April 2007 Archives

I was never much of an Elvis fan. And I am definitely not a Celine Dion fan. But the genius behind this video should definitely get a Special Effects Oscar.

Here's how they did it:

If you want to understand Hillary Clinton (and more importantly, her campaign) read up on Mark Penn.

Anne Kornblut has the goods:

While not her campaign manager in name, Penn controls the main elements of her campaign, most important her attempt to define herself to an electorate seemingly ready for a Democratic president but possibly still suffering from Clinton fatigue.

Armed with voluminous data that he collects through his private polling firm, Penn has become involved in virtually every move Clinton makes, with the result that the campaign reflects the chief strategist as much as the candidate.

Here's the first red flag: Penn's data is from polling. Compare that to Rove whose data was from direct mail. It's the difference between what a respondent says and what they actually do. It's one thing to answer a poll -- and quite another to give money. And Rove was very good at figuring out what prompted people to give money. Very, very good. Is Penn that good with his data? We'll have to wait and see.

I've been listening to Andrew Bird's newest CD Armchair Apocrypha and one cut in particular, called Imitosis. It's an acoustic melody in a minor key and I finally had a chance to read the lyrics. Coming at a time when we're absorbing the news from Virginia Tech and Iraq, it's really pretty haunting:

Why do some show no mercy
Where others are painfully shy?
Tell me doctor can you quantify?
he just wants to know the reasons why.

In live performance Bird records a lot of instrumentation on the fly and plays it back as accompaniment to himself playing...other instruments. He creates rich layers of sound -- violin, guitar, xylophone, even whistling. You can hear all kinds of influences -- gypsy, middle eastern, but there's also echos of other performers like Tom York (Radiohead) and Sufjan Stevens. But really, it's like nothing you've heard before. My daughter saw him at the Majestic Theater in Detroit and was blown away.

Here's Andrew Bird appearing on the Letterman show playing Plasticities, also from the same CD.

Here's Bird singing Why:

Admit it -- you've heard it time and again: "General Petraeus literally wrote the book on counterinsurgency." Problem is, the Bushies haven't read it.

Arianna:

[Petraeus'] newly-minted counterinsurgency approach calls for a ratio of 25 soldiers per 1,000 residents -- which would require 120,000 soldiers to provide the proper security for Baghdad, and roughly three times that amount for all of Iraq.

But let's just focus on the 120,000 soldiers that, according to the manual written by Petraeus -- "the expert on counterinsurgency," remember? -- are needed to secure Baghdad.

Simply put: we're not even close to that number. And never will be. Even after all of the planned 21,500 additional troops are sent to the embattled capitol, there will still only be 85,000 security forces there -- and that includes significant numbers of Iraqi security forces, whose readiness and loyalty have repeatedly proven to be unreliable at best...

Petraeus' manual also says that a muscular military presence is just 20 percent of what is needed for a counterinsurgency effort to succeed -- the other 80 consists of establishing political and economic reform, two areas in which the United States is also failing miserably.

This is a pretty devastating analysis -- and one that almost anyone should be able to deduce from the available facts. That we're not hearing it from the traditional media nor from the administration, the fact that the same old gasbag pundits are telling us to wait and see until September -- well, no matter. The American people aren't being fooled. They agree with Harry Reid: victory is not an option and our continued occupation of Iraq is simply bleeding us dry.

Gen. Petraeus can't change that -- and he should be ashamed of himself for selling out to an administration that is using him to prop itself up.

That was the question baseball's immortal (and ageless) Satchel Paige asked the interviewer, turning the tables when he was asked to reveal his real age.

And since today is my birthday, I'll answer it: I feel like I'm 19. I guess I feel that way partly because the past 35 years (you do the math) have passed in a blur. It never ceases to amaze me that what seems like another age in the history books is just a couple of calendar pages in my own mind. I guess, like dpu says, "memory is the second thing to go."

Whatever it is, at this stage of my life I wake up every morning with a feeling of wonderment thinking, I can't wait to see what happens next.

(That's me in the middle, with my older sister and my mom. From the look on my face, it's apparently the first time I've ever seen a real cake -- and it was to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Click to see a larger image.)

by shep

That's your idea of offense? Another goddamn petition?

I'm sorry Governor Dean. If that's all you've got, I've got nothing for you.

The Republicans are moving the goalposts to the gates of hell and you guys are still complaining about the ball spot.

Get real and get in someone's face - you can start with a few of the pampered press poodles who dare call themselves journalists.

Then I might consider writing you a check (I'll even sign your crappy petition, as if you give a sh*t).

Best Regards,
[shep]

MANCHESTER, N.H. —- Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.

But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.

This is the worst kind of fear-mongering and Giuliani should be ashamed of himself.
But if he really wants that kind of debate then let the record show that America has already sustained nearly 50 thousand casualties in the various wars and terrorist attacks that have occured on Republican President Bush's watch.

Update: John Edwards nails it:

"Rudy Giuliani's suggestion that there is some superior 'Republican' way to fight terrorism is both divisive and plain wrong. He knows better. That's not the kind of leadership he offered in the days immediately after 9/11, and it's not the kind of leadership any American should be offering now.

"As far as the facts are concerned, the current Republican administration led us into a war in Iraq that has made us less safe and undermined the fight against al Qaeda. If that's the 'Republican' way to fight terror, Giuliani should know that the American people are looking for a better plan. That's just one more reason why this election is so important; we need to elect a Democratic president who will end the disastrous diversion of the war in Iraq."

Bravo, Mr. Edwards.

[I'm reprinting this again this year because, well, I don't want to face the consequences if it doesn't appear.]

Rosemary Esmay's birthday is today. So go on over to her blog and wish her a happy birthday.

I asked her once if there was any truth to the rumor that she was the illegitimate child of Bill Bennett and Janis Joplin. She just smiled and turned away.

Later she came back (tires squealing and guns blazing) and shot out the windshield of my car while I waited at a traffic light.

"Hey you jerkoff! Is it true that you're the bastard spawn of Mort Kondracke and Susan Estrich? Bwahahahahahahaha!"

She let fly with another shotgun blast and blew out my right front passenger window. I ducked. She left skid marks as she pulled away from the intersection.

I could hear sirens in the distance and dogs barking. She was long gone. I sat up in the front seat and dusted the broken glass off the dashboard.

Many happy returns, Queen.

If McCain gets the nomination (which I doubt he will) his appearance on Tuesday night's Daily Show should be required viewing for the Democratic nominee because Jon Stewart hammered the Senator on the war like no one -- in or out of politics or the media -- has before.

To begin with, the audience gave the Senator an icy welcome -- unlike his past appearances where he was a crowd favorite. And I'll give McCain credit for knowing that he's been the butt of a lot of jokes on the show recently. But he made an unfortunate crack about bringing Stewart a gift -- an IED for his desk ("That's why we keep the dogs here," replied Stewart). [Update: Murtha, on the other hand, was not amused.]

It went downhill from there -- for McCain.

Stewart punctured McCain's talking points swiftly and finally every time the Senator brought them out. McCain hung in there, but the longer the interview went the more ridiculous he sounded. Stewart didn't budge an inch and gave more than he got.

All the Democratic candidates should take notice: this is how you talk about the war.

Update: Here's Part Deux of the interview:

As I've mentioned before, I've been using Google Reader to keep up with the blogs I read. They have a neat feature called "Trends" that tracks my reading habits. Accordingly, here are the blogs from whom I read the greatest number of posts (as of April 23):

1. Boing Boing
   
2. Daily Kos
   
3. The Huffington Post
   
4. Crooks and Liars
   
5. Talking Points Memo
   
6. Think Progress
   
7. AMERICAblog
   
8. Digital Inspiration
   
9. Firedoglake
   
10. Internet Marketing Monitor

Now, some blogs do not post anywhere near the volume that these blogs do. Accordingly, the following list is a list of blogs ranked by percentage of new posts that I've read:

1. Kung Fu Monkey
   
2. I Help You Blog
   
3. Dispassionate Liberal
   
4. James Wolcott
   
5. The Queen of All Evil
   
6. JoelComm.com
   
7. Digital Inspiration
   
8. Internet Marketing Monitor
   
9. Daily Kos
   
10. Likelihood of Success

    
    

Anyway, there you are: a different kind of blogroll -- one that actually presents some meaningful information.

We know now that the real story of the fired US Attorneys is not who got fired, but who stayed on -- and what they did while in office. For example, we know now that they prosecuted Democrats more than Republicans by a ratio of four to one.

Karl Rove was famous for doing this sort of thing on a retail basis in Texas during the 80's and 90's. He'd cozy up to the local FBI officials then feed them disinformation about his political opponents. Every time he did this, his candidate won.

Since taking over the Justice Department, Alberto Gonzalez has implemented this sort of practice on an unprecedented level, bring charges of "voter fraud," a virtually non-existent crime, on a wholesale level. As noted by others, "stopping voter fraud" is simply code for suppressing the minority vote -- most of whom vote Democratic.

That said, it puts a whole new light on this story from last November:

The Justice Department had dispatched 500 federal elections observers and 350 agency personnel to 69 cities and counties in 22 states. Department officials said the staff was deployed to "protect election-related civil rights."

The observers were ensuring that all eligible voters were able to cast a ballot and that they weren't challenged improperly on the "basis of their race, color, language or membership in a minority group," officials said.

This kind of thing gives the phrase "transparency in government" a whole new meaning.

by shep

Yup, if you don’t have an important face-to –face meeting at the office tomorrow, or the next day, or the next…tell your boss you’d like to work from home.

In the age of ubiquitous high-speed home internet access, cellular telecommunications, VoIP, video capable computer monitors, WiFi hot spots and GHz-fast home computers, what could be stupider than millions of us slogging through miles of crawling traffic at the exact same hour of each day so we can sit in a cube and phone and e-mail each other?

About 114.5 million people commuted to work in 2004 with a round trip of around 30 miles at roughly 21 mpg.

What if government provided incentives to business to telecommute say 15 or 20 or 25 percent of its employees each day of the work week. They could be different employees, based upon what they needed to do, or some of the same employees who mostly work by phone or email anyway (e.g., sales and customer service employees). (BTW, this is happening now on a growing scale in progressively managed companies because they’ve done the math and know that: 1) individual employee productiveness goes up and 2) they can reduce brick-and-mortar and other costs associated with a large office-based workforce.)

That’s more than 40 million gallons of gasoline that could be saved each year with this one measure, which increases productivity and reduces corporate brick-and mortar costs. That's without considering the 5.7 billion gallons of gas and $100 billion lost from resulting rush-hour congestion.

Only the shortcomings of own management psychology prevents us from implementing this (and probably many other) cost and pollution-saving changes. I’ve helped develop telecommuting policy for $multi-million organizations, only to see them be relegated to “don’t ask, don’t tell” policies that result in little or no increase in the advantageous use of telecommuting. The reason: executives and managers don’t believe they can trust their employees if they’re not in the office, regardless of the data. Not to mention that, for many mid-level managers, their jobs would be even more redundant without the responsibility of glorified babysitter.

My favorite repost to those managers is, “look around you; could these employees be any less productive than they are at the office? It’s the office that provides endless opportunities to socialize and chat, compared with the home-office." Granted, that has a value that mangers also seldom grasp but those benefits (esprit de corps, comraderie, peer competition, etc.) can be easily achieved with one fewer day in the office per week – at least.

It's way past time to get our heads out of our traditional boxes, whether they be cars, cubicles or 20th-century MBA orthodoxy.

(Cross-posted at Queen of All Evil)

by Mark Adams

Lisa Renee, of Glass City Jungle and Liberal Common Sense, had done a few of these things before, talking about how candidates could use blogs, different kinds of bloggers and promoted the free aspects of the medium. John Spalding of Make a Difference was also on the panel and gave a very professional presentation on a new project of his, a steaming TV station, and talked about the cutting edge of technological developments in the Intertoobz.

I totally winged it. But I'm told I didn't make a complete fool of myself talking about using the medium to present your views and persuade people through discussions, influencing lurkers, and exploiting the fundraising and recruitment possibilities blogs can provide for zero cost (except time).

Anyway, I think that's what I talked about. Things get blurry when I have to wear real clothes.

It's one thing to relax when you do public speaking by imagining the audience in their underwear. Right now, the thought of giving a speech in MY underwear is decidedly disturbing.

::shudder::

Next time, I think I'll leave the tie at home and actually jot down some notes and prepare something in advance.

I did learn something there. There's a tremendous need to educate the uninitiated candidate about what possibilities exist in cyberspace, and how easy it is to create and maintain an effective web presence for their campaign through blogs.

I sat through about an hour and a half of a presentation on fundraising and voter outreach, and the only thing they discussed that is remotely related to what we do in Blogtopia was sending e-mails out to prospective donors -- and that was at the bottom of the list.

When I see the volume of cash donated to political campaigns on the web, and nobody even mentions the idea of including a simple fundraising badge on a local candidate's web page, I realize there's still a huge vacuum and plenty of room for the Toobz to grow into the town square.

Bringing in money gets any politician's attention. But the real power of blogs is publishing and shaping the message. More, much more could be done at a local level. The gap between how the national candidates exploit their web presence and what the candidates are doing at the local level, many of whom don't even have a web page, is astromomical.

I'm probably spoiled. When I do a post about John Edwards, I can go to his web page and not simply find a bullet-point list of his positions on the issues, but links to press releases, full articles from the media on everything he's done or doing, text of speeches and fully downloadable white papers detailing his plans for America's future -- plus one of the most sophisticated interactive blogs out there.

I don't expect everyone running for city council to have something nearly as elaborate, but geez, at least get a blog!

Thanks Lisa, for getting me involved.

My neglected tie collection thanks you too.

(Also I'd like to thank fellow Edwards supporter Ben, and Brian for putting it all together -- and a special shout out to City Council Candidate Karen Shanahan, who "gets" it.)

by shep

I enjoyed what you had to say on last Friday’s (April 20th) Inside Washington.

I was disappointed, however when the US Attorney scandal discussion never led to a mention of the possibility that a parallel, secret communications system (the RNC e-mails) was intentionally set-up to leave no actual “paper-trail,” therefore no discoverable evidence of wrongful conduct, should such a thing occur (hard to believe, I know)?

But then my heart leapt when you and Ms. Tottenburg declared that, “there was no there there,” on the excuse of “failure to pursue ‘voter fraud’” for the firings (even though it took Charles Krauthammer to bring up the issue).

But, alas, my heart broke when no one said why that fiction was created. Is intentionally using the power of the Executive Branch to disenfranchise minorities of their voting rights not noteworthy? Should that abuse of the public trust for wholly undemocratic partisan purposes be kept secret, regardless of its importance?

Otherwise, you sound better. I’m glad.

Warm Regards,
[shep]

Bill Moyers, who I have a tremendous amount of respect for, is interviewed in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. And I was pleased to read his comments about Sen. Barack Obama:

Who do you see as a key figure in the time ahead?

I wish I were wise enough to answer that question. Who would have thought that an obscure black preacher from Montgomery, Alabama would become Martin Luther King?

I believe that elites have to let go. Hillary Clinton would make a good president, but the same old crowd would come back with her.

But when I look at Barack Obama, I think about John F. Kennedy, who leaped over Hubert Humphrey's generation to bring in fresh voices and fresh ideas. I keep thinking that we need to let that happen again.

People say, "Obama is so inexperienced." No, he's as experienced as Lincoln was when Lincoln went into the White House. Lincoln had two years in Congress and eight years in the state legislature. [And both were from Illinois. And both were tall. Yadda yadda yadda.]

Obama represents a generational metaphor. He opens up new gates so that younger people can feel that there's opportunity for them, that they can come in with him and create new possibilities. That's what's important. I've been around a long time in journalism and politics, and I come down to "Put not your trust in princes, they will disappoint you every time."

OK, a couple of thoughts:

• I get what Moyers is saying about the elites, but (taken too far) that kind of talk can be tiresome. I like what Bill Maher had to say on the subject:

  In other fields outside of government, "elite" is a good thing, like an "elite" fighting force; Tiger Woods is an "elite" golfer. If I need brain surgery, I'd like an "elite" doctor. But, in politics, "elite" is bad. The "elite" aren't down to earth and accessible like you and me and President Sh*t-for-brains.

  Which is fine, except that whenever there's a Bush Administration scandal, it always traces back to some incompetent political hack appointment

  
  
• When Moyers says "JFK leaped over Humphrey's generation," we have to keep in mind that Humphrey was only 6 years older than Kennedy, half the age difference between Clinton and Obama. Still, his point is valid: Clinton (and Humphrey) are perceived as establishment figures; Obama and Kennedy, not so much.

• Speaking of comparisons -- Lincoln and Obama? Moyers is hardly the first one to do it. But I'd be careful that we not, ahem, set the bar too high.

Bottom line: Obama does represent himself as the candidate of the generational divide. But more than that, I get the sense that (unlike the others) Obama's best days may yet be in front of him.

(Cross posted on Daily Kos)

Count me among that small group of people who thinks AG Gonzalez is not leaving office any time soon. Yes, I saw the same hearings you did. But despite all their "calling for Gonzalez to resign," I certainly don't see Congress removing him from office.

Of course this is just my opinion and I might be proven wrong this weekend, but I think come Monday morning Gonzalez will show up for work at the Justice Department. After all, only two people have anything to say about whether he stays or goes -- Bush and Gonzalez himself.

Now Dahlia Lithwick comes right out and says it: Gonzalez' testimony this week was a home run for the Bushies:

[HIs testimony] reflects either a Harvard-trained lawyer—and former state Supreme Court judge—with absolutely no command of the facts or the law, or it reveals a proponent of the unitary executive theory with absolutely nothing to prove. Gonzales' failure to even mount a defense; his posture of barely tolerating congressional inquiries; his refusal to concede that he owed the Senate any explanation or any evidence; his refusal to even accept that he bore some burden of proof—all of it tots up to a masterful display of the perfect contempt felt by the Bush executive branch for this Congress and its pretensions of oversight. In the plainest sense, Gonzales elevated the Bush legal doctrine of "Because I said so" into a public spectacle.

In other words, Gonzalez (and Bush) believe nothing untoward occurred because, well, like Nixon said: "When the president does it that means that it is not illegal."

From that perspective, Rove, Bush, Gonzalez -- they're all bulletproof. From that perspective, Gonzalez did Congress a favor just by showing up!

Gonzales did exactly what he needed to do yesterday. He took a high, inside pitch to the head for the team (nobody wants to look like a dolt on national television) but hit a massive home run for the notion that at the end of the day, congressional oversight over the executive branch is little more than empty theatre.

How do you fix this mess? Well, I'm not sure you can impeach the AG. And even if you could, this scandal shouldn't end with his removal. You need to investigate (and, if necessary) prosecute the whole corrupt lot of them: Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, Assistant Attorney General William Moschella and former chief of staff Kyle Sampson, for starters. Joe Conason is calling for the appointment of a special prosecutor and I think he's got that right.

Looks like the House will compromise with the Senate by making the deadlines non-binding:

Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia, a freshman Democrat who represents a district strongly opposed to the war, said lending his support to a bill that funds the war without setting a firm end date will be difficult. On the other hand, he added, Democrats might be in a tougher spot if they can't pull the caucus together long enough to act against Bush.

"We have to look at the political realities of being the party that's in control, and prove to the American people we can govern," he said.

Forward movement toward a worthy goal. That's what I would call success, albeit modest.

With Senate leaders nervous the final bill would fail if it included a firm deadline, aides said Democrats were leaning toward accepting the Senate's nonbinding goal. The compromise bill also is expected to retain House provisions preventing military units from being worn out by excessive combat deployments; however, the president could waive these standards if he states so publicly.

On Thursday, Pelosi, D-Calif., summoned Woolsey, Lee, Waters and several other of the party's more liberals members to her office to discuss the issue. According to aides and members, concerns were expressed but there were no loud objections to a conference bill that would adopt the Senate's nonbinding goal.

Watson said she would personally oppose the final bill, as she did last month, but would not stand in Pelosi's way if the speaker agrees to the Senate version.

"It's still a timeline," she said. "We're not backing down from that."

I'm sticking with my original assessment that (regardless of what he says now) Bush will sign the bill that Congress puts on his desk. I had said that he'd take the money and ignore the deadlines (via a signing statement). Now that the deadlines look more and more like they'll be non-binding...well, you do the math.

by shep

Quite obviously, American insurance-industry-run heathcare is a failure teetering on collapse. It is completely unavailable to nearly one-sixth of the population and only tentatively available to everyone else, except for the wealthy. Employer-paid health insurance, the most accessible form of healthcare for most people, now drives our decisions about who we work for, who in the family works and whether we can afford to change jobs. People are regularly denied access to heathcare, because they are sick.

The system is poorly regulated, either by industry or government. 100,000 people die from medical mistakes in hospitals alone. The average cost for drugs is two to four times higher than in other industrialized countries and also injures and kills many thousands. The real regulator and last recourse for those who are harmed by the actions of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and/or doctors is a widely-reviled tort system that siphons off huge amounts of money (in addition to the huge amounts siphoned-off by insurance companies themselves) that should be being spent on medical care.

Yet, our system is monstrously expensive compared to other industrialized countries. It severely undermines US competitiveness in world markets. As technology and our collective average age continues to advance, it is predicted that more people will be driven from the system, healthcare will have to be (even more) rationed, its cost will bankrupt the government, or all of the above. It also, due to the short-term profit motives of insurance companies, becomes ever more expensive because people don’t have easy access to wellness or preventative primary care that might help them avoid costly disease.

Our market-driven healthcare system is literally killing us. Only those whose thinking is corrupted by simple-minded market ideology remain committed to such a system and only the fact that our elected officials are beholden to the status quo industries’ campaign cash explains why we haven’t abandoned it for a rational alternative. Here are five critical things that we need to fix our current system that a market-based, insurance industry approach can never achieve:

1) Pool risk and cost as broadly as possible, creating the lowest average cost per person for healthcare.

2) Allow for a simple administrative system with a single point of contact, one set of rules and one processing system.

3) Create a level competitive marketplace for all healthcare providers.

4) Allow for an emphasis on cost-saving wellness, preventative and primary care.

5) Give the public-at-large control over the specific features of the healthcare system through their elected representatives.

We will be forced to adopt a government-administered single-payer system of some sort eventually, like every other industrialized nation on earth. The question now is only how much more human suffering and how many more $billions we will waste on the current industry-run system.

Next: what a government-administered single-payer system might look like, including the role for insurance providers (actually, I’ve already given that one away).

(Cross-posted at Queen Of All Evil)

Update: OK, I realize that saying healthcare, “is completely unavailable to nearly one-sixth of the population,” is a bit of hyperbole. What I am talking about is the entire system: primary care, specialists, screening, wellness, etc. If waiting until you're sick enough to wait four to eight hours to be seen in an emergency room and then being sued by the hospital and having your credit destroyed does it for you…

Hey look! We've got a new kitty in the house and his name is Shmuley. He's nine weeks old. When he meows, he sounds like a squeak toy.

Itchy has, ahem, "mixed feelings" about him. Translation: we keep them separated right now because Itchy could, if he wanted, eat Shmuley in one bite. Or, at least, roll over on top of him and squash him.

Update: Yesterday, we happened to find them on opposite sides of the patio door glass and it was pretty fascinating watching the ballet between them (below, click on any of the thumbnails to get a close-up).

Since then, we've put them together in the same room and things have been OK. Itchy growls a lot and Shmuley ...moves ...around ...in ...slow ...motion, head down, sniffing the ground in front of him.

He follows Itchy everywhere he goes -- after all, other than his mother, Itchy is the only adult cat he's ever seen. This probably annoys Itchy. Or maybe it freaks him out -- after all, Shmuley looks exactly like Itchy's dead brother, Scratchy.

www.flickr.com

It's from Esquire Magazine and without getting too specific, the list includes (among other things) unhealthy but delicious foods, extreme surfing, organ donation, bullfighting, butter, drugs, and punching Barry Bonds in the face.

In short, you really have to read the whole thing.

Here's my favorite:

32. Carousing with the Mob (by Colum McCann)

It happened one night in a bar near the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia. I was researching a novel and found myself deep in conversation with a number of ballet dancers. Don't laugh. Dancers drink. Dancers smoke. Dancers believe in the short life.

Two in the morning. We had all been overserved. It was time for one last song. I closed my eyes and belted it out. The bartender grabbed me by the shoulder. "Shut up," he said. I've heard the complaints before. "Shut the f-ck up," he said. "Look."

I turned and saw a number of impeccably dressed men walking into the bar. They were packing guns. One of them stopped and stared at me. It was as if all the oxygen was gone from the air. They cased the bar and abruptly left. I started singing again. The bartender grabbed my arm. Seconds later the real mob -- without their well-dressed bodyguards -- walked in: fat and unshaven and scruffy. Each had a bouquet of beautiful women on his arm.

by shep

Because, even their best, brightest, men of integrity are little more than mendacious, double-dealing hacks. If Bush v. Gore, authored by state’s rights stalwart Antonin Scalia, didn’t teach you that there isn’t an honest principle to be found among them, I hope this helps you pull your heads out of your asses and take a look around (you might want to wipe that off your face first).

“Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent, shaped by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath. And judges have to have the modesty to be open in the decisional process to the considered views of their colleagues on the bench.”

“If I am confirmed, I will be vigilant to protect the independence and integrity of the Supreme Court, and I will work to ensure that it upholds the rule of law and safeguards those liberties that make this land one of endless possibilities for all Americans."

“I think people’s personal views on this issue [abortion] derive from a number of sources, and there’s nothing in my personal views based on faith or other sources that would prevent me from applying the precedents of the Court faithfully under principles of stare decisis.”

--Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts

So the next time some Republican, Federalist f*ck even utters the phrase Stare Decisis – and I mean you, Russ Feingold, Herb Kohl and Pat Leahy - you tell him to go Cheney himself. He’s lying to your face, you idiot. They have no integrity and no shame.

Speaking of shame, here’s the rest of the wall:

Max Baucus, Jeff Bingaman, Robert Byrd, Kent Conrad, Tom Carper, Christopher Dodd, Byron Dorgan, Tim Johnson, Mary Landrieu, Carl Levin, Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, Patty Murray Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, Mark Pryor, Ken Salazar, Roy Wyden, Jeff Jeffords.

You were had by a Republican lawyer in a cheap suit. Morons.

by shep

So, what’s the answer to angry, disaffected young men who use easily-obtained handguns to commit (blessedly-rare) mass murder?

Why, making it easy for angry, disaffected young men to obtain and carry loaded handguns, of course.

Jesus in a Hydra-shok, no wonder these people shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the keys to public policy.

So here's the thing: Bush traveled to Virginia to comfort the families of the victims killed in yesterday's shooting. But in the 4+ years of the Iraq war, has he attended one single funeral or similar tribute to our fallen fighting men and women? Nope.

Ever wonder why?

by shep

I hate to beat a dead horse (but I just had to use that metaphor to describe the rotted corpse of what was once our adversarial press) and it may be obvious to many that calling the media “liberal” is absurd as long as it fails to reveal the truth or speak truth to power.

But this Sunday offered yet another journalistic horror show of worthless he-said, she-saids, framed by soft-spoken center-left Democrats such as Carl Levin and Bill Richardson on one side and mendacious idiots such as John Kyle, bombastic assh*les such as Lindsey Graham and, not to mention, the psychopathic, megalomaniac Dick Cheney on the other.

Although a target-rich environment, let’s focus on just a couple of the major Republican lies that go continuously unchallenged by our pampered press poodles. Here’s icky Dick explaining why the Democrats are going to give him and the idiot king a blank check for an open-ended occupation in the middle of a bloody civil war – against the expressed will of the American public:

"I don't think that the majority of the Democrats in Congress want to leave America's fighting forces in harm's way without the resources they need to defend themselves."

Now an adversarial press interviewer, rather than one committed, above all, to another chance to interview our monstrous vice president at a later date (yes I mean you Bob), might challenge this frame thusly:

"But aren’t the Democrats proposing to get the troops out of harm’s way altogether and isn’t the administration’s policy to keep them there indefinitely?"

See, it not that hard. Even for a guy who isn’t paid ridiculous sums of money to interview the powerful for living.

Graham repeats the same lie in his Mike Wallace interview opposite Carle Levin. Then he adds this bit of inane, lying spin when Wallace forcefully questions him about the lack of political progress in Iraq:

"My point is that it took us 13 years to write our Constitution. Then we had our own civil war. Political reconciliation is moving forward.

Allrightythen. Let’s see how a liberal, truth-loving interviewer might handle that stupid analogy (they might simply say, “that’s a stupid analogy,” but that might seem “uncivil”):

“What does the development of democracy in America in the 1700s have to do with the situation in Iraq?”

or

“The writing of our Constitution and the American civil war were separated by more than 100 years; are you suggesting that is analogous to what is happening in Iraq?"

or

“But Senator, we didn’t have to write our Constitution in the middle of a civil war, while occupied by foreign troops.”

and

“If this is what political reconciliation looks like, how will we ever tell when it’s time to leave?”

So now you know why people who watch liberal fake news, know more than people watching Face the Nation and way more than those who watch Fox.

by Mark Adams

I cannot be said more bluntly. Thank you Mr. Uhler:

Your stupidity and incompetence, Mr. Bush, are becoming the stuff of legend. Like Willy Loman's, your sales pitches no longer persuade and are now viewed to be acts of desperation. And, as a self-proclaimed "born again" Christian, who supposedly receives guidance from God; you possess all the "moral clarity" of a guttersnipe.

Granted, you've yet to be removed from office, so attention must still be paid. But, mainly to record your crimes for posterity and more definitively demonstrate that you and your irredeemable Vice President were always lying, warmongering frauds.

by shep

I really didn’t want to see ten more seconds of airtime devoted the Imus kerfuffle (so why would I want to write about it?) but, alas, the mainstream media still couldn’t give a rat’s ass what people like me want them to talk about it.

Oddly, watching the bobbleheads hashing it out endlessly on Sunday morning, I realized two things. One, it can lead to a worthwhile conversation about public discourse (actually Digby helped me understand that) and, two, this is scaring the living crap out of some white male media and political elites.

Although our highly paid “opinion leaders” still don’t get it, they do realize that a new day is dawning; a day that will give them less and less desperately desired control over their empires. Here are some of the things they still don’t get:

Imus wasn’t being racist, he was trying to sound hip. In our culture, blacks own hip; which is why so many young white males consume their entertainment (understandable on its merits when it was blues, jazz and R&B) and seek to emulate them. If calling the Rutger’s girls “nappy-headed hos” was really meant as a racial slur, it was a pathetic attempt at slurring (I’ve known fifth graders who could do better). Was Imus taking a cheap shot at their kinky hair? Was he really suggesting they were selling themselves after the game? In fact, wasn’t he really trying to say that they were some bad-ass basketball players – paying them a compliment?

What Imus didn’t get and the talk show dopes still don’t is that there is a double standard about what whites can say about blacks and how blacks talk about themselves – and that’s OK. As a long-abused minority, they have every right to insist on the terms and conditions of the public discourse about them. And they also have the right to ignore the standards they set for the dominant culture, if they so choose. That said, if self-derogatory rap lyrics disappeared tomorrow, the culture would be instantly better (black women in particular should rage against the disgusting misogyny in black male rap).

The issue isn’t just about racist speech it’s about hate speech (why legitimate parody is not threatened by this new social paradigm). The fact that Imus’s possibly complimentary trash talk was turned into racism shows what really has people pissed. But admitting that would force them to confront the real trashers of political and social culture, the Rush Limbaughs, Ann Coulters, Sean Hannitys, and Bill O’Reillys of the world (after all, racist hate speech in popular media is thankfully rare, hate speech against liberals and Democrats is a multi-billion-dollar American industry). That fact is simply unacceptably condemning of too many of those they consider their colleagues and the entire modern Republican movement (the MSM isn’t even ready to consider that there might be something fishy in the destruction of five years of e-mail communication between the Bush administration and their Republican political operatives).

Whether they know it or not, this is what scares the living sh*t out of people like Tony Blankley. If the Imus episode really is a teaching moment, we stand to learn two important things that Republicans and their establishment press enablers desperately don’t want us to learn; 1) they – not blacks, Muslims, Mexicans or dirty hippies - are the most coarsening and polarizing element of society and 2) we, not they, hold the keys to the media and discourse that both defines and shapes us.

Bill Moyers is ready to let 'er rip:

Bill Moyers has put together an amazing 90-minute video documenting the lies that the Bush administration told to sell the Iraq War to the American public, with a special focus on how the media led the charge. I've watched an advance copy and read a transcript, and the most important thing I can say about it is: Watch PBS from 9 to 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 25. Spending that 90 minutes on this will actually save you time, because you'll never watch television news again – not even on PBS, which comes in for its share of criticism.

Bill Moyers is a national treasure. He, alone among anyone in the news business, has always said that the job of an independent press is to keep an eye on government. You'd think that there would be general agreement from everyone on all ends of the political spectrum, but sadly -- no. This is mainly because there are fewer and fewer sources of independent thought and reportage as bigger and bigger corporations buy up news outlets left and right. What's left is an uncomfortable partnership between government and business with business holding the upper hand. Mussolini called this fascism and he liked it. I call it bullshit and I thank god for the Internet.

Don't miss Moyers' presentation. Pass this along to everyone you know.

by shep

From every public rationale: the UN resolution upon which our entire Iraq policy is predicated, the congressional authorization which provides all legal justification under US law, and the rationale upon which all original public support for invading Iraq was established, our mission in Iraq is complete. And it has been completely successful relative to those goals:

1) elimination of Iraq’s WMD program and any threat thereof,

2) punishment and/or removal of the Hussein regime as a consequence of its lawlessness,

3) and institution of a democratic constitution and institutions for the Iraqi state.

By what legal or moral justification does John McCain declare that our victorious exit from Iraq constitutes defeat?

Why does John McCain hate America?

by Mark Adams, Cross-posted and KOS-Posted

What Digby Said:

I have long had a rather simplistic belief that American political power was properly seen as a tug-of-war rather than a pendulum. For decades, the left was sort of holding on to the rope with one hand, checking out the scenery, enjoying the fruits of the New Deal and tolerant social change and forgetting that they had to put all their weight into the game or the other side would pull them completely over the center line. The 1994 Republican Revolution jerked me awake and I watched in horror for the next decade. Over that period many more liberals woke up to the fact that we were no longer standing firmly on our side of the line anymore. I realized that the "third way" stance the Democrats had taken during the late 80's had been a brief tactical success, but a long term strategic mistake. In the tug of war, you simply can't rely on the other side, particularly when its infused with revolutionary fervor, to stop pulling once you reach the "middle."

by shep

Most Friday mornings, if I’m near a radio, I listen to the Dianne Rehm show’s News Roundup. I don’t expect to learn anything new (about a week ago, they spent an entire hour discussing the merits of the science behind the theory of global warming) except what the centrist-establishment political wisdom (it’s just an expression) has to tell the “liberal” NPR audience about what’s going on in the world.

This morning, the esteemed panelists, including Jim Angle (Fox), Eleanor Clift (Newsweek) and Anne Kornblut (WaPo), eventually worked their way to the subject of possibly thousands millions [yup] of missing White House e-mails sent by as many as 22 50 political aids (featuring Karl Rove) over non-approved, unsecured outside email servers at the Republican National Committee.

I don’t transcribe (Mom told me to take typing in HS but, as usual, I ignored her wisdom) and I won’t waste the time and money on a transcript (feel free to check my take) but I swear to you that the universal opinion was that the problem was that there had been poor guidance from the White House on how those aids should manage their e-mail. That’s it, nothing to see here folks, move along.

This was the WaPo article on the “lost” White House e-mails yesterday:

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel declined to discuss whether the political aids were driven by a desire to conduct business outside of potential review.

This was from the Post’s Dan Froomkin, also yesterday:

But when I asked Stanzel to read out loud the White House e-mail policy, it seemed clear enough to me: "Federal law requires the preservation of electronic communications sent or received by White House staff," says the handbook that all staffers are given and expected to read and comply with.

And this is from the NY Times today:

It also exposed the dual electronic lives led by Mr. Rove and 21 other White House officials who maintain separate e-mail accounts for government business and work on political campaigns — and raised serious questions, in the eyes of Democrats, about whether political accounts were used to conduct official work without leaving a paper trail.

Now I know that these are just editors and far-too-highly-paid bobbleheads but, I have to ask, shouldn’t they at least know what their own newspapers are writing before they are all called around a microphone and paid to tell other people what’s new?

Late breaking: Karl Rove gets a lawyer.

Yum.

The under-reported story behind the GonzoGate scandals is not the US Attys who were fired but the ones who were left alone to do their jobs. This is the real scandal -- that these Bush appointees persecuted prosecuted Democrats more than Republicans by a ratio of 4-to-1.

One such prosecution (overturned recently by the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals) provides a glimpse into the sleazy practices of a loyal Bushie, U.S. Attorney Steven Biskupic.

by Mark Adams

Taegan's Quote of the Day:

"I believe in redemption, I believe in forgiveness."

-- John Edwards, quoted by WCBS-TV, on the racially-charged comments made by radio talk show host Don Imus. Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were less forgiving.

Don Imus has been pissing me off for years. But, as Digby points out, not only is there a certain fascination, the show also exposed the unseemly underbelly of just how internecine the D.C. punditry was.

This strange relationship between the beltway punitocracy and elected officials first came to my attention when Imus dubbed Bill Clinton, "Bubba." Since then, a virtual parade of media elite and candidates seeking their approval have been a regular staple of the program. It all came to a head for me during the Libby trial. Nowhere else was Timmeh! Russert spouting off as much about the case than on Imus (just between friends), nor juicy tidbits like Andrea Mitchell's kidding around about being too drunk to really know what she said she knew about her involvement in the case.

Lately, the show would inevitably return to a "comedy" skit featuring their resident skin-head, Bernard McGuirk, doing an intentionally unflattering impression of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin as more of a Stepin Fetchit character than anything else. This recurring bit, more than anything, made me switch to see what was on CNN.

The list of indiscretions is long and well documented for an "edgy" program that far too often went over the edge. I lose no sleep over the end, if this is indeed the end, of Don Imus's show. I won't jump for joy that a blight on our public airwaves has been erased as long as Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savidge and Sean Hannity continue to pollute our national discourse with impunity -- or that Ann Coulter is given a forum to purvey her filth.

But I have to admire John Edwards keeping true to himself and his professed faith. I don't know that I am so forgiving, at least not enough to want to hear Imus again or believe that CBS Radio or MSNBC TV were wrong to fire him. Christianity, after all, is a faith of redemption from sin.

I believe in a benevolent and merciful God. That when things seem at their worst and their lowest, he will always be there for you. That no matter what you do, he will forgive you. And it is important to ask for his forgiveness. It's important in my case to have a personal relationship with the Lord, so that I pray daily and I feel that relationship all the time. And when I'm faced with difficult decisions, which I regularly am, I very often go to him in prayer.

There are some that criticize Edwards for missing an opportunity to pander to women or African-Americans who are indignant about Imus' behavior, to kick him while he's down in order to score some political points.

Cheap shots are easy, especially when the target is wounded. Again, John Edwards proves that he's something special, because he's just such a nice guy.

I'm back in town long enough to do some laundry and then I'm off again. I'll be back Monday of next week. See y'all then. In the meantime, here's my take on a few things that popped up on my radar while I was gone.

• I did a double take when reading about the Green Zone suicide bomber that killed (among others) 3 Iraqi MPs. That's "Members of Parliament" not "military policeman." Holy crap. Wonder what McCain thinks of the surge now?

• Kurt Vonnegut has died. Or maybe he's just come unstuck in time. So it goes.

• Paul Wolfowitz has a girlfriend? Who knew?

• Don Imus is off the air, perhaps for good. I've always considered myself a fan. Where else are you going to go to hear an interview with Shug Knight and Orin Hatch -- both on the same morning? That said, he was capable of the most brutal (and brutally honest) commentary on the air. I believe Don Imus was the guy for whom they invented the phrase "shock jock." So I'm still trying to answer the only question worth asking: "Why now, after all he's said, after all these years?" Maybe he just finally pissed off the wrong combination of people at the wrong time. And/But maybe it isn't about women or African Americans at all, but just about harassing a group of basically decent college kids who were only minding their own business. Oh well: live by the insult, die by the insult.

Here are the full results from MoveOn's Virtual Town Hall vote (remember, this does not imply a MoveOn endorsement):

Sen. Barack Obama 28%
Sen. John Edwards 25%
Rep. Dennis Kucinich 17%
Gov. Bill Richardson 12%
Sen. Hillary Clinton 11%
Sen. Joe Biden 6%
Sen. Chris Dodd 1%

I would have thought John Edwards would be stronger than this. Well like they said, this isn't equivalent to an endorsement from MoveOn.

UPDATE: But wait -- there's more! MoveOn members who watched the Town Hall at one of the parties voted differently from those who did not. Here are how the folks who attended the event ranked their choices:

Sen. John Edwards 25%
Gov. Bill Richardson 21%
Sen. Barack Obama 19%
Rep. Dennis Kucinich 15%
Sen. Joe Biden 10%
Sen. Hillary Clinton 7%
Sen. Chris Dodd 4%

Good news for Edwards, Richardson, Biden and Dodd. Not so good for Obama and Clinton -- the two front runners.

by shep

Shorter Liz Cheney: People think my daddy’s insane so he’s hoping you’ll take my word for it.

by shep

"No evidence of wrongdoing."

"Damn it, it was not supposed to go in the White House system. . ."
--Jack Abramoff writing to (Karl Rove Aid) Susan Ralston

“I now have an RNC blackberry which you can use to e-mail me at any time. No security issues like my WH email.”
--(Karl Rove Aid) Susan Ralston writing to Jack Abramoff

God, I love the smell of criminal conspiracy in the morning.

It's going to be awfully embarassing if this time machine doesn't work...Oh well.

Would You Rather...

Be so intelligent that no one can relate to you?

...OR...

Be dumb as a brick, but likeable?

(From Zobmondo!! The outrageious book of bizarre choices)

by shep

"Congress should not tell generals how to run the war."
--George Bush, April 3, 2007

"The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation."
-- The Washington Post, April 11, 2007

Now see, I thought Bush was saying that no one should "micromanage our military commanders" in the field but, apparently, IOKIYAR.

Um, no, it’s definitely not OK.

Hope none of you have shot anyone in face. In the meantime ask yourself this question:

Would You Rather...

Be caught picking your nose on the huge screen at a big stadiium?

...OR...

On a first date with someone special?

(From Zobmondo!! The outrageious book of bizarre choices)

by shep

The past few months have completely exposed right-wing media bias. On issue after issue, the beltway media elites have taken up the Republican position, in direct opposition to majorities of the public. On Iraq withdrawal, the US Attorney scandal and the Pelosi ME trip, major media figures have even been caught telling the public that their majority view is really the minority view.

And I’m sure that when Andrea Mitchell tells the American public that they want Scooter Libby pardoned for perjury and obstruction of justice, when they obviously don’t, it’s not because she doesn’t believe it or because she is drunk (probably).

But she has drunk long and deep of the Republican Koolaid. She has friends who serve it at their cocktail parties. Her colleagues enjoy and laugh over the stuff. She has financial interest in its success as a popular beverage. She has staked her journalistic reputation on its nutritional value.

In other words, she is just as impervious to reason and facts as the rest of the Republican cult. More so, because the average Bushbot hasn’t got millions of dollars (and the corresponding lifestyle) hanging on fealty to that belief system.

So, how will we fix our Fourth Estate problem? Their elite status insulates from the great unwashed masses. They hang with similarly reality-challenged colleagues. Their ethical standards place their duty to inform the public somewhere down the list, below success and peer-pressure. They have satisfied themselves with the conceit that giving equal voice to the politics of the left and the right is the same thing as responsible journalism.

And, let’s face it, Democrats are just too committed to civil discourse and so cowed from the repeated ass-raping they’ve received during the last 15 years of their abusive relationship with the press, they just can’t confront their abusers.

What can I say, except: Get. Over. It. The only thing we have left to bring these pampered press poodles to heel is ridicule.

First, being popular and well-liked (especially by the powerful) is like oxygen to these people. Look at how they debase themselves, just to be ridiculed by power elites. To them, the social relationship – politics – trumps war crimes, treason or practically any abuse of official power. You need to be outside David Broder’s circle of friends and get caught getting a blowjob to merit impeachment.

Second, they frequently deserve it because of the asinine things they say as if they make sense. When David Gregory asks about Nancy Pelosi’s “shadow foreign policy,” he should get the derisive response he deserves (see below). Failing to ridicule such absurd and obvious propaganda, gives it instant legitimacy.

Third, Democrats will be doing the press a favor. Traditional media is going down in flames and the current reality-disconnect has to be a big reason for that. They need some tough love if they are going to rebuild the integrity and credibility of American journalism.

Let me show the Dems how this will work. Here are some handy phrases, which can be deployed as necessary, in response to obvious right-wing idiocy (you’ll need a lot more but I thought I’d get you started):

How ridiculous, David.

That’s crazy, [insert journalist’s name here].

Who would be dumb enough to believe that, [insert journalist’s name here]?

Who believes that nonsense, [insert journalist’s name here]?

That’s baloney, [insert journalist’s name here].

That’s just plain dumb, [insert journalist’s name here].

I hear this silliness over and over, [insert journalist’s name here].

The press may like these made-up controversies, [insert journalist’s name here].

Why would any thinking person believe that, [insert journalist’s name here]?

Sounds like the Republicans making up stuff again, [insert journalist’s name here].

More right-wing noise machine, if you ask me, [insert journalist’s name here].

Who’s peddling that hogwash, [insert journalist’s name here], Rush or Drudge?

Give it a shot; you might just shock some of them back to reality. In any event, given the current state of politics and the press, we have nothing to lose.

by shep
Shorter Richard Cohen: How can you prosecute official lying in an administration where everyone is a liar?

Hope the weather warmed up by the time you read this. I need to know:

Would you rather

Be extremely lucky?

...OR...

Be extremely smart?

(you can't be both.)

(From Zobmondo!! The outrageious book of bizarre choices)

by Mark Adams

They should be renamed, because they are the Democratic Party's leading compromisers and capitulators.

I'd like you to read something, and see if you agree that the official party-within-a-party-line of the Democratic Leadership Council is no better than President Bush when he says his sworn duty is to protect the American people -- when it actually is his sworn duty to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution.

Normally, we would be skeptical of attempts by Congress to write war strategy into law -- as opposed to exercising its Constitutional duties to declare and finance wars.

The United States Congress has not declared war since WWII. Moreover, there is no obligation for Congress to fund a war it's membership no longer supports. These are legislative prerogatives, but certainly not their duty. Besides, this really isn't a war.

However, the DLC throws this framing into their argument to give George Bush exactly what he want's, a "clean" supplemental spending bill. Their "plan" is to (1) cave into Bush on funding after he vetoes the conditional bills, complete with their timetables, then (2) take a look at whether the surge escalation is working, and finally (3) to call for a diplomatic strategy.

(Cross-Posted and KOS-Posted)

by shep

Shankar Vedantam does a regular drive-by social science column for the WaPo, called “Department of Human Behavior.” In this week’s episode, as in many past columns, Mr. Vedantum shows us some interesting facet of human behavior and psychology that, in the end, manages to absolve the Bush Administration for its inhuman behavior and psychology.

Vedantum tells us that, “[t]he political scientist [Columbia University’s Richard Jervis], who counts himself as a critic of the Bush administration [bitchin' bona fides, eh?] said a focus on this historical analogy [Iraq’s successful concealment of its pre-Gulf war WMD program] – not political pressures from the White House (emphasis added) – played the central role in the intelligence failure.”

Gosh, I’m no “scholar” at Columbia but I’ve been awake for the last four years and I can google:

cheney pressured CIA intelligence iraq

Low and behold, the first two links are from Vedantum’s own WaPo:

Government sources said CIA analysts were not the only ones who felt pressure from their superiors to support public statements by Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others about the threat posed by Hussein.

Former and current intelligence officials said they felt a continual drumbeat, not only from Cheney and Libby, but also from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, Feith, and less so from CIA Director George J. Tenet, to find information or write reports in a way that would help the administration make the case that going into Iraq was urgent.

About a week later, the Post’s Walter Pincus (a profile in journalism whom his colleagues would do well to emulate), again documents Cheney administration treason:

Senior intelligence analysts say they feel caught between the demands from the White House, Pentagon and other government policymakers for intelligence that would make the administration's case and what they say is 'a lack of hard facts.'

And I believe that the Post and a few others did a little reporting on some sort of dust-up around something called “the sixteen words”:

Beginning in October, the CIA warned the administration not to use the Niger claim in public. CIA Director George J. Tenet personally persuaded deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley to omit it from President Bush's Oct. 7 speech in Cincinnati about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

But on the eve of Bush's Jan. 28 State of the Union address, Robert Joseph, an assistant to the president in charge of nonproliferation at the National Security Council (NSC), initially asked the CIA if the allegation that Iraq sought to purchase 500 pounds of uranium from Niger could be included in the presidential speech.

Well, just as long as incessant White House pressure in the form of repeated visits and calls from the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State, setting up a parallel, fake intelligence office to compete with the CIA, and White House push-back against CIA warnings about discredited “mushroom cloud” claims, didn’t play the central role in taking the country into a disastrous war, based on a pack of lies.

Greetings from the past! Back then, I was wondering:

Would you rather...

Have the power to read minds?

...OR...

Have the power to make anyone fall in love with you?

(From Zobmondo!! The outrageious book of bizarre choices)

Thanks to the miracle of modern science, you are reading this post that I created before I unplugged from the intertubes.

So here's my question: Would you rather...

Be ruled exclusively by your heart

...OR...

exclusivley by you mind?

(From Zobmondo!! The outrageious book of bizarre choices)

I'll be away from the Internets through next week, looking and hoping for warm weather. In the meantime, Mark and Shep will keep things together while I'm gone.

by shep

First off, congratulations to the now released British sailors and the British government for not starting World War The End of Civilization As We Know It.

Obviously, had it been up to some of your seasoned veterans and commentators, not to mention some of your neocon friends across the pond, we might all be beating, stabbing and shooting each other to get one last fill-up for the trip to Armageddon.

Something occurred to me as I was watching some video of the Brits as they were being held, reading statements, having tea, etc., that probably wouldn't occur to the Grizzled Generation or even our baby-boomer, neocon, tele-warriors. (First off, the Brits and Iranians were not at war, but that’s not what I’m talking about.)

In Great War II, Korea, and even Vietnam, if a captive were confronted with a camera, that would seem like a fairly dramatic development. We were still using something called fillum back then, and fillum cameras were bulky and not all that commonplace. Being questioned while someone pointed a camera at you would at least make one a bit suspicious (especially if you were at war with them).

Today’s military-age kids (I think being twice their age gives me some license here) were raised on camera phones, palm-sized high-resolution video cameras, web cams, and the inter (and You) tubes. Being “on-camera” for these kids is like wearing pants.

Finally, the world has shrunk considerably since The Good Ole Days and today’s twenty something’s, especially Europeans, are considerably less xenophobic than many of their forebears. Even as captives, suffering some hostility and mistreatment from the Iranians, they might be less likely to be suspicious, unforgiving or hate-filled toward their captors (did I mention that they were not at war?). Thank God.

So, go fill-‘er-up and have a Happy Easter (and don’t forget the videocam).

by shep

Regarding your recent appearance on the News Hour, opposite Rich Lowry, I have a few suggestions:

When Mr. Lowry claims that Senator Reid’s Iraq appropriations legislation is being driven by the “left-wing,” the correct response is as follows:

“It is the president’s position that is the extreme one; only around 30% of Americans favor Bush’s approach in Iraq.”

(or the reverse):

“Nearly 60% of Americans favor a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, so it’s hardly the left-wing position.”

When Mr. Lowry complains that Bush didn’t expand the military after 9/11, it would be useful to point out that we didn’t need a bigger army to go after al Qaeda. The only reason the Army and National Guard are nearly broken is because the president chose to invade and occupy Iraq instead.

One more thing, Speaker Pelosi’s trip to the Middle East will only be widely seen as a political mistake if pundits ostensibly representing the more liberal viewpoint say it is.

I know that practically no mainstream news source puts an actual Democratic partisan opposite the rabid Republican ones but please do try to at least point out the obvious and not give undue cover to White House talking points.

Perhaps it was because you have a cold. Get well soon.

Sincerely,
[shep]

My daughter recently turned me on to the movie Everything Is Illuminated starring Elijah Wood and directed by Liev Schreiber. It is an adaptation of the book by the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer, which I read after seeing the movie. I was impressed by how good the movie was (and that my daughter has such good taste); so much so that I thought that it was one of those rare instances where the movie was actually better than the book.

But what I really loved was the soundtrack, an eclectic mix of traditional Eastern European folk music, orchestral scoring of same -- and gypsy punk. Chief among the latter is a band called Gogol Bordello fronted by Eugene Hutz who also co-stars in the movie playing "the Ukranian dude in Puma" as my daughter put it.

Their song Start Wearing Purple, without lyrics, can be heard in parts of the movie and over the end credits (with lyrics). Apparently they have a lot of crossover appeal -- Start Wearing Purple is also considered an unofficial theme song of the Baltimore Ravens football team.

That, my friends, must be one hell of a tailgate party. I'm just saying.

(cross posted at Daily Kos)

MSNBC asks: Are vetoes the key to a Bush recovery? The simple answer is "no" because I don't think he'll veto the Iraq spending bill.

Before I tell you why, let's look at some background...

A defining moment of Clinton’s presidency was Oct. 19, 1995 when he threw down the gauntlet to House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. “I will not let you destroy Medicare and I will veto this bill,” Clinton said referring to GOP legislation curbing the future growth of Medicare spending.

The standoff between Republican leaders and Clinton led to the government shutdown at the end of 1995. Clinton won the perception battle on Medicare and it helped him win a second term.

Looking back on it, the differences are stark: Medicare was hugely popular. The Iraq war? Uh...not so much.

“You guys took extraordinary advantage, very correctly so, of demonizing us,” Dole’s advisor Sheila Burke told Clinton strategist George Stephanopoulos during a 1996 campaign post-mortem at Harvard University. “We essentially lost the public relations war early in December (1995).”

The time for demonizing is over. My hunch is that Bush has gone to the well one time too many to be able to convince the public that the Democrats are dangerously crazy. As Bill Clinton would have said: "That dog don't hunt."

Speaking of the Clintons, Bush might be able to prevail -- by being a divider and not a uniter:

Bush’s veto threat may pay some dividends in that he’s splitting the Democratic ranks. While Obama sounds resigned to Bush winning on the veto, his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton said Tuesday, “This is vetoing the will of the American people.” She added that “I’m not ready to concede” that Bush will ultimately make his veto stick.

I think Obama made a rookie mistake in saying what he said (whether or not it's what he meant). Hillary was much more on point.

As for other threatened vetoes (stem cells, discounted pharmaceuticals, labor unions) -- at this point, who cares? We're into the primary season already and these are all political theater. The Democrats will nationalize these issues on the way to the general election.

One lesson some members of Congress drew from last November’s election was that that the public was fed up with partisan discord. If that’s true, would a veto antagonize a public tired of confrontation?

In a word: no.

The public is already onboard with Congress. Everyone is tired of this endless occupation and they'll see Congress as being more than generous in giving Bush his war funding -- but with a redefinition of the mission.

So here's what happens next:

If Bush is smart, he'll sign the bill and then ignore the part about withdrawal timelines -- you know, with one of his infamous (and ubiquitous) signing statements. By the time it winds through the courts, Bush will be nearly at the end of his term. His legacy "secure," Bush will leave office -- but not before screwing the Republican candidate for president.

End result: Democrats add to their lead in Congress and also take the White House. But Bush will have accomplished one thing that he wanted: it'll be someone else who has to end the war, not him.

Obama's campaign finally released their numbers:

• Over 100 thousand donors.
  
• Over $25 million raised.
  
• Over $23 million can be used for the primary season.
  
• Over 50 thousand online donors.
  
• Over $6.9 million raised online.
  
• Over 60 thousand groups, blogs and members online.

Putting it in perspective:

Obama (D-Ill.) appears to have surpassed Clinton in several ways: He raised $6.9 million through donations over the Internet, more than the $4.2 million than Clinton (N.Y.) raised online. He reported donations from 100,000 people, double the 50,000 people who gave to Clinton.

And of Obama's overall receipts, $23.5 million is eligible for use in the primary contests. Clinton officials have declined to disclose how much of her cash is available for the primaries -- rather than designated for the general election and therefore blocked off unless she wins the nomination -- raising suspicions that she raised less for the primaries than Obama did.

Kos adds more perspective:

[T]he larger small dollar donor base of Obama means he has much more room to grow in the coming quarters. The average donation to Obama was $250, while the average donation to Hillary was $520. Remember, Q1 is the low-hanging fruit. Q2 is a better indicator of which candidates are building a movement, and which ones are merely squeezing cash from their rolodexes.

Now look: there is no statistical correlation between how much money you raise and whether or not you get the nomination. Don't believe me? Just ask President Dean. That said, I'd rather have more (not less) money than my rivals.

P.S. And how does all of this compare to everyone else?

Democrats = $78 million

• Clinton $26
  
• Obama $25
  
• Edwards $14
  
• Richardson $6
  
• Dodd $4
  
• Biden $3

Republicans = $51 million

• Romney $23
  
• Giuliani $15
  
• McCain $12.5
  
• Huckabee $0.5

by shep

“The base isn't interested in Iraq. The base is for Bush. If Bush said tomorrow, we're leaving in two months, there would be no revolt.”

No great moral imperative. No existential threat from the islamofascistterroristassholes. No moral commitment to the country and peoples we set aflame. Just more innocent souls on the pyre for the pure sake of fealty to The Leader.

And here’s another terrific peek into the mind of the authoritarian follower:

“In retrospect, some of his comments and interaction – that at the time seemed edgy but innocent enough – now seem questionable.”

You see, when Ted Haggard was the authority figure of the New Life Church, and said, “evangelicals have the best sex life of any other group,” and “pulled aside two men from his congregation and asked how often their wives had orgasms,” he seemed “innocent enough.” Once he was demoted and disgraced those same comments “seem questionable,” to those same (now former) followers who previously thought they seemed "innocent."

The need for the authority dictates the positive perception of everything from correct professional conduct to appropriate personal behavior, regardless of what one sees with one’s own eyes. In this case, the exact same behavior is judged differently on different days, only Haggard’s authority had changed.

Think of all of the former Bush supporters, from Paul O’Neill to Matthew Dowd, who were unassailable the day before they turned against the Bush administration’s conduct and savaged the day after. Those people were not unimpeachable originally because the supporters judged that they merited it due to their character and integrity. They were respected or reviled, based soley upon their loyalty to the authority figure.

Different authority; different righteousness. When it comes to their leaders, Republicans are simply incapable of judging ethical behavior.

Things from Bush's Tuesday Rose Garden presser that you can brush off as just so much baloney:

"My main job is to protect the people..."

That's Bush Baloney #1.

Bush's main job is to protect the Constitution, not the people. That job description is so fundamentally important that he is required to swear an oath to fulfill it upon taking office. It's right there in...the Constitution!

Gosh, what could the framers have been thinking?

They were thinking that we needed to live in a Constitutionally limited republic where the people have certain inalienable rights. They were thinking that those rights must be protected against encroachment by any single individual seeking to gain absolute power. You know -- like the King against whom the colonists were rebelling.

As such, in Article I, they laid out the blueprint for the Legislative branch which was to be a co-equal branch to the Executive branch whose blueprint came in Article II. The co-equality was implemented through an intricate (but easy to understand) system of checks and balances.

Harry Reid:

[Bush] is president of the United States, not king of the United States. He has another branch of government, a legislative branch of government, he has to deal with.

Which brings us to Bush Baloney #2:

Congress shouldn't tell generals how to run the war.

Of course not -- who wants that?

But the fact remains: The military answers to a higher civilian authority, namely the President and his various delegates (e.g., the Secretary of Defense). In addition Congress has the authority to declare war and control the allocation of war funding. But above and beyond all that, these civilian authorities are nothing more than public servants who serve at the pleasure of the people. If the people want an end to a war, they have the final say so via the ballot box. True, the results of an election are not alwas easy to interpret, especially when it comes to foreign policy. But if ever there was a time when it was, this is it.

But why am I telling you that? You get it. It's Bush who doesn't understand his own job description.

by Mark Adams

I say this in all sincerely: Primary Polls this early MEAN NOTHING.

BUT ... What does matter is the narrative. The beltway pundits are the laziest "journalists" in the world. Take Timmeh! He doesn't go looking for stories, he waits for calls from the likes of Scooter, who always understands that everything is "off the record."

Polls are the media's way of making news instead of reporting on events. These polls will be talked about, and the trends noted. The movement will be discussed, and in the traditionally two most important primary states, Iowa and NH, the trends favor a positive media narrative for Edwards, and the opposite for Hillary and Obama.

The huge Feb. 5 primaries mean more when it comes to delegates, but those states are harder to poll, and the electorate there will be influenced by the media narrative of the polls in the earlier states.

For instance. Californians are in no way ready to think of themselves as an important primary state. The best that can be said of the state of the race, is that it's "fluid."

[Lots O Numbers after the jump]

(Cross posted at Daily Kos)

Winning the war of ideas against Islamic fundamentalism isn't going to be easy. But when are some people going to realize that we can't win it if we become more like them?

Case in point:

People are up in arms because UK teachers are dropping the Holocaust from their curricula to avoid offending Muslims.

But are we any better here at home? Apparently not. I just read that Robert Gates and Condi Rice are warning Nancy Pelosi against a Congressional vote to classify the killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish government early in the 20th century as genocide.

The reason?

Turkey remains an indispensable partner to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, helping our troops accomplish their mission to combat terrorism and build security in both of these young democracies...When the French National Assembly in October 2006 voted in favor of a bill that would criminalize denial of the events of 1915, the Turkish military cut all contacts with the French military and terminated defense contracts under negotiation. A similar reaction by the elected government of Turkey to a House resolution could harm American troops in the field, constrain our ability to supply our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan...

What bastards. What fear-mongering, shameless, bastards.

Now, let me be perfectly clear here: the French law criminalizing denial of the Armenian genocide is just as stupid as the Turkish law criminalizing any "insult to Turkishness" that might occur by talking openly about the genocide.

That said, let Pelosi's bill sail through Congress and be signed by the President, the sooner the better.

And tell Gates and Rice to sit down and shut up. Even if France and Turkey haven't heard of the First Amendment, we cannot afford to ignore it here at home...

....otherwise the terrorists really will have won, you know?

by shep

After reading David Broder’s piece on Sunday (I know), coming off of reading Matt Stoller on Hillary Clinton’s relationship with Fox News, I got to wondering why Rupert Murdoch and David Broder, ostensibly representing different center-right to right-wing perspectives, both seemed at least amenable to Clinton’s frontrunner status. Actually, no I didn’t. I know they both want the most establishment (read: corporatist) candidate from either party.

But I did start to wonder why so many Democrats were so wary of Clinton (Republicans are easy, they hate whomever they are told to hate). Her negatives, even among progressives, now seem fundamental. Yet overall, Democrats like the Clintons. They have both charmed us with activist rhetoric and framed many Democratic successes against Republicanism since the Reagan era.

A Hillary Clinton presidency would certainly be an agent for evolutionary change. She’d make a fine president, no doubt, in the context of the previous Clinton administration and, obviously, in stark contrast to the criminal enterprise now ensconced in the executive.

Yet, so far, Hillary is offering only incremental changes in policy: fewer troops in Iraq, corporate-run healthcare that is universally available (eventually) and, shockingly, not much at all about reducing fossil fuel consumption, rolling back the Republicans’ treasonous assault on the Bill of Rights and the rule of law, or the outrageous unfairness of income distribution and tax policy in America.

The trouble is, we may no longer have the luxury of incremental change. We’ve blown the last thirty years of opportunity to do something about fossil fuel consumption leading to climate change and now it may be too late to prevent utter catastrophe. We may have already traded our children’s future for a 3,000 sq. ft. builder’s special in the ex-urbs and driving around alone in a 3/4-ton truck.

Our healthcare system is killing us and that is not hyperbole. It directly kills 100,000 people a year just from mistakes in hospital care, many more from prescribed drugs, with a widely reviled tort system as its ultimate remedy. It is unaffordable for both individuals and employers, further undermining our competitiveness in world markets. It does little to help prevent disease. It is barely accessible to 46 million Americans, yet it is expected to collapse under the weight of the baby boomers (we are many and we are huge).

Meanwhile, the Bush Administration, aided and abetted by the most partisan and corrupt congress in generations (no small feat), have functionally gutted the Bill of Rights and the rule of law: the preeminent centuries-old law to protect citizens from tyranny – habeas corpus – gone in the blink of Alberto Gonzales’ eye, government torture, for god f*cking’s sake, unprovoked war and foreign occupation, the politicization of our justice system from top to bottom and corruption of our electoral system from coast to coast.

Finally, Republicans have so successfully deployed authoritarianism to demonize liberals and Democrats and otherwise corrupt the thinking of their followers; America is now so politically polarized we can no longer agree on the observable reality before us.

I am not overstating when I say: these things require immediate and radical change.

The non-authoritarian-following public, amazingly even the mainstream press, are awakening from the narcotic effects of 9/11 and WOT fear-mongering and seeing what the Republican movement is doing to wreck the government, the people’s instrument of power against industry-generated threats. They are anywhere from anxious to angry at what they see. Democrats may be selling everyone short if we fail to offer them a revolutionary, rather than evolutionary, opportunity for change.

(Cross posted at Daily Kos)

Obama fumbled the ball, seeming to say that if Bush vetoes the Iraq spending bill, the Senate will respond by passing an alternate bill with no timelines because (as he said) no lawmaker "wants to play chicken with our troops."

I'm disappointed that he didn't instinctively understand that this is poker we're playing and not chicken. In poker, you keep your cards "close to your vest" and put on your "poker face," because if your cards suck, you can still win if you scare the other guy into "folding." So whether or not Congress holds better cards here (I think they do), you never "tip your hand."

That said, I guess is that it'll get buried in the buzz about how much money he raised in the first quarter (the answer: "approximately a lot.")

Also, I'll look for the follow-up from Obama's campaign. Perhaps they'll expand on this comment, from the same piece:

"My expectation is that we will continue to try to ratchet up the pressure on the president to change course," the Democratic presidential candidate said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I don't think that we will see a majority of the Senate vote to cut off funding at this stage."

Ratchet up the pressure? More analogies! Hmmm [racking brain] what activity in real-life includes "ratcheting up the pressure?" Clamping a piece of wood to your workbench? So you can drill a deeper hole? Tell us, sensei!

"If the president vetoes this, the American people have to continue to put pressure on their representatives so that at some point we may be able to get a veto-proof majority for moving this war in a different direction," the senator said.

This is the school of thought that says Bush will own this war until the very end -- and/or until a Democrat (him?) wins the White House. This is smart politics, but lacks a certain passion and empathy for the suffering endured by military families around this country. It's not the kind of statement you'd hear from a Russ Feingold, for example. But, fact is, if Russ Feingold wrote the bill it would get all of about 25 votes in Congress (instead of 270+) -- and a sea of dreadful headlines. This is primarily what infuriates so many progressive bloggers to begin with.

It's also why Senators and Congressmen rarely win the White House. But maybe this time it'll be different. Heaven knows the system is under a lot of stress and tension; anything might happen.

UPDATE: Looks like Feingold wrote the next bill after all (cosponsored by Reid) -- and we're going to have a chance to see how many votes it'll get.

That's how you play poker -- Reid just pushed a pretty big pile of chips into the middle of the table. Now it's up to Bush to see Reid's bet and raise it -- or fold his cards (and sign the original bill).

If I was having more fun, I'd have to be twins!

by Mark Adams, Cross-Posted and KOS-Posted

Karl Rove would be proud. Barack Obama's stance on the war was supposedly unassailable, but is now up for debate. Legislatively, ethics reform is his strong suit, yet it too has come under fire. Wishful thinking and good intentions won't change the fact that sometimes failure to address the issues with substantive plans means ... well ... you lack substance.

That's just bad politics.

by shep

My, my, blogging on the internets has been good for Joe Klein. First, he acknowledges that, unlike Republicans, Democrats actually have a reason to be outraged at how they’ve been treated politically:

"It's obvious that the current level of vitriol on the left is a reaction to nearly twenty years of sewage emanating from Rush et al. ...The intemperance on the left has three other sources (1) justifiable fury over the Bush adminstration (2) justifiable fury over the way the media treated Clinton and, to a certain extent, Bush and (3) ideologues of any sort tend to be obnoxious."

Today, in a Hardball segment that should have been titled, “Republicanism Destroys America,” he says: (paraphrasing from memory) Republicans’ problem starts with Reagan and the belief that government is part of the problem, not part of the solution. If you don’t believe in government, you aren’t going to do policy carefully…,” (can’t wait for the transcript).

(To be fair to Klein, he really began the argument back in February.)

Andrew Sullivan chimes in with some crazy blather about how conservatives can only do small government, though I have no idea upon what he’s basing that silly observation.

Not surprisingly, the point goes right over Andrea Mitchell’s head and Mathew’s pumpkin (after the twin journalistic horror shows of Mathews and Russert, I propose that we start measuring the proportions of all prospective journalists’ noggins and screening out anyone who’s head looks like it should be attached to a rope and a pole.)

Anyway, as someone who swore long ago never to vote for any politician who denigrated the institution in which he sought office, or anyone who tried to bribe my vote with a tax cut, Klein’s point seems rather obvious: Republicans can’t govern because they don’t believe in government. The fact he’s considered a liberal and is practically alone among his establishment peers in this tragically belated revelation, tells you everything you need to know about how we got to this train wreck that is the natural product of Republican government.

Liberals saw it coming. At least Klein has finally figured out how it happened.