Out of Town

Like the President, I will be out of the loop for the week and will resume blogging on the 6th.

But Who's Counting

Yesterday, according to the WSJ the President gave a speech inwhich he said that America's economy is "strong." He said "strong" seven times. True, GDP numbers showed growth of 3.4%, not as high as the world's pace of around 5%, but better than last quarter's miscroscopic growth.

On the same day, when we celebrating this strength, the Dow fell about 300 points and risk premiums of all sorts took a jump. "Strong" not so much. Maybe "skitterish" or "nervous" is a better word. The President, of course, made no attempt to square these realities with his statements and it did not appear anyone really forced his hand. It's like we just assume the guy's out of the loop. We now take his insincerity for granted.

Get Serious

This weekend, NBC's News' David Gregory castigated Hillary Clinton and "the left" for not being "serious" about the Iraq War. First, so much for the purported objectivity of NBC's White House Bureau. I guess we know where they stand.

Second, I do not understand why pundits and politicians continuously refer to people who are anti war as being somehow unserious. Like we lack the gravitas of our life taking brothers. Why is viewing the unncessary taking of human life as a mistake not a "serious" position? Why does a willingnes to engage our troops in combat somehow make you "serious?" Why are you only "serious" if you are supporting the position of those in power? Should a proximity to those in dark suits render you more "serious" than anyone else?

Can anyone examine the run up to this war and the feints and denials that now accompany it and think for a moment that our government is morally or intellectually serious? Can anyone look at the carnage, both physical and reputational, that this war has brought and not think an anti war position is serious?

I think "serious" has come to mean "mainstream," "inoffensive" and "in line with our leaders." That has the effect of rendering anyone oustside a very narrow and shallow band a lightweight.

There is something seriously wrong with that.

Gotta Be a Record

Today the President was speaking in Charleston, SC. He used the phrase "Al Queda" over 90 time in a little more than 30 minutes.

It seems the President's strategy is to keep pointing out that there is a group called Al Queda in Mesopotamia in Iraq. Bang that home and maybe the public will think we should stay there. He seems to ignore the fact that Iraq was an Al Queda free zone before the invasion, that AQM has no operational ties to the folks in Pakistan and seems to be an Iraqi creation (or so says our intelligence), and are a supplement to, not a diversion of AQ forces internationally. Moreover, Iraq is just a never ending recruitment video for AQ in every backwater of the Middle East.

Cry Me a River

I read Maureen Dowd's column this morning in which she details the change of heart her red state family is having about President Bush and Iraq. I am very sympathetic to folks who put their faith in a political figure only to be disappointed. I have bellied up to that bar too often myself. But "W" is a bit different to me. I keep asking "How could you ever?" As in:

How could you ever think a man who did not know the names of major world leaders and boasted of his own lack of intellectual heft was going to pull off the Presidency?

How could you ever countenance invading a country when we had no evidence (let alone the type of convincing evidence that would justify taking lives) they posed us a threat?

How could you veer think that man who used his faith in such an openly manipulative way was not just a little creepy?

How could you continue to support the man after "Mission Accomplished" and "Bring 'em on?"

How could you ever think putting American boots on Muslim ground was not going to be a fight?

How could you ever elect a man who proudly boasted a worldview that stopped being descriptive about 1954?

Instinctually I know the answers to these questions. Many Americans based their votes on the American they imagine to exist and not the America that is. Or worse, the enemies we hoped we had, not he enemies we had. That is a sad thing but it is also telling. The challenge for progressives/liberals/leftists and everyone else who has been horrified by the last eight years, is not to demonize George Bush. He has done that work for us. It is rather to demonstrate that the mistakes we have made are not simply the foibles of one very incompetent man, they are the failures of a certain world view, a certain set of assumptions about the US, its place in the world, the role of government and what constitutes the good life. This world view has had its presumptive home in the Republican Party and its satellites and has been hammered home to us through the media, think tanks, and talk radio. It has become so pervasive, many view it as "common sense" or "the way things are" not an ideology. A few of the more obvious elements of this worldview are:

The US represents the end of ideology. Everyone wants to be like us and if they don't, they should. We are the end of the evolutionary chain. The values of our liberal democracy are universal.

Private markets dispense justice. What is good for the market is what constitutes good policy.

Rich countries and rich individuals got that way, not through any unnatural advantage, but through dint of hard work, innovation and innate intelligence. Forcing rich countries or rich individuals to share their wealth constitutes some type of punishment.

Wealth is private and not social.

The US is a victim of a cabal of foreign powers and there is no one with a credible grievance against us.

Government should stay off our backs in the marketplace but should enforce a rigorous moral code of conduct as it relates to sexuality and family life.

More to come.....

This Week in the News

This week, Michael Moore's exploration of the American healthcare industry, "Sicko," continued to garner positive reviews. Moore's film, which is critical of a corporate driven healthcare system, has drawn fire from the insurance industry and their representatives who charge that Moore has exxagerated both the problems in the American healthcare system and the achievemnts of other countries, particularly those with so called "single payer" systems. Stated industry flak Paul D. Ductible, "Moore's film is just liberal propoganada. Why, if our healthcare system was a bad as he says it is, we would have millions of uninsured people, one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world, we would be spending our healthcare dollars inefficiently, costs would be skyrocketing, and every politician in the last ten years would have been talking about reform.... oh wait... I think I mixed up my notes... hold on...."

This week, while Iraq dominated the front page, the President kept his hand in domestic politics as well. The President threatened to veto a bipartisan bill that would have increased funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) by $35 billion over seven years. The program currently covers 6.3 million children whose parents do not qualify for Medicaide but who cannot afford private insurance. The bill would expand the program's reach by 3.3 million children. According to the President (we are not making this up) he is concerned that expanding the program would lead some families to chose it rather than private insurance thus expanding the size of the federal government. Leading Republicans have pleaded with the President to change his position to no avail. According to one White House source, these efforts have included short tutorials on "Why Kids and Healthcare Go Together" and "No One Likes a Cold Hearted Assh-le."

The week, Atlanta Falcons Quarterback Michael Vick was indicted for crimes arising from illegal dogfighting. This raises two important societal questions: 1) what kind of sick bastard participates in dogfighting? and 2) what type of sick bastard allows Joey Harrington another chance to start in the NFL?

This week, the government declassified certain portions of a new National Intelligence Estimate which says that Al Queda's operational capabilities likely exceed their capabilities in 2001and that the invasion of Iraq has had little effect on the group except to increase recruitment. (In other words, they can fight us over there and over here.) One army officer was relieved of his command when a soldier in his command was charged with the death of an Iraqi man. Violence increased in the areas around Baghdad. Asked how many more people had to die to preserve the illusion of leadership and national superiority, the White House responded, "We are working on that algorithm. We think the number is close to 800. But the number is self squaring and changes daily. I mean, we may have to rack up a bigger body count to convince ourselves the curent body count has been worthwhile. Its like watching cancer cells multiply under a microscope."

This week, the Administration continued its fight to keep its internal deliberations secret. Not only has the Adminstration claimed an unprecedented "Exceutive Privilege" that covers virtually all presidential communications, it now claims that the Department of Justice cannot bring a contempt charge to challenge that privilege. Asked for comment on this astonishing view of Executive powers, one White House aide would only say, "It's hail mary time. Iraq is in the dumps. The president's approval rating is at freezing. Dick is under scrutiny. Fredo (Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez) is up to his neck in a Constitutional mess. I think we are just going to go for broke and take a position that says we get to do what we want when we want. We lose and we are where we are right now. Crapsville. We win, and Dick Cheney is basically a czar. Sometimes you just gotta launch the ball downfield and see if the people will respect your chutzpah."

This week, a new CBS poll shows that while Sen. Hillary Clinton enjoys the support of a majority of female voters, older married women harbor some suspicions of her. Ever curious we sought out some older married female voters. Paula Preston of Reston, VA (54) noted, " I look at Hillary and I see a woman who stayed married to a flawed man just because he could offer her certain things she wanted. Their marriage is like a business deal with all sorts of trade offs. Its like looking in the freakin' mirror, only all I got in return was a split level in a nice suburb." Tricia Trenchmouth of Passaic, NJ offered, "Her marriage is just a cheap and cynical front. I mean, I stay married to my husband, he manages a hedge fund-- because I love him, not becuase marriage to a corporate executive provides me a certain lifestyle without having to work. I mean, if he cheated on me, I would leave all that in a minute... sure I would..."

Oh Please

I noticed in today's Post that John Edwards is getting some criticism for highlighting poverty in his campaign. Seems like some doubt his sincerity because he himself is far from poor. I really don't understand that logic. If he highlighted AIDS, would people be upset because he doesn't have it? What is he supposed to do, stay poor and powerless his whole life? (And what if he did? Would a country that worships ambition elect him President? I doubt it.)

The funny thing about poverty is that most people don't aspire to it, and those who are afflicted with it tend to spend a lot of energy trying to escape it. I do not think there is anything hypocritical about wanting other people to have the same economic security you have, and to want more, not less, Americans enjoying the benefits of the middle class. There is nothing hypocritical about wanting the same toeholds and footholds you used on your way up to be available to those behind you. It's time to dump the idea that in order to advocate for the impoverished you have to be wearing a barrel.

In the same vein, the whole $400 haircut thing is sad. Of course he has an expensive haircut. He is running for President in a country that likes its president's to come from central casting, who demand that everything about a candidate's life be "presidential." Face it, if Edwards starting going to Supercuts, the media would be all over how he looks like a hick and has an unpolished presentation and just doesn't seem ready for the job. Whaddya think Ronald Reagan just had Nancy pull out the Flobie and add a dollop of pomade?

I think alot of the outrage about expensive haircuts and the like is not so much at the candidates, it is at ourselves for being so obsessed with the superficial.

What a Difference Time Makes

This is Wendy Vitter speaking about her husband, Rep. Ravid Vitter (R LA) who admitted to frequenting prostitutes:

"Like all marriages, ours is not perfect. None of us are. But we choose to work together as a family. When David and I dealt with this privately years ago, I forgave David. I made the decision to love him and to recommit to our marriage. To forgive is not always the easy choice, but it was and is the right choice for me. David is my best friend."

Touching. But this is Wendy Vitter speaking about Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2000:

"I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me."

(For those of you who do not recall, Lorena Bobbitt achieved minor fame for emasculating her husband, John Wayne Bobbitt, while he slept.)

Golly whiz. I guess feelings change based on whether you are trying to wreck someone else's husband's political career or salvage your own husband's political career. Or maybe its easier to be self righteous when you are not looking in the mirror.

Keep At it Bushie

“I mean, people have access to health care in America,” he said last week. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.” (The President, last week.)

Some Potential

I see that Iraq Prime Minsister Nouri Al Maliki stated that US troops are free to leave whenever they want and that he believes that his security forces can handle the job. While I suspect this is a move to give his government some semblance of credebility, a smart person in the Bush Administration might use this as a springboard for disengagement. Just say, "We disagree with the PM on the readiness of his forces, but we are not the ruler of this country, he is, and in keeping with our policy of not being an occupying army yada yada..vamoose"

The PM's statment creates an opportunity, but also creates some risk. We have now been shown the door. If we remain, we risk reinforcing the image that we are occupying Iraq without the consent of its people.

Bring Back Jessica Hahn

I just watched a video transcript of former Bush Aide Sara Taylor's testimony before Congress. Two points 1) between Monica Goodlow (a former Gonzalez aide) and Taylor it just seems that Republicans can't get enough of blondes with big old hair. If there were ever a "Women of the West Wing" spread in Playboy it would look like the University of Nebraska cheerleading squad in 1988. Second, it is very apparent that the "executive privilege" (caps not deserved) that Taylor keeps talking about is a creation of White House counsel Fred Fielding. Its content seems to be "information detrimental to the President is privileged, but information which appears to take the heat off can be readily divulged." Plus she keeps waiving it .. .and the remembering it .. and waiving .... and remembering it.

I hope the Democrats on the Commmitee -- it looks like Arlen Specter is the only Republican who shows up -- have the courage to bring a contempt charge and burst through this made up privilege. If not, they are basically allowing the Executive to carry on its business without any threat of public oversight. (Am I wrong, or would the executive privilege as framed here prevented John Dean from ratting out Nixon?).

This Week in The News

This week, another oops from the Department of Justice. In 2005, while he was urging the re-authorization of the Patriot Act, Attorney General Alberto "Fredo" Gonzalez stated that "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," related to the expanded powers the Act gave the FBI. Not so true. It seems that Gonzalez had received up to a half dozen reports from the FBI itself about illegally obtained information before he made that statement. The DOJ has refused to confirm or deny whether the Attorney General actually read the memos addressed to him. The disclosure did not seem to bother the AG though, "Right now I am in a good place. My incompetence and lying have been the subject of congressional hearings and El Presidente continues to support me like the mother of his illegitimate child. So I lied .... again. Ohhh boy, George will be really sore at me now... What's he gonna do? Fire me for making a mockery of the DOJ. That ship sailed my friend."

This week, we needed a reality check. Iraq. Guantanamo. Warrantless wiretaps. Abu Ghraib. National Security letters. The Attorney General Scandal. The Plame Affair. The Libby Commutation. Tax Breaks for the Wealthy. Executive Privilege. The Almighty Vice President. It all starts to add up. So TWN intrepidly went out in search of "twofers," those people who voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and in 2004 to find out exactly what they were thinking. We found Michael Buckminster in Patoon, WI. According to Michael, " I saw this country was facing a new type of enemy, a rapidly changing economy and a shifting world order . Last thing you want is someone who is going to overthink all that. Stick with what you know." We received an e-mail from Mark Tomlin in Ferris, Illinois: "The thing was, Bush did a so much better job of pretending that he was just like me than Kerry or Gore with all their fancy smarty pants talk. In the end, they looked like smart guys trying to look average. Bush was really good at being average. Heck he even looked less than average." Lastly, Sally Goldenrod of Montrose Beach, FL wrote: "After 9/11, I was just so scared. And the President and Vice President just seemed so strong and resolute. Why they wouldn't let the law get in the way of making me feel safe and they certainly weren't going to let a bunch of angry Arabs interfere with my way of life. It was like they just said, "Relax. Trust us. Go shopping. We will keep you safe."

This week, Sen David Vitter (R LA) publicly apologized after his phone number was discovered in the personal directory of Washington Madame Pamela Martin. Vitter, a conservative Republican, who boasts support for traditional values admitted to a "sinful" relationship. Vitter, who also serves as the Southern Director for Rudy Giuliani's campaign, chafed at any allegation that his conduct was hypocritical, however, "I am now and always have been a supporter of traditional marriage. That means man gets married. Man gets bored. Man gets a little sumpin' on the side. Man is found out. Man puts on show of contrition. It does not get any more traditional than that. Shoot. Goes back to Adam."

This week Pope Benedict XVI (a/k/a "the Rat") issued two proclamations aimed at undoing the work of the 1962 Vatican Council. The first document liberalised the use of the Tridentine Mass (ie the "Latin Mass"), a cause celebre among Catholic traditionalists who believe the faith lost its magic once people could understand it. In the second document, the Pope declared that all Protestant demoninations are not "churches" in the true sense of the word as Christ established only the Holy Roman Catholic Church and, last he checked, the Protestants weren't paying any license fees. Responding to criticism of both documents the Pope fired back with typical style: "As always, the Church believes the best of times are behind us and while we cannot reach all the way back to the glory days of the Middle Ages, we can try to recapture a bit of the pre Vatican II life. Heady days for an authoritarian fellow like me. So few choices. So many restrictions. So much faith in institutions. So much condemnation. And the guilt. Don't even get me started. We had guilt like no one's business. We made the jews look positively self indulgent..... I miss the hungry years."

This week, Richard Carmona the former Surgeon General (2002 - 2006) told a Congressional oversight committee that the Bush Administration routinely prevented him from speaking on subjects such as abstinence education, stem cell research and contraception when scientific data conflicted with the White House's stand on an issue. The result, according to Dr. Carmona, was that the public was often given information that omitted critical facts or was "scientifically incorrect." (real quote) Carmona joins the heads of NASA and the NIH in claiming that scientific data was suppressed in favor of ideology. responding on behalf of the White House, Tony Snow commented only that a reliance on science was just a "little too Gore-y for this President."

This week we learned that CIA Director Michael Hayden told the President in November of 2006 that the government of Iraq was fatally unstable and "unable to sustain and defend itself." (real quote). This week, the White House released its own study that admitted that in many critical areas the Iraqi government is paralyzed or regressing. This week, the US intelligence community leaked a memo indicating that Al Queda has greater operational strength than it did in 2001. This week, the President gave a speech in Cleveland in which he steadfastly promised to continue his current policies in Iraq. I am sure there is something funny here, but you are going to have to hunt for it.

The Disappearing Credebility of Chris Matthews

I just had to reprint these bits of dialogue from Fox' Hardball with Chris Matthews. The context is the President has just landed on an aircraft carrier festooned with huge sign that says "Mission Accomplished." He is wearing a flightsuit.

MATTHEWS: What's the importance of the president's amazing display of leadership tonight?
[...]

MATTHEWS: What do you make of the actual visual that people will see on TV and probably, as you know, as well as I, will remember a lot longer than words spoken tonight? And that's the president looking very much like a jet, you know, a high-flying jet star. A guy who is a jet pilot. Has been in the past when he was younger, obviously. What does that image mean to the American people, a guy who can actually get into a supersonic plane and actually fly in an unpressurized cabin like an actual jet pilot?

[...]

MATTHEWS: Do you think this role, and I want to talk politically [...], the president deserves everything he's doing tonight in terms of his leadership. He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics. Do you think he is defining the office of the presidency, at least for this time, as basically that of commander in chief? That [...] if you're going to run against him, you'd better be ready to take [that] away from him.

[...]

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, Bob Dornan, you were a congressman all those years. Here's a president who's really nonverbal. He's like Eisenhower. He looks great in a military uniform. He looks great in that cowboy costume he wears when he goes West. I remember him standing at that fence with Colin Powell. Was [that] the best picture in the 2000 campaign?

[...]

To be fair, right wing wingnut Anne Coulter was also on the show and she gushed about the President in a way that suggested she wanted him to accomplish some mission on the decks of her vaguely anorexic body. This was a pathetic display of childish (and strangely homoerotic) hero worship, of truly superficial news coverage, that no one should ever let Matthews forget. He showed himself to be a bootboy of the highest order.

A Good Day to be Al Gore

Al Gore lost the presidency to George W Bush in 2000. Since then he told us that we should pay more attention to global warming. He told us that the Iraq Invasion was a bad idea. He told us that the Bush Administration was playing it fast and lose with its accountability to the American people. He told us that our media's obsession with fake celebrity news was dangerous. In 2000 people did not vote for Al Gore becuase he was not a regular guy and he rolled his eyes and snorted when George W. Bush told a whopper of a lie during a debate. Since then the mainstream press has come up with all sorts of names for him. Joe Klein of Time has called his "crazy" and a "scold." Pople accused him of having sour grapes.

Now it seems that Mr. Gore was right about Global Warming. Right about Iraq. Right about the President. Right about the media. Now there are some people who want him to run for President again.

It must be awfully tempting for him not to snort and roll his eyes.

A Catch 22

I worked my way through the Sixth Circuit's opinion in the domestic wiretapping case. For those of you who do not remember (and this is America, so it is a lot)a federal judge in Detroit declared the warrantless wiretapping program unconstitutional. Last week, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the lower court 2-1. Interestingly the two justices in favor of overturning were Republican nominees (Batchhleder and Gibbons) the dissenter (Gilman) was a Clinton appointee.

Contrary to some commentators, the Sixth Circuit did not hold that the program of warrantless wiretaps of US citizens was constitutional. Rather is said that the plaintiffs lacked standing to pursue their claims. (Standing is a doctrine that determines who can bring a lawsuit.) The Court said that the Plaintiffs could not prove they were actually harmed by the program and thus were unable to bring a case. This creates a bit of a Catch 22 because no one will ever know if they were harmed by the program because the program is a secret. So, this decision essentially allows the program to go forward. It also fortifies the idea of government secrecy by barring the types of lawsuits that would force the government to disclose their activities.

This is, unfortunately, a huge victory for conservatives who have been advocating for a narrow doctrine of standing for at least a decade. The Federalist Society, Heritage Foundation and the like have spent a lot of ink arguing that the federal courts should restrict the ability of private citizens to bring lawsuits aagaints their government on constitutional grounds, and the "actual injury" standard was always their basis. Note that this decision comes on the heels of a decision that held that a private citizen lacked standing to challenge expenditures made by the Executive Branch of government. It seems conservative justices do not like the idea of accountability and are willing to shield government officials from the oversight of the citizenry.



It is sad that at a time when the country is finally starting to wake up from its conservative wet dream, the federal courts will be able to carry on the conservative agenda for some time.

Shocked, Shocked I Say

This morning rep, John Conyers suggested that Scooter Libby's sentence was commuted in order to avoid Libby implicating others in the Plame Affair in an effort to negotiate his freedom. The White House was incredulous at the very thought.

A commutation in exchange for silence? Now who would ever think that?

Great Moments in Hubris and Faux Machismo

Four years ago today:

Anybody who wants to harm American troops will be found and brought to justice. There are some who feel like that if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely. They don't understand what they're talking about, if that's the case. Let me finish. There are some who feel like -- that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring them on. We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation."

-- Pres. GW Bush

Friends in Low Places

The President commuted the sentence of I. "Scooter" Libby, previously convicted of perjury. By commuting Libby's sentence only months after all his talk about "accountability" in the Plame Affair, the President who did comedic impressions of a prisoner he put to death in Texas, who executed a mentally retarded prisoner, whose Attorney General has supported the unbending application of mandatory minimum sentences even for non violent criminals, has shown once again that he is a man of perilously few principles. He is a hypocrite and a fake. That is on him. We elected him twice. That's on us.

And please do not talk to me about President Clinton. The cases are very different legally and factually. (Mr. Clinton lied about a matter not related to his presidential duties in a civil lawsuit. Furthermore, he did not pardon himself or commute his on sentence.) But more to the point, when Republicans were preparing to impeach Mr. Clinton they argued that the rule of law was the rule of law regardless of how you felt about the underlying offense. A lie was a lie they said. Geese. Ganders.

And please don't tell me about the President's compassion. It seems only to extend to those people who look like him, think like him, and have done him favors. That is not compassion. It is cronyism.

Buy One Get One Free

According to this morning's NYT, the US military is blaming the deaths of at least five US soldiers on Iranian forces acting in Iraq. This claim has been around for awhile an the White House has long maintained -- without much proof -- that Iran is arming Shiite militias in Iraq. (Interestingly, some time ago Gen Peter Pace stated there was no evidence of Iranian influence in Iraq. He was later retired.) It appears now, the US has wratcheted up the rhetoric a notch. If true, the claim that Iran is taking action against our servicemen and women in Iraq may be considered an act of war. Accordingly, our government may be trying to lay the groundwork for a strike against Iran.

It would, of course, be quite tragic if our failed policy in Iraq bought us a war in not only in that country, but in Iran as well. One recalls our President being warned by the Vatican about the "unforseen consequences" of war in Iraq.

Furthermore, the piece of kabuki theater the Administration is acting out here is a little hard to believe. Did we really think that after a decade long war with Iraq, that Iran would just stand on the sidelines after Saddam was deposed? Isn't it unrealistic to assume that Tehran would simply ignore an opportunity to vastly expand its influence in the Middle East by seeking to exert control over a Iraq? Are we really to believe that the White House is "shocked, shocked I say" about this?