GOP Mantra: Enjoy Gay Sex But Deny It!

Oh, the crocodile tears from the Repubs. Oh, the sadness about Larry Craig being forced to resign. Oh, the “rush to judgment” rhetoric. The talk-shows have been full of tsk-tsk and tut-tut about all the good Larry Craig has done (and what is that, may I ask? Who knew Craig’s name until his footsie-in-the-crapper escapade?). Oh, the moaning that the Larry Craig case was purely and simply a hatchet job. Even Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) has been mentioned in the same breath with Larry Craig, as in, if-Craig-why-not-Frank? context. Here’s the thing: It’s the hypocrisy, stupid. (And I will tell you why not Barney Frank. Barney Frank has never hidden the fact that he is gay. He may not have advertised it during the first years of his political life, but he NEVER hid it or denied it.) For the past twenty years Larry Craig has spoken out against homosexuality and the sin of immorality while at the same time he was trolling for gay sex in crummy sordid public bathroom stalls. In 1999, Craig said of Bill Clinton’s sexual lapses: "The American people already know that Bill Clinton is a bad boy - a naughty boy. I’m going to speak out for the citizens of my state, who in the majority think that Bill Clinton is probably even a nasty, bad, naughty boy.” Last October gay activist Mike Rogers reported that Mr. Family Values Craig had repeatedly solicited men in public bathrooms for sex and Rogers interviewed men who attested to the fact that Craig had solicited them in public restrooms. Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) who solicited underage Congressional pages, which makes him a pedophile, was chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, a group that targeted sexual predators and created guidelines for tracking them. It’s not the being gay that is the sin here. It’s the hypocrisy. And by the way, Larry Craig must have wanted to melt into a puddle and die when former Democrat governor of New Jersey James McGreevey, who resigned after disclosing he’d been having a gay affair, sent Craig a letter of support. So it’s the fact that Larry Craig and other watchdogs of holy writ who yammer about the evils of the unsaved while dipping their dicks where their religion says they dast not dip their dicks is what has destroyed Larry Craig, Mark Foley and televangelist Ted Haggard And mark my words, it is going to destroy Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Paul Krugman Nailed It

“In February 2003,” Krugman wrote in the New York Times yesterday, “Secretary of State Colin Powell, addressing the United Nations Security Council, claimed to have proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He did not, in fact, present any actual evidence, just pictures of buildings with big arrows pointing at them saying things like ‘Chemical Munitions Bunker.’ But many people in the political and media establishments swooned: they admired Mr. Powell, and because he said it, they believed it...Mr. Powell’s masters got the war they wanted, and it soon became apparent that none of his assertions had been true.” Krugman went on to say, “Until recently I assumed that the failure to find W.M.D., followed by years of false claims of progress in Iraq, would make a repeat of the snow job that sold the war impossible. But I was wrong. The administration, this time relying on Gen. David Petraeus to play the Colin Powell role, has had remarkable success creating the perception that the 'surge' is succeeding, even though there’s not a shred of verifiable evidence to suggest that it is.” Krugman is right. Any and all claims about any and all progress in Iraq are bogus, false and are blatant lies. Take for instance, the claim that civilian casualties are down. As Krugman pointed out, “The Pentagon says they’re down, but it has neither released its numbers nor explained how they’re calculated.” A draft report from the Government Accountability Office was leaked to the press because GAO officials were afraid they would be pressured into changing the report’s wrap-up. And that wrap-up was that agencies “differ" on whether violence has been reduced. And independent agencies found no decline. Or, as AmericaBlog put it: "Sectarian deaths are down unless you count the dead bodies”. Krugman quoted Leila Fadel of McClatchy who said, “Some military officers believe that it (the claim that civilian casualties are down) may be an indication that ethnic cleansing has been completed in many neighborhoods and that there aren’t as many people to kill.” None of the recent reports—the GAO leaked report, the National Intelligence Estimate and another leaked US report about the Iraqi government-- have found any progress regarding the surge and no sectarian reconciliation. In addition, the Iraqi government (which was put in place and anointed by the Bush administration) has been found to be rife with corruption. And yet, Krugman says, we are told that General Petraeus is a fine, upstanding officer who would never be involved in deception. Which is the same thing that was said about Colin Powell. Or, as Shakespeare’s Mark Antony said in his Juleius Caesar speech, “For Brutus is an honourable man, so are they all; all honorable men”. Nevertheless, as history has amply proven, honorable men with a career to lose will do anything. They will lie, cheat, and kill.

Robert Draper’s Looksee at the Prez

It may be that President Bush and his aides finally allowed Robert Draper to write a book about George W. Bush because Draper is a fellow-Texan and Draper said, according to the New York Times this morning, that he was writing about the Prez as ”a consequential president for history". It may even be that Draper’s intent in writing “Dead Certain”, which will be published this coming Tuesday, was to present a flattering albeit true picture of George W. Bush’s seven years as president. However, Draper agreed to share parts of his transcripts from those interviews, and the book itself, with the NYT under the agreement that they would not be published until shortly before the book is released. And the NYT has offered a few advance quick looks at the book’s content. Apparently the real George W. Bush is going to come through despite initial intentions. For example, Jim Ruttenberg’s article for the NYT (“In Book, Bush Peeks Ahead to His Legacy”) quotes Draper saying, “Sitting in an anteroom of the Oval Office, he eschewed the more formal White House menu for comfort food — a low-fat hotdog and ice cream — and bitingly told an aide who peeked in on the session that his time with Mr. Draper was ‘worthless anyway’.” Ruttenberg goes on to say, “But as Mr. Draper described it, and as the transcripts show, Mr. Bush warmed up considerably over the intervening interviews, chewing on an unlit cigar, jubilantly swatting at flies between making solemn points, propping his feet up on a table or stopping him at points to say emphatically, ‘I want you to get this’ or ‘I want this damn book to be right.’ “Draper said Mr. Bush took issue with him for unearthing details of a meeting in April 2006 at which he took a show-of-hands vote on the future of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who was among his closest advisers. Mr. Bush told Mr. Draper he had no recollection of it, but he said he disagreed with the implication that he regularly governed by staff vote. (According to Mr. Draper’s book, the vote was 7 to 4 for Mr. Rumsfeld’s ouster, with Mr. Bush being one of the no votes. Mr. Rumsfeld stayed on months longer.)” Another clear snapshot of George W. Bush is the following: “Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein-era military, “The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.”... But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush’s former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, had gone ahead and forced the army’s dissolution and then asked Mr. Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush said, “Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’ ” But, he added, “Again, Hadley’s got notes on all of this stuff,” referring to Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser.” President Bush doesn’t know what he knows or what he doesn’t know, he can’t differentiate in his mind what he did from what he didn’t do, what he said from what someone else said or who decided what. George W. Bush is an arrogant pompous little pretender with delusions of grandeur who has been allowed to think he is President of the United States. According to Draper, Bush said, “One interesting question historians are going to have to answer is: Would Saddam have behaved differently if he hadn’t gotten mixed signals between the first resolution and the failure of the second resolution?” Mr. Bush said. “I can’t answer that question. I was hopeful that diplomacy would work.” George W. Bush doesn’t even remember that he never was hopeful about diplomacy. Way, way late in the debacle in Iraq in 2005 Bush made a show of talking about diplomacy when Condi Rice was appointed Secretary of State but he and his minders never believed in diplomacy. They let Rice do the diplomacy bullshit. George Bush was hopeful about looking macho, marching into Iraq, throwing around some bombs and marching out looking macho and victorious. That’s it. Oh, and what does the president plan to do when his term is over? First, he told Robert Draper, “I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’ coffers.” (Bush’s assets are around $21 million.) “I don’t know what my dad gets — it’s more than 50-75” thousand dollars a speech, and “Clinton’s making a lot of money.” It’s true, President Bill Clinton has done well making speeches since his presidency ended. But then, people want to hear what Bill Clinton has to say.

The Prez Is “Confidant”

Sane men would be worried, but not George W. Bush. The nation as a whole can’t stand President Bush’s guts and the majority of voters want him out, impeached, tried for war crimes or dead. In addition, the nation as a whole wants the war in Iraq to end and wants the president to bring our troops home. The President’s Secretary of Defense and oh-so-beloved architect of the Iraq war Donald Rumsfeld was forced to resign in December 2006. Bush’s assistant, “Scooter” Libby was sentenced to jail in March 2006 (a sentence later commuted by Bush which let Libby off Scot free.) Most of the president’s Justice Department resigned in disgust before Bush finally fired his lying Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales. The president’s Advisor and decider Karl Rove slithered out of the White House yesterday after resigning on August 13th. Senator John Warner (R-VA) said yesterday that he wouldn’t run for the Senate again, leaving his Senate seat up for grabs. (BTW, I was amazed to realize that Warner’s marriage to actress Elizabeth Taylor actually lasted six years {1976 -1982}--and isn’t that odd?--he always seemed so reasoned and stable.) Bush's Press Secretary Tony Snow resigned today. Idaho Republican Congressman Larry Craig is resigning today after trying to get sex from an undercover cop in a public restroom last week. Republican Congressman Mark Foley had to resign last September after House Pages ratted him out over his buggering little boys. The president’s spiritual advisor, Ted Haggard, was forced to resign as pastor of his Megachurch in Colorado last November because of “sexually immoral (as, in homosexual) behavior”. Ken Mehlman retired as Republican National Committee Chairman the end of 2006 after being outed by TV personality Bill Maher. The war in Iraq is going as badly as a war can go. That is, we have lost the war and there is no way no-how that it can ever be won. But nevermind all that. The New York Times reports today, “President Bush, appearing confident about sustaining support for his Iraq strategy, met at the Pentagon on Friday with the uniformed leaders of the nation’s armed services and then pointedly accused the war’s opponents of politicizing the debate over what to do next.” After meeting with the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines in a briefing room known as the Tank, Bush said, “The stakes in Iraq are too high and the consequences too grave for our security here at home to allow politics to harm the mission of our men and women in uniform,” Mr. Bush said in a statement after his meeting with the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines in a briefing room known as the Tank.” Bush is confident because he has his bought-and-paid-for ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker (who has “nice-napkin-lunches” for American Congressman in Baghdad to promote Bush’s lovely war), and Crocker will speak glowingly about the progress of Bush's war. And Bush has his bought-and-paid-for General, David H. Petraeus, (who mislaid billions of American dollars and armaments in Iraq), and Petraeus will announce on September 10 that the president’s puny Iraq surge is going very well, that the US is winning its war and that the US must stay in Iraq and fight, fight, fight until any 18-year-old soldiers who might accidentally survive are 100-year old veterans. It’s difficult to tell if Crocker and Petraeus are insane or just corrupt and unethical. I’m betting on corrupt and unethical. Vice President Dick Cheney who joined in the talks in “the Tank” is not insane. Cheney is sick, old, on many medications and he drinks too much given the meds he takes. But the bottom line is that Cheney is corrupt, unethical, and a mean, nasty old pol who cares about no one and nothing except Dick Cheney’s power and money. But one thing is absolutely for sure, President George W. Bush is crazy as a loon and probably always has been. We, the people of the United States do not have to put up with this ridiculous state of affairs in our government. The United States Congress does not have to sit by and watch insane, corrupt and unethical people run the government. The Congress has the power to stop this travesty. The people have the power to make the Congress put an end to it. So for GOD’S SAKE, let’s demand that Congress get off its collective ass and put an end NOW to the Bush/Cheney fascist regime!!!!!!

Do You Love It, Or What?!

Remember all that money and weapons that couldn’t be accounted for in Iraq? A bunch of agencies including the Army Criminal Investigation Command, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been looking into these discrepancies. This morning the New York Times reported that officials from these agencies said “the missing money and matériel amounted to the largest ring of fraud and kickbacks uncovered in the conflict here.” And get this: a senior American officer being investigated worked closely with General David Petraeus when Petraeus was in charge of training and equipping iraqis forces in 2004 and 2005. Of course the NYT made sure to say, “There is no indication that investigators have uncovered any wrongdoing by General Petraeus.” But guess what Petraeus’s response is. Petraeus said the Iraqi’s were ill equipped and having to deal with mounting violence, so he decided not to wait for formal tracking systems to be put in place. “The imperative to provide weapons to Iraqis was more important than maintaining impeccable records,” Petraeus said. WHAT? I mean, WHAT? Sounds like wrongdoing to me. Petraeus is the man who next month is going to decide the future of American soldiers in Iraq. This is the man who is going to say that President George Bush’s ego-war in Iraq must be fought until the last American soldier is dead. This is the man who will lie and claim that President George Bush’s puny and irresponsible little surge is making progress. And this asshole decided that knowing where money and arms were ending up in Iraq was not important. Back when Petraeus was in charge of disbursing cash to Iraqis, American contractors were told to turn up with big duffel bags to pick up their payments. Some were paid from the back of pick-up trucks. Cash was loaded onto giant pallets for shipment by plane to Iraq, and paid out to contractors who carried it away in duffel bags, for God’s sake. Back when Petraeus was in charge of disbursing weapons to Iraqis, 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols were mislaid. But Petraeus says he didn't think knowing where they had ended up was important. “We made a decision to arm guys who wanted to fight for their country,” Petraeus says. And once again the underlings are going to get rounded up and frog-marched to the hoosegow. According to the NYT: “part of the criminal investigation is focused on Lt. Col. Levonda Joey Selph, who reported directly to General Petraeus and worked closely with him in setting up the logistics operation for what were then the fledgling Iraqi security forces.” Another let me get this straight moment: We’re blaming the Maliki government for everything that has gone wrong in Iraq even though the Bush administration set up the Maliki puppet government and anointed it as the great hope for Iraq. Then General Petraeus doled out arms and money from the backs of trucks with never a thought that the stuff would get into the wrong hands. So now that nearly everyone George W. Bush has ever had confidence in has resigned under a cloud and/or is involved in some nefarious sexual assignation, we have put the fate of American soldiers in Iraq in the hands of George Bush and General Petraeus. Is that about the size of it? It is interesting though isn’t it, that this stuff about Petraeus’s malfeasance is suddenly getting attention just when he’s preparing to be center stage and handing out more baloney about Iraq.

Gonzalez Just Resigned!

So much for being backed to the hilt by George W. Bush and his fascists! The Prez bowed to the overwhelming chorus from voters and from Congress and canned his kiss-ass Attorney General Alberto Gonzales yesterday. On Saturday Bush said, regarding Iraq, “We are still in the early stages of our new operations.” Right! And Alberto Gonzales will never resign. Bush may be listening to no one but the delusions in his head. But apparently no one is listening to George W. Bush. Look for a pull-out of American troops from Iraq to begin before Thanksgiving. And by the bye, CNN is saying that Gonzales getting the ax came as a surprise to Republican insiders. Are you fucking kidding me? US News & World Report reported the following on August 26, titled, “Maybe Trading Up Soon at Justice”: “The buzz among top Bushies is that beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally plans to depart and will be replaced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Why Chertoff? Officials say he's got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal judge and assistant attorney general.” Gonzales was ordered to resign last Friday and he did so by telephone. The Bush PR machine geared up and decided not to release the news until Monday. Gonzales and his wife had a little face time with the Prez on Sunday. Bullshit me not about Repubs not knowing. They not only knew, they demanded that Bush fire Gonzales and Bush fired Gonzales. Resigned? Don’t be foolish! And in addition, the Bush administration has been grooming (or trying to groom) Chertoff for months for the AG job. In addition to that addition, the Democrats have been fully aware for months about this Gonzales choreographed departure and that Chertoff would be nominated as his replacement. So let’s get real about how all this is done. At least it’s been done. And just so you’re clear regarding my feelings about this news. Gonzales is an asshole flunky thug. Deaths-head Chertoff may be the worst nominee the Bush administration could put forward. Chertoff is a Bush administration whiny ninny flunky.

Congress Gets Wined and Dined In Baghdad

The New York Times reports this morning, “On a Sunday morning in early August, just hours after Congress had recessed for the summer, Representative Jan Schakowsky and five of her colleagues boarded a military jet at Andrews Air Force Base. Three flights and a Black Hawk helicopter ride later, they were lunching on asparagus soup and lobster tortellini at the home of Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker in Baghdad. “’It was a lovely lunch, a nice-napkin lunch,’ said Ms. Schakowsky, a liberal Democrat and ardent war critic from Chicago.” Like any PR event anywhere, it was a dandy little vacation for these members of Congress. And like any PR event, it didn’t cost the Congresspersons a dime since it was billed to American taxpayers. And also, like any other PR event, the purpose of the trip was to twist the arms of influential people so that they would support a venture, a group, or an idea. These trips for Congressional delegations are highly choreographed affairs known as codels, the NYT says. They are “an annual rite of summer for lawmakers...Roughly 50 lawmakers have tromped through Iraq this summer, and their impressions are having a profound effect on the debate.” Apparently the PR blitz is working. After hearing featured guest Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American military commander in Iraq give his spiel Representative Brian Baird of Washington, an early opponent of the war, has changed his mind. He now supports the war. And it’s good practice for Petraeus who will deliver another bullshit spiel to Americans in September telling us that we’re making progress in Iraq and that we have to stay there forever. The NYT article is titled: “Hear a General, Hug a Sheik: Congress Visits Iraq”. The whole idea of the Bush administration promoting its unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq as though it were a C-list movie is so ugly and crass it would be unbelievable if these trips were not promotion events sponsored by the Bush administration. American soldiers being killed in Iraq is just background noise from a bunch of extras as far as General Petraeus and the Bush administration is concerned. The main point is that the biggest mistake ever made in United States history needs to be promoted or Republicans are out of their jobs. And that is what Ambassador Crocker, the Bush administration and warmongering generals are going to do...whatever it takes. And whatever it takes includes “nice-napkin” lunches in Baghdad while our guys die. There are no words to describe how offensive, ugly, corrupt, distasteful and ghastly these PR trips to Baghdad are. HAVE THESE MEN NO SHAME?

Will Crazy George Listen?

The LA Times this morning says, “The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is expected to advise President Bush to reduce the U.S. force in Iraq next year by almost half, potentially creating a rift with top White House officials and other military commanders over the course of the war.” The New York Times this morning quotes Senator John Warner (R-VA) saying: “President Bush should start bringing home some troops by Christmas to show the Baghdad government that the U.S. commitment in Iraq is not open-ended.” The NYT added, “The move puts John Warner, a former Navy secretary and one-time chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, at odds with the president, who says conditions on the ground should dictate deployments.” Of course our delusional president won’t listen to anyone. That’s a given. But a better question is: What would make George Bush listen to anything other than the voice of God he says he hears and obeys? Right now, it suits the GOP to pretend that George Bush is at the helm of our ship of state and to pretend that the president knows what he’s doing when he insists the United States must stay in Iraq until the next millennium. But since the futures of all Republican Senators depend on the puppet in the White House changing his mind, it’s a challenge for the most creative mind to come up with a scenario for that event. Because George W. Bush has so many mental disabilities (that is, delusions, narcissism, paranoia, debilitating anxiety, manic/depression and/or schizophrenia, mother-obsession, father-hate, addiction problems, sexual identity confusion, and distrust of psychiatrists and psychiatry), he is incapable of changing his mind or admitting he ever was wrong. The Bush handlers had thought that staying in Iraq would be an issue that would resonate with voters. The opposite has turned out to be true. But it never occurred to the Bush administration that Crazy George would be called on to change his mind before leaving office. When a robot has not been equipped with any command other than “forward”, what do you do if you want the robot to stop? 1) You let it go forward until its batteries die. 2) You let it destroy itself by running into a wall. 3) You knock it over. It looks like the Bush handlers have opted for solution No. 2.

The Forget the US Attacked Iraq Ploy

We’ve been told that the blame game is not productive regarding Iraq. We’ve been told that we need to focus on supporting our troops and winning the war. We’ve been told that yammering about who got us into this war is not going to solve the problems the US now has because it is in this war in Iraq. Here’s the lede paragraph in this morning’s New York Times article, "'Free Iraq' Is Within Reach, Bush Declares": “President Bush delivered a rousing defense of his Iraq policy on Wednesday, telling a group of veterans that ‘a free Iraq’ is within reach and warning that if Americans succumb to ‘the allure of retreat,’ they will witness death and suffering of the sort not seen since the Vietnam War.” That is why the high-toned injunction against blaming the Bush administration for the war is ridiculous. The Bush administration has now wiped from its memory banks the fact that it caused the situation in Iraq and the Bush administration is currently working on wiping from the world’s memory banks the fact that Iraq has already witnessed the kind of death and suffering that the Bush administration is insanely saying will happen in the future if we pull out. George W. Bush and the neocons in his administration lied and without benefit of a declaration of war by Congress, caused the US to senselessly and needlessly attack Iraq. Whether we stay in Iraq or leave today, the Iraqi’s have already witnessed death and suffering worse than the quagmire the US created in Vietnam. The death and suffering President Bush alludes to as being in the future has already happened. And it has already happened because idiots elected a warmongering puppet as president and allowed his handlers to start a war in Iraq. A Free Iraq is not within reach now or in 20 years and using American soldiers to fight and die in Iraq’s civil war (for which the Bush administration is also to blame and which the Bush administration claims is not gong on) for the next ten years will do nothing to lessen the death and suffering that Iraqis have already witnessed. It is not productive to forget that the greed, avarice and blood lust of the Bush administration fomented and caused the situation in Iraq. The Bush administration can do nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, to lessen the death and suffering it started in Iraq. Now only the Iraqi people can stop it. The US can only lessen the death and suffering of Americans by making a firm deadline for getting out of Iraq and by starting that pullout immediately, Do not ever forget who started this war in Iraq. Do not ever forget that the Iraq War had nothing to do with bringing freedom or democracy to Iraq. Do not ever forget that the Bush administration lied in order to make war on Iraq. Do not ever forget that moment when Secretary of State Colin Powell stood in front of the UN and told bald-faced lies in order to start this war. The blame game is very productive. Because when Americans truly remember how this mess got started, they will put into motion the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and their trial for war crimes can begin.

Ratbang No Shit! Edition

The New York Times re the Space Shuttle Endeavor and it’s foam hole: “It has become increasingly clear that the shuttle’s design, which puts a huge external fuel tank insulated with foam above a fragile spacecraft, is fundamentally flawed.” A new CIA report says “the C.I.A. carried out no comprehensive analysis that put into context the threats received in the spring and summer of 2001.” Re Iraq, Maliki and George W. Bush, the NYT says, “Anyone who follows events in Iraq can plainly see the plan is not altogether working.” Re the Black Hawk helicopter that went down, killing 14 soldiers onboard, the Washington Post said, “Since the conflict began, 63 helicopters have gone down, including 36 struck by enemy fire. Over January and February of this year, seven military helicopters and one carrying private security contractors were taken down by insurgent fire, killing a total of 28 people. The incidents prompted the military to reevaluate flight plans and tactics used to prevent anti-aircraft fire.” The lawyer for million-dollar Atlanta Falcons quarterback, dog killer and liar Michael Vick said we should remember "Michael is a father, he's a son, he's a human being -- people oftentimes forget that." WaPo writer Sally Jenkins says, “Pardon, but if anybody forgot his humanity, it was Vick. Not us.” The LA Times says, “the credit crisis that has hit home mortgages and shaken worldwide financial markets is turning into a political albatross for President Bush and Republican presidential contenders, piling atop an unpopular war in Iraq and eroding traditional GOP claims of being good stewards of the economy.” Instead of getting into a fight, GOP pollster McHenry has some advice for members of his party: Shut up.

Frank Rich Tells Why Rove Bugged Out

Interestingly, in Frank Rich’s Op/Ed piece in the New York Times today, he not only pinpoints why Rove resigned, but he also identifies the reason most Democrats missed it. Rich says that no GOP candidate gave a tribute to Rove and “the conservative commentariat was often surprisingly harsh.” “It is this condemnation of Rove from his own ideological camp — not the Democrats' familiar litany about his corruption, polarizing partisanship, dirty tricks, etc. — that the White House and Mr. Rove wanted to bury in the August dog days.” And it was that condemnation from the right that “crystallized the monochromatic whiteness at the dark heart of Rovian Republicanism”, Rich said. The Republican Party may be overwhelmingly white as only a Rotary Club in 1954 could be white, Rich says, but the population of the United States is edging toward nonwhites being in the majority. The Republican Party, as exemplified by Karl Rove is an anachronism. It’s a relic. And the exquisite moment when this was shown to the world, Rich said, was George Allen's (R-VA) "macaca" moment a year ago. During Allen's re-election campaign, Allen not only insulted a campaign worker from Jim Webb's campaign by calling him a monkiey, but he welcomed him "to America" and to"the real world of Virginia". The incredible racism and arrogance of the GOP was caught on YouTube and it was played over and over and over. Just as the Republican Party’s whiteness is a relic, YouTube has made reinventing history in the print medium a relic. Rich credits Ryan Sager, a young conservative New York Sun commentator with giving the best description of the GOP: "The face of the Republican Party in Iowa is the face of a losing party, full of hatred toward immigrants, lust for government subsidies, and the demand that any Republican seeking the office of the presidency acknowledge that he's little more than Jesus Christ's running mate." “That face,” Rich says, “at once contemptuous and greedy and self-righteous, is Karl Rove's face. Unless someone in his party rolls out a revolutionary new product, it is indelible enough to serve as the Republican brand for a generation.” And that is why Rove had to go. The GOP sees its own face when it sees Karl Rove and that logo is not going to fly in 2008.

So There’s This “Secret Court”

And this Secret Court has been asked by the American Civil Liberties Union to release a bunch of orders issued earlier in 2007 about the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program. And now, according to the Washington Post, this secret US intelligence court “has ordered the Bush administration to register its views about a records request by the American Civil Liberties Union”. WaPo says, “The move is highly unusual, because the court -- which approves warrants for electronic surveillance within the United States by intelligence and counterterrorism agencies -- operates in almost total secrecy and has made only one ruling public in its 29-year history.” That ruling was made public in 2002 when a new surveillance guideline proposed by the Justice Department was rejected by this court. But the court’s rejection was overturned later in 2002 by a special appeals court. And what are the chances that the ACLU will get the documents it has requested? Slim to none is David B. Rivkin, Jr.’s assessment. Rivkin was a Justice Department official in the Reagan administration and now is a partner at Baker Hostetler. Rivkin says it’s not clear whether the secret court has the authority to release documents over the objections of the executive branch. "The order is unusual, and the request is also unusual," Rivkin told WaPo. "But I would be amazed if that request were granted in the end." But the interesting thing is that the ACLU made its request and that the request is being taken seriously. The request in itself is very important. The request is as important as the result of the request. Every day more information comes to light about the Bush administration’s Injustice Department. Only when US voters realize how close the current administration is to being a Third Reich in the United States, can they make the changes necessary to return the United States of America to a democracy. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that, “Notes taken by Director Robert S. Mueller III of the F.B.I. say that Attorney General John Ashcroft was ‘barely articulate,’ ‘feeble’ and ‘clearly stressed’ shortly after a hospital-room meeting in March 2004 in which two top White House aides tried to persuade him to sign an extension for eavesdropping on Americans without warrants...In providing corroboration for (former deputy attorney general James B. Comey) Mr. Comey’s version of events, Mr. Mueller’s typewritten entries served to rebut the suggestion of some Bush administration officials who have privately dismissed Mr. Comey’s account of the hospital standoff as an overwrought and one-sided description.” We are being flooded with information on the magnitude of malfeasance in the Bush administration and that is very good.

AP Finally Gets Rumsfeld Letter

This morning, the Washington Post says the Associated Press had to make “multiple” Freedom of Information requests before getting to see former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation letter. The letter was sent on November 6, 2006. That was a day before the election that gave Congress to the Democrats. The letter is stamped “The President Has Seen” with a handwritten date “11/7/06. Election day. The Prez announced the resignation a day after the election. WaPo says, “Asked why the president did not announce Rumsfeld's resignation as soon as he learned of it (Deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino) Perino said that Bush was wary of influencing the ongoing vote. "I know that one of the things that the president wanted to avoid was the appearance of trying to make this a political decision," she said. "And that was very important to him, and I think that the American people can appreciate not playing politics with such an important decision." Have you noticed how often the Bush flacks claim to be privy to the thoughts in the minds of the American people? They feel sure the American people “can appreciate”, “will understand”, “will support”, “feel strongly” and the like. When, in fact, the Repubs are clueless about the desires of the American people. Not only are they clueless, they have no desire to know what Americans think. They only want to pontificate on what they think Americans should think. But in the above instance, Perino is right. The American people do appreciate that playing politics on important decisions is a crummy tactic. And the American people believe it's a tactic that never should be used by leaders in government. Yet, while claiming not to play politics, the Prez was playing politics. The other most-used ploy in the Bush administration is to claim something that is false is true, and something that is true is false. The US doesn’t torture people. Yes, it does. There is no civil war in Iraq. Yes, there is. The surge in Iraq is working. No, it isn’t. Bush is not considering a draft. Yes, he is. The president does not routinely take prescription medicine. Of course he does. He couldn’t get through a day without his scrips, meds, and little pharmaceutical helpers. The thing that is very helpful, though, is knowing that whoever or whatever is programming the Prez is totally consistent. If the president makes a statement, the opposite always is true.

Which Campaign Has Hired Karl Rove?

That a latter-day Machiavelli like Karl Rove would putter around the house with his wife and 18-year-old son is a picture that won’t scan. In the first place, Karl Rove is not marriage oriented, to put it delicately. In the second place, Rove and his second wife and their son would have to be introduced to each other before they could have a...I’m searching for the phrase...relationship? No. Bond? No. Family life? God no! Convenient understanding? Maybe. I’m betting Rove will work sub-rosa for Romney. If Romney emerges as the candidate, Rove will officially announce his role. It’s not as though Rove needs to share ideologies or religion with his employer. Or that Rove even needs to have minimal knowledge about an employer’s business. Karl Rove will go where the money is. And he’s a quick study. But I believe Rove has a kingmaker addiction and I believe that jones must be fed. Giving up all those White House perks is a wrenching thought. It would make any politician weepy and emotional. And according to the press coverage yesterday, taking leave of all that power caused Karl Rover to tear up with sorrow. But life goes on and there are millions of dollars lying around in would-be candidates’ war chests. Whether Rove hooks up with Romney or not is arguable. But the idea that he will spend even five minutes with his or any family and away from hatching plots, scheming and threatening to destroy real or perceived enemies is ridiculous.

I Don’t Get It! (Times 3)

1) This morning, the Associated Press tells us that the damaged tiles on the space shuttle Endeavour reveal that "a three-and-half-inch gouge penetrates all the way through thermal tiles on the shuttle's belly." And the Quote of the Day is from the chairman of the mission management team John Shannon, who said, "We have really prepared for exactly this case, since Columbia (the space shuttle that exploded during re-entry 20 years ago because of the same problem)...We have spent a lot of money in the program and a lot of time and a lot of people's efforts to be ready to handle exactly this case." I don’t get it! Why didn’t we spend a lot of money, time and effort to solve the problem, not spend a lot of money, time and effort in expectation of having the problem all over again? 2 An NYT editorial this morning calls China “irresponsible” for threatening to sell US dollars “which might lead to a mass depreciation of the US dollar... Such warnings may be an unsurprising response to some of the intemperate language coming from Capitol Hill. Nevertheless, they are playing with fire,” the NYT said. I don’t get it! Why is China irresponsible when it was the Bush administration that sold the United States, lock-stock-and-barrel, to China? From China’s point of view, it would be irresponsible not to threaten to sell US dollars. Who’s irresponsible? The Bush administration, of course, and once again. 3) George Bush’s political advisor and hatchet man Karl Rove says he’s stepping down on August 31 to “spend time with his family”. Rove’s words are a close second for Quote of the Week. "I just think it's time," Rove said. "There's always something that can keep you here, and as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of my family." Amidst the chorus of hahahahahahaha’s heard across the nation, one can only say, I Don’t Get It! What protects Rove as a private citizen? Can’t he be subpoenaed to testify now that he has no executive privilege protection? Or has Rove joined the Threaten Bush Club? Hmmmmm. I don’t get it.

General Ratbang Policies...BTW and FYI

You may have noticed, or not, that I don’t do back-and-forth dialogues with commenters. I say my piece and you say your piece and that’s it. However, my email address is available in my Profile and I have been known to respond to emails. Ergo, if you have a question in your comment, I won’t respond unless you have a blog with an email address in your Profile. And if your question is mean-spirited, silly or stooopid, I probably won’t respond by email either.

WaPo’s E.J. Dionne Explains It To You

An article in this morning’s Washington Post by E.J. Dionne, Jr., “Why the Democrats Caved”, tells the sad facts regarding the surveillance bill that the Dems joined with the Repubs to vote in last Saturday night. “Shortly before noon last Saturday, about 20 House Democrats huddled in Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office to decide what to do about a surveillance bill that had been dumped on them by the Senate before it left town. Many of the Democrats were furious,” Dionne said. “They believed they had negotiated in good faith with Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence. They sought to give the Bush administration the authority it needed to intercept communications involving foreign nationals in terrorism investigations while preserving some oversight.” However, the Bushies held the line re giving McConnell and Attorney General Gonzales more power, which restricted the role of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The Dems lacked the votes to pass a bill more in line with House approvals and the Dems gave the Bushies what they wanted. Dionne went on to say, “At one point, according to participants in the Pelosi meeting, the passionate discussion veered toward the idea of standing up to the administration -- even at the risk of handing President Bush a chance to bash Democrats on ‘national security,’ as is his wont...Several members from swing districts -- including Reps. Heath Shuler of North Carolina and Patrick J. Murphy of Pennsylvania -- expressed openness to having Congress stay in town to fight if important constitutional issues were at stake.” The bill, according to David Wu (D-OR), “makes Alberto Gonzalez the sheriff, the judge and the jury.” Dionne says, “The episode was the culmination of a shameful era in which serious issues related to national security and civil liberties were debated in a climate of fear and intimidation, saturated by political calculation and the quest for short-term electoral advantage...Politically, Republicans won this round in two ways. They got the president the bill he wanted and, as a result, they created absolute fury in the Democratic base. Pelosi has received more than 200,000 e-mails of protest, according to an aide, for letting the bill go forward. “The entire display was disgraceful because an issue of such import should not be debated in a political pressure cooker. It's not even clear that new legislation was required; Holt, for one, believes many of the problems with handling interceptions involving foreign nationals are administrative in nature and that beefing up and reorganizing the staff around the FISA court might solve the outstanding problems.” Dionne quoted Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.): “What bothered me is that too many Democrats allowed that fear to turn into a demand for some atrocious legislation." “If legislation was needed,” Dionne said, “there were many ways to grant necessary authority while preserving real oversight. The Democrats got trapped, and they punted. The Republicans have never met a national security issue they're not willing to politicize. This is no way to run a superpower.” Well, first, the US is no longer a superpower. The Repubs have seen to that. And there have been plenty of mistakes on both sides of the aisle while the Bush administration stripped the United States of its good reputation and rendered it impotent. Articles like Dionne's show us clearly how the Dems give away the store due to Repub bullying and due to fear of losing votes. But the bottom line is that the winner of this less-than-super nation’s election in 2008 will be whichever political party can show it has learned from its mistakes.

Retired Colonel Weighs In on Tillman Case

This morning, the New York Times published an Op/Ed article by retired Colonel and MSNBC military analyst Jack Jacobs. After mentioning that his own units in Viet Nam were “occasionally victims of errant rifle fire, mortar rounds and bombs,” Colonel Jacobs says, “Sadly, Corporal Tillman’s death comes with another unhappy legacy: a ludicrous change in the Army regulation that deals with reporting casualties. With this change, the Army now requires a formal, independent investigation into the death of every American in a hostile area." In theory, Jacobs says, “The rule sounds commendable. Life is precious, and if one is cut short in combat then we owe the soldier and his family as full a report as possible. Having experienced more than enough combat, I understand this sentiment. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s the motivating force behind the revised regulation. In my view, the provision is there for one reason and one reason alone: to put in place a protocol to prevent commanders from lying about the cause of their soldiers’ deaths.” And, what’s wrong with that? Jacobs asks. “Well, it’s beyond insidious", Jacobs says, "because it is an admission that the Army has determined it can’t trust anyone in the combat chain of command — that the actions of General Kensinger (Lt. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger Jr was responsible for the cover-up) are the rule, not the exception, and that this kind of malfeasance among soldiers is expected to be so common that it requires regular policing.” Dear Colonel Jacobs: The reason the military is expected to lie is because the Commander in Chief of the military, George W. Bush, lies every time he opens his mouth. And in addition to that fact, which is a verifiable fact, the commanders in the military under George W. Bush have continually lied about every aspect of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. You see, Colonel Jacobs, the recent change in Army regulations has been occasioned by the fact that the executive branch of the United States government and the military always lie. Ergo, it is rightly assumed that as long as the military Commander-in-Chief is George W. Bush, lying and distorting the truth will be the modus operandi of every quote and every news release that comes out of the United States executive branch and/or the military. Colonel Jacobs ends his article by saying, “We don’t need better regulations. We need better leaders.” That is true, Colonel Jacobs. But the advent of the US getting better leaders is still far in the future and may not happen at all. Therefore, we have to rely on regulations.

What’s Wrong With Dems Fighting Terrorism?

If that were what was behind the Democrats joining the Repubs in Congress last weekend to approve eavesdropping without warrants on international communications, then there would surely be nothing wrong with it. Terrorism is a threat and it is not to be taken lightly. But that was not what was behind the Dems cave-in on a Bush administration policy that had always stuck in the Democrats' craw. The 16 Democrats who joined 43 Republicans (and one Indie) to approve the bill, 60 to 28, did so in order not to be perceived as being “soft on terrorism”. In other words, need we say, the Dems approved of George W. Bush’s further terrorism on Americans so that they would not lose votes. And do not sit there and correct me by saying this bill was about INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS. That is baloney! Any and all surveillance programs that are okayed by Congress will be used against American citizens no matter what the fine print says. And that is what was wrong with the Dems joining hands with the Repubs to approve this latest bill on surveillance. The Dems just sold out for votes.

The Fact Is...

Opponents of the Bush administration’s unnecessary, undeclared and illegal war in Iraq are fond of pointing to the money spent, being spent and forecast for future spending, and listing all the things the money could and should have been spent on. The fact is, people being what we are--and we include Republicans, Democrats, Independents, all adherents of all religions and all races in the category of people. People being what we are, had there been no bogus war, the mega-bucks allocated for the war in Iraq would not have been spent on any of the worthy projects on the Wish List. In the United States, our Congress would never pass a bill for a worthwhile social project carrying a $2 trillion price tag, which is the new estimate for the cost of the Iraq war. Our Congress would never pass a bill for half the cost of the Iraq war even if it funded five social projects. It would never happen. And the reason it would never happen is that the people in the United States (those who vote) would never vote in favor of $2 trillion dollars being spent on ANYTHING unless we were threatened with the imminent demise of the world as we know it. So forget the unreal dreams of what could have been done with the money spent in Iraq. The only way the people in the US would demand that $2 trillion be spent on health care, children, education or on repairing our infrastructure is if the Bush administration threatened us with being destroyed by weapons of mass destruction and mushroom clouds if we didn’t allocate the money for worthy social programs. And hahahahahaha! Who would believe that?

The Kiss of Death

President Bush is going to the bridge collapse site in Minneapolis/St. Paul today. So, let’s see...it’s been how many days since the disaster befell Minneapolis-St. Paul? Wednesday, Thursday, Friday...Saturday...um...four days. Although, the Prez did send his wife to have a look-see yesterday and to appear empathetic in his stead. She reported back that the scene was “unbelievable”. The Washington Post reported this morning, “President Bush, who is still criticized for his administration's sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina, says he will stand with Minnesota residents as they recover from this week's bridge collapse.” SLUGGISH? How about DIDN’T GIVE A FUCK! On August 27, 2005, the President knew that Louisiana Governor Blanco had declared a State of Emergency. But the President went around the country flacking his Social Security plan and other policies and then he went on vacation. Katrina made landfall in Louisiana on August 29 and the Prez went to bed without doing a damn thing or responding to Governors’ and lawmakers’ pleas for help. On August 31, while returning from vacation in Air Force One, Bush made a half-hearted and half-assed flyover along the Gulf Coast to view the scene of devastation. And we know the rest of the story. New Orleans is still in a state of emergency two years later. And the Prez still doesn’t give a fuck except insofar as how his heartless indifference will look in history books. And because of that, the Prez is going to Minneapolis today. The New York Times reported this morning that “Paul C. Light, a professor of public service at New York University, said the White House is 'so much on the defensive right now that I think their initial reaction was to say, "We just don't want to be blamed"...the president's role is to start the conversation by being above the blame, the finger-pointing,' Light said." The NYT went on to say, “In a radio address to be aired on Saturday but released by the White House on Friday, the president vowed to work closely with (Governor) Pawlenty and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak ‘to rebuild this bridge as quickly as possible’” “Perhaps even in time for the 2008 Republican convention in St. Paul?” the NYT asked. But don’t expect the Prez to bust his ass to provide mega-bucks to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure across the US. The President’s concern for disaster victims is in the short-term only and it is the Kiss of Death as far as real and lasting aid being funded to solve America’s problems at home.

Who Said This?

“The government is continuing with its arrogance, refusing to change its stand, and has slammed shut the door to any meaningful reforms necessary for saving Iraq...We had hoped that the government would respond to these demands or at least acknowledge the failure of its policies, which led Iraq to a level of misery it had not seen in modern history. But its stand did not surprise us at all.” A quote from a diehard anti-war Democrat? No, That’s a quote from Rafaa al-Issawi, a member of the Sunni bloc in Iraq (the Iraqi Consensus Front) who railed against the Iraqi government yesterday. Pissed off and angry, Rafaa al-Issawi said that Prime Minister Maliki’s government refused to involve the Sunni bloc on important decisions and had even refused to show up for crisis talks. That is why, Issawi said, the bloc’s six cabinet ministers resigned yesterday. The six resignations included Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie. Although a spokesman for the Sunni bloc said the Iraqi Parliament’s 44 Sunni members would continue to participate. With regard to charges by Sunnis against Shiites and vice versa, Maliki said, "The policy of threats and blackmail is an unrewarding policy." No kidding! But it goes to show that Bush & Co. has exactly what it wanted in Iraq--a government just like ours. That is to say, a dysfunctional grid-locked government led by a bunch of politically motivated hacks. And, let it be noted, a bunch of politically motivated hacks who are going off to the seashore for a month of R&R: A government EXACTLY like ours. And more importantly, the Bush administration has a perfect scapegoat for why Iraq is in the mess it’s in: It’s Maliki’s fault. In addition, the Bush administration has bought and paid for high-level experts and officials who will repeat the Bush administration's cant, like: General David Petraeus, the current talking head who is so far up Bush’s ass his words come out of Bush’s mouth; Admiral Michael G. Mullen, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman nominee; Ryan C. Crocker, ambassador to Iraq. It is said, Petraeus is the President of the United States now, not Richard Cheney. But who knows? And does it make any difference who is calling the shots from the White House? The current batch of idiots in Congress are willing to support the Bush administration’s malfeasance and fascist modus operandi, and that is what is important. At any given moment, Congress could put a stop to the dictatorship passing as government in the United States and it has chosen not to. We, the people, are to blame for the government we the people have.

Oh! Those Hidden Agendas and Subtexts!

Yesterday, Admiral Michael G. Mullen, who is the nominee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the US military efforts in Iraq would fail unless Iraqi leaders “did more to bring together the rival factions (Sunni and Shiite) dividing Iraq”. This morning at 6:30 ayem, the Associated Press filed the following short release from Baghdad: “Iraq's largest Sunni Arab political bloc announced its withdrawal from the government Wednesday, undermining Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's efforts to seek reconciliation among the country's rival factions. “Violence continued unabated, with 17 civilians killed in a car bomb in central Baghdad and the U.S. military announcing the deaths of three American soldiers killed by a sophisticated, armor-piercing bomb. “Meanwhile, a fuel tanker exploded near a gas station in western Baghdad, killing at least 15 people and wounding 25, police said. The blast occurred around 2 p.m. in Mansour, a primarily Sunni neighborhood on the western side of the Iraqi capital.” That means the Maliki government is powerless to “do more”, which Mullen knew all the way along. At the same time, we’re hearing mega-hype bullshit about how July was the month with fewest US soldier deaths in Iraq in 2007. But the BIG STORY is that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates hustled themselves to Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt to ratchet up support for Iraq and to foment mischief against Iran with leaders from Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. And get this for a subtext: The New York Times had a report on the statement issued by the Sharm El-Sheikh crew: “On Iran, the group’s statement included only a paragraph supporting ‘international diplomatic efforts’ aimed at reining in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, and “reiterated the rights of all the parties” to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to ‘use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.’” Translation according to the Bush administration definition of “nuclear ambitions” and “peaceful purposes”: No country can use nuclear arms to defend itself against US aggression. On the other hand, the US can nuke the hell out of any Middle East country because the desired result would be a peaceful takeover of the Middle East by the US. And by the way, although we heard that Gates/Rice met with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia “along with his national security deputies”, isn’t it odd that President Bush’s erstwhile close buddy Prince Bandar’s name was not mentioned. Even though, as far as I know, Bandar has been head of Saudi Arabia’s national security since 2005. Who or what is more slippery than who or what in the Middle East? Them or us? My take is that no matter how much the Bush administration covers itself in Middle East oil, it will never outcon or outsmart the lowest flunky born in the Middle East.

The Mob Considers Canning Its Consigliere

The Mob has lined up its goombata to go on the record and support the Family’s Consigliere. But everyone knows the Family has decided to kick the suit to the curb. Even so, that’s not an easy thing to do. Short of whacking the slimy and incompetent gavonne, how do you fire the guy who knows where all the bodies are buried? If watching Capo Orrin Hatch yesterday on George Steph’s Sunday morning show is any indication, the Mob in the White House has instructed its soldiers to praise Alberto Gonzales to the skies, then they are gong to sell him out to the Democrats and they will let the Dems do the dirty work. Senator Hatch (R-UT) sounded like a veritable Bruce Cutler on Steph’s “This Week” yesterday. I love John Gotti’s mouthpiece Bruce Cutler, but he’s charming and smart when being evasive and slick, not irritating and shifty like Hatch. Hatch kept asking where the “evidence” was against Alberto Gonzales. Of course, when Hatch kept yammering about there being no evidence, he didn’t venture from the topic of Gonzales having fired nine U.S. attorneys in 2006. This morning, the Washington Post helpfully chronicled the damning evidence against Gonzales in a news story titled “Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed” (and subtitled “Claims of Misstatements to Shield Bush Stretch Back a Decade”). Gonzales owes his entire career to George W. Bush. Shielding GWB dates back to Gonzales’s tenure in Texas as general counsel, secretary of state, judge on the Supreme Court and good buddy to GWB. The WaPo article quoted Bill Minutaglio, a University of Texas journalism professor and author of biographies of Gonzales and Bush. Minutaglio said Gonzales had kept a low profile in Texas and ‘had little practice before he came to Washington at responding publicly to stiff scrutiny’ and that ‘it’s beyond anything he had ever experienced in his life. He was ill prepared for it.’” The WaPo article goes on to say: “Democrats and some experts on the use of language say that Gonzales's gaffes are too numerous and consistent to be chalked up to misunderstandings...his answers, or his refusals to answer, have served to obscure events that would be damaging to the administration, Gonzales or Bush. One example involves the Terrorist Surveillance Program...Gonzales has testified repeatedly that there was never 'serious disagreement' among administration officials about the program and that an unusual visit by Gonzales to the hospital bed of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft was focused on 'other intelligence activities'...Others privy to details of the surveillance activities -- including several lawmakers and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller -- have suggested that they were all part of a single NSA program. Gonzales's critics say his distinction was a lawyerly one that stretched the bounds of the truth.” More quotes from WaPo: "He's a slippery fellow, and I think so intentionally," said Richard L. Schott, a professor at the University of Texas's Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. "He's trying to keep the president's secrets and to be a team player, even if it means prevaricating or forgetting convenient things.” “Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) told Gonzales at the (Senate) hearing (in April) that much of his testimony was ‘a stretch’. and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said he was ‘taken aback’ by Gonzales's memory lapses. Last week, Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the Judiciary Committee's senior Republican, warned Gonzales to review his remarks, saying: ‘I do not find your testimony credible, candidly.’ “Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at the New York University School of Law, said that Gonzales's strengths "may lie elsewhere, but they are not in management." Oh yeah...the administration is going to get rid of Gonzales. But how? A fatal accident would look really bad and that option has probably been taken off the table...for now. I see Gonzales resigning, being given a Medal of Freedom and being pardoned for all past and future peccadilloes, misdemeanors and felonies instead of going to trial and being convicted. Then he has a fatal accident.

McCain

An article in the Washington Post today (“Waiting For His Bus to Come In” by Sridhar Pappu) describes Senator John McCain’s (R-AZ) campaign as “sickly, weak, feeble, pick your choice”. Which, of course, is exactly what the onetime Republican front-runner’s campaign for the presidency has become. But that is not what the article is about. Pappu’s article is about John McCain’s self-devised, self-help, one-man, ego-rehabilitation therapy program. Through Pappu’s eyes, we see McCain going back to the site of his greatest triumph, New Hampshire, where he won the primary over George W. Bush seven years ago. “It was here”, Pappu says, “where Mr. Straight Talk Express shook hands with everyone and won over the press. It was here where he was happy.” Now, without campaign advisers, entourage, or dough because McCain’s great ego caused him to make faux pas after faux pas and doomed any hopes his supporters had for a McCain candidacy, the erstwhile Republican shoo-in is on his own. He’s just a little guy going from one small gathering to an even smaller gathering of hardcore groupies and he’s glorying in the approval and in his memories. McCain tells terrible jokes and he shmoozes. But there is no campaign. There is only a 70-year-old has-been soldier, has-been Senator, has-been candidate, has-been pooh-bah who is healing his wounds the only way he knows how. Is it sad? Is it poignant? Is it depressing? Is it embarrassing to read about John McCain booking himself into Rotary Clubs and any hall that will have him just to feed his addiction for applause and approval? No. McCain is a pragmatic man. He is doing what he has to do to live with himself, and to go on living at all. McCain is dealing with that period of time between death—in this case, the death of his hopes—and the acceptance of death. McCain’s campaign and McCain himself are sickly, weak and feeble. He has simply gone on a cross-country tour to feel like a man again. You do what you gotta do. But McCain is irrelevant. Right now, he’s dealing with the death of his hopes. Should John McCain ever try to come to grips with being irrelevant, it will require a cadre of mental health professionals being on-call 24-7.

More Lies About Progress in Iraq

Stuart W. Bowen Jr., who is head of the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, released a new report yesterday. The conclusions detailed in Bowen’s report found that of 2,797 so-called completed projects in Iraq, (costing $5.8 billion) only 435 of them (costing $501 million) were in a condition to be handed over to the Iraqis. The remainder of the 2,362 projects, which had cost US taxpayers $5.2 billion were crumbling, inoperative and had been abandoned. The New York Times reported this morning, “The United States often promotes the number of rebuilding projects, like power plants and hospitals, that have been completed in Iraq, citing them as signs of progress in a nation otherwise fraught with violence and political stalemate. But closer examination by the inspector general’s office, headed by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., has found that a number of individual projects are crumbling, abandoned or otherwise inoperative only months after the United States declared that they had been successfully completed.” Rick Barton, co-director of the post-conflict reconstruction project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research institute in Washington was quoted in the NYT article, saying, “the lack of interest on the part of the Iraqis was the latest demonstration that they were not involved enough in its planning stages.” Barton’s remark and the title of the NYT article, “As US Rebuilds, Iraq Won’t Act on Finished Work” are misleading. The lede paragraph of the article is misleading as well: “Iraq’s national government is refusing to take possession of thousands of American-financed reconstruction projects, forcing the United States either to hand them over to local Iraqis, who often lack the proper training and resources to keep the projects running, or commit new money to an effort that has already consumed billions of taxpayer dollars.” That is hardly the problem. Many of the projects are either in no shape to be handed over in the first place, or they are handed over to Iraqis with no instructions from the builders as to how to operate them. The NYT said, “In one of the most recent cases, a $90 million project to overhaul two giant turbines at the Dora power plant in Baghdad failed after completion because employees at the plant did not know how to operate the turbines properly and the wrong fuel was used...Because the Iraqi government will not formally accept projects like the refurbished turbines, the United States is ‘finding someone at the local level to handle the project, handing them the keys and saying, “Operate and maintain it,”’ another official in the inspector general’s office said.” The actual truth of the matter is that Vice President Dick Cheney’s company, Halliburton (and its subsidiaries), and Blackwater, USA have made a fortune SUPPOSEDLY rebuilding Iraq. But in fact, the rebuilding has never occurred or the construction work has been so shoddy that the buildings could not be used. PLUS, Blackwater, USA, which is the company that provided much of the manpower for the reconstruction work, switched their employees (who are first and foremost mercenaries not builders) over to fighting the war instead of rebuilding Iraq. And since the Iraq government and the Bush administration have fallen out of love, the Iraq government is being blamed for not operating projects that were not built at all, were inoperable, or were handed over with no instructions or Read-Mes. Sounds all too much like most of our experience with computers and computer programs, but we’re talking about life, death and billions of dollars in Iraq, not machines. I suspect that telling the truth has become an actionable offense in the Bush administration. That is the only thing that would explain why everyone, from the lowest of the low toady to cabinet heads are lying every time they utter a simple declarative sentence.

The Heart of the Matter

Yesterday, by a vote of 399 to 24, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution that would limit federal spending “to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq or to exercise United States economic control of the oil resources of Iraq.” So take that, William Kristol and all you little Kristols who signed the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) manifesto and who have conspired since 1997 to control Middle East oil and to put US military bases in Iraq. Because that’s what the war in Iraq has ALWAYS been about. What a miserable flop the neocons’ warring aggression has been. The Bush administration has killed 3640 US soldiers, started a civil war it cannot win or end in Iraq, fomented terrorism where no terrorism existed before, effectively bankrupted the United States until our children’s children are old and grey, ruined the US reputation around the world and for what? Well, the US was supposed to overrun and conquer Iraq first, and then Iran, and with the help of Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia—the Bush family’s great pal, whose countrymen were responsible for bombing the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001—the US was supposed to put military bases in Iraq to control the Middle East and its oil und morgen die Welt. The New York Times reported “House Republicans offered little resistance, saying the plan essentially reflected current law and Bush administration policy. But they criticized Democrats for what they said was meaningless legislation since the administration had not called for permanent bases.” The Bush administration had not called for permanent bases because that is what it had planned for and was in the process of accomplishing without calling for permanent bases.

One of Four Things Has To Happen

Option 1) The Prez changes his mind (all on his own) about the way he has been running things in Iraq and about other major Bush administration policies. Option 2) The Republicans in the House and Senate show the Prez the wisdom of changing his mind on Iraq and other Bush administration policies. Option 3) The House and Senate override the president’s vetoes. Or what? Or, the Repubs get voted out of office for the foreseeable future. Option One is doomed. The Prez is not going to change his mind. And that is because George W. Bush does not see himself as a political figure. But rather, he sees himself as God’s stand-in for Him who punishes evil and rewards good. George Bush, as God, can’t change his mind. Option Two is doomed unless the Republicans in the House and Senate suddenly locate their balls, which is not likely. They are not going to teach the president rudimentary lessons of etiquette, let alone show him the error of his ways since 2001. So, Option Three is the only recourse. The House and Senate have to override the president’s vetoes. And that means each chamber of Congress votes on a bill vetoed by the President and passes it by a two-thirds vote over the President’s objections. Hmmm...Option Three seems a little iffy. Oh well...guess the Repubs are going to get voted out of office for the foreseeable future. Oh...there is Option Four. The Prez could be committed to a real insane asylum. I don’t think that has ever been done in US history. I like Option Four ALOT...just because.

Who Can Say What and Not

Yesterday, a friend and I were having lunch at a sushi restaurant in Center City, Philadelphia. The conversation got around to the murder rate in Philadelphia. In the wee hours on Sunday, five more people were murdered. That brings our total for 2007 up to 232. My friend said, “Of course, we’re not supposed to say this, but if guns were taken away from young black men, we wouldn’t have the highest violent-crime rate in the nation.” I agreed. And I also agreed, we couldn’t say it because we would be called racist. But last night, on CBS News, Philadelphia’s Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, who is black, answered Byron Pitts question, “Is it an urban problem or is it a black problem?” by saying, "I can only speak for Philadelphia — and Philadelphia is definitely a black problem because of the 85 percent of the people being killed, close to 80 percent are African-American males.” Commissioner Sylvester Johnson could say it. And he did. Backtracking on Johnson’s math, he said that 85% of the people killed are non-whites: that is 198. And of that 85%, 80% are African-American males. That comes to the whopping figure of 158 out of 233 people killed in Philadelphia between January 1 and July 23, 2007 were black males. Another statistic is that since 2001, Philadelphia has had 10,000 shooting victims. Most of the gunmen are under age 25, and most of the murders have occurred in predominantly black North Philadelphia where the unemployment and school dropout rates are the highest in Philadelphia. The headline on the CBS News story about Philadelphia’s murder rate was: “Philadelphia: City Under Siege”. I live in an area of South Philadelphia that is just south of Center City. And that headline is blatantly sensational. The people in this part of town only feel under siege by the Republican Party. However, the black community in North Philadelphia is most definitely under siege. And that is one of Philadelphia’s biggest problems and it’s certainly not racist to say so. In any culture, when a group is failing by all the standards set by the community as a whole, then it is that community’s fault. But seeing the problem and confessing to culpability does not make it easier to solve the problem. I certainly have no answers. But I suspect the problem is going to have to be solved by the people who are affected most by the problem, which is the black community in North Philadelphia. How? I don’t know. And that’s the worst part of living in a city with the highest violent crime rate in the United States. We can point to where the problem is occurring and we can point to all the circumstances that are causing it and we can cluck our tongues. But we don’t have the foggiest notion what to do about the problem.

How Stupid Do They Think We Are?

The “they” being whoever is trying to sell “us” a bill of goods. And the “bill of goods” is everything from the so-called wisdom of doctors to the war in Iraq. Doctors rely on actuarial tables and bullshit fed to them by pharmaceutical companies. The people who graduate from the most highly rated med schools predominately are over-achievers with serious personality defects who believe everyone is stupid, so why should we believe them? We believe them because we’ve been told to believe them. And doctors have the upper hand. It is amazing how much crap we are inundated with daily from everything everywhere. And all those purveyors of crap think we are going to believe it because we are stupid and they have the upper hand. Believing that he who makes the most noise is superior is probably in our hardwiring. It’s certainly true in the animal world. Priests and preachers are the biggest purveyors of crap. They’ve got the upper hand because they say their load of baloney comes straight from God. The Republican Party says they get their high-grade bullshit straight from preachers who get their crap straight from God. Mega-buck corporations get their bunkum straight from the Republican Party who got the garbage straight from preachers who got the crap straight from God. And doctors are only four degrees from God because they got their crap from schools supported by mega corporations who got their crap from the Republican Party that has kissed the ass of preachers who got their crap straight from God. But the myth-factories are starting to crumble. And it’s mainly because information is available. Since the beginning of time, there have been people who said they had information that the masses could not acquire except through middle-men. Turns out, that is the biggest load of crap of all. And I won’t pretend this is not a scary time. It’s a scary time. No longer can we say we have to rely on people who are empowered because they have the info. We all have the info. We can get at it and we can make our own decisions. Now the people who have always said they are our masters and have the upper hand are just worker bees. It’s up to us, guys. We are not beholden to the few anymore. The information is available. We do not have to depend on wisdom wizards who claim they can turn lead into gold, defeat into victory, disease into different disease called health and lies into truth. They’re selling a load of crap. We may be lazy but we are not stupid.

Here’s the Thing

No matter what deadline dates the Bush administration sets for itself regarding the war in Iraq, the dates will be pushed ahead, fudged and lied about ad infinitum. The criteria used for progress or success in Iraq will be lowered and changed ad infinitum. The definition of Al Qaeda, where it is and how effective it is will be changed according to the whim of the Bush administration ad infinitum. The standard used to gauge the effectiveness of the insurgents against US troops will be changed according to the Bush administration’s latest lies about the war in Iraq ad infinitum And the Bush administration will change and invent reasons why we attacked Iraq ad infinitum. It’s Lucy in the Peanuts cartoon. Lucy always pulled away the football just as Charlie Brown was going to kick it. That was Lucy’s unchanging and unchangeable modus operandi. And lying is the Bush administration's unchanging and unchangeable way of conducting itself. The only things we know for certain about the war in Iraq is that the Bush administration will lie. And we know 3,630 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq for no reason. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of the war in Iraq is $8 to $10 billion a month. The CBO estimated the costs of the surge would be from $9 billion to $13 billion for a four-month deployment and from $20 billion to $27 billion for a 12-month deployment, The surge has not worked. The surge cannot work because the US soldiers and the ragtag Iraqi soldiers are fighting a civil war in Iraq. The New York Times reported this morning: “Ambassador Crocker cautioned the lawmakers that the series of 18 benchmarks set by Congress to define his assessment due Sept. 15 might not be the best measures of success in Iraq. And he strongly hinted that those specific goals may not be reached by the September deadline, anyway.” This kind of lying bullshit from the Bush administration will go on forever until US voters demand that it stop.

The Vote May Fail, But NEVERTHELESS...

The Dems are doing what they should have been doing all the way along. And that is, they are forcing a vote in the Senate on the Iraq war. And they should keep forcing votes in the Senate over and over and over. A sorry clot of Republicans who have broken with the Prez on his conduct of the war in Iraq, refused yesterday to back a plan to withdraw American troops from Iraq. Two Republicans who have been very vociferous in their criticism of the president’s Iraq policy, Richard G. Lugar (R-IN) and Pete V. Domenici (R-NM), said they would oppose the Democratic plan. As Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) said, “Many of these senators have been back home telling their constituents they’ve given up on the president’s policy in Iraq...well, the question is, will they have the courage now to vote with those who want real change?” Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who is a leading sponsor of the Democratic plan said, “It is on the right track...it is moving in the right direction and it is a very significant change.” But Alexander said he would not support the Dem’s withdrawal proposal. The American people need to see this. They need to see that the Republicans who are voicing their disapproval of the Bush administration’s conduct of its war in Iraq, do not have the balls to show that they have broken with Bush’s policies and that they want change. “You wonder if they are more interested in politics than dealing with the substance of this,” Senator George V. Voinovich, (R-OH) said. Speaking about the fact that the Democrats used the same tactics (such as not allowing a simple majority vote) when they were the minority party as the Republicans are using now, the senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said, “It doesn’t pass the smell test.” Oh my! McCain is surely the wrong person to use that particular metaphor. His whole presidential campaign has not passed the smell test. He has lied, he has kissed the asses of the very people who slandered him in his first presidential campaign, he has made inflammatory pro-Bush statements, he has condoned malfeasance in the Bush administration, and he has flip-flopped on important issues. Now his campaign is bankrupt and he will probably have to pull out of the race, all because his campaign stinks to high heaven. If anything doesn’t pass the smell test, it is Republicans who are willing to talk the talk but who won’t walk the walk in favor of measures to end the calamitous war in Iraq.

Steve Lopez Nails LA’s Archdiocese

Steve Lopez writes a column for the LA Times called “Points West”. I remember Lopez from his 12 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer in the ‘80’s and 90’s where he nailed everything from the sewer system to drug dealing. Back then, he won the H.L. Mencken Writing Award, the Ernie Pyle Award for human-interest writing and a National Headliner Award for column writing. Steve Lopez can be hilariously funny and he always gets to the heart of the matter. But today, there was nothing funny about Lopez’s comments on LA’s Cardinal Roger M. Mahony. Lopez was simply on target. He wrote: “Roger the Dodger has already admitted — albeit without much detail — that he left five priests in the ministry despite complaints of molestation. And my newspaper has counted 11 other cases in which priests stayed on the job despite parishioners' concerns about inappropriate behavior with children. “Although the settlement agreement requires the archdiocese to turn over internal documents to a judge who will decide which ones go public, Mahony said he still considers some files "privileged" under the law. Prosecutors and victim attorneys, who have fought for years to get the good cardinal to come clean, don't necessarily agree.” It would be interesting to me to know who is taking lessons from whom. Does the Bush administration mentor the Roman Catholic Church, or does the RCC take notes on malfeasance, stonewalling and lying from the Bush administration? Or is it just a case of two corrupt and crumbling organizations coincidentally using the same tactics at the same time to save their high-placed officials from receiving the punishment they deserve? Lopez says Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley described Mahony's surrender of documents as "giving with one hand and taking away with the other." Lopez went on to say, “The archdiocese has spent untold millions on PR and legal fees, on top of the huge settlements. ‘Where does that money come from?’ asked Richard Sipe, a former priest and an expert witness on church scandal and clergy abuse. ‘That comes from parishioners, and they have a right to know.’ It comes from the hardworking employees of the archdiocese, as well.” Lopez quoted a June 18th memo he had in his possession from top administrators to department heads informing them "lay staff will receive no raises this year because of the seriousness of the financial crisis the archdiocese is facing due to the impending settlements.” Lopez had a few suggestions for the cardinal: “Perhaps the church could have avoided squeezing the staff — as well as the sale of property — if it hadn't spent a fortune on spin and legal fees over the last several years. But as I said, this was never about money. It was about protecting Mahony's image. ‘I didn't know what to do next,' Mahony said at a news conference this past weekend. ‘Everything I did, someone thought was wrong. When you're empty, the only way up is God.’ Still don't know what to do next, cardinal? Tell the truth, and all of it. Protect children, not criminals, and certainly not yourself. And if you still have to ask, maybe it's time to step down.” As I say, it’s hard to tell the Bush administration from the RC Church. But the idea that officials from either group might step down or tell the truth is impossible to imagine.

Why is Bush Prolonging the War in Iraq?

When pondering complex issues, the simplest motives, reasons, solutions or explanations usually turn out to be at the center of the matter. Although George W. Bush has given every indication that he is insane, is mentally challenged, is delusional, is narcissistic, is paranoid and that he believes God appointed him and him alone to eradicate evil from the world by whatever means may be necessary. Still, those flaws in the president’s hardwiring do not answer the question: Why is the president prolonging the war in Iraq? This morning, Frank Rich answered that question in his New York Times Op/Ed article. “This president is never one to let facts get in the way of a political agenda. That agenda is to avoid taking responsibility for losing a war, no matter how many more Americans are tossed into its carnage.” The Bush administration’s rationale for attacking Iraq has been a work in progress since the day the Prez announced his intention to “disarm Iraq”. Fighting terrorism is only the latest justification. And it’s “hooey, of course,” Rich notes. “Not only did Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia not exist before we invaded Iraq in 2003, but it isn't even the chief organizer of the war's mayhem today. ABC News reported this month that this group may be responsible for no more than 15 percent of the attacks in Iraq. Bob Woodward wrote in The Washington Post on Thursday that Michael Hayden, the C.I.A. director, told Mr. Bush last November that Al Qaeda was only the fifth most pressing threat in Iraq, after the insurgency, sectarian strife, criminality and general anarchy.” Protecting the United States from terrorist attacks is of no importance whatsoever to George W. Bush. If it were, Rich says, the Bush administration would be concentrating on the Al Qaeda havens in Pakistan and North Africa which actually do represent a threat to the US. Al Qaeda in Iraq and Al Qaeda being responsible for 9/11 are non-issues. And yet, Rich points out, there has been a “sudden uptick in references to Al Qaeda in the president's speeches about Iraq — 27 in a single speech on June 28 — and an equal decline in references to the Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence at the heart of the Iraqi civil war America is powerless to stop. Even more incriminating was Mr. Landay’s (McClatchy newspapers’ Jonathan Landay) discovery that the military was following Mr. Bush's script verbatim. There were 33 citations of Al Qaeda in a single week's worth of military news releases in late June, up from only 9 such mentions in May...From here on in, you can be sure that whomever we're fighting in Iraq on any given day will be no more than one degree of separation from bin Laden,” And the Bush script is, of course, bullshit. George Bush has one interest, and that is to prolong the war until he’s out of office. And the Republicans in Congress, who have based their careers on backing the Bush administration’s plan to take over the Middle East, have only one interest. And that is to make it seem as though the US has good reasons for having attacked Iraq and for staying in Iraq, in order that they may keep their jobs. And what about the 3613 American soldiers who have died for this bogus war? The president and the GOP have as little concern for our troops as they have for the millions of children from low-income families who have been given medical help through the Children's Health Insurance Program. The program will expire this year and President Bush plans to veto any renewal because it will cost too much money,

Good Grief! Bush is the Queen in Snow White

Yesterday, at a morning news conference, the Prez said he wanted to be loved. "I guess I'm like any other political figure,” he said. “Everybody wants to be loved.” Then he said he wants to look in the mirror and know he’s the fairest of them all...er...that he’s done the right thing.” Yesterday’s sequence of events was bizarre. First, the Prez said we can “succeed in Iraq and we must”. Then he had a public private moment. The man who has fine-tuned the meaning of malfeasance in public office by lying every time he opens his mouth, by his criminal behavior and by his grand delusions said that after all he’s like everyone else and he just wants to be loved and to be able to look himself in the eye. Then the Prez proceeded to rail at the people in Congress who make our laws. Hr said Congress should butt out of any considerations on the war in Iraq. “I don’t think Congress ought to be running the war...I think they ought to be funding the troops,” the president said. And he amplified his statement that Congress has no business intruding its views on George W. Bush’s war by saying that Congress making war policy is a bad precedent for the future. "I'll listen to Congress,” he said, “but the idea of telling our military how to conduct operations, for example, or how to deal with troop strength, I don't think it makes sense . . . nor do I think it's a good precedent for the future.” A few hours later the House of Representatives voted 223-to 201 to require that the United States withdraw most combat troops from Iraq by April 1. So take that, President Putz. And of course, even if the House requirement passes in the Senate, which would be a miracle, the Prez has vowed to veto it. Last night on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, former New York Governor Mario Cuomo articulated a cogent prediction of the ultimate outcome of the president’s childish, stubborn and fanciful stance on the war in Iraq. Cuomo said, “I think you're not going to be able to resolve this as long as you don't have the president on your side, for this reason: Let's assume you've got 100 percent of the Congress, literally 100 percent -- all the Democrats and all the Republicans voting, Mr. President, our boys and our girls, our women and men are dying, you know? “He could still say, I'm the commander-in-chief. You can't tell me -- not even 100 percent of the Congress can tell me how to fight the war. “Then you go to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court says this is a political question and sends it back. “And so, in the end, you can't resolve it unless the president is with you. And I think the president will be with the Democrats because, as Senator (former Senator George Mitchell, D-ME) Mitchell has pointed out, he's losing Republicans. In the end, his terrible legacy is going to be capped with how he brought down the Republican Party.” Later on, Cuomo said the Democrats have made it hard on themselves by promising to get US soldiers out of Iraq when they only had 50 votes in Senate, knowing they needed 60 votes in the Senate. “They didn't have to say that. They could have said we're going to get our soldiers out of harm's way. That would have allowed for the Murtha type of situation (leaving some US soldiers in Iraq), where it's going to wind up anyway. So, we made it very hard on ourselves. We won by saying we're going to get them out. And I said before, you can't get them out, even if you got everybody, unless you get the president. And you will get the president because you're winning away Republicans and that will change the president's mind.” Which was a very generous thing for Cuomo to say about the President. Bush doesn’t really have a “mind”, as one thinks of the meaning of the word-- the seat of the faculty of reason. Bush has a set of preconceived prejudices. And of course, they will not be changed. But, as Cuomo suggests, the president’s rhetoric will change because the Republicans who make decisions for the little fascist will decide to pull most of our troops out of Iraq. And that will be that.

No Good News for the Prez or the GOP

Washington Post Headlines this morning: Top Aides Leave McCain Camp In GOP, Growing Friction On Iraq Gonzales Knew About Violations, Officials Say But is the Commander of the White House Insane Asylum worried? Not a bit of it. He’s running around the country cheerleading the war in Iraq. Yesterday, the Prez said, “We can accomplish this fight and win in Iraq.” How? He didn’t say. Although the Prez did say he wants Congress to wait until September to make any decisions. That’s when General Petraeus will hand down his assessment of the current strategy in Iraq. And exactly what will happen on that momentous day? The president didn’t say. He suggested that the US might change its strategy “in a while.” Bush addressed a handpcked friendly audience in Cleveland. He said, "They (the Iraqis) know we're kindhearted, decent people who value human life, and they understand that Americans will recoil from the violence on our TV screens...And I know, or I strongly believe, that if we recoil and leave the region with precipitous withdrawals or withdrawals not based upon conditions on the ground, it's going to get worse, not better." If the Iraqis know that the Americans who have attacked, murdered and oppressed them are kindhearted and decent, it’s more than Americans know. And I'm having trouble with Bush's rhetoric. It’s a positive sign when Americans recoil from violence, but it would be a negative sign for American troops to recoil? What am I thinking? I’m trying to make sense of the blathering of a madman. Here’s the key to George W. Bush’s lingo: Whenever he says “It’s in the nation’s interest” or “for the sake of your children and grandchildren”, he means, “it’s in my best interests for maintaining my vision of myself”. Yesterday he said, "I believe that (it’s in this nation's interests) it’s in my best interests for maintaining my vision of myself to give the commander (in Iraq) a chance to fully implement his operations...and I want to tell you, we must, (for the sake of our children and grandchildren) for the sake of maintaining my vision of myself accomplish this fight and win in Iraq.” Everything Crazy George does or says becomes crystal clear when you have the proper translation.

China Executes Former Food and Drug Head

From 1998 to 2005 during Zheng Xiaoyu’s tenure as China’s Food and Drug honcho, his agency approved six medicines that were fake, pharmaceutical firms falsified documents to get approvals, one antibiotic caused the deaths of 10 people, and Zheng took cash and gifts worth $832,000. China’s Food and Drug safety track record is worse than ours. Last month China admitted that a deadly chemical was in China-manufactured cough syrup. Earlier this year tainted wheat gluten was found in pet foods from China. Toothpaste from China is sweetened with a toxic chemical found in antifreeze, drug-tainted fish from China are turning up around the world, a banned feed additive is in Chinese pork and China still uses a banned dye from Sudan to color egg yolks. China's Food and Drug spokeswoman Yan Jiangyang said the food and drug agency was “working to tighten its safety procedures and create a more transparent operating environment”. But to show its heart is in the right place, China executed its former Food and Drug chief. The United States does not execute government officials who have been convicted of crimes. We commute their sentences so that they see no jail time. It’s a cultural thing. However, China and the US are not so different where the bottom line is concerned. Neither nation endeavors to solve the problems it has made for the world. And both nations are governed by men who have no personal ethical center for knowing right from wrong.

Frank Rich Defines the Bush Presidency

Not to mention the Bush personality. The title of Rich’s op/ed piece in this morning’s New York Times, “Profile in Cowardice”, is perfect. Rich says that when Bush commuted Scooter Libby’s prison sentence, the Prez stiffed everyone. George W. Bush owes a huge debt to the diehards in the neocon think tanks (like the William Kristol “Weekly Standard” crowd), to the “grumpy old white guys watching Bill O’Reilly in a bunker”, and even to the talking heads who still believe Saddam got uranium in Africa. But none of them got what they wanted. They expected a full pardon for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, not just a wimpy get-out-of-jail card. What the diehards never understood, Rich says, is that “Mr. Bush’s highest priority is always to protect himself...A commutation puts up more roadblocks by keeping Mr. Libby’s appeal of his conviction alive and his Fifth Amendment rights intact. He (Libby) can’t testify without risking self-incrimination. Meanwhile, we are asked to believe that he has paid his remaining $250,000 debt to society independently of his private $5 million ‘legal defense fund’.” “You know this president is up to no good whenever he hides behind the troops,” Rich said. The only time Bush took questions regarding his commutation of Libby’s sentence was during a visit to war casualties at Walter Reed Hospital. “This instance was particularly shameful, since Mr. Bush also used the occasion to trivialize the scandalous maltreatment of Walter Reed patients on his watch as merely ‘some bureaucratic red-tape issues’.” Rich writes that “the younger Mr. Bush’s cowardice is arguably more responsible for the calamities of his leadership than anything else... he professed support for the Vietnam War yet kept himself out of harm’s way when he had the chance to serve in it.” Bush could have halted stem-cell research in August 2001 by standing up and saying that he wanted stem-cell research stopped, but instead he “unveiled a bogus ‘compromise’ that promised continued federal research on 60 existing stem-cell lines. Only later would we learn that all but 11 of them did not exist.” “When Mr. Bush wanted to endorse a constitutional amendment to ‘protect’ marriage, he again cowered. A planned 2006 Rose Garden announcement to a crowd of religious-right supporters was abruptly moved from the sunlight into a shadowy auditorium away from the White House.” “Nowhere is this president’s non-courage more evident than in the ‘signing statements’ The Boston Globe exposed last year,” Rich says. The Prez claimed he had the authority to disobey more than 750 laws, but he chose not to veto them in public. “He signed them, waited until after the press and lawmakers left the White House, and then filed statements in the Federal Register asserting that he would ignore laws he (not the courts) judged unconstitutional.” The war in Iraq has shown, in spades, the Bush penchant for cowardice. Rich says, “If Mr. Bush had had the guts to put America on a true wartime footing by appealing to his fellow citizens for sacrifice, possibly even a draft if required, then he might have had at least a chance of amassing the resources needed to secure Iraq after we invaded it.” The one goal, maybe the only goal that George W. Bush has aspired to, is a rave review in the history books. He is going to have to settle for being an eponym. As in: Bushic, an era or person characterized by cowardice and mendacity.

Bush Lets Libby Off the Hook—No Surprise!

The New York Times, not noted for making hilarious or even ironic asides in its news stories, committed a howler to print this morning. In its story about President Bush commuting Scooter Libby’s sentence, the NYT said, “One big question is what role, if any, Mr. Cheney played.” Hahahahahahahaha! And, hahahahahahaha! The Littledecider’s Decider followed the orders of The Big Decider (in this case, I. Lewis Libby), and the word came down last night at dinnertime. The reason, of course, that Scooter Libby could decide his own fate is that he made a deal with Cheney/Bush that he would keep his mouth shut in exchange for not going to prison. Since Libby was Cheney’s chief of staff. Cheney has the most to lose if Libby ever tells the truth. But there is not anyone in the entire Bush administration, corporate America, or in the Pentagon that Scooter Libby could not finger and ruin. So now, we are hearing pious, treacly, hypocritical, shit-eating apologias from everyone in the GOP--“loyal aides” to very public and very vocal Republican loyalists. In his arrogant manner of pretending he’s the Commander in Chief, Bush said: “I respect the jury’s verdict...but I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive.” Charlie Black, a Republican strategist “close to the administration” was quoted in the NYT, saying: “I think he sincerely believed that Scooter was not shown proper justice...We can get into the whole definition of justice versus mercy, but the point is the president didn’t say justice wasn’t done, he just didn’t think the sentence was fair and therefore he showed mercy.” William Kristol (editor of The Weekly Standard), who is the man we have to thank for starting the War in Iraq back in 1997 when he wrote his neocon manifesto for the Project for the New American Century, said, “It became an issue of character and courage, really...I certainly think Bush did the right thing and I think he did something important for his presidency. I think conservatives would have lost respect for Bush if he had not commuted Libby’s sentence.” The Washington Post quoted House Minority Whip Roy Blunt: "President Bush did the right thing today in commuting the prison term for Scooter Libby. The prison sentence was overly harsh, and the punishment did not fit the crime." Good old Fred Thomson, sometime Senator (R-TN), maybe-presidential contender and all-time actor said: "This will allow a good American who has done a lot for his country to resume his life." WaPo noted that three national public opinion polls found seven in 10 Americans would oppose a pardon of Libby. Which counts for nothing when a politician needs to save his ass. And it was no coincidence that President Bush (that is to say, President Cheney) announced the night before Americans begin celebrating their most important national holiday of the year, Independence Day, that a tried and convicted criminal in the Bush/Cheney White House would not serve a day in prison. Cheney, who is known for saying, Fuck you! has done it again. I am off to God’s Country (Brooklyn, New York). Talk to you in a few days.