time or weight given to the treatment of Americans and Iraqi citizens by al-Qaeda sadists. "The Earth is getting warmer." So what? So are Mars, Venus and Mercury.
So give to your favorite candidates and causes, whether it's Hillary, the Green Party or NARAL, but just let us know, so we can view the news through the proper lens.
Fran Steffler
Philadelphia

My letter in response to the same piece (Not published):

Re: "Editorial | Political Donations by Journalists" Jun 26

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20070626_Editorial____Political_Donations_by_Journalists.html

As to the story that %0.03 of journalists made political contributions (144 out of 50,000 and those contributions were heavily weighted towards Democrats), I certainly agree that fairness in journalism is important, but I've never felt that journalists can or should be completely neutral.

Right now, Rudy Giuliani is trying to establish himself as a serious presidential candidate and it was revealed recently that he was kicked out of the Iraq Study Group for failing to make a single meeting. A conservative online newsmagazine, The Politico, makes a very big deal about how marvelously objective and neutral they are, yet can't seem to find room in their reports to mention this very embarrassing fact to the Giuliani campaign. The much-vaunted neutrality of The Politico is just so much hot air.

Fairness is important, but objectivity, both in fact and in theory, is a hugely overrated virtue. There is no shortcut to judging how fair a news source is. One has to follow a news source over a period of time and one has to view it from what both their friends and opponents say about them. Judging news sources by a shortcut such as employee political donations is a waste of time.
Rich Gardner

---------

In my view, the really telling instance is in two recent events. Media Matters commented on Ann Coulter's hour-long interview on the June 26 edition of MSNBC's Hardball over her book Godless, which was being reissued in paperback:

"Ann Coulter is not only a remarkably unpleasant person, she's a serial liar. And yet NBC's David Gregory -- among other journalists -- pretends that she has a meaningful point and makes false assertions about progressives based on her lies.
"That's why it would be folly for progressives to ignore Coulter in hopes that she goes away: because the media don't ignore her. They promote her. They parrot her false claims. It's also why progressives should not only denounce Coulter, but MSNBC and ABC and CNN and Time and every other news organization that gives her a platform and doesn't challenge her lies and repeats them as though they are true."
Now, on July 2nd, Amazon reports that the hardcover version of Godless is selling for $18.45, reduced from $27.95 and that it's sales ranking is #1,625. The recently-released A Tragic Legacy by blogger and lawyer Glenn Greenwald is at #96, well above Coulter's book. Our local paper contains nothing about Greenwald's book and he himself states that:

"Despite its continuing strong sales and widespread attention in the blogosphere, Tragic Legacy is yet to be reviewed, or even mentioned, by any major newspaper or magazine."

Yes, the media is biased, but it's a very strong rightward bias.

Should we ignore Ann Coulter?

Should we ignore Ann Coulter in the hope that she'll then go away? Media Matters argues no. First, she has a perch atop the media food chain anyway. "News" shows feature her in any event. Even worse, major media commentators repeat her charges. People you'd think wouldn't give her any credibility go around repeating what she says. With Coulter, you're simply getting the original, most hateful and venomous version. What you're not getting later from the major media is a version that's been watered down by facts or context, it's simply been softened to a more palatable form.

Also, keep in mind what Brent Bozell proclaimed:

“But Ann Coulter is owed an apology from those outlets, including NBC’s Nightly News, The Washington Post and CNN’s American Morning, which have mis-reported her comments. And conservatives, take note: Today it’s Coulter, tomorrow it may be you. The left has demonstrated that it will stop at nothing, including flat-out dishonesty, to undermine our leaders.”

Remember conservatives, insult der obergruppenfuhrer (Michelle Malkin, the number two hatemonger in the Republican Party, is just a gruppenfuhrer.) and you insult the Republican Party, why you insult Dick Cheney himself!

Oh, and Chris Matthews, as one of Coulter's prime apologists/enablers, really, really needs to go away.

Good grief!

What do the dates April 2004, July 2005, June 2006 and June 2007 all have in common?

They've all seen US Government predictions that forces in Iraq could be reduced within a year.

Yeah, that'll happen, yup, this time for sure!

Electoral troubles of John Edwards

The Politico, which purports to cover "the politics of Capitol Hill and of the presidential campaign ... with enterprise, style, and impact," declared that Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has what "opponents call 'the three h's' -- the haircut that cost $400, his huge house and his lucrative involvement with a hedge fund." Funny, but all three "scandals" were manufactured by news outlets including and just like The Politico.

As Media Matters demonstrates, there simply is no contradiction between being wealthy and between wanting others to live comfortably as well.

Apparently, seeing that the "three h's" weren't having any impact, the NY Times decided to up the ante by suggesting that Edwards' 2004 initiative, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, was just a cheap front for funding his own presidential campaign. (TalkLeft points out that, were the accusation to be made explicit and of course, were the accusation true, then Edwards would be guilty of the crime of tax fraud.) The accusations are not made explicitly, but the report uses "lines... highly charged with innuendo in a way that's beneath the Paper of Record."

"John Edwards ended 2004 with a problem: how to keep alive his public profile without the benefit of a presidential campaign that could finance his travels and pay for his political staff.
"Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million, came up with a novel solution, creating a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself, tax filings show."

Problem: there's simply no proof that any of these charges rest on factual evidence. The main, primary charge, of course, is that Edward's was the program's primary beneficiary. The apparent assertion that Edwards was motivated by anything other than a desire to help people is simply the reporters' unsubstantiated opinion, unsupported by any facts.

In fact, as The Daily Howler discovers, to its astonishment and amazement [/snark], "Edwards didn’t do anything wrong! But we get this statement in the next-to-last paragraph, after 1700 words of insinuation."

The really amazing kicker is that:

"...no mention of how the programs actually impacted people appears until the story's 18th paragraph -- and at that point it comes from the mouth of an Edwards spokesman. There's no indication that the reporter made any genuine independent effort at all to discover whether the programs helped anyone."

Of course, the National Review manages to work the "three 'h's' " into its quickie overview and also suggests that the NY Times piece rests on factual evidence.

A diary on DailyKos examines the deeper meaning of the story: "It suggests that the rich cannot care about poverty, that throwing money at a problem is the only solution and that candidates cannot care about issues." The whole point of mentioning that Edwards has "assets of nearly $30 million" seems to be only that "rich people can’t be concerned with the poor" and hey, look! Edwards is rich!

This kind of corrosive cynicism is like suggesting that "Vice President Gore doesn’t care about global warming and is only raising the issue to keep his viability as a candidate alive." A view which probably contains a few grains of truth, but the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" makes it clear that Gore was concerned about Global Warming many, many years before it became a real issue.

Yes, the question of "qui bono?" i.e. "to whose benefit?" is an important one and it certainly should be asked, but it's often portrayed as a massive, looming, overarching premise. It's often portrayed as the only really important question in a story. One of my college professors pointed out the problem with this kind of thinking. We had been discussing the subject of the post-World War II Marshall Plan in Western Europe and one of the students asked "Wasn't the whole purpose of that plan just to fight communism? Wasn't the recovery aspect irrelevant?" Our professor replied "The people of the US back then didn't see any contradiction between the two. They didn't believe that they had to choose, so they believed in both. The Marshall Plan was BOTH a way to help the people of Western Europe recover from World War II AND a way to build a strong Western Europe that could resist communism."

There's simply no reason that Al Gore cannot believe in both ideas at once, that Global Warming is a threat to all of mankind AND that the issue might improve his presidential prospects. There's no reason why John Edwards can't BOTH be fighting to improve the lives of those people who don't make anywhere near as much money as he does AND to be worth a great deal of money. There's simply no contradiction.

Allegations on China & Iran

*Sigh!* Well, it seems our old pal Jeff Gerth has been a busy boy. Now, he's claiming that China is supplying arms to Iraqi insurgents via Iran

Yee-hah! It's a two-fer! Now our media is blaming not just one, but two evil empires!

Frankly, I thought the following:

"...Beijing, which insisted it knew nothing about the shipments and asked for additional intelligence on the transfers..."

and

"Apologists for China within the government said the intelligence reports were not concrete proof of Chinese and Iranian government complicity."

First off, China's request that the US supply proof that they're sending covert arms shipments to Iraqi insurgents is an entirely reasonable one, one that would be honored immediately by an honorable administration. It's of course quite possible that there could be a rogue element in China's government that they would be more than happy to stop if only they were apprised of details concerning how the transfers are being made. If the US had 10 discrete
pieces of evidence, they could reveal perhaps three and see if action is taken that affects the other seven.

Second, the observation that the word of intelligence agencies do not constitute "concrete proof" is again an entirely reasonable one. Intelligence agencies "hoover up" all the information they can get ahold of because one is better safe than sorry. If one is making a diplomatic protest, it's not unreasonable to get other agencies to certify that the information they're working off of is solid. It was shown after the Vietnam War that military services did a very good job of critiquing the plans of other military services. The Navy critiqued the plans of the Air Force and pointed out quite a few things that later became common wisdom.

It's hardly called for to refer to those skeptical of the reports on China "Apologists for China."

Looks like anti-al Qaeda alliance fraying, misc

In Iraq, it was hoped that Iraqis were making alliances with Americans, but TPMMuckraker makes it clear that any alliance was an "enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend" type of get-together. In other words, the alliance began when al Qaeda became a threatening third force and is doomed to end when al Qaeda is defeated. That also means that if the Americans leave Iraq, al Qaeda will then take the brunt of Iraqis seeking to reestablish control over their country.

----------

Democrats put out a fact sheet on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and why he needed to be chastised with a "no-confidence" vote. In order to proceed with the vote, Democrats needed 60 "ayes". They only got 53.

---------

Yippee!!! Habeas corpus upheld!!! Delightful phrase: "The Court thus rejected the Administration’s claim that the President has the inherent, unchecked Constitutional power to do whatever he wants in designating US residents as 'enemy combatants.' ”

Aah! Music to my ears!!! A heavenly chorus opens up to sing!!

More fun with the media

"In an advance copy of the new book Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton (Little, Brown & Co.) obtained by Media Matters for America, co-authors Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr." make a charge against the Clinton's right in the beginning of their book and repeat that charge using the words " 'plan,' 'pact,' or 'project' more than 20 times in Her Way."

"In the prologue of Her Way, Gerth and Van Natta write:

"More than three decades ago, in the earliest days of their romance, Bill and Hillary struck a plan, one that would become both the foundation and the engine of their relationship. They agreed to work together to revolutionize the Democratic Party and ultimately make the White House their home.¹⁴ Once their "twenty-year project" was realized, with Bill's victory in 1992, their plan became even more ambitious: eight years as president for him, then eight years for her.¹⁵ Their audacious pact has remained a secret until now."

Problem: The books authors provide no evidence that such a " 'plan,' 'pact,' or 'project' " ever existed. As a matter of fact, one of their sources, the historian Taylor Branch, calls the allegations of a secret 20-year plan "preposterous." At no time do they show that any of their sources refer to any such plan. The closest they come is to quote a source who neither confirmed nor denied that the quote used was accurate. The Media Matters piece is lengthy, 28 kilobytes, most of which consists of quotes from the book concerning this "plan." After trying to track down exactly where the authors got the main theme of their book, Media Matters concludes that the authors were using, as the British might say, "dodgy and iffy" sources, or more to the point, Media Matters concludes the authors pretty much just made it up.

Amusing endnote:

"Additionally, according to a May 30 weblog post by Smith on Politico.com, Van Natta wrote to Smith: "[T]he Clinton people should wait until the book comes out before they nitpick everything from our alleged 'main premise' to footnotes."

Well, of course they should wait! That way, their [entirely justified] complaints get lost in the media chatter about the book and get shunted aside as booksellers seek to make money off of selling lots and lots of copies of the book.

Eric Boehlert does some further digging into the journalistic career of one of the authors, Jeff Gerth, and recounts quite a few interesting facts about Gerth's career. Seems that Gerth was a major writer on the Whitewater case, a case that thoroughly disproved the old saw about "Where there's smoke, there's fire." In Whitewater, the allegations of wrongdoing by the Clintons proved to be entirely smoke with no actual wrongdoing, or "fire" ever having been discovered. Gerth further disgraced himself and the New York Times by making utterly baseless accusations against Dr Wen Ho Lee, who spent 278 days in jail while Gerth won himself a Pulitzer for the same reporting. Dr Lee was then released for lack of evidence and again, the American public saw a lot of smoke, but no fire.

America's major media outlets are in very sad shape today because of the kind of abysmally poor "reporting" done by Gerth. Let's hope he doesn't get away with it this time and that fellow major media outlets report, truthfully this time, that there was no secret Clinton plan.

Bush Administration and women

Britain's Guardian points out that

"The status of women was never as high under Saddam [Hussein] as opponents of the [Iraq] war sometimes asserted, and it was already declining throughout the 1990s, as Saddam embraced Islam to distract the populace from the effects of the Gulf war, UN sanctions, and his own depredations. But Iraq today is even worse for women: more repressive, more violent, more lawless."

Iraqi women selling their bodies are now a common sight in Syria's capital, Damascus.

"Inexpensive Iraqi prostitutes have helped to make Syria a popular destination for sex tourists from wealthier countries in the Middle East."

What of First Lady Laura Bush? She who famously said "...no one suffers more than their President and I do." while watching the devastation in Iraq. She later amended this: "...she means the 'peace of mind' that Americans 'sacrifice…when they see the terrible image of violence on TV every night.' " Yep, Iraqi women sure have come a long way from the days of "The Road to Freedom" when Laura Bush and Iraqi women sat around all comfy and cozy and talked about how great everything now was that Saddam Hussein had been deposed and the Americans were now running things in Iraq.

Oh, and "honor killings" are now on the rise. Funny, but it seems Laura Bush is now copying Karen Hughes, who famously went AWOL when the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah broke out. Hughes quickly chucked her "Public Diplomacy" portfolio and adopted a low profile, almost as though her "Public Diplomacy" efforts were a front that she discarded as soon as it became ever-so-slightly inconvenient.

Memorial Day speeches

Very interesting! Congress prepares a bill to expand detainee rights at Guantanamo at the same time that VP Cheney speaks to West Point graduates, trashing the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions. At Guantanamo, only two people are identified as awaiting trials while the authorities there have plans to try only 75 more. There are about 380 prisoners there. Why these prisoners are so dangerous that they must be kept in confinement for over a half a decade is not at all clear, especially when so few of them can be credibly charged with anything.
BTW, the Department of Homeland Security has shown a very unimpressive record of only 12 terrorism convictions out of over 800,000 cases, a "success" rate of %0.0015.
But remember, according to Cheney: "Capture one of these killers, and he'll be quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States. Yet when they wage attacks or take captives, their delicate sensibilities seem to fall away." No clue here that perhaps the Geneva Conventions protect all of us, that perhaps when the shoe is on the other foot, when US soldiers, sailors or airmen are in enemy hands, maybe we'd like to have those protections applied to us. I guess Dick "five deferments" Cheney is more macho and heroic than the rest of us are.
Our tombstone display will be up until this afternoon opposite the Liberty Bell between 4th & 5th Streets on Market Street. And kudos to Fox29 for giving us a good video report on the display!

What to do about outstanding subpoenas?

The Senate Judiciary Committee has threatened to subpoena Karl Rove for his role in the US Attorney firings that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has been giving such shifty and uninformative testimony about and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said she won't comply with the subpoena issued to her by the House Reform Committee. As Congress is covered under Article I of the Constitution and the presidency is under Article II, these two branches of our government are co-equal partners, but Congress is a "little bit more equal" than the presidency. As a military veteran, the way I'd put it is that the Executive Branch is being "insubordinate" towards the Legislative Branch, which generally results in what we refer to as "counseling". What's that you say? I might be angry because it doesn't look like the Legislative Branch will successfully end the Iraq War through legislative means? Let's just say that "counseling" has a wide variety of meanings. Granted, military superiors have strict limits on how mean they can be to subordinates, but they can have 'em hatin' life all the same.
So what can Congress do about Executive Branch personnel refusing to obey subpoenas? TPMMuckraker says that subpoenas are rarely followed through all the way to court and that they're usually either complied with or negotiated. What makes the difference between compliance and defiance? Public pressure!! We need to let our Congresscritters know that we're quite serious about wanting Executive Branch personnel to comply with their subpoenas, that we want to see Rove and Rice testify, under oath and in public.

Update: Very, very interesting. Seems the one thing that might make our President quit the game and leave Iraq might be an Iraqi failure to pass the Oil Law that the Bush Administration has been pushing for so long. "Bush warned al-Maliki that Washington expected to see 'tangible results quickly' on the oil bill and other legislation as the price for continued support." [snip] "Senior Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman confirmed that U.S. pressure was mounting, especially on the oil bill, which was endorsed by the Iraqi Cabinet three months ago but has yet to come to the floor of parliament."

Continuing relevance of FISA

I was tipped off to this OpEd by Glenn Greenwald.

In the third paragraph, Mike McConnell admits what FISA is all about:

FISA was created to guard against domestic government abuse and to protect privacy while allowing for appropriate foreign intelligence collection.

But he never returns to the point that the problem FISA is intended to solve involves human nature. Governments want to engage in far more surveillance than is necessary or is called for. Government tries to retain far more data about non-threatening peace groups and religious people than it needs to. The entirety of the rest of McConnell's OpEd concerns technology, but it's not at all clear that technology is the problem.

Many Americans would be surprised at just what the current law requires. To state the facts plainly: In a significant number of cases, our intelligence agencies must obtain a court order to monitor the communications of foreigners suspected of terrorist activity who are physically located in foreign countries.

But it's not that both parties are located in foreign countries, it's that at one end of the conversation is an American citizen physically located in the United States of America. That's the type of situation that requires a court order. That's because government officials would be constantly snooping in on conversations between American citizens and foreigners. If someone went backpacking in Europe seven or eight years ago and received a phone call from a fellow he met back then, that could open up a perfectly innocent American citizen to unneeded, unwarranted snooping in on what should be a private conversation. That's why FISA does not require the approval of a mere “shift supervisor,” that's why FISA requires a judge to spy on American citizens.


What does this have to do with technological changes? Nothing really. FISA was indeed passed in the era when computers had memories of 16 kilobytes and telephones had rotary dialing, but human nature remains the same. As a comparison, sure, Social Security was established in1934 because:

For most of human history, people lived and worked on farms in extended families and this was the foundation of their economic security. However, this changed as the developed world underwent the Industrial Revolution.

The extended family and the family farm as sources of economic security became less common as more and more people became wage-earners, working for others. Along with the shift from an agricultural to an industrial economy, Americans moved from farms and small rural communities to larger cities.

How has any of this changed? Are family farms any more likely to take care of elderly people in retirement today than in 1934? Hardly. Why does Social Security need to be updated? The answer is that it doesn't. Human nature is that folks spend what they have on hand and only wealthy people will put aside what they need for retirement. The reason Social Security has been an issue in our politics has been that investors wish to cut up Social Security and feed it to the wolves of Wall Street. They want to tear it apart for the sheer profit of it all. It's not an issue because of any changes that have occurred.

Likwise, FISA is designed the way it is because of human nature. Government engages in far more surveillance than is necessary for our security. The whole point of FISA was to prevent that.

I found it quite telling that Mr McConnell spends most of his OpEd discussing technology. The reason for that isn't hard to guess at.

Doing the right thing: Timing

The Washington Post came out today in response to the Comey testimony and expressed shock that the Bush Administration could act in such a blatantly thuggish and lawless manner. Sending Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card to John Ashcroft's bedside to get him to sign off on an unlawful surveillance program struck the WaPo, quite properly, as reprehensible. But this was a side issue in the whole warrantless-wiretapping case. America knew about that case in December 2005 and a District Court Judge decided in August 2006 that it was without even a figleaf of legitimacy. A Bush Administration appointee said a few months back that he considered the program to still be legitimate and proceeded to name precisely those reasons that had been shot down by the District Court Judge!

I mean, hey it's great that the WaPo now sees the light and is speaking out against this disreputable behavior, but where have they BEEN since December 2005?!?! Making excuses for the Bush Administration and averting their eyes, mostly.

They're hardly the first ones to do this, they are aware that things are not the way they should be, but say nothing until the damage is long since done. I mean, it's great that George Tenet is now coming out and saying that the Iraq War was built on phony info, but the appropriate time for him to make this point was before the war was launched. As Crooks & Liars puts it:

Meet the Press continues the George Tenet buy my book traveling show. Dear Tim, please ask why Tenet felt that holding onto this information for four long years was acceptable — and how he thinks that fact ought to sit with family and friends of our soldiers stationed in Iraq and elsewhere, for starters.

I've written about David "Dean" Broder who also held his tongue just long enough for the Bush Administration to get away with what they were doing. Broder showed several weeks after the Swift Boat Vets attack on John Kerry's candidacy for the presidency petered out that he was fully aware of the dishonorable and disreputable nature of their attack on Kerry. Problem was, he was nowhere to be found when the attack was taking place, when a column by him exposing the Swift Boat Vets might have stopped them in their tracks.

As Glenn Greenwald points out, one kinda has to wonder just how long the WaPo's outrage will last. Will this be something that will shake them out of their torpor and lead them into devoting front-page stories to it, or will it be a one-day story that will never make it out of the back pages?

Further links on Comey testimony:
FireDogLake
Taylor Marsh
TalkingPointsMemo

The Right-Wing Noise Machine falls on some hard times

I was talking with a buddy of mine from the anti-war movement and he was telling somebody else about "The Mighty Wurlitzer" which was going to bowl over every Democrat who tried to contradict the Republican message (See a good example of what he means). Seems to me progress has been pretty gradual, but I think the "Noise Machine" of the right wing has been losing steam lately. Exhibit #1 is Speaker Pelosi's trip to Syria taken during the first week in April. The mainstream media tried really, really hard to make her trip seem controversial, as though she had done great damage to US foreign policy. The polls are now in and her approval rating is virtually unchanged. She's fallen a whole point, going from 46% approval to 45% approval. At the same time, President Bush scored only a 35% approval.
Keep in mind that the WaPo, two major pundits from NBC, a CNN anchor and the usual right-wingers, the Weekly Standard and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), all criticized her Syria trip. Secretary of State Rice also had some very negative comments to make about Pelosi's trip: "She claimed Pelosi had only gone to Damascus 'to have those pictures' and to suggest a relationship 'that doesn’t exist with Syria.' ” CNN ran a caption "Talking with the Enemy" as though Americans regarded Syria as on a par with the former Nazi Germany or the now-collapsed Soviet Union. (They don't. According to World Public Opinion, 75% of Americans think talking with Syria is a good idea.)
Why is the RWNM so impotent at this point? I'd guess they've just hit the panic button too many times, for one. People get tired of being fearful all of the time, they get jaded and cynical after being told "Wolf" over and over and over again, they realize after awhile that people that we're supposed to trust are inveterate liars who can't be trusted, lots of reasons having to do with simple burn-out. If the old adage is true, that "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on," then Truth is now fully dressed and ready to kick butt and take names.
Also, seems to me that with a critical mass of people getting their information from the blogs (The blog Firedoglake says that its readers are "discerning, highly informed, roughly forty years old (on average) and often hold advanced degrees. Ads here will reach 2 million unique visitors per month."), that means that people are getting more and more used to the idea that, by going online and by intelligently weighing the different accounts, they can get a reasonable approximation of the truth. And trustworthiness in the regular media is taking some really hard hits recently. The Bill Moyers documentary on the lead-up to the Iraq War is causing all sorts of heartburn and distress among major media figures. The very highly cynical and disrespectful Jon Stewart is enjoying a huge success with the under-30 crowd and the blog DailyKos is getting almost a half-million hits a day. The retired General Batiste of VoteVets is also a prime example (In this example, VoteVets slams the Bush Administration's dishonest use of the word "fascist.")
The number of people who believe that any particular source of information is automatically trustworthy is steadily shrinking. The Noise Machine has certainly seen better days. Let's hope the days get far worse for them.

Retired General John Batiste fired by CBS

It was unfortunately, an entirely predictable scenario. An on-air analyst for CBS (The station where Katie Couric proved that she's a hard-line, right-wing conservative) came out in an ad done for VoteVets.org criticizing "Dear Leader" G W Bush. Batiste was promptly canned and CBS made a statement saying that their written policies do not permit open, explicit political advocacy.

Well, guess what? Yup, the blogs started searching back through the careers of other CBS on-air analysts and promptly found at least two (As of late May 11) other on-air commentators who openly and explicitly advocated for the "surge" policy in Iraq and for the presidential candidacy of Senator John McCain.

Problem: The rule of law is based on the idea that laws are enforced in a fair, objective and impartial manner (And no, no actual laws are at issue here; with CBS, we're talking about an internal, self-imposed rule). In a democracy, laws and rules apply equally to everyone. When CBS or anyone else enforces rules in a blatantly partisan, unfair manner, that hurts the credibility of all laws and rules. When any large institution applies rules so that they apply in some instances, but not in others, that means people have to get by or get ahead using less-then-clear rules.

That's bad for everybody who doesn't like living under a monarchy or a dictatorship. That's the essential distinction between what they used to call "Rule by law" vs "Rule by men (people)." I saw a column several years ago where an elder, white conservative guy said basically "Hey we shouldn't be so hard on elder white guys who happen to be hypocrites, people who condemn President Clinton for having an affair while having had affairs themselves." Pardon me, but yes, we should! Neither is it much better to have condemned Clinton for his affair while going easy on later public figures who did much the same thing. When a former Speaker of the House criticizes a current Speaker of the House for something that the former Speaker did when he was in office, that's an extremely relevant point that should be taken quite seriously. Of course, not all accusations of hypocrisy are equal. People condemned feminists for giving Clinton a pass on the issue of sexual harassment, but it wasn't clear that he actually engaged in that particular conduct.

For further thought on the issue of hypocrisy, Concurring Opinions reprints a passage from a story involving what appears to be the Right Honorable James Hacker, MP (Member of Parliament). Marvellously dry humor.

Author of the "surge" defends same

Frederick Kagan wrote an article in the NY Times pleading for Americans to support the "surge" (Really an "escalation" as there's no indication as to when it will ever end) in Iraq. What are Kagan's qualifications to have designed the escalation? Well, he is a scholar. He's a former professor of military history (He specialized in the Soviet Union) and has published several peer-reviewed articles, but none of those articles were in either the Mideast nor were they in guerrilla warfare.

Late in his piece, I found a very interesting paragraph:

"When Moktada al-Sadr called for fellow Shiites to demonstrate against the American surge last month, General Petraeus wrote an open letter to the Iraqi people pointing out that such demonstrations would not have been permitted under Saddam Hussein, and asking the demonstrators to avoid violence. In the end, the demonstrations were limited in scale and peaceful, and fears that Sunni terrorists would set off a wave of attacks on the protesters proved unfounded."

First off, al-Sadr was calling for a demonstration against the American occupation of Iraq, not merely the escalation. Second, I found it very interesting that in a contemporary gathering of pieces on the march (From the BBC, Al Jazeera, UK Guardian and IslamOnLine) there's no mention of a letter, "open" or otherwise from Petraeus. If he ever wrote such a letter, it didn't come to the attention of anyone in Iraq or in the larger Middle East.

Did the followers of al-Sadr need to advised to avoid violence? There's no question there was a great deal of violence at the march, but all of the violence was directed against inanimate objects:

"Many in the crowds were seen trampling on and striking US and Israeli flags painted on the ground with their shoes, an act considered one of the worst insults in Arab culture."

But as Juan Cole points out:

"...some journalists are writing that al-Sadr called for violent attacks on US troops, the communique he released on Sunday simply says that Iraqi Army troops and Mahdi Army militiamen should not fight one another and should not allow the Americans to manipulate them."

Was the march reduced at all? Doubtful, as there were about a million Iraqis there. That doesn't sound like a march that was "limited in scale." It's not at all clear that the appeal allegedly put out by Petraeus, if there ever was any such appeal, had any effect whatsoever. I think this "open letter" of General Petraeus falls under the category of what Markos Moulitsas referred to as "making shit up."

More on David Broder

I've written before about David Broder, a once-respected columnist who appears to be ready for the rocking chair, who just the other day opined for an online chat. He's asked first why he's a "centrist" as the country seems to have gone pretty solidly for liberal solutions in preference to the conservative solutions in just about every category:

I have to disagree. I think the country is closely balanced, with a controlling group in the center that rejects extreme positions and seeks practical solutions drawn from the agendas of both liberals and conservatives. Most Americans I meet are not ideologues of any sort; they are practical people seeking practical solutions to real challenges.

Nah, that doesn't make any sense to me, either. The main problem with the last six-plus years is that we've had an extremist, right-wing government that seeks fringe, far-right, highly ideological solutions for every problem. The latest diplomatic missed opportunity is typical. Secretary of State Rice attended a conference of Middle Eastern nations devoted to stabilizing Iraq. It was attended by Iran, but nothing happened diplomatically between the US and Iran because apparently, no prior groundwork had been done to make anything happen. A question-and-answer session with a Democratic national-security expert established that:

3. "But Rice didn’t talk to Iran. Tell us about the interesting news out of that hand off to underlings." - TM

BEERS: "That’s right. only the ambassador and the State Dept. coordinator talked to Iranians. Not a good start. Someone reported this week that the State Dept. was told by the Iranians that their Foreign Minister wasn’t plugged in enough to talk to. Go figure."
--------

6. "Honestly, how 'plugged in' do you have to be to get talks started where none existed before?" - TM

BEERS: "EXACTLY. You have to start. and it doesn’t matter where. That’s diplomacy 101, but these guys and girls don’t get it."
[minor edits done]

This is not simply a Bush Administration problem. This is a problem of conservatives vs liberals. Bush and Co have taken the approach of "Do it our way. NOW!!!" or as you like "My way or the highway." It's simply not possible to split the difference on this sort of issue. One cannot simply borrow from both liberal and conservative views on how to solve this. There's a fundamental incompatibility between the conservative/Bush Administration approach to foreign nations and actually getting something done. BTW, our Democratic national-security expert, Rand Beers, continues on the possibility of war between the US and Iran:

15. "Care to comment on this? The results of an attack on Iran could be horrendous. After all, according to a recent study of 'the Iraq effect' by terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, using government and Rand Corporation data, the Iraq invasion has already led to a seven-fold increase in terror. The 'Iran effect' would probably be far more severe and long-lasting. British military historian Corelli Barnett speaks for many when he warns that 'an attack on Iran would effectively launch World War III.' ” - Oklahoma kiddo

BEERS: "An invasion of Iran would be an ever greater disaster than Iraq, no question. WW III, probably not, but a major expansion of hostilities against a much more effective enemy than bin Ladin or the Iraqi insurgents."

As the Bush Administration appears to be pretty gung-ho for an invasion of Iran, this doesn't strike me as a problem that's really open to discussion and negotiation between conservatives and liberals:

Iran, too, was in the administration’s sights. The Israeli attack on Lebanon, according to Seymour Hersh, was to 'serve as a prelude to a potential American preemptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installations.' But first, the Bush administration needed to get rid of Hezbollah’s capacity to retaliate against Israel in the event of a U.S. strike on Iran, which apparently prompted Hezbollah's buildup of Iranian-supplied missiles in the first place.

The fact that Bush and Co are being less-than-forthright about their intentions via-a-vis Iran is another reason NOT to see the Bush Administration vs America split as being one that can be arranged or negotiated between conservative and liberal factions. In order for there to be serious negotiations, both sides have to honestly and forthrightly "put their cards on the table" and tell the other side what their intentions are. There's no sign that Bush and Co are doing this.

Here's an interesting Q&A that occurred later in the Broder interview:

Anonymous: "Your anti-Reid column was thoroughly unconvincing. It struck me as a rather desperate attempt to maintain your 'pox on both their houses' schtick, the other side of your ever-present 'bipartisanship is the answer' coin. Why is it so hard for you to admit that Bush is, in fact, a uniquely bad president who has led the Republican party into a ditch that no blue-ribbon commission of respected elder statesmen from both parties can save us from?"

David S. Broder: "Perhaps because I have come to have deep respect for the wisdom of the American people, who, in 2004, chose to reelect George W. Bush as president. I have been very critical of his policies, economic, diplomatic and military. But I am unwilling to assume that I am so much smarter than the voting public that I will dismiss as worthless someone they have chosen as president of the United States."

First off, the interview piece points out that Broder had no such scruples when it came to dealing with President Clinton and second, it seems to me that, due to the "Swift Boat Veterans" smear job on presidential candidate John Kerry, it's not exactly like America made a calm and deliberate choice for president [all emphases in original]:

But we were even more struck by The Dean’s assessment of those Swift Boat Veteran complaints. What happened this summer, according to Broder? According to Broder, John O’Neill and his Swift Boat Veterans launched "a scurrilous and largely inaccurate attack on the Vietnam service of John Kerry." But then, The Dean displays some strange reasoning. For reasons only The Dean can explain, he slams his colleagues for having been "diverted" into "chasing this sham event."

What a strange bit of reasoning! Broder doesn’t say who is at fault for "chasing this sham event." But surely, if Broder’s assessment of the Swift Vets is accurate, the major media should have done more in taking apart their fake claims! It’s hard to measure such matters, of course. But the "scurrilous" claims of those Swift Boat Veterans may have transformed this White House campaign! If the claims in these ads were "scurrilous and inaccurate," why shouldn’t news orgs have taken them on? Indeed, shouldn’t the nation’s big news orgs have gone after these claims that much harder?

"No, Broder doesn’t flesh out his reasoning. But good news! By way of contrast, his real-time conduct is there for all to see. According to Broder, John O’Neill launched a "scurrilous attack" on a White House front-runner—a scurrilous attack which was "largely inaccurate." So here’s our question: Did Broder ever tell readers this, as these scurrilous attacks gained traction? Did Broder ever warn his readers about these bogus charges? Did Broder ever inform his readers that John O’Neill was a vile, nasty man? In short, did Broder ever get off his ass and try to defend his democracy?

The answer is obvious—no, he did not. This tired old man was dozing again as these "scurrilous, largely inaccurate" claims transformed your White House campaign. And it’s not as if he simply said nothing. Six weeks ago, when the press should have acted, Broder wrote a pair of columns which focused on the Swift Boat ads. But neither column says a word about the Swift Vet claims being bogus. Quite the contrary—Broder almost implied that Kerry deserved his butt-whuppin’ from the riled Vets.

The 2004 election was not only NOT an example of Americans making a sober and reasoned choice between Bush & Kerry, Broder himself assisted the Swift Boat Vet attacks by remaining silent at a critical time. At a time when he could have used his influence as a "big-foot" columnist to ensure that American citizens were enabled to make an intelligent, informed choice, Broder instead assisted the Bush camp into pulling the wool over the eyes of Americans. Broder performs a two-step where he maintains the appearance of wide-eyed innocence while doing a great deal, through silence and inaction, to assist Bush into being the "choice" of Americans and then says "But I am unwilling to assume that I am so much smarter than the voting public that I will dismiss as worthless someone they have chosen as president of the United States."


One looks at David Broder's picture, one can then look at my attack on him and say "Aw geez, there's Rich, attacking poor old, frail Dave again, mugging the ol' guy for kicks." But it's very important to understand just what Broder is saying and that the "bewildered innocent" act is an act and that the inspiring rhetoric is just that, rhetoric. Broder has been an opinion columnist for many decades. There's nothing accidental or unwitting about what he says.

Bush's veto speech 2May07

"Twelve weeks ago, I asked the Congress to pass an emergency war spending bill that would provide our brave men and women in uniform with the funds and flexibility they need. Instead, members of the House and the Senate passed a bill that substitutes the opinions of politicians for the judgment of our military commanders. So a few minutes ago, I vetoed the bill." [emphasis added]

Gee, I guess it's a really terrible and awful thing for a civilian to override the judgement of a military commander on the ground, eh? But what's with this statement from December?

"Asked if he would overrule his own military commanders if they opposed a plan to increase troop levels [i.e. the "surge"] in Iraq, Bush called the question a 'dangerous hypothetical.' "

"Let me wait and gather all the recommendations from Bob Gates, from our military, from diplomats on the ground interested in the Iraqis' point of view and then I'll report back to you as to whether or not I support a surge or not."

Well, as it turned out, Bush DID substitute his opinion as a politician for the professional opinions of the military commanders who felt that the "surge" (Really an "escalation" as there is no obvious end date for the "surge" to draw to a close) was a bad idea. In fact, he doesn't even say here that the opinions of the military commanders are his primary consideration, they're just one among many groups that all have an input into what was a military decision, but which was also a highly political one. After all, the "surge" impacted the citizens of Iraq, had an impact on Arab opinions across the Middle East and put an extra strain on US supply lines.

Not that there's anything wrong with the Commander in Chief overriding commanders in the field. The C-in-C is entitled to be "The Decider" for the military and to have the final say. In fact, a decision concerning withdrawal is one that a military commander would describe as "above my paygrade." Deciding whether to call off the Iraq War and to bring the troops home is NOT a purely military decision. Certainly, uniformed personnel on the ground in Iraq are entitled to their opinions and it's always a good idea to listen to what those ideas and cautions and qualifications are, but it's not like their opinions are the only ones that matter. Far from it. The decision as to whether to call the war off is one that the American public has already made. Bush is just trying to bully the Congress into backing down on the latest "emergency" spending bill.