The United States: A Beacon Of Democracy

Setting the example. From Dan Froomkin:

Nick Wadhams writes for the Associated Press: "Several governments around the world have tried to rebut criticism of how they handle detainees by claiming they are only following the U.S. example in fighting terrorism, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture said Monday.

"Manfred Nowak said that when he criticizes governments for their questionable treatment of detainees, they respond by telling him that if the United States does something, it must be all right."

To Bolivian And Back Again

...So I'm back. Been busy at work and home, and too tired to write. My promised "next post" was foiled by none other than Paul Krugman, who wrote on that same subject: that voting in this election and next should be on party lines, regardless of the individual. Any Republican elected to office is going to enable the Bush Administration, and we can't afford that.

Here in Connecticut I had a certain regard for both Chris Shays and Nancy Johnson. Whenever I heard of Shays, he was speaking sense against some Republican position; and I had heard nothing against Johnson (neither of whom represent my district). Now, however, not only do I think they should be kicked out just for being Republican, they have been showing their true colors; Johnson's ads have been truly misleading and mendacious, and Shays is allowing his mouth to override his brain.

The polls here show Lieberman in the lead over Lamont; wherever you see a cluster of GOP yard signs, there is sure to be a "I'm Sticking With Joe" sign among them. He is the pet of the right wing, and we can only hope Lamont comes through. My own yard boasts two Lamont signs, a Courtney for Congress sign (US 2nd District) and a "Had Enough? Vote Democratic" sign.

The Big Picture

I used to get irritated with actors or sports figures who supported a particular charity, typically a disease with which they were afflicted: Christopher Reeves and spinal injuries, Michael J. Fox and Parkinson's. But eventually I understood: there are so many causes, from drought and starvation in Africa to Muscular Dystrophy-- no on can possibly cover all of them, or even keep in a persistent state of agitation at the tribulations in the world. Narrowing your focus to a particular problem and trusting others to pick up their share is rational and legitimate.

So, too, with political discourse. There are so many issues that can get your blood pressure up that it becomes necessary to limit yourself to a few choice ones at most and let the rest take care of themselves.

Some topics of particular interest to me:

• The recent bill authorizing torture and unlimited detention without legal recourse, even of American citizens
  
• The war in Iraq, which comes with several subheads: the continuing incompetence in the overall policy (if any), the lies that led to the invasion itself, the corruption endemic in the letting and execution of contracts, the stubborn refusal to acknowledge facts when they conflict with political desires, and so on ad nauseum.
  
• Lack of oversight by Congress and the usurpation of power by the Executive Branch
  
• Rampant corruption in Congress and the inordinate power wielded by lobbyists
  

Those are the biggies off the top of my head. Others that come to mind that are useful for beating up Republicans on, and are in and of themselves important, but don't threaten the republic (in no particular order):

• The Republican leadership's handling of the Foley issue, ignoring a problem for political reasons and then covering it up when exposed (sorry)
  
• The economy: driving every decision to the benefit of Big Business
  
• Tax policy: the enrichment of the already rich on the backs of the middle and lower classes
  
• Environmental policy: the watering-down of the Clean Air Act, the opening of national forests to lumbering, the relaxing of regulations all around, and on and on
  
• Energy policy: the focus on drilling for more oil rather than on increasing fuel economy standards or renewable resources
  

There are many more, and my one-line summaries don't do justice, of course, to the complexities of each, but I'm running out of my lunch hour here. The real focus should be on defeating the Republicans in November. More on that later.

How I Learned To Stop Worrying...

How many people are going to use that line? Lots, I'll bet. It's appropriate. That North Korea felt that now was the time to test a nuclear device says a lot about the opinion held by them of the United States. President Bush has his trifecta-- he has managed to take his "Axis of Evil" and make our situation with each worse. Forget Teddy Roosevelt: Bush has his own policy: "Speak loudly, but carry a limp dick." And there's no chance of scoring any Viagra until January, 2009.

Here's David Wallechinsky in The Huffington Post. It's short, so I am copying the whole thing.

In his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, President Bush dubbed North Korea, Iran and Iraq an "axis of evil." When he invaded Iraq fourteen months later and overthrew Saddam Hussein, many Americans thought that this would teach a lesson to the leaders of the other two axis members, Kim Jong-il of North Korea and the ruling mullahs of Iran.

They did learn a lesson...but it wasn't the one the Bush administration intended. The North Koreans and the Iranians looked around the world and saw that countries that had nuclear weapons, like Pakistan and China, were not in danger of being invaded by George Bush, while Saddam Hussein, who didn't have a nuclear weapons program, was in prison and being tried for war crimes. If you were the leaders of North Korea or Iran, what would you do to ensure that your country would not be invaded by the United States? Easy call: you build nuclear weapons, which is exactly what both of them are doing. Nice going, Mister President.

Here's a brief excerpt of what Glenn Greenwald has to say:

Independent of how well or poorly the Clinton administration dealt with North Korea -- and there is room for reasonable debate on that question -- there is no getting around several facts: (a) the North Korean threat has grown substantially during the Bush presidency; (b) the course we have followed for managing that threat has failed on every level; and (c) our ability to credibly threaten any military confrontation is virtually nonexistent.

It may seem to be a sideshow, that there is all this finger-pointing going on: shouldn't we be working on resolving the issues? Well, that would be nice, but a) we should know how we got to this point so that we don't repeat our mistakes, and b) from a political standpoint, you know the right is going to be vigorously pointing the other way (Clinton, anyone?). There has been one party in charge for the last six years, and it ain't been the Democrats, and Bill Clinton hasn't been President.

Here is Eric Alterman, in his new Altercation blog site, with some background, taken from The Book on Bush. He has much of interest; read the whole thing. This is a sample:

Bush had already undermined the extremely sensitive negotiations under way to bring the North Korean regime into the international system. When South Korean president (and Nobel laureate) Kim Dae Jung visited Washington six weeks after Bush took office, Bush humiliated both his guest and his own secretary of state by publicly repudiating the negotiations after both had just publicly endorsed them. (Powell had termed their continuation "a no-brainer.")

Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly floats the possibility that the test may have been a dud. Brad Plumer has a post up in which he discusses the situation, with many good links to more information.

And Kevin Drum (again) quotes Glenn Kessler reporting that administration officials have been eagerly anticipating the North Korean's test. Kevin sums up:

Let's recap: The Bush/Cheney administration took a bad situation with Iraq and made it even worse. They've taken a bad situation with Iran and made it even worse (see here, here, and here). They've taken a bad situation with North Korea and made it even worse (see Fred Kaplan here). At every step along the way, they've deliberately taken actions that cut off any possibility of solving our geopolitical problems with anything other than military force.

Once is a singular event. Twice might be a coincidence. But three times? That's a policy. Encouraging these "clarifying events" appears to be the main goal of the Bush administration. This is not the way to make America safer.

The Armed Forces is in no condition to invade Grenada again, much less face North Korea. Air strikes, naval bombardment, cruise missiles, sure; and the response to that will be a massive land attack over the DMZ. South Korea will enjoy that scenario. And what of Japan? I wouldn't be surprised to learn they are cranking up their own nuclear research-- the Israel of the Far East. Who could blame them? Thank our Limp-Dick Diplomacy.

Thank You, Folks. I'm Here All Week

This one is hilarious. Via Atrios, go here to see a Congressman brag about "how the Republican government does so much for the people. His example? Katrina." The audience laughs at him. Priceless!

Habeas Corpus, RIP

From Froomkin, President Bush in one of his rabble-rousing speeches says:

...one senior Democrat, their ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, compared the brave Americans who question the terrorists to the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. I believe this exposes a dangerous mind-set on the part of Democrats in the United States Congress. You can't defend America if you can't tell the difference between brave CIA officers who protect their fellow citizens and brutal dictators who kill their citizens. (Applause.)

"I'm not making any of this up. (Laughter.)"

"Ah, but of course," says Froomkin, "Bush was making it up." Here is a portion of the speech by Senator Patrick Leahy, and you really should go and read the rest of the quote at the link above:

Initially, you are not very worried. After all, this is America. You are innocent, and you have faith in American justice. You know your rights, and you say: I would like to talk to a lawyer. But no lawyer comes. Once again, since you know your rights, you refuse to answer any further questions. Then the interrogators get angry. Then comes solitary confinement, then fierce dogs, then freezing cold that induces hypothermia, then waterboarding, then threats of being sent to a country where you know you will be tortured, then Guantanamo. And then nothing, for years, for decades, for the rest of your life.

That may sound like an experience from some oppressive and authoritarian regime, something that may have happened under the Taliban, something that Saddam Hussein might have ordered or something out of Kafka.

Welcome to your new United States of America.

Pretty Obvious

From The Carpetbagger Report (via Atrios). Go and read the whole thing; as a Republican spokesman, Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) leaves something to be desired:

LAHOOD: It just — it's a program that simply is flawed. It has its flaws. We should fix it. And then if it's a valuable program, perhaps bring it back.

MILES O'BRIEN [CNN]: Well, that's kind of a sorry state of affairs. In essence, what you're saying is that members of Congress can't be trusted to be around young people.

LAHOOD: Well, that's pretty obvious.

I really have nothing to add to The Carpetbagger but, "Heh. Indeed."

They Knew, After All

Update to my previous post: George Tenet told select members of the 9/11 Commission about the July 10, 2001 meeting. They chose not to pass that to the whole commission, nor to put it in the final report.

But wait-- there's more! Seems that the original presentation was given not only to Rice, but to Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft as well:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former Attorney General John Ashcroft received the same CIA briefing about an imminent al-Qaida strike on an American target that was given to the White House two months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.


The State Department's disclosure Monday that the pair was briefed within a week after then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was told about the threat on July 10, 2001, raised new questions about what the Bush administration did in response, and about why so many officials have claimed they never received or don't remember the warning...

Former CIA Director George Tenet gave the independent Sept. 11, 2001, commission the same briefing on Jan. 28, 2004, but the commission made no mention of the warning in its 428-page final report. According to three former senior intelligence officials, Tenet testified to commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste and to Philip Zelikow, the panel's executive director and the principal author of its report, who's now Rice's top adviser.

hat tip Josh Marshall

She's Not Called A Secretary For Nothin'

This is a bit from the 9/11 Commission's questioning of Condoleezza Rice. It was quoted by Greg Mitchell in this piece about the July 10, 2001 meeting Condi didn't mention.

It tells you all you need to know about your Secretary of State: she's perfectly willing to act, as soon as someone tells her to. Hello? Condi? You're at the top of the chain of command-- you're supposed to initiate these things! If the whole administration works this way, it would explain a lot: one decisive man (*cough* Cheney *cough*) could run the show. (emphasis mine)

ROEMER: So, Dr. Rice, let's say that the FBI is the key here. You say that the FBI was tasked with trying to find out what the domestic threat was. We have done thousands of interviews here at the 9/11 Commission. We've gone through literally millions of pieces of paper. To date, we have found nobody -- nobody at the FBI who knows anything about a tasking of field offices.

We have talked to the director at the time of the FBI during this threat period, Mr. Pickard. He says he did not tell the field offices to do this.

And we have talked to the special agents in charge. They don't have any recollection of receiving a notice of threat.
Nothing went down the chain to the FBI field offices on spiking of information, on knowledge of al Qaeda in the country, and still, the FBI doesn't do anything.

Isn't that some of the responsibility of the national security advisor?

RICE: The responsibility for the FBI to do what it was asked was the FBI's responsibility. Now, I...

ROEMER: You don't think there's any responsibility back to the advisor to the president...

RICE: I believe that the responsibility -- again, the crisis management here was done by the CSG. They tasked these things. If there was any reason to believe that I needed to do something or that Andy Card needed to do something, I would have been expected to be asked to do it. We were not asked to do it. In fact, as I've...

ROEMER: But don't you ask somebody to do it? You're not asking somebody to do it. Why wouldn't you initiate that?

RICE: Mr. Roemer, I was responding to the threat spike and to where the information was. The information was about what might happen in the Persian Gulf, what might happen in Israel, what might happen in North Africa. We responded to that, and we responded vigorously.

(updated to correct spelling errors)

Republican Page Scandal:Gay=Predator

I have nothing to add to the multiple commenters on this from the blogs to the right of this page; the initial revelation is bad enough, but what makes it really significant (from a national point of view) is the appalling initial concealment of the activity, and the subsequent cover-up.

This, however, via Glenn Greenwald, is pretty pathetic:

After reviewing the fact that Hastert was told months ago about the e-mails sent by Foley to the 16-year-old page (a fact which Hastert first categorically denied and -- after Reps. Reynolds and Boehner both said they told Hastert -- he now claims not to recall), Hinderaker offers this defense of Hastert:

I've never been Speaker of the House, but I can imagine that such a conversation would not be among the most significant Hastert has had in the last year, and would not necessarily make a deep impression. Foley was, I take it, generally assumed to be gay.

Hinderaker then devotes two paragraphs to discussing the cases of Gerry Studds and Barney Frank -- two other gay Congressmen involved in sex scandals (with individuals of legal age) -- and Hinderaker then says:

So I'm not particularly surprised that Foley wrote some "over-friendly"--I'm sure I would find them creepy--emails to one or more underage pages.

So as best I can tell, this is Hinderaker's defense: Hastert knew that Foley was gay, so it would hardly have been a surprise to Hastert to learn that Foley was harassing underage pages. Hastert is a very busy and important man and something as unsurprising as the fact that the homosexual Foley was a sexual predator pursuing underage pages would hardly have been news to Hastert and certainly isn't anything that should have prompted his attention. A gay Congressman pursues minors, the sun comes up in the morning. That's just the way the world works. Why would Hastert take notice?

So, as far as Hindraker (of the Powerline blog) is concerned, a man lusting after young boys is standard operating procedure for a gay person, and nothing to be surprised at. Pedophile == gay, and vice-versa, case closed.

I just don't know what to say; draw your own conclusions and let me hear them in comments.