Obscure Thoughts and Diggeracities

BEN STEIN IS AN IDIOT

2008-12-14T14:32:00.001-05:00

Recapping financial punditry, mob psychology, and lonely voice of rationality.

THE KING SPEAKS

2008-11-10T13:17:00.000-05:00

THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'

2008-11-05T11:24:00.002-05:00

...the largest margin of victory for a President since 1984. The SCOTUS and US Constitution will soon be safe again.

Chicago November 5, 2008

Barack Obama's email to supporters:

Friend --

I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.

We just made history.

And I don't want you to forget how we did it.

You made history every single day during this campaign -- every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it's time for change.

I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign.

We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next.

But I want to be very clear about one thing...

All of this happened because of you.

Thank you,

Barack

NO VET

2008-10-28T10:26:00.000-05:00

The Right Side of the Bell Curve

2008-10-17T09:04:00.003-05:00

McZaney to the Rescue!!!

2008-09-25T06:15:00.008-05:00

It isn't possible to get into the heads of McSame's advisors, you know the ones who came up with the White Knight gambit. Presumably they sussed out both the upside and the downside. But, maybe they were unable to do the latter, blinded as they were by the bright light of their idea.

As far as I can tell, the upside is that the mavericky leadership of zany McBush would dominate the news cycle for three days and fill the hearts of the narrowing indy voter with the image of St. John-George slaying the dragon of Wall Street greed and saving the damsel of Main Street. Added bonus: buy in of Obama, and this turns Obama into nothing more than a foot soldier and follower.

Alas, there was no message discipline on the right side last night. Even the All-Star Fox panel chuckled at the thin cloak of principle thrown over the obvious arch political ploy. Then, Obama lofted McCain's slow pitch from his wheel house into the seats when he stated leader's need to be able to do more than one thing at a time.

The poorly conceived stunt moved quickly from McSame posing himself as 'the One!' to comedy. All this unfolded in one news cycle--with almost no cooperation--to land at the door of today's news cycle.

Then, late yesterday the idea was floated that a cancelled debate on foreign policy might be rescheduled in the Biden-Palin slot next week, reinforcing a new comedic concept: not only did McCain not want to debate tomorrow, but Palin would prefer to escape the klieg lights on October 2nd. Ooops. Palin hasn't successfully reinforced the idea she is St. Joan of Wassila over the last month, so this move reeked right out of the package. In fact, Palin has seemed not much more than a hockey mom with lipstick:earnestly ambitious yet also badly educated and mostly ignorant.

McCain's impulsive, grandiose narcissism couldn't have been more effectively brought to the center of today's news picture. It is possible the promotion of an election about personality differences might turn out to be an ill-begotten strategy too as the sober and thoughtful Obama crosses swords with the developing parody of mavericky self-aggrandizement. Such differentiation might well serve the future of the country.

Woooooooeeee

2008-09-24T08:51:00.002-05:00

Bush remains able to completely shock the sensibility.

...can't wait to hear what Sarah Palin has to say.

SYMMETRY!?!!

2008-09-23T09:01:00.000-05:00

Doh MOLECULES

2008-09-19T14:50:00.000-05:00

Defer This

2008-09-18T16:19:00.002-05:00

My definition of a dangerous choice for any office is a person whose sole expertise is in promoting their own political ambitions.

BACK TO THE FIFTIES

2008-09-07T06:37:00.000-05:00

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

2008-09-01T15:35:00.002-05:00

INSANE FOR A REASON, TIS McCRAZY

2008-08-31T15:36:00.002-05:00

From Politico:

McCain was scheduled to deliver his acceptance speech Thursday, but now may do so from the devastation zone if the storm hits the U.S. coast with the ferocity feared by forecasters.

LITTLE MISS MAVERICK

2008-08-30T17:36:00.006-05:00

There are a lot of ways to knock McSame's choice of Sarah Palin. But they are likely to miss the point. McSame has with this single stroke placed a piece on the board aimed--rightly, in terms of tactics--at mobilizing the evangelical base and providing the undecideds with an excuse to not vote for Obama. Also, basically, she's squeaky clean, enough.

It simply doesn't matter that Mrs. Palin is both inexperienced and a doctrinaire right winger. She will be set upon the task of reinforcing McSame's claim to being the true reformer against both the dried out Republican plutocrats and all those pesky pointy headed liberal socialists and welfarists. She can write her own script on personal responsibility cum reform, but everything else that comes out of her mouth will be tightly programmed.

Her message will be: personal responsibility + integrity + "post-partisan" reform. Reform, reform, reform! This will have a powerful appeal with the undecideds.

This said, obviously McSame has little interest in reform. He wants desperately to be the "general of generals." His 25 year record of being a foot soldier in status quo conservatism speaks for itself, (but who's asking?)

Thus it seems to me that Obama/Biden must tread carefully around McSame's brilliant (and cynical,) choice of Palin and concentrate on four fundamentals:

1. Run against Bush/Cheney
2. Point out the obvious sameness of McSame
3. Make the ground game an overwhelming factor
4. Present the agenda to smallish groups in the hinterlands of the battleground states

Blog worth tracking, mudflats You can't make this stuff up:

PAID FOR

2008-08-28T10:30:00.001-05:00

Reformer my ass.

GRIPPING THE GRAPE

2008-08-28T06:37:00.006-05:00

Because their candidate didn't win the fault is found with the opponent and the nominating system. The features of the latter were well known before the process was begun. Did the PUMA nation do anything about it starting a few years ago? No.

In reading through the protestations on hillaryclintonforum.net, I'm struck by the immense sour grapes expressed in the context of almost total naivete about how the nominating system works, and has worked over many election cycles.

Almost needless to say, their unconscious identification with Hillary now supports their valorizing McCain. They see him as the bitter medicine they wish to serve to the "other side." This vindictiveness, contra as it is to the advice of HRC, rotates their desire to reform the system around nothing more than their own self-victimization. And what brought this all on? That the PUMAs came to the messy kitchen of primary politics believing the HRC dish was a done deal.

Here's some gripping from hillaryclintonforum.net

mslas4hillary
Silver Member = >250 Posts
WHY WE MUST VOTE for MCCAIN? BECAUSE IT EQUALS THE END OF WHAT WE HAVE BEEN FIGHTING AGAINST
MCCAIN IN 2008 = THE END OF OBAMA FOREVER BECAUSE DEMOCRATS WILL BE OUTRAGED HE DIDNT CLOSE THE DEAL = HILLARY TO BE PRAISED AND ELECTED IN 2012 DEMS WILL SAY WE PICKED THE WRONG CANDIDATE

McCain will help the country more than obama ever could. Im begging you all to cross the party line for this one time for the sake of the democrats and the country, yourselves and Hillary. Remember if McCain is elected we see the end of obama, the end of obama nation, the end of the kool aid drinking supporters, the end of the bias, the end of the reverse racism, the end of the sexism from many, the end of the bias media, the end of inexperienced candidates and obama will be hated by dems for not closing the deal.

Staying home this election is a vote for Obama, McCain needs all the help he can get SO PLEASE VOTE MCCAIN.

WE CAN NOT REWARD DEMOCRATS WHO ACT UNDEMOCRATICALLY

---

GaGirl
Gold Member = >500 Posts
Obama is taking me to McCain - not Hillary
If I vote for McCain, it is because of Obama, Dean, and Pelosi and I don't mind saying it. Hillary did not take me from the Democratic party. Obama, Dean, and Pelosi did. Hillary can get me back. I am willing and proud to say that Hillary could bring me back - in an instant.

If Obama loses because I went to McCain, how does that hurt Hillary? If only Hillary can get me back, how does that hurt Hillary?

She told me NOT to go to McCain. It is only because of Obama as a lousy candidate and the DNC as dishonest manipulators that I left. It has nothing to do with Hillary.

---

lucky-ann
Presidential Member = >1000 Posts
I wouldn't be too concerned about using Hillary's name while campaigning for McCain e.g. saying you supported her in the primaries. people have no way of knowing how widespread it is if they hear individual people say this in interviews or so. but personally I wouldn't tell pollsters that you're a Hillary supporter for McCain and especially don't tell it to exit pollsters. hard numbers could really hurt Hillary's reputation though she's of course NOT responsible for our actions. still it could hurt her politically. I think the election had to be very close to be decided by hillary supporters but at the moment is looks like it is very close. We don't want to give the obama supporters any chance to blame Hillary though that's anyway really hard. She's going above and beyond the call of duty for him.

---

thebword
Presidential Member = >1000 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by eyedoc333
I have already heard from some Obama supporters that if PUMA appears to be the cause of Obama's downfall, they will remember in 2012. Let's be cognizant of this as we move forward.

Here we go again Obama and his intimidators. Too bad. Hillary and Bill did what they had to do. I will do what I have to do. PUMA's will do what they have to do. See that is America, we are supposed to VOTE our conscience for the good of all, not for our own personal benefit. Something the DNC, delegates, Super Delegates, and Obamabots obviously have forgotten.

Obamabots will not hold 2012 over my head as a threat. Country First.

Obama is responsible for making his case to the American people, to get their votes. His downfall is his own. It is Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's responsibility to position herself politically for a 2012 run.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

2008-08-23T10:49:00.000-05:00

HOUSED

2008-08-22T09:00:00.005-05:00

new update:

ONE DOSE IS TOO MUCH

2008-08-20T10:12:00.000-05:00

See more Adam "Ghost Panther" McKay videos at Funny or Die

MARYKAY FROM HILLARYCLINTONFORUM.NET

2008-08-13T14:55:00.004-05:00

hillaryclintonforum.net, home for HRC deadenders, Party Unity My Ass activists, Obama haters, and providing acres of trash talk and inanity, hosted this post yesterday.

This may be funnier than anything conjured by The Daily Show so far. Of course it would be hard to make this stuff up! Enjoy.

MaryKay

Gold Member = >500 Posts

Join Date: Mar 2008

Posts: 678

Poster Rank: #110

My Two Cents - Zbig, Obama and McCain

Intersting. Now, am I reading this right? You say that you've been told it has something to do with Georgia? Hummm.

If that be the case, here are my two cents, for what it's worth:

On Russia invading Georgia - As we all know too well, Obama's lead foreign policy advisor is Zbig Brzezinski. Zbig is fanatical about taking down Russia. He orchestrated the Rose and Orange revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine respectively.

Now, Zbig was Jimmy Carter's advisor. If you recall, he and Vance could not stand each other, and it was because Zbig actually started the first war in Afghanistan (which gave us the mujahideen, which evolved into the Taliban). When asked if Zbig had any regrets about doing this, he is quoted as saying that he felt it helped bring an end to the cold war, and he would rather have a few Islamic fundamentalists running around than the Soviet Union. Interestingly, Zbig also orchestrated the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, and brought us the Iranian government we know today. Great guy, huh? And yeah, we know that's Mika's daddy on Morning Joe.

Now, here's some things that I recently read. I'm connecting the dots here, so this part is more me piecing information together than it is cold-hard truth, as was the first part I just wrote above. That part is all fact. You can find it in many resources.

Fact: John McCain hired Zbig during his 2000 campaign, as he wanted to show he was willing to put dems on his cabinet. Over the years, McCain and Zbig had some sort of falling out. While it (seems) McCain has great respect for Zbig and what he and his sons did in Georgia and Ukraine to establish these "democracies," Zbig has disdain now for McCain for even wanting to sanction or go after Iran. I believe that Zbig's "creation," Iran, is still his baby. He believes Iran being an Islamic state is still central to keeping Russia "in line," and to his goals for the US being globally dominant. That's why Zbig went to work for Obama and I've read (again, don't know that this is true), that Zbig found Obama when he was at Columbia and groomed him to be this "world figure" so Zbig could carry out his plan. Again, you've got to read Canadian press to get this stuff.

BUT NOW... And this is the part where I'm speculating -- Obama has failed Zbig terribly with his initial comments and Zbig sees that he is weak after the European Tour. Hell, Clark Griswald had a more successful European vacation!

Zbig also didn't count on Russia actually attacking before he got to drum up more of these "soft" revolutions. There was talk on the Interent -- Canadian Press again -- that Zbig had one of these "color revolutions" planned during the Olympics in China, but I guess this war between Russsa and Georgia just stole that thunder, didn't it? My gut feeling... I think Obama was supposed to step forward and praise this soft revolution in China and he would look like a hero, but when real trouble came before they could hatch their plan, he didn't know how to respond!

Between all the gaffes and how silly Obama looks now, I think Obama's own people are getting ready to throw him under the bus. And I will bet you ten-to-one that someone may be using our movement to help Hillary orchestrate that coup at the convention, so it looks like our doing. If that does happen, I'll bet you ten bucks that Zbig will go running back to the arms of John McCain, because McCain -- at least in Zbig's eyes -- believes in preserving those democracies. McCain is likely to send in troups. Hillary takes Wes Clark's stance as that being a last resort. That's why Wall Street opened high every time she won a primary and opened low every time Obama won one. It's not only that Obama was preceived as being more tax and spend than Hillary, they felt that Hillary would not be as likley to use troops to nation-build Eastern Europe. Did you know that? I think you can find a Wall Street Journal article on that. I think there is a thread on here about it, actually.

Now, I'll bet the Republicans got wind of this, somehow. With our efforts and Hillary's recent words, there is talk that she may be ready to make a move. It could just be that our efforts are truly paying off and this is making them nervous, but the fact you mentioned that you were told it has something to do with Georgia made me connect these dots on some things I've been reading.

Let's see if I'm right here. If I am, then maybe we are in for an exciting convention and I'll watch it after all.

I had often said in reading what I read about Zbig that the reason Obama wanted the troops out of Iraq was to send them to these surrounding Eastern European countries for nation-building. Why else would Obama want to increase the size of the military in peace time? Think about it.

This could prove to be very interesting.

Dare I say Hillary 08?

WHITE HAIRED GUY

2008-08-06T08:58:00.000-05:00

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

GREAT AD

2008-07-12T19:29:00.000-05:00

Click To Play

NAILED

2008-07-11T08:56:00.003-05:00

Remember, McCain's line on Iraq is that the US forces win by helping stabilize Iraq AND reducing their own casualties so that "victory" results and then the US stays for 100 years. ...just like it happened in completely disarmed Japan and Germany, and, in Korea, even if Korea faces down North Korea along their DMZ.

MCCAIN=MORE AUTHORITARIAN MANAGEMENT OF DISSENT

2008-07-08T09:34:00.003-05:00

Not funny to have the Denver police squish one's Constitutional rights, but really funny as an object lesson in the exacting similarities between King Bush and the throne-eyeing McSame.

BUSH TOUR-D

2008-07-07T09:34:00.001-05:00

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

All that's left to do is the shredding and the pardoning.

McSAME TRUSTWORTHY? HA HA HA!

2008-07-01T10:29:00.002-05:00

"Senator Obama's word is not to be trusted." John "McBush" McCain

McCain flip-flops.

* McCain supported the drilling moratorium; now he’s against it.

* McCain strongly opposes a windfall-tax on oil company profits. Three weeks earlier, he was perfectly comfortable with the idea.

* McCain thought Bush’s warrantless-wiretap program circumvented the law; now he believes the opposite.

* McCain defended “privatizing” Social Security. Now he says he’s against privatization (though he actually still supports it.)

Wait, I’m not done with the last two weeks yet….

* McCain wanted to change the Republican Party platform to protect abortion rights in cases of rape and incest. Now he doesn’t.

* McCain thought the estate tax was perfectly fair. Now he believes the opposite.

* He opposed indefinite detention of terrorist suspects. When the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion, he called it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”

* McCain said he would “not impose a litmus test on any nominee.” He used to promise the opposite.

And these come after these other reversals from April and May:

* McCain believes the telecoms should be forced to explain their role in the administration’s warrantless surveillance program as a condition for retroactive immunity. He used to believe the opposite.

* McCain supported storing spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Now he believes the opposite.

* McCain supported moving “towards normalization of relations” with Cuba. Now he believes the opposite.

* McCain believed the U.S. should engage in diplomacy with Hamas. Now he believes the opposite.

* McCain believed the U.S. should engage in diplomacy with Syria. Now he believes the opposite.

* He argued the NRA should not have a role in the Republican Party’s policy making. Now he believes the opposite.

* McCain supported his own lobbying-reform legislation from 1997. Now he doesn’t.

* He wanted political support from radical televangelists like John Hagee and Rod Parsley. Now he doesn’t.

* McCain supported the Lieberman/Warner legislation to combat global warming. Now he doesn’t.

And these are the flip-flops I’ve noticed earlier:

* McCain pledged in February 2008 that he would not, under any circumstances, raise taxes. Specifically, McCain was asked if he is a “‘read my lips’ candidate, no new taxes, no matter what?” referring to George H.W. Bush’s 1988 pledge. “No new taxes,” McCain responded. Two weeks later, McCain said, “I’m not making a ‘read my lips’ statement, in that I will not raise taxes.”

* McCain is both for and against a “rogue state rollback” as a focus of his foreign policy vision.

* McCain says he considered and did not consider joining John Kerry’s Democratic ticket in 2004.

* In 1998, he championed raising cigarette taxes to fund programs to cut underage smoking, insisting that it would prevent illnesses and provide resources for public health programs. Now, McCain opposes a $0.61-per-pack tax increase, won’t commit to supporting a regulation bill he’s co-sponsoring, and has hired Philip Morris’ former lobbyist as his senior campaign adviser.

* McCain has changed his economic worldview on multiple occasions.

* McCain has changed his mind about a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq on multiple occasions.

* McCain is both for and against attacking Barack Obama over his former pastor at his former church.

* McCain believes Americans are both better and worse off than they were before Bush took office.

* McCain is both for and against earmarks for Arizona.

* McCain believes his endorsement from radical televangelist John Hagee was both a good and bad idea.

* McCain’s first mortgage plan was premised on the notion that homeowners facing foreclosure shouldn’t be “rewarded” for acting “irresponsibly.” His second mortgage plan took largely the opposite position.

* McCain vowed, if elected, to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term. Soon after, he decided he would no longer even try to reach that goal.

* In February 2008, McCain reversed course on prohibiting waterboarding.

* McCain used to champion the Law of the Sea convention, even volunteering to testify on the treaty’s behalf before a Senate committee. Now he opposes it.

* McCain was a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to illegal immigrants’ kids who graduate from high school. Now he’s against it.

* On immigration policy in general, McCain announced in February 2008 that he would vote against his own legislation.

* In 2006, McCain sponsored legislation to require grassroots lobbying coalitions to reveal their financial donors. In 2007, after receiving “feedback” on the proposal, McCain told far-right activist groups that he opposes his own measure.

* McCain said before the war in Iraq, “We will win this conflict. We will win it easily.” Four years later, McCain said he knew all along that the war in Iraq war was “probably going to be long and hard and tough.”

* McCain said he was the “greatest critic” of Rumsfeld’s failed Iraq policy. In December 2003, McCain praised the same strategy as “a mission accomplished.” In March 2004, he said, “I’m confident we’re on the right course.” In December 2005, he said, “Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course.”

* McCain went from saying he would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade to saying the exact opposite.

* McCain went from saying gay marriage should be allowed, to saying gay marriage shouldn’t be allowed.

* McCain criticized TV preacher Jerry Falwell as “an agent of intolerance” in 2002, but then decided to cozy up to the man who said Americans “deserved” the 9/11 attacks.

* McCain used to oppose Bush’s tax cuts for the very wealthy, but he reversed course in February.

* On a related note, he said 2005 that he opposed the tax cuts because they were “too tilted to the wealthy.” By 2007, he denied ever having said this, and insisted he opposed the cuts because of increased government spending.

* In 2000, McCain accused Texas businessmen Sam and Charles Wyly of being corrupt, spending “dirty money” to help finance Bush’s presidential campaign. McCain not only filed a complaint against the Wylys for allegedly violating campaign finance law, he also lashed out at them publicly. In April, McCain reached out to the Wylys for support.

* McCain supported a major campaign-finance reform measure that bore his name. In June 2007, he abandoned his own legislation.

* McCain opposed a holiday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., before he supported it.

* McCain was against presidential candidates campaigning at Bob Jones University before he was for it.

* McCain was anti-ethanol. Now he’s pro-ethanol.

* McCain was both for and against state promotion of the Confederate flag.

* McCain decided in 2000 that he didn’t want anything to do with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, believing he “would taint the image of the ‘Straight Talk Express.’” Kissinger is now the Honorary Co-Chair for his presidential campaign in New York.

source: Steve Bensen | Carpetbagger Report

DOH!

2008-06-29T07:04:00.000-05:00

excerpt:

Let's go back a few years to the 1990's, when private citizen Dick Cheney was running Halliburton, the big energy supplier. That's when he told the oil industry that, "By 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

Fast forward to Cheney's first heady days in the White House. The oil industry and other energy conglomerates were handed backdoor keys to the White House, and their CEO's and lobbyists were trooping in and out for meetings with their old pal, now Vice President Cheney. The meetings were secret, conducted under tight security, but as we reported five years ago, among the documents that turned up from some of those meetings were maps of oil fields in Iraq - and a list of companies who wanted access to them. The conservative group Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club filed suit to try to find out who attended the meetings and what was discussed, but the White House fought all the way to the Supreme Court to keep the press and public from learning the whole truth.

Think about it. These secret meetings took place six months before 9/11, two years before Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq. We still don't know what they were about. What we know is that this is the oil industry that's enjoying swollen profits these days. It would be laughable if it weren't so painful to remember that their erstwhile cheerleader for invading Iraq - the press mogul Rupert Murdoch - once said that a successful war there would bring us $20-a-barrel oil. The last time we looked, it was more than $140 a barrel. Where are you, Rupert, when the facts need checking and the predictions are revisited?

It Was Oil, All Along
Saturday 28 June 2008
by: Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

TACKING LEFT AND RIGHT

2008-06-18T09:03:00.001-05:00

McCANT

2008-06-17T13:14:00.000-05:00

McCrazy McSame the McBush Trifecta

2008-06-16T17:00:00.002-05:00

Senior Moments:

Bald liar:

IN A NUT SHELL

2008-06-15T13:22:00.002-05:00

FIGHT THE OBAMA SMEARS

2008-06-12T11:01:00.002-05:00

Fight the Smears

John_McCain_vs._the_Fact_Checkers

Polling before and after Kentucky's May 20 primary showed that Obama's race was a big issue for voters in Kentucky. In a Herald-Leader/WKYT Election Poll, more than one of five said it would make him less electable; an exit poll by the Associated Press found a similar response. Of those respondents, only a third said they'd vote for Obama in a general election. Nearly half of white voters said Wright's comments were important or very important to them.

The race issue is complicated by false, but rampant, rumors that Obama is Muslim. In Leslie County, a Republican county where Obama won 5 percent of the Democratic vote, the county judge-executive doesn't hesitate before mischaracterizing Obama's religion.

"I think one of the big problems for him is he's Muslim," said Jimmy Sizemore, the highest elected official in the county. "It's his religion, plus when his pastor came out and started talking, that was a problem, but that's just my opinion.

"I don't think it's because he's black, what everybody says is he is a Muslim."

When asked if he had ever researched the fact that Obama -- and the Rev. Wright -- are Christians, Sizemore said: "I don't care about finding out because I'm a Republican." (Lexington Herald-Leader)

HEADS I WIN, TAILS YOU LOSE

2008-06-11T14:10:00.004-05:00

Okay, what's all this about our Iraq mission swinging about the number of casualties?

McCain offers a conception of protecting national security by keeping thousands upon thousands of soldiers in places where they do not take casualties. So it is that, once victory is achieved, Iraq is, in McCain's words, just like S.Korea and Germany. Like those two locales our peaceful presence will be required indefinitely to...ummm...you know to be able to do something.

But what?

This comes down to a definition of victory by implication: we beat our foes and stick around. If we can't beat our foes quickly, we still stick around so we can beat our foes slowly. And when we win, we still stick around. Heads I win, tails you lose. The McCrazy strategy to stay in Iraq for 100 years or forever, whichever takes longest.

Joseph BH McMillan, a philosopher, over at The Political Conservative, offered a recent headline: We’ll Occupy You For a Hundred Years – If You’ll Just Stop Killing Us.

McMillan:

To tell a people that the occupation of their country will continue only if they refrain from fighting for their freedom is utter lunacy.

His point wasn't taken very well by his readership, even if it is completely logical, even unassailable.

McCain should be pressed from all directions on his whacky reasoning. For example, the US's presence in Germany, is it justifiable in any military sense? It's light duty; no casualties--but why is it so?

Germany's hosting of the US military has a historical context. This context was/is categorically different than that of Iraq. Germany was a defeated European state that had been a democracy; was disarmed completely after their defeat; was not riven or ruled by factions; and, then Germany evolved into a frontline of a confrontation which did not happen.

Whereas in Iraq, the US is basically--today--taking sides in a low grade civil conflict that does not promise the stability of either Germany or South Korea. The US wants Iraq to be democratic only if the elected government supports or interests. 1,000,000 plus Iraqis have been killed or injured after Iraq's dictatorship was defeated. ...not much like Germany.

Our ground presence in South Korea is probably pointless because any attempt on the part of the North Koreans to invade South Korea will follow their unleashing hundreds of thousands of shells and rockets, and likely could only be beaten back by using tactical nuclear weapons launched from submarines. If the US is the protector of Iraq in similar terms, McCain should say so, and say also how many casualties he'd allow the US to take should Iraq be invaded by North Korea, errr, somebody.

On the other hand, if one wants to take a realistic neocolonial attitude toward Iraq, then it might be most honest to confess that the US will be in Iraq irrespective of rising or falling casualties simply because Iraq provides such a great platform to protect US energy and security interests.

This argument has its own problems but at least it's defensible.

McSame really needs to be asked what the mission of the US is today, and what it will evolve to be in the future.

It seems to be the mission of the military is to kill enemies and casualties are always at risk in doing so. Planting forces in places where there is little risk seems backwards. If the US isn't taking casualties in Iraq then it's possible they might be sent to where enemies need to be killed.

McCain's illogic and ignorance and attempts to defy his critics commonsense arguments are much more scary than what could have been: scary yet realistic talk about how to use the military to effectively eliminate threats.

JUST A LIAR

2008-06-10T10:50:00.000-05:00

McSame McCrazy has taken to a new strategy recently. When confronted with evidence that he said something he wishes he hadn't said, he simply states that he didn't say it!

Golden Oldies:

NOT THAT LOYAL

2008-06-07T19:25:00.001-05:00

“I am very angry at the way Hillary has been treated by the Democratic Party during the last three months. When Hillary was winning the majority of the primaries, the superdelegates were flocking to Obama. The Democratic professionals wanted to please Obama more than Hillary because they valued his supporters more than Hillary’s. I have said that I would do anything in my limited capacity to destroy Obama’s candidacy (who I do not like because of his trashing of Bill Clinton and his accomplishments as president) and the best way to do that is to vote for McCain. It is an emotional not rational vote. My loyalty is to Hillary not the Democratic Party.”
>Reba Shimansky is a renowned… Democratic pundit and activist.Reported by Mark Halperin @Time/CNN

At hillaryclintonforum.net, a site at which I have become a voyeur of its weirdness, the two most popular ideas are Operation Takedown, the plan to not vote for Obama (Nobama!) and support of a McCain/Clinton ticket.

Some funny posts there squaring the gulf between McCain and Clinton policies. The main beefs against the Obama nomination are:

1) Decided by superdelegates not doing their kob of backing the most electable
2) Obama's control of the male party top level infrastructure and their misogyny and dominance
3) Obama's being a racist because black people vote for him for no other reason than his skin color
4) Obama being close to terrorist Bill Ayers; close to USA hater Jeremiah Wright, and having a Muslim father
5) Obama having laundered money. used Rezko, and joined the corrupt Dem politics of Chicagoland
6) Hillary getting piled on by the media

etc., and other such nonsense.

Needless to say if the shoe were on the other foot they wouldn't be complaining at all.

Super grumpy and apparently mostly irrational.

8 MONTHS

2008-06-06T09:03:00.002-05:00

Obamain30seconds

THERE IS A RIGHT ANSWER!

2008-06-02T12:42:00.003-05:00

Comment from the WAPO article, Clinton's Endgame.

U.S. presidency is no job for an unqualified shyster as Obama with his racist and sexist baggage. Recently, he has gotten the unprincipled endorsements of superdelegates who lacked integrity and repudiated their true function, making the purpose of the superdelegates completely meaningless. The superdelegates endorsing Obama are backing a losing horse incapable of winning the general election. If the superdelegates give Obama the nomination, I cannot wait to begin working for his defeat and vote for McCain in a swing state.

The pro-Obama biased media have interfered in, undermined, and subverted the Democratic presidential nominating process. The pro-Obama biased,sexist media continue to sabotage Sen. Clinton's campaign with impunity. The pro-Obama biased media are out of control. This media tyranny is our democracy's worse enemy.

Superdelegates are mandated to select the best qualified and strongest candidate to win the general election without regard to any "delegate math." Sen. Clinton is winning the popular vote and she is the best qualified and the strongest candidate to defeat McCain and win the general election in a landslide victory. The facts of her winning strengths were stated to the superdelegates in an eleven-page letter from Sen. Clinton. Obama had no similar letter to the superdelegates because he lacked winning strengths; Obama's only "strength" is a bandwagon linked to rhetoric that will end up in a train wreck for the Democratic Party.

After the primaries end on Tuesday, uncommitted superdelegates with independent judgment, reflecting wisdom, integrity, and courage, have the responsibility to overwhelmingly endorse Sen. Clinton for the nomination, making her the Democratic presidential nominee. Sen. Clinton will defeat McCain, and she will win the general election in a landslide victory hands down. Sen. Clinton will be the next President of the United States.

Posted by: crat3 | June 2, 2008 1:04 PM

Lessee: paranoid, feeling victimized, delusion of conspiracy; and, for all that, at least crat3 has managed to regurgitate the popular vote spin. My favorite, as somebody who studies how adults operationalize propositions and how they make attributions about 'other minds' and how the world works, is the posit about how Obama voluntarily took himself off the Michigan ballot and so he now gets his just dessert.

HILLARYCLINTONFORUM.NET

2008-05-31T18:41:00.003-05:00

Since I recently discovered it, the HCF has provided lots of material. I guess it has to be the central hangout for Clinton supporters who support The Hillary because she's, well, The Hillary, and no other considerations matter at all. When the HCF crew isn't paranoid in building a conspiratorial geometry out of the media, DNC, and Obama supporters, they're plotting vindictive fantasies to stick it to the Democratic Party.

What is weirdest of all is that there is no discussion about differences of opinion; it's completely: you're either with us or against us.

SUPRA5667
Each day Hillary Clinton grows legendary.. The savior of democracy.

DONNA
The Democratic party has become a bunch of elitists.... they have
forgotten the people who are the backbone of this country!!
Hillary represents us! She represents what the democratic party used to be!
I think Hillary should run on an Independent ticket......a new party with a new
symbol representing democracy!
I am now an Independent!!!

RAYinAR
I think we should all contact and keep contacting the DNC to let them know we will be leaving this party. But they left us first. The independent party will grow and grow. The Democratic Pary is now DEAD. May it never rest in peace.

ScottVA
I'm going to stay Dem here in VA that way they think they've got my vote! LOL My partner and I will fundraise and vote for McCain here if The Great Wizard gets the DNC crown!

ReneeInFlorida
Exactly Hillary and Bill owe these Democratic traitors nothing.
Hillary please listen to us.!!! Pull a Joe Leiberman, go Independent and we are all there, we will win!!!!

DONNA
I have my paper work done and will get it mailed out Monday.......
I am an Independent and I want to explore the possiblity of
Hillary running on an Independent ticket!!

sharkeye1
Everyone, if you are going to write or call the DNC tonight/tomorrow/next week please do this one thing - try to remain rational and calm. I know how hard that will be but we have to make them understand that we are not the lot of crazies like Obama's people are. Let them know how you feel but without name calling, irrational screaming, etc.

LOL

BEAM ME UP

2008-05-31T06:36:00.004-05:00

Courtesy of the invaluable Glenn Greenwald, a money quote from Tim Rutten, taken from his review of Scottie's What's Happening.

The news media, no less than the nation, endured a wrenching trauma on 9/11 and no less than any other institution in society felt the moral obligation to demonstrate solidarity with a country under deadly threat. In that situation, not giving the administration the benefit of the doubt, when it presented "facts" it said were based on the best and most sensitive intelligence available from the CIA and other spy agencies, would have been mindlessly adversarial.

Alternately: mindfully doing their job to provide facts counter to the snow job. Between 9-11-2001 and March 2003, a period of 18 months, a lot of information was available. But, irrespective of how gripping any of it was, two things were in the mix: what the UN inspections had found; and, whatever the counter-advocacy was on the part of the intelligence community. There was also stuff in the open source, but it isn't necessary to make the case that mindful adversarial reportage was possible.

So, it isn't a question of taking somebody's word for anything. Hundreds of thousands of wounded and maimed later, and after 30,000+ American casualties and a trillion dollars, the 'my country right or wrong' crap is in bold relief. Wrong is wrong no matter what part of the propaganda mansion has been gussied up and presented to the egotistic journalist or pundit for the sake of there being a room where all mighty access is guaranteed.

Egotistical sucking at the propaganda teet isn't defensible. It's not for nothing that the mainstream media, as Greenwald has reported for years, maintains the strongest tendency to cover its ass.

McClellan was looking at a naked emperor for years. It's not so much that he waited but that he can't admit he was consciously complicit from day one. The WH Press Secretary is a propagandist. Tis his job.

TRUE BLUE OR TRUE TO THE BONE?

2008-05-30T06:34:00.005-05:00

For months now, smug condescending, self righteous Obamabots have been calling for Senator Clinton to drop out. They have resorted to personal attacks, character assassination, and ugly insults, rather than addressing the issues … and, disregarding, and disrespecting the 17 million Clinton supporters, as if we don’t even exist, or don’t even count. If Obama wins the democratic nomination, I urge fellow Clinton supporters to respond by voting for John McCain in November, as well as voting the super delegates, who jumped Hillary’s ship, out of office.
— Posted by Lee Posted at The New York Times

Over at the sour hillaryclintonforum.net, a busy albeit unofficial catch basin for all things The Hillary, the mission to swing the November vote to McCain as a matter of revenge and spite is called Operation Takedown.

From the NYT comment thread:

I believe in Hillary 100% and think she stands a good chance of winning the nomination. If for some reason she does not make it, I will Never vote for barack obama and thats a promise.
— Posted by brigitte

100% is a lot!

Hillary Clinton can run as an Independent and win!
Hillary ‘08!!!
— Posted by MoeB.

That would be something.

I’m glad that Senator Clinton is fighting on. The process isn’t closed until the nominee is named at the convention. That she is showing such strength in the face of massive and vicious pressure reassures me that she has the fire, wisdom and grit to lead this country. The extended primary season is an opportunity for both candidates to show their mettle. I, for one, am inspired by Senator Clinton.
— Posted by Rhoda Bodzin

The basic problem is: The Hillary has lost a squeaker. And, it doesn't matter that anybody can make a credible argument about her electoral electability because such an interpretation runs up against counter interpretations just as worthwhile.

Obviously, were the glittering shoes on The Hillary's feet all her supporters, and, Billary, would be arguing for the hopelessness of Obama's cause and, especially, arguing against the Supers overturning the 'will of the people,' or whatever you wish to term a slim majority.

Of course Obama hasn't had to offer up any tortured math at all. He fought hard in red states and this has turned out to be a winning strategy unforeseen by Clinton, who spent way too long imagining that she was going to roll to a nomination. She may be gritty and tough and relentless but her campaign strategy has turned out to be the main reason she has lost.

As for her supporters who are so fused to the cause that they would slice off their noses to spite their faces: one wonders what will happen when their Queen asks them to vote for Mr. Obama. If it turns out Hillary's supporters cost Obama the election, then both The Hillary and her supporters will go down in history. And, probably this will doom her chances in 2012.

PALE AND BEYOND THE PALE

2008-05-23T19:46:00.004-05:00

Irony of ironies, it turns out that it is The Hillary who manages to implode late in the primary season, providing as she has today the terminal gaff.

She could, if she wished to and had the guts, apologize in completely concrete terms:

I apologize for unintentionally feeding the impression that I'm in the race because absolutely anything favorable for my campaign and unfavorable for Barack could happen.

She won't do this.

Over at the amazingly paranoid, conspiracy-theory fueled, home of the last of the Clinton true believers, hillaryclintonforum.net, her comments have evoked the following jaw-dropping comments.

PATRICE LA
OMG they will READ ANYTHING INTO THE SLIGHTEST COMMENT! I do NOT see anything wrong with what she said.

SANDY IN PA
She was just using the fact the he was assassinated in June as a point of reference to say that he was still in the primary race in June.

TEACHGRD3
I'm sick of Obama and his campaign flying off the handle and taking offense at innocent things.

SANDY IN PA
This wouldn't even be an issue if the Obama campaign hadn't immediately issued a statement on it so they could stir the pot.

MJNO7777
I don't understand why she apologized??? She was making a point about why she is still int he race by giving two other examples.

JOEYSKY18
Guys, she didn't do anything wrong.

SANDY IN PA
Looks like they are still quite intimidated by Hillary and still have their spies out wherever Hillary is speaking so that they report back immediately to HQ and have them issue a press release twisting her words.

WYOMING DEM
And if she does want him dead like she would ever say it out loud?
It is just ridiculous to alledge that's what she meant.

SUZAN
How ridiculous of the media to pile on this way. It's absurd. You can see that she made the comment in a very matter of fact way. There was nothing in appropriate about it. I heard it on Fox before I saw the video and I thought she'd really done something terrible. More of much ado about nothing.

SSMITH
I want that ship and all who sailed it to go down in flames.. I will be voting and campaiging for mccain..even repubs don't do this to each other..glad I am no longer a dem. only hillary supporter!

PRINCESSE JEN
The good news is it's Friday and Memorial Day weekend so people are gonna be busy and out not watching a lot of TV so I don't think this will get too much attention.

What is shocking is not that she said something knowing it could be misinterpreted, or said something unintentionally, but that she said something that she should never say for any reason. Why her comment was beyond the pale was because she picked the worst possible example for a June campaigner, and in doing so, picked the only possible example that could evoke the impression that the second place campaigner could gain from the darkest of all "game changers." And, this was the second time she chose these same two examples.

I"M RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT AND I GET TO DECIDE

2008-05-20T17:35:00.004-05:00

. . .what's real, or not.

Since McCain isn't dumb as cardboard, his relentless attachment to his talking point in this clip says a lot about our ability to subject ourselves to being told hooey, as well as underlining the necessary Big Lie psychology McCain is convinced is all he'll need.

If there's any one area where McSame is most like Bush it's his tenacious discipline blown as wind into his own mendacious sails.

YEARS AGO IN GERMANY

2008-05-19T09:11:00.004-05:00

Getting Bubba

By Kathleen Parker
JewishWorldReview.com

"A full-blooded American."

That's how 24-year-old Josh Fry of West Virginia described his preference for John McCain over Barack Obama. His feelings aren't racist, he explained. He would just be more comfortable with "someone who is a full-blooded American as president."

Whether Fry was referring to McCain's military service or Obama's Kenyan father isn't clear, but he may have hit upon something essential in this presidential race.

Full-bloodedness is an old coin that's gaining currency in the new American realm. Meaning: Politics may no longer be so much about race and gender as about heritage, core values, and made-in-America. Just as we once and still have a cultural divide in this country, we now have a patriot divide.

Who "gets" America? And who doesn't?

[snip]

What they know is that their forefathers fought and died for an America that has worked pretty well for more than 200 years. What they sense is that their heritage is being swept under the carpet while multiculturalism becomes the new national narrative. And they fear what else might get lost in the remodeling of America.

[snip]

Some Americans do feel antipathy toward "people who aren't like them," but that antipathy isn't about racial or ethnic differences. It is not necessary to repair antipathy appropriately directed toward people who disregard the laws of the land and who dismiss the struggles that resulted in their creation.

Full-blooded Americans get this. Those who hope to lead the nation better get it soon.

Glenn Greenwald is tracking this appalling, racist rant by Ms. Parker.

In most respects, her perspective is transparently fashioned in the time-dishonored code of white supremacy. This is horrible enough--her attempt to ice her racist cake through appealing to a claim by which some Americans get America better than others, AND, coincidently, these same citizens also get that America is better off when "blood equity" is predominant in our politics--but then she rationalizes her appeal as somehow not being about race at all.

antipathy appropriately directed toward people who disregard the laws of the land

She drops this in to let it do its work.

The Aryan German was purported to get Germany better than all non-Aryan infiltrators, and so it was a hop or two from that formula to the longstanding, equivalent white supremicist formula brought forth (mostly) in the rural backwaters of the ex-Confederacy. Ms. Parker has reprised the formula exactingly.

She gets rewarded too because soon enough she's on the WAPO editorial page gay-baiting Obama and John Edwards.

FANTASY ISLAND INDEED

2008-05-16T08:47:00.001-05:00

McCain, McSame, McCrazy, McBush, appears to be focusing on a largely symbolic and magical appeal to the most impressionable voters. Those voters, regardless of how they are demographically or stereotypically characterized, are targets of this appeal because they are the most sympathetic to certain ideas and most resistant to other competing ideas. One way or the other they are true conservatives in the most folky sense, opting to support ideas over some of what could be--were they--their other interests.

McCain's health care plan, even if bare of actionable elements, is an exacting case in point. It's funding ideas are simple enough: personal responsibility, freedom of choice, and obedience to the profit-motivated health insurers. McCain hasn't really bolted these three aspects together in a workable mechanism for, as he puts it, reform, yet, the agenda is patently clear.

(1) Free companies from the burdens of providing health care benefits.
(2) Free insurance companies from the burden of providing non-underwritten group coverage.
(3) In emptying millions of group-covered employer-plan insurees into the marketspace, allow the actuaries and health odds-makers to, finally, separate the healthy wheat from the irresponsible chaff.

Although addressing the problem of health care access and costs was on the table, evidently for McCain the problems are different: providing health care is too expensive for companies and insurers, and thus McCain's solutions address those problems rather than the problems of access and cost.

The end result will be that many currently insured working people who have access and low-cost employer provided insurance will become uninsured. But, many companies will be freed from providing insurance so they will enjoy enhanced profits, and, presumably, insurance companies will also enjoy increased profitability as their risk pools spit out the most costly risk factors.

Question is: who in their right mind would be in favor of voting to make insurance less accessible and more costly for those tossed into the individual underwritten risk models?

Think about the answer because its ideological fundamentals are proposed by McCain to evoke a spellbound electorate ready made to embrace his absurd plan, a plan itself geared to provide billions of dollars of tax monies to one of the country's richest, most greedy industries.

Meanwhile on Iraq:

FORE! OUCH!

2008-05-15T09:35:00.000-05:00

Bush's golf comments are reveal his psyche. Strong suggestion: incapable of empathy. Deluded about how he comes across. Mind running on narcissistic fumes.

BULLSEYE

2008-04-08T22:34:00.000-05:00

McCain's wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal—that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we'll stay.Rick Hertzberg, The New Yorker

HEAD SMACKER

2008-04-05T22:56:00.003-05:00

"I know economics very well, certainly better than Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. So let's clear that up," McCain told CNN in an interview on Thursday.

"We have got to find the floor on the cost of houses. When we find the floor, then there will be people who will come in and purchase some of these at bargain rates," said McCain. (CNN)

McCain has all the makings of another petty tyrant: narcissist, arrogant, strong sense of entitlement, choleric.

As for economics, how much has he spoken about the unraveling of the economy, an unwinding that has been moving to the center of the radar screen for over a year?

Answer: almost zip.

ISSUE?

2008-04-04T14:34:00.003-05:00

So if the US military is the greatest equal opportunity employer, then why didn't McCain pick up on the importance of Martin Luther King? Ahh, McCrazy wants it both ways methinks.

John McCain on MLK Day <> DNC Memo

1983: McCain Voted Against Law Creating National Martin Luther King Holiday. In 1983, McCain voted against passing a bill to designate the third Monday of every January as a federal holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That was the year the holiday was passed into law, supported by 338 members of the House and 78 members of the Senate. [1983 House Vote #289, 8/2/1983; 1983 Senate Vote #303]

1987: McCain Supports AZ Governor's Effort to Rescind Martin Luther King Day as State Holiday. In 1987, Arizona Governor Evan Mecham rescinded "what he termed an illegal executive order by his predecessor, Democrat Bruce Babbitt, to establish a state holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr." Speaking to the Arizona Teenage Republican Convention, when asked about Mecham's decision to rescind the holiday, "McCain said that he felt Mecham was correct in rescinding the holiday." [Washington Post, 1/14/1987; Phoenix Gazette, 4/13/1987]

1989: McCain Urged Lawmakers to Create State Holiday, But Expressed Opposition to Federal Holiday. In 1989, McCain expressed his support for a state law recognizing an Arizona Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. But, McCain said, "I'm still opposed to another federal holiday... but I support the (Arizona) Martin Luther King holiday because of the enormous proportions this issue has taken on as far as the image of our state and our treatment towards not only blacks but all minorities." [Phoenix Gazette, 5/2/1989]

1992: McCain Endorsed Proposition Creating State Holiday. "McCain endorsed Proposition 300, which would establish a paid state holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr." [Phoenix Gazette, 10/28/1992]

1994: McCain Voted To Strip Federal Funding From the MLK Federal Holiday Commission. In 1994, McCain voted to prohibit federal funds for the Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Holiday Commission. The Commission was established in 1984 "to encourage the observance of King's birthday." According to Al King, head of the California chapter of the commission, the organization "helped keep 'senators' and 'representatives' feet to the fire to recognize the holiday." [1994 Senate Vote #127, 5/24/1994; Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5/24/1995, 5/26/1995]

John McCain on the Confederate Flag

Late 1999: McCain Said He Wasn't Offended By the Flag. In 2000, McCain said of the flying of the Confederate Flag in South Carolina, "To me personally, I understand how it could be offensive to some people, but I had ancestors who fought in the Confederate army and I thought they fought honorably." [AP, 11/5/1999]

Early 2000: McCain Called The Confederate Flag "Offensive" And A Symbol Of Slavery. McCain appeared on "Face the Nation" and recognized the offensive symbolism of the Confederate flag. McCain said, "The Confederate flag is offensive in many, many ways, as we all know. It's a symbol of racism and slavery." [CBS News, Face The Nation, 1/9/00]

A Day Later, Aides Say He Misspoke. The next day, "McCain reversed himself and called the flag 'a symbol of heritage' ...Aides said he had misspoken in the television interview." [New York Times, 1/12/2000]

2006: McCain Conceded He Lied In 2000 to Win Political Points With the Confederate Flag, Called It "An Act of Cowardice." Following the 2000 South Carolina primary, McCain admitted that he had lied about his position on the confederate flag in order to win political points while battling George Bush in the South Carolina. McCain admitted, "I feared that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary, so I chose to compromise my principles. I broke my promise to always tell the truth." Speaking on the incident in 2006, McCain went further, saying, "The flag in South Carolina. I said that that was a state issue [in 2000]. It's not a state issue. It's a symbol that should not fly over the state capitol anywhere in America. ...I said that it really wasn't any of my business, was basically what I said. That was an act of cowardice." [New York Times, 4/20/2000; CNN, 5/24/2006]

Now comes the B.S.; really outright mendacity.

Reporter: On Martin Luthor King, what do you mean you say you learned?

McCain: Well, I learned that this individual was a transcendent figure in American history. He deserved to be honored. And I thought it was appropriate to do so. In my home state of Arizona, I was not proud that we were one of the last states to recognize Dr. King's birthday as a holiday. And I was pleased to be part of the fight for that recognition.

Reporter: What didn't you know when you voted initially against it that you later knew when you changed your mind?

McCain: I had not really been involved in the issue. I just had not had a lot of experience with the issue. That's all.

Reporter: [couldn't hear question]

McCain: In Arizona, I came from the military where we are the greatest equal opportunity employer in the nation and still are. And I had just not been involved in the issue. There were issues that I had not been involved in when I was in the military, and then I went relatively quickly to being a member of Congress.

Reporter: You just didn't realize the large role in American history?

McCain: I think I just explained it about best I could.

Reporter: It's not really an issue to be involved in, to be aware of his impact on this country, it's more of a knowledge of history.

McCain: I think you're entitled to your opinion on it and I respect your opinion on that, but I had not been involved in the issue. I had come from being in the military to running for Congress in a state that did not have a large African American population.

Iraq, the Decomposition

2008-04-04T05:52:00.003-05:00

General William Odom before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 2
Thus the basic military situation is far worse because of the proliferation of armed groups under local military chiefs who follow a proliferating number of political bosses.

How can our leaders celebrate this diffusion of power as effective state building? More accurately described, it has placed the United States astride several civil wars. And it allows all sides to consolidate, rearm, and refill their financial coffers at the US expense. To sum up, we face a deteriorating political situation with an over extended army. When the administration's witnesses appear before you, you should make them clarify how long the army and marines can sustain this band-aid strategy.

Nir Rosen efore the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 2
Today Iraq does not exist. It has no government. It is like Somalia, different fiefdoms controlled by warlords and their militias.

We are witnessing is more accurately described as the road to the Balkanization of Iraq, that is, political fragmentation. We are being asked by the president to believe that this shift of so much power and finance to so many local chieftains is the road to political centralization.

Contrast with anything the 'experienced' warrior John McCain is likely to say.

GENERAL MCCAIN

2008-03-31T08:44:00.002-05:00

Lindsay Graham eats both his shoes.

Nutty. Incredible. Brain dead. Mendacious.

DOWN THE RAT HOLE

2008-03-28T09:25:00.004-05:00

al-Maliki unleashes his Badr Corps surrogates, the Iraq Army, to squish the Sadr militias in Basra. What's the saying about 'war being politics by other means?'

The strikes reflect al-Maliki's weak position, and the non-existence of central government influence, in Sadr dominated strongholds throughout southern Iraq and Baghdad. So, al-Maliki and his own implement requisite 'janitorial' tasks in anticipation of the provincial elections in October. Time to clean up and out the Sadr faction, and the other gangsters reigning in Basra.

The US has to jump into the fray in Baghdad's Sadr City. Thus, the US is forced to pick sides in an internecine political battle, and, ironically, this means their support lines up with the Iran-aligned Badrists, the group that constitutes the main battle-hardened element of the Iraqi employment program; otherwise known as the Iraq Army.

It's really delicious from the cynic's perspective. The McCrazy Surge works because enough ethnic cleansing, Sunni CLC's, and visible US manpower in Baghdad, come together to, in effect, rout al-Q, and provide plenty of R&R ('regroup and re-arm!') for various Shi'a factions.

But then the plump milestone of Provisional Elections calls forth a violent methodology for mitigating the Sadr factor. The US chooses the side of the pseudo-national government and so, amazingly, the US is today fighting in Iraq to make it safe from Sadr--you know--Sadr, the popular leader who made a truce and moderated his stance so as to set up for his party enhanced participation in Iraq politics.

Sure, the other hand is that Basra had regressed to a wild west grotesque. Something has to be done! But, now what may well happen is that the truce will turn to ashes and the Mahdi Army will strike and evaporate in the Iraqi version of revolutionary minuteman. Can you surge that?

Who's to say. The US military may or may not have the flexibility to re-deploy significant forces from their current tasks for a long fight to the finish between al-Maliki's forces and those of Sadr. Of course there is the first Fallujah model: using it would turn Basra and Sadr City to rubble.

***

Win the Homefront "Strategy For Victory In Iraq" JohnMcCain.com

If efforts in Iraq do not retain the support of the American people, the war will be lost as soundly as if our forces were defeated in battle. A renewed effort at home starts with explaining precisely what is at stake in this war to ensure that Americans fully understand the high cost of a military defeat. The war in Iraq is at a crossroads and the future of the entire region is at stake - a region that produced the terrorists who attacked America on 9/11 and where much of the world's energy supplies are located. Success is essential to creating peace in the region, and failure would expose the United States to national security threats for generations. Defeat in the war would lead to much more violence in Iraq, greatly embolden Iran, undermine U.S. allies such as Israel, likely lead to wider conflict, result in a terrorist safe haven in the heart of the Middle East, and gravely damage U.S. credibility throughout the world.

The American people also deserve to know that the path ahead will be long and difficult. They have heard many times that the violence in Iraq will subside soon - when a transitional government is in place, when Saddam is captured, when elections are held, when a constitution is in place. John McCain believes it is far better to describe the situation just as it is - difficult right now, but not without hope. The stakes for America could not be higher.
---
Election 2008: What's at Stake?

America faces a dangerous, relentless enemy in the War against Islamic Extremists - We face an enemy that has repeatedly attacked us and remains committed to killing Americans and the destruction of our values. This election is about who is best prepared to lead and defend our nation and its global allies as Commander-in-Chief from day one. This election is about making sure we have the experienced leadership to guide us to victory in this war, protect the nation against future terrorist attacks, and support our troops and first responders who are on the frontlines of the war. This election will decide whether we choose to fight or announce surrender. It will decide whether we have a president who dangerously weakens U.S. security or strengthens it; whether we will flinch and retreat or fully engage the enemy on multiple fronts. We need decisive leadership with the vision and experience to guide our country and the world through this challenge. Having a courageous Commander-in-Chief who is willing to lead us in this war, rally our democratic allies and defeat our enemy to secure a broader peace is what's at stake in this election.

McCrazy's rhetoric from his campaign web site.

The Pentagon has announced that al-Maliki's independent military operations signal Iraq standing up. And, this is because the surge is so successful. Now, we'll find out whether the Iraqi Army is worth a damn. Yet they won't be on their own and it will also be interesting to find out if the US support rises to the level of an intervention in support of al-Maliki's faction and sectarian self-interest.

AND IF YOU ORDER RIGHT NOW

2008-03-26T15:22:00.001-05:00

ANYTHING TO WIN

2008-03-25T23:24:00.001-05:00

Via youtube via CBS.

Billary's bald ambitions now lead us to the scorched earth phase of her hopeless quest to be the nominee. I used to think Hillary was okay, but after this latest episode, it seems she will boldly lie and then pedal it as misspeaking. In other words, she's a liar and unrepentant and not worthy of picking up the red phone at all.

Meanwhile she gave an interview to Dick Scaife's Pittsburgh newspaper. Who was in the room? Scaife, the guy who pulled millions of dollars out of his pocket hoping to bury the Clintons and clintonism. She used the opportunity to race bait Obama.

Stepping back from the slew of such attempts made mostly by HRD proxies, it seems black and white, if you will, to point out the obvious: the entire point is to appeal to all voters for whom Obama's race is some kind of 'issue.' It's not technically racist, but it is clearly leveraging suspicion to invigorate implicit prejudice...found in racists mild and severe.

Damn her. What a monsterous way to conduct a campaign.

MCCRAZY MEANT HIS GAFF

2008-03-25T08:52:00.002-05:00

Posted the following in response to Glenn Greenwald's parsing of the McCrazy-al-Q-Shi'a gaff.

McCain's al-Qaida-Shi'a conflation has a long history and is especially popular among that segment of his base that believes Islam to be irredeemable. If 13% think Obama is in fact a Muslim, I'd suggest--strongly--a greater percentage believe this is a 'clash of civilizations.' This posit is popular elsewhere than in the Christian fundamentalist camps.

It goes like this:

al-Qaida enjoys support on the so-called Arab street.

Islam proffers a conception of its being the last Abrahamic revelation.

This conception makes a duty of converting the un-believer.

All Muslims are called to this unless they are themselves heretics and unbelievers.

The above conceptions enjoy support on the Arab street.

Islam is equivalent to the Arab street.

Islam wants to convert the non-believer.

Thus: IT HARDLY MATTERS WHAT THE NUANCES HAPPEN TO BE.

It would be charitable to state this is poppycock. Yet, it would be a mistake to underplay the support of the American street that is vulnerable to hooking up 'we don't do defeat' with 'Islam wishes to defeat us.'

...just my opinion, yet, McCain does seem to play to this crowd. His job is to scare enough of the middle undecideds into going along for the ride such a clash of civilzations promises.

5 INTO 100

2008-03-19T18:26:00.004-05:00

Not many have pointed this out on this sad fifth anniversary, a day marked by McCrazy's practiced conflation, but the point of melding Iran and Al-Q is already market tested and found to be a winner among all those who lump Sunni and Shi'a together into that very bad religion Islam, the religion that wants to jet ski over to the US and convert everybody at the point of a sword.

But what's to say? McCrazy, should he become President will be the steward of a vast roiling sea of mayhem and innocent blood will splash all over him and 'his own'. This seems to me to be plain as day. If that's your bag, loony McCrazy is your man.

How's the surge doing? Our Sunni allies are growing disgruntled at US duplicity.

I TOLD YOU SO

2008-03-10T18:13:00.000-05:00

NSA's Domestic Spying Grows
As Agency Sweeps Up Data
Terror Fight Blurs
Line Over Domain;
Tracking Email
By SIOBHAN GORMAN
March 10, 2008; Page A1

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Five years ago, Congress killed an experimental Pentagon antiterrorism program meant to vacuum up electronic data about people in the U.S. to search for suspicious patterns. Opponents called it too broad an intrusion on Americans' privacy, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But the data-sifting effort didn't disappear. The National Security Agency, once confined to foreign surveillance, has been building essentially the same system.

The central role the NSA has come to occupy in domestic intelligence gathering has never been publicly disclosed. But an inquiry reveals that its efforts have evolved to reach more broadly into data about people's communications, travel and finances in the U.S. than the domestic surveillance programs brought to light since the 2001 terrorist attacks.
[Combo]

Congress now is hotly debating domestic spying powers under the main law governing U.S. surveillance aimed at foreign threats. An expansion of those powers expired last month and awaits renewal, which could be voted on in the House of Representatives this week. The biggest point of contention over the law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, is whether telecommunications and other companies should be made immune from liability for assisting government surveillance.

Largely missing from the public discussion is the role of the highly secretive NSA in analyzing that data, collected through little-known arrangements that can blur the lines between domestic and foreign intelligence gathering. Supporters say the NSA is serving as a key bulwark against foreign terrorists and that it would be reckless to constrain the agency's mission. The NSA says it is scrupulously following all applicable laws and that it keeps Congress fully informed of its activities.

According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency now monitors huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records. The NSA receives this so-called "transactional" data from other agencies or private companies, and its sophisticated software programs analyze the various transactions for suspicious patterns. Then they spit out leads to be explored by counterterrorism programs across the U.S. government, such as the NSA's own Terrorist Surveillance Program, formed to intercept phone calls and emails between the U.S. and overseas without a judge's approval when a link to al Qaeda is suspected.

The NSA's enterprise involves a cluster of powerful intelligence-gathering programs, all of which sparked civil-liberties complaints when they came to light. They include a Federal Bureau of Investigation program to track telecommunications data once known as Carnivore, now called the Digital Collection System, and a U.S. arrangement with the world's main international banking clearinghouse to track money movements.

The effort also ties into data from an ad-hoc collection of so-called "black programs" whose existence is undisclosed, the current and former officials say. Many of the programs in various agencies began years before the 9/11 attacks but have since been given greater reach. Among them, current and former intelligence officials say, is a longstanding Treasury Department program to collect individual financial data including wire transfers and credit-card transactions.

It isn't clear how many of the different kinds of data are combined and analyzed together in one database by the NSA. An intelligence official said the agency's work links to about a dozen antiterror programs in all.

A number of NSA employees have expressed concerns that the agency may be overstepping its authority by veering into domestic surveillance. And the constitutional question of whether the government can examine such a large array of information without violating an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy "has never really been resolved," said Suzanne Spaulding, a national-security lawyer who has worked for both parties on Capitol Hill.

NSA officials say the agency's own investigations remain focused only on foreign threats, but it's increasingly difficult to distinguish between domestic and international communications in a digital era, so they need to sweep up more information.

The Fourth Amendment

In response to the Sept. 11 attacks, then NSA-chief Gen. Michael Hayden has said he used his authority to expand the NSA's capabilities under a 1981 executive order governing the agency. Another presidential order issued shortly after the attacks, the text of which is classified, opened the door for the NSA to incorporate more domestic data in its searches, one senior intelligence official said.
[Michael Hayden]

The NSA "strictly follows laws and regulations designed to preserve every American's privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution," agency spokeswoman Judith Emmel said in a statement, referring to the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NSA in conjunction with the Pentagon, added in a statement that intelligence agencies operate "within an extensive legal and policy framework" and inform Congress of their activities "as required by the law." It pointed out that the 9/11 Commission recommended in 2004 that intelligence agencies analyze "all relevant sources of information" and share their databases.

Two former officials familiar with the data-sifting efforts said they work by starting with some sort of lead, like a phone number or Internet address. In partnership with the FBI, the systems then can track all domestic and foreign transactions of people associated with that item -- and then the people who associated with them, and so on, casting a gradually wider net. An intelligence official described more of a rapid-response effect: If a person suspected of terrorist connections is believed to be in a U.S. city -- for instance, Detroit, a community with a high concentration of Muslim Americans -- the government's spy systems may be directed to collect and analyze all electronic communications into and out of the city.

The haul can include records of phone calls, email headers and destinations, data on financial transactions and records of Internet browsing. The system also would collect information about other people, including those in the U.S., who communicated with people in Detroit.

The information doesn't generally include the contents of conversations or emails. But it can give such transactional information as a cellphone's location, whom a person is calling, and what Web sites he or she is visiting. For an email, the data haul can include the identities of the sender and recipient and the subject line, but not the content of the message.

Intelligence agencies have used administrative subpoenas issued by the FBI -- which don't need a judge's signature -- to collect and analyze such data, current and former intelligence officials said. If that data provided "reasonable suspicion" that a person, whether foreign or from the U.S., was linked to al Qaeda, intelligence officers could eavesdrop under the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program.

The White House wants to give companies that assist government surveillance immunity from lawsuits alleging an invasion of privacy, but Democrats in Congress have been blocking it. The Terrorist Surveillance Program has spurred 38 lawsuits against companies. Current and former intelligence officials say telecom companies' concern comes chiefly because they are giving the government unlimited access to a copy of the flow of communications, through a network of switches at U.S. telecommunications hubs that duplicate all the data running through it. It isn't clear whether the government or telecom companies control the switches, but companies process some of the data for the NSA, the current and former officials say.
[Graphic]

On Friday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee released a letter warning colleagues to look more deeply into how telecommunications data are being accessed, citing an allegation by the head of a New York-based computer security firm that a wireless carrier that hired him was giving unfettered access to data to an entity called "Quantico Circuit." Quantico is a Marine base that houses the FBI Academy; senior FBI official Anthony DiClemente said the bureau "does not have 'unfettered access' to any communication provider's network."

The political debate over the telecom information comes as intelligence agencies seek to change traditional definitions of how to balance privacy rights against investigative needs. Donald Kerr, the deputy director of national intelligence, told a conference of intelligence officials in October that the government needs new rules. Since many people routinely post details of their lives on social-networking sites such as MySpace, he said, their identity shouldn't need the same protection as in the past. Instead, only their "essential privacy," or "what they would wish to protect about their lives and affairs," should be veiled, he said, without providing examples.

Social-Network Analysis

The NSA uses its own high-powered version of social-network analysis to search for possible new patterns and links to terrorism. The Pentagon's experimental Total Information Awareness program, later renamed Terrorism Information Awareness, was an early research effort on the same concept, designed to bring together and analyze as much and as many varied kinds of data as possible. Congress eliminated funding for the program in 2003 before it began operating. But it permitted some of the research to continue and TIA technology to be used for foreign surveillance.

Some of it was shifted to the NSA -- which also is funded by the Pentagon -- and put in the so-called black budget, where it would receive less scrutiny and bolster other data-sifting efforts, current and former intelligence officials said. "When it got taken apart, it didn't get thrown away," says a former top government official familiar with the TIA program.

Two current officials also said the NSA's current combination of programs now largely mirrors the former TIA project. But the NSA offers less privacy protection. TIA developers researched ways to limit the use of the system for broad searches of individuals' data, such as requiring intelligence officers to get leads from other sources first. The NSA effort lacks those controls, as well as controls that it developed in the 1990s for an earlier data-sweeping attempt.

Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee who led the charge to kill TIA, says "the administration is trying to bring as much of the philosophy of operation Total Information Awareness as it can into the programs they're using today." The issue has been overshadowed by the fight over telecoms' immunity, he said. "There's not been as much discussion in the Congress as there ought to be."

Opportunity for Debate

But Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, the ranking Republican on the committee, said by email his committee colleagues have had "ample opportunity for debate" behind closed doors and that each intelligence program has specific legal authorization and oversight. He cautioned against seeing a group of intelligence programs as "a mythical 'big brother' program," adding, "that's not what is happening today."
READ THE RULING

While the Fourth Amendment guarantees "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures," the legality of data-sweeping relies on the government's interpretation of a 1979 Supreme Court ruling allowing records of phone calls -- but not actual conversations -- to be collected without a warrant. Read the ruling.1

The legality of data-sweeping relies largely on the government's interpretation of a 1979 Supreme Court ruling allowing records of phone calls -- but not actual conversations -- to be collected without a judge issuing a warrant. Multiple laws require a court order for so-called "transactional'" records of electronic communications, but the 2001 Patriot Act lowered the standard for such an order in some cases, and in others made records accessible using FBI administrative subpoenas called "national security letters." (Read the ruling.2)

A debate is brewing among legal and technology scholars over whether there should be privacy protections when a wide variety of transactional data are brought together to paint what is essentially a profile of an individual's behavior. "You know everything I'm doing, you know what happened, and you haven't listened to any of the contents" of the communications, said Susan Landau, co-author of a book on electronic privacy and a senior engineer at Sun Microsystems Laboratories. "Transactional information is remarkably revelatory."

Ms. Spaulding, the national-security lawyer, said it's "extremely questionable" to assume Americans don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy for data such as the subject-header of an email or a Web address from an Internet search, because those are more like the content of a communication than a phone number. "These are questions that require discussion and debate," she said. "This is one of the problems with doing it all in secret."

Gen. Hayden, the former NSA chief and now Central Intelligence Agency director, in January 2006 publicly defended the activities of the Terrorist Surveillance Program after it was disclosed by the New York Times. He said it was "not a driftnet over Lackawanna or Fremont or Dearborn, grabbing all communications and then sifting them out." Rather, he said, it was carefully targeted at terrorists. However, some intelligence officials now say the broader NSA effort amounts to a driftnet. A portion of the activity, the NSA's access to domestic phone records, was disclosed by a USA Today article in 2006.

The NSA, which President Truman created in 1952 through a classified presidential order to be America's ears abroad, has for decades been the country's largest and most secretive intelligence agency. The order confined NSA spying to "foreign governments," and during the Cold War the NSA developed a reputation as the world's premier code-breaking operation. But in the 1970s, the NSA and other intelligence agencies were found to be using their spy tools to monitor Americans for political purposes. That led to the original FISA legislation in 1978, which included an explicit ban on the NSA eavesdropping in the U.S. without a warrant.

Big advances in telecommunications and database technology led to unprecedented data-collection efforts in the 1990s. One was the FBI's Carnivore program, which raised fears when it was in disclosed in 2000 that it might collect telecommunications information about law-abiding individuals. But the ground shifted after 9/11. Requests for analysis of any data that might hint at terrorist activity flooded from the White House and other agencies into NSA's Fort Meade, Md., headquarters outside Washington, D.C., one former NSA official recalls. At the time, "We're scrambling, trying to find any piece of data we can to find the answers," the official said.

The 2002 congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks criticized the NSA for holding back information, which NSA officials said they were doing to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens. "NSA did not want to be perceived as targeting individuals in the United States" and considered such surveillance the FBI's job, the inquiry concluded.

FBI-NSA Projects

The NSA quietly redefined its role. Joint FBI-NSA projects "expanded exponentially," said Jack Cloonan, a longtime FBI veteran who investigated al Qaeda. He pointed to national-security letter requests: They rose from 8,500 in 2000 to 47,000 in 2005, according to a Justice Department inspector general's report last year. It also said the letters permitted the potentially illegal collection of thousands of records of people in the U.S. from 2003-05. Last Wednesday, FBI Director Robert Mueller said the bureau had found additional instances in 2006.

It isn't known how many Americans' data have been swept into the NSA's systems. The Treasury, for instance, built its database "to look at all the world's financial transactions" and gave the NSA access to it about 15 years ago, said a former NSA official. The data include domestic and international money flows between bank accounts and credit-card information, according to current and former intelligence officials.

The NSA receives from Treasury weekly batches of this data and adds it to a database at its headquarters. Prior to 9/11, the database was used to pursue specific leads, but afterward, the effort was expanded to hunt for suspicious patterns.

Through the Treasury, the NSA also can access the database of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift, the Belgium-based clearinghouse for records of international transactions between financial institutions, current and former officials said. The U.S. acknowledged in 2006 that the CIA and Treasury had access to Swift's database, but said the NSA's Terrorism Surveillance Program was separate and that the NSA provided only "technical assistance." A Treasury spokesman said the agency had no comment.

Through the Department of Homeland Security, airline passenger data also are accessed and analyzed for suspicious patterns, such as five unrelated people who repeatedly fly together, current and former intelligence officials said. Homeland Security shares information with other agencies only "on a limited basis," spokesman Russ Knocke said.

NSA gets access to the flow of data from telecommunications switches through the FBI, according to current and former officials. It also has a partnership with FBI's Digital Collection system, providing access to Internet providers and other companies. The existence of a shadow hub to copy information about AT&T Corp. telecommunications in San Francisco is alleged in a lawsuit against AT&T filed by the civil-liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, based on documents provided by a former AT&T official. In that lawsuit, a former technology adviser to the Federal Communications Commission says in a sworn declaration that there could be 15 to 20 such operations around the country. Current and former intelligence officials confirmed a domestic network of hubs, but didn't know the number. "As a matter of policy and law, we can not discuss matters that are classified," said FBI spokesman John Miller.

The budget for the NSA's data-sifting effort is classified, but one official estimated it surpasses $1 billion. The FBI is requesting to nearly double the budget for the Digital Collection System in 2009, compared with last year, requesting $42 million. "Not only do demands for information continue to increase, but also the requirement to facilitate information sharing does," says a budget justification document, noting an "expansion of electronic surveillance activity in frequency, sophistication, and linguistic needs."

HAGEE ENDORSES MCCAIN

2008-02-28T23:08:00.002-05:00

Rev. John Hagee: All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.

The newspaper carried the story in our local area, that was not carried nationally, that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it would was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other gay pride parades.

So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the Day of Judgment, and I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.

(interview with Terry Gross, NPR; hat tip to Glenn Greenwald, Salon)

HA HA

2008-02-26T12:13:00.001-05:00

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

NADER NADIR

2008-02-25T10:09:00.002-05:00

Ralph Nader has long offered a powerful critique of the system of corporate interests deployed to cripple and corrupt politics from serving citizens first. ...he and Mr. Chomsky.

But he also offers his ego above all and over against any determined effort to develop a substantial constituency, movement, and political base of power.

Now, running in 2008, he will simply suck up the whack vote and accomplish nothing. I defend his right to run as a weird third party candidate. And I endorse the argument that he and the third party candidates in 2000 were not to blame for Gore's election loss. "post hoc ergo propter hoc"

Still, it seems a dim purpose for a man so brilliant to play on the very margins of the political process just to be sticky paper for several 100,000 "post process" citizens.

BETWEEN BARACK AND A HARD PLACE

2008-02-22T12:05:00.003-05:00

Hillary's xerox moment deserved to be in context.

if only The Hillary had allowed her campaign to reflect her feminine eros. I know, dodgy psychology elbowing in. Let's put it differently: Penn, Wolfson, Ickes, know how to conduct a streetfight and their old school political worldview supports the no holds barred approach.

Yet in the background are Hillary's female advisors and they would presumably endorse the relational approach that elevates the most singular feature of Hillary's ambitions, her becoming the first woman president, to the same altitude where hope and change play out their visionary dreams.

Barack got this from the git-go.

Hillary's coffee shop moment, where she became misty, was totally authentic. I wanted to hug her, give her comfort. Why? Because she feels her sense of what's wrong deeply. In her heart.

Yet her quartet of masculine advisors have allowed their tried-and-true animus toward anything hinting at the layers below political combat to trump what must have been wiser counsel from the distaff side.

Remember it was Jean Houston who helped Hillary actively imagine Eleanor Roosevelt. It's too late for Hillary's campaign to show saving imagination. Still, she should get rid of Penn and Wolffson and Ickes, and jump start the revolution she should have opted for in the first place.

imo

LOW HANGING FRUIT

2008-02-21T12:46:00.004-05:00

Lessee, McCrazy gets outed for providing benefits to Paxson Communications sometime after his self-creation of the purer, better John McCain. His rationale is precious: taking contributions from special interests is okay as long as it's in support of how the pol would have voted anyway.

All the other side helpings are side stories to this astonishing and circular rationale that completely undermines McCrazy's principled protests about money in politics.

But one has to get this: "I would have voted the same way even without the financial gifts," is completely unable to be falsified. After all, principles can be inverted on a dime.

A good place to hunt for the fruit of McCrazy's comeuppance would be in the direction of Arizona-based members in good standing of the military industrial complex and real estate. I would reckon a lot of wasted monies have flowed partly because McCrazy didn't give a hoot, but did so in a principled way.

Research on his lurid adultery and the Keating 5 and Cindy's family's boosterism, that started McCrazy on his senatorial path, is time wasted.

Of course, McCrazy is simply a bald liar irrespective of his other character faults.

JUGGERNOT

2008-02-20T12:26:00.001-05:00

...about as shrill as the Dean scream, and, check out the borrowing of the Obama water bottle moment.

McCRAZY

2008-02-19T10:39:00.004-05:00

George W. Bush, whose errors and failures cast a pall over McCain’s presidential bid, was much more genuine in offering support for a man with whom he has clashed repeatedly in the past. For the president, obviously, political ambition is moot. More than party unity is at stake: McCain is the last candidate standing who shares the Decider’s vision of the Iraq War as an open-ended struggle, still requiring a massive deployment of American military forces that would eventually lead to some sort of meaningful strategic “victory” for the United States.

The Decider is eager to help McCain paint Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as defeatists, rather than realists (which they are) who recognize that the Iraq invasion was a historic blunder, that the military achievements of Bush’s troop surge have served only to partially mitigate the damage done to U.S. national interests by the war, and that a permanent U.S. occupation of Iraq—which is, essentially, the Bush-McCain policy—will harm our nation’s security rather than enhance it.

The Democratic candidates are impolite enough to point out that the losses suffered by al-Qaeda in Iraq, which Bush and McCain love to cite, are really the vanquishing of a foe that could never have existed without the U.S. invasion. The Democrats also recognize that while U.S. forces are bogged down in Iraq, al-Qaeda is regrouping in Pakistan and plotting new attacks. They learned this from the Bush administration’s own intelligence estimates. McCain's Losing Message Eugene Robinson @ Truthdig

Thanks Eugene. Incredibly, it appears that Senator McCrazy will, over the next 8+ months try to rope back into compliance about 10% of the electorate, a segment currently disposed to favor a winding down of the Iraq debacle over "Victory being the only option."

If he could accomplish this, he would earn a razor thin electoral triumph over Obama or The Billary. I have no doubt that the point of attack will be entangling 'America doesn't do defeat' with 'light at the end of the tunnel' and 'withdrawal with honor.' The only other ingredient he'll require is the equivalent of political viagra.

However, McCrazy has cynically offered the most slight of details in speaking of his war fighting plans being contingent on keeping American casualties low. In other words, he well knows that the so-called 21st Century existential threat and our war against this threat cannot be sustained unless the mayhem is made to occupy the thinnest edge of the electorates' radar screen.

This is irrational. But it's also why McCain will place his bet on the surge always working versus spelling out in any detail how the total war who's name cannot be spoken will eventuate the triumph of the crusaders.

It seems to me that McCrazy hasn't imagined all the ways his feet can be held to the fire on this.

For one thing, Bush has already laid the groundwork for a pause in the reduction of forces, while it is obvious that even The General has no idea whether the Iraqis can be reliably stood up. If the surge recedes and the mayhem ticks upward, presumably, there will either be a re-escalation, or, an increase in fighter bomber attacks. I'd bet on the latter and I'd bet this will push Iraq right into the abyss.

It might be hard for McCrazy to make his case if the situation in Iraq turns ugly in the late summer and early fall. He should be asked what are his Plan B and Plan C.

TAKING MY BALL

2008-02-05T12:44:00.000-05:00

via Marc Ambinder

"I'm deeply disappointed the Republican Party seems poised to select a nominee who did not support a Constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage, who voted for embryonic stem cell research to kill nascent human beings, who opposed tax cuts that ended the marriage penalty, and who has little regard for freedom of speech, who organized the Gang of 14 to preserve filibusters, and has a legendary temper and often uses foul and obscene language.
"I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are. He has at times sounded more like a member of the other party. McCain actually considered leaving the GOP in 2001, and approached John Kerry about being Kerry's running mate in 2004. McCain also said publicly that Hillary Clinton would make a good president. Given these and many other concerns, a spoonful of sugar does not make the medicine go down. I cannot, and I will not vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience.
"But what a sad and melancholy decision this is for me and many other conservatives. Should John McCain capture the nomination as many assume, I believe this general election will offer the worst choices for president in my lifetime. I certainly can't vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama based on their virulently anti-family policy positions. If these are the nominees in November, I simply will not cast a ballot for president for the first time in my life. These decisions are my personal views and do not represent the organization with which I'm affiliated. They do reflect, however, my deeply held convictions about the institution of the family, about moral and spiritual beliefs, and about the welfare of our country." -- James Dobson

From Dobson's mouth into evangelical ears.

Meanwhile...

By Richard A. Viguerie

Open it up!

The discombobulated state of the Republican presidential campaign means that it is still possible for someone to jump into the race. Such a candidate could serve as a kingmaker at the Republican convention in September, or even – yes, it’s possible – could become the party’s nominee.

Currently, Republicans are split among the various candidates; most conservatives are undecided, or ambivalent, or support one candidate or another because the alternatives are worse. Having been betrayed by a Republican establishment – by a president and members of Congress who pretended to be conservatives in order to get elected – grassroots conservatives are justifiably wary of the present contenders for leadership. All the remaining GOP presidential candidates have good qualities; all are flawed.

[]

No one stands credibly on the three-legged stool that makes up the conservative movement and the heart of a successful Republican campaign – the coalition of economic conservatives, national security conservatives, and social conservatives.

Even Rush Limbaugh has raised the possibility that he may not support the Republican nominee this year. The nomination of McCain or Huckabee, he said, would destroy the party as we know it.

But what if the Republicans end up with an open convention?

It’s true that open conventions, common in times past, are rare nowadays. The last major-party conventions at which more than two candidates had sizeable blocs of delegates were 1952 for the Democrats and 1948 for the Republicans, and the 1976 GOP convention was the last time that either party’s nominee was not determined in advance. But with four candidates and with none of them acceptable to a strong majority of Republicans or conservatives, it’s possible that no one will have sown up the nomination before the convention. If that happens, anyone could theoretically win – or, failing an outright win, he or she could exert great influence.

But who?

Once you line up the three legs of the stool, Rich, you'd have to rope the crucial fourth leg: a studly deep voiced white guy who just radiates phallic power in a Christian feel-good kind of way. After all, you want to finish off once and for all a lot of crucial stuff getting in the way of a permanent conservative revolution. So, it's take no prisoners to wipe out: the New Deal, Islam, domestic Secular Humanists-Socialists-Feminists,

Seems like you'd be looking for a General with a major woody.

HOPING FOR A SUMMER OF O LOVE

2008-02-03T09:37:00.000-05:00

WITH LEADERSHIP SKILLS LIKE HIS

2008-01-30T19:34:00.000-05:00

Sayonara Il Rudy.

A great many persons at the present day are quite contented with this sort of compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough for the protection of individual freedom when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at large. This does not satisfy me: the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me than the fact of extorted obedience. I do not deny, however, that a constitution of this kind appears to me to be infinitely preferable to one which, after having concentrated all the powers of government, should vest them in the hands of an irresponsible person or body of persons. Of all the forms that democratic despotism could assume, the latter would assuredly be the worst. --Tocqueville

MITTENS VS. MCLIEBERCAIN

2008-01-29T06:49:00.000-05:00

From Time Magazine:

The Arizona Senator latched his political fortunes to the war last spring, and for much of the past couple of months, his bet has looked pretty shrewd. Out on the campaign trail, he has never missed an opportunity to tout the definite, if modest, improvement in Iraq and his role in pushing for the surge. But now, as McCain battles Mitt Romney to become the GOP frontrunner, it seems possible that the maverick Senator could be a victim of his own success. With Iraq overtaken by the flagging economy as voters' number one concern, McCain has not been able to turn his South Carolina victory of a week ago into a solid lead in the Florida polls, and Romney suddenly looks like a much more formidable rival for the nomination.

As Romney keeps reminding voters about his background as a consultant who knows the ins and outs of creating jobs

Full Stop

McCain is solidly in the "Victory is the only option," "100 years of war," "Bomb Bomb-a-Iran," camp. He hasn't really spelled out what the mitigation of some portion of violence in Iran leads to.

And, worse, with Joe Lieberman spouting nonsense that conflates Sunni jihadism with Iranian mischief making, spelling out what this never-ending war is really to be is paramount.

The best question for either candidate might be:

What would you do to irrevocably put the US on a war-footing so as to settle once and for all what is being asked of the citizenry in this existential battle against radical Islamicists?

Meanwhile, Mittens was the head knifeman at Bain Capital.

Nearly 24 years ago, Bill Bain the head of the consulting firm Bain & Company called one of his rising stars into his office. Mr. Bain asked Mitt Romney to start up a sister firm, focusing on private investments and venture capital — but was surprised to discover that Mr. Romney was reluctant to do so.

But Bain Capital has succeeded wildly since then, becoming one of the nation’s top private equity firms. And Mr. Romney has parlayed his tenure at the top of the firm into political success, first as governor of Massachusetts and now as a frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.

The New York Times takes a look at Mr. Romney’s ties to Bain Capital, finding that he has drawn upon his contacts for eye-popping levels of fundraising — and yet has drawn criticism for his role in the sometimes messy world of leveraged buyouts.

Citing his business experience, Mr. Romney has urged voters to reject “lifetime politicians” who “have never run a corner store, let alone the largest enterprise in the world.”
Mitt Romney with William Bain Jr.

Mr. Romney, though, never ran a corner store or a traditional business. Instead, he excelled as a deal maker, a buyer and seller of companies, a master at the art of persuasion that he demonstrated in the talks that led to the forming of Bain Capital.

“Mitt ran a private equity firm, not a cement company,” Eric A. Kriss, a former Bain Capital partner, told The Times. “He was not a businessman in the sense of running a company,” Mr. Kriss said, adding, “He was a great presenter, a great spokesman and a great salesman.”

But leveraged buyouts often lead to layoffs, a business reality that has impinged on Mr. Romney’s political hopes at least once before. In his 1994 campaign for the Senate, Mr. Romney’s efforts to unseat Edward M. Kennedy were derailed in part because of accusations that Bain Capital had fired union workers at an Indiana company it controlled. Mr. Kennedy’s campaign cut a series of commercials, focusing on laid-off workers, that cut to the quick. (Those ads are available on The Huffington Post.) Mr. Romney has said that he had nothing to do with the firings.

In an interview with The Times, Mr. Romney acknowledged that Bain Capital’s acquisitions has sometimes led to layoffs, but that he could explain them to voters.

“Sometimes the medicine is a little bitter but it is necessary to save the life of the patient,” he said. “My job was to try and make the enterprise successful, and in my view the best security a family can have is that the business they work for is strong.”

The patrician Romney may have trouble extracting populist bona fides from this background. Besides, there's nothing populist at all about financing your own campaign!

I'm hoping Mittens is the candidate. He's clearly a world class pandermaniac, phony, flip flopper, and stuffed shirt.

From Dkosopedia:

Before college, Romney earned a draft deferral by going to France for a two-year missionary tour with the Mormon Church. As such, he was able to avoid military service in Vietnam.

When the 2002 Winter Olympics was facing bribery scandals and a serious financial crisis, Romney was asked to take over as president and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee in 1999. It was here where he rose to national prominence and in the afterglow of a moderately successful (and debt-free) Olympics, he returned to Massachusetts in the Spring of 2002 to run for Governor of a state he had been absent from for three years.

In fact, Romney's residency status was an issue in the 2002 Gubernatorial race. He filed Massachusetts income tax forms as a nonresident in 1999 and 2000, and amended the forms to "resident" in April after returning to Massachusetts and deciding to run for governor. Given that the Massachusetts Constitution requires a candidate to live in the state for seven consecutive years before running for governor, many Bay Staters did not believe Romney should have been allowed on the ballot.

[About Iran]

"This is a nation where the genocidal inclination is really frightening and having a nation of this nature develop nuclear weaponry is unacceptable to this country and to the Middle East."

Given how ignorant this statement is, Stephanie Davis can't be right that Romney is, "the smartest person running for President - period."

How was the decision correct when its rationales were extinguished one-by-one?

WHERE'S THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF?

2008-01-28T07:39:00.000-05:00

John McCain, should he win the nomination, has promised to fight the terrorists wherever and whenever for a generation-one hundred years-until victory is achieved. If he is to pull about 10-15% of the electorate away from the war exhaustion camp and toward the perennial war camp, this observer figures that he will make fear-evoking appeals in favor of his male hormonal superiority.

Yesterday, Joe Lieberman, while campaigning with McCain, put the problem in stark and loopy terms. He said that the leadership of our enemy is in the hinterlands of Afghanistan and in Tehran. He makes no distinctions between radical Sunni jihadists and Shi'a radicals. They, evidently, are 'all one' in his sorry mind.

In reality, the Sunni jihadist considers the Shi'a to be heretics.

Meanwhile in Iraq the question of leveraging the reduction in violence--due to the combination of the Sunni awakening, successful ethnic cleansing, community policing (with US combat units being the coppers,) and better human intelligence and the response to this intelligence--is about whether the table is being set for political reconciliation, soft partition, or, neither.

If it's 'neither' this means all the US is doing is delaying the inevitable barroom fight between the various factions: sects, tribes, warlords, militias, national army, plutocrats, terrorists and the like.

Needless to say fear mongering is easy and actually spelling out how the application of force will--over decades--provide a favorable outcome is hard. McCain isn't telling. He's not talking about the hearts and minds problem.

It's the main problem.

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED WHACK JOB

2008-01-27T11:34:00.000-05:00

It's worth pointing out our country's security would suffer heavily were it to be placed in the hands of someone so out to lunch as to run their own presidential campaign from the heights of national polling leadership into the ground of a, likely, third or fourth place finish in the Florida Primary.

What would strategic and tactical blundering on the scale of Il Rudy's campaign look like in the field of national security? Thank goodness we'll not get to find out.

Has there ever been a candidate who came to stick a big "KICK ME" sign in his own handwriting o his own back?

The Rudy, a little incipient fascist, won't be missed.

Tuesday all that will remain will be to depress the lever and watch the swirl.

SLICK

2008-01-26T22:11:00.001-05:00

The pundits fall all over themselves to point out the obvious: the restoration of the Clinton duopoly will proceed in accordance to no standard of tact or taste or truth.

The Hillery is not electable. Her experience was her role as cohort to triangulating hubby Bill, he, the greatest Republican President of the 20th Century. Her husband, doh, took his job seriously enough to jeopardize it by allowing his dick to lead the way. He's not less arrogant and self-aggrandizing nine years later.

Ironically, the Clintons are the closest thing the Dems have to King Bush. They're ruthless, self-righteous, and have a sense of self-entitlement able to smother all comers.

Pun intended...

CHRISTIAN FIDDLING

2008-01-21T11:43:00.001-05:00

The following is a loopy attempt to certify Godly, as in Christian, education as a once-a-year weekly event promulgated by the feds.

Almost all the points in support of the resolution HR 888 do not individually or in aggregate constitute an actual argument. They are burdened by simply being appeals to authority, (a fallacy,) and they do not attach to any real argument.

110th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. RES. 888

Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation's founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as `American Religious History Week' for the appreciation of and education on America's history of religious faith.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

December 18, 2007

Mr. FORBES (for himself, Mr. MCINTYRE, Mr. AKIN, Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina, Mr. CULBERSON, Mr. DOOLITTLE, Mr. FEENEY, Mr. GINGREY, Mr. GOHMERT, Mr. HAYES, Mr. HENSARLING, Mr. HERGER, Mr. JONES of North Carolina, Mr. MCHENRY, Mrs. MUSGRAVE, Mr. PEARCE, Mr. PENCE, Mr. PITTS, Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin, Mrs. SCHMIDT, Mr. WALBERG, Mr. WILSON of South Carolina, Mr. WOLF, and Mr. YOUNG of Florida) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

RESOLUTION

Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation's founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as `American Religious History Week' for the appreciation of and education on America's history of religious faith.

Whereas religious faith was not only important in official American life during the periods of discovery, exploration, colonization, and growth but has also been acknowledged and incorporated into all 3 branches of American Federal government from their very beginning;

Whereas the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed this self-evident fact in a unanimous ruling declaring `This is a religious people ... From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation';

Whereas political scientists have documented that the most frequently-cited source in the political period known as The Founding Era was the Bible;

Whereas the first act of America's first Congress in 1774 was to ask a minister to open with prayer and to lead Congress in the reading of 4 chapters of the Bible;

Whereas Congress regularly attended church and Divine service together en masse;

Whereas throughout the American Founding, Congress frequently appropriated money for missionaries and for religious instruction, a practice that Congress repeated for decades after the passage of the Constitution and the First Amendment;

Whereas in 1776, Congress approved the Declaration of Independence with its 4 direct religious acknowledgments referring to God as the Creator (`All people are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'), the Lawgiver (`the laws of nature and nature's God'), the Judge (`appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world'), and the Protector (`with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence');

Many more whereas's follow.

Resolved, That the United States House of Representatives----

(1) affirms the rich spiritual and diverse religious history of our Nation's founding and subsequent history, including up to the current day;

(2) recognizes that the religious foundations of faith on which America was built are critical underpinnings of our Nation's most valuable institutions and form the inseparable foundation for America's representative processes, legal systems, and societal structures;

(3) rejects, in the strongest possible terms, any effort to remove, obscure, or purposely omit such history from our Nation's public buildings and educational resources; and

(4) expresses support for designation of a `American Religious History Week' every year for the appreciation of and education on America's history of religious faith.

LAME-O

2008-01-20T11:53:00.000-05:00

One more year.

SWORD DANCE

2008-01-16T22:22:00.000-05:00

excerpt Bloody reality bears no relation to the delusions of this President Robert Fisk, The Independent, UK

The West may have a short memory. The Arabs, who happen to live in the piece of real estate which we call the Middle East and who are not stupid, have not. They understand all too well what George W. Bush now stands for. After advocating “democracy” in the region – a policy which gained electoral victories for Shia in Iraq, for Hamas in Gaza and a substantial gain in political power for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – it seems to have dawned on Washington that something might be slightly wrong with Bush’s priorities. Instead of advocating a “New Middle East”, Mr. Bush, lying amid his silken sheets in the Saudi king’s palace, is now pursuing a return to the “Old Middle East”, a place of secret policemen, torture chambers – to which prisoners can be usefully “renditioned “ – and dictatorial “moderate” presidents and monarchs. And which of the Gulf despots is going to object to that?

AMERICA RETURNS

2008-01-03T23:56:00.000-05:00

What's left?

Barrack Obama has taken a first and very vigorous step into the history books tonight. Thank goodness.

The Hillary now must rummage through the bottom of her bag to find something, anything, that can possibly help her grab onto the democratic base's imagination now that inevitability, experience, combativeness, iron-willed resolve, and voice coaching have failed to do the job.

I suppose it's possible her bag of tricks is empty except for the leftover benjamins. Of course promoting a return to Clintonism isn't a very striking position vis a vis her also wishing to be identified as a change agent. But, now she's up against preacherly cadences, the audacity of hope, and the growing gravity of Barrack Obama.

By the way, as the Republican Party faithful find themselves in the first circle of hell tonight, it's interesting to note that Huckabumpkin not only wins Iowa against the celestially manufactured flopper Romney, but also that Huckabumpkin is not in anyway electable. He is a featherweight in every dimension. Maybe the Republicans are in the second circle...come to think of it.

The Republican problem is that the cycles of American politics have viciously turned to the center. Running to the right of the horrendous ideological and anti-commonsense catastrophe of King Bush and Cheney Inc. offers no escape to this same center. It's hard to imagine what future world event could favor the Republicans, yet, it seems that's what they need.

Everything is trending in the other direction: the generation y and generation millenials (born after 1980,) are tolerant and tend to be sexually cosmopolitan, the evangelical churches are aging rapidly, the hispanic vote is rushing to the democratic side, and all but a thin slice of America really believes al Qaeda is going to build canoes, jump in them, row across the Atlantic, and convert each and every one of us at the point of a sword.

Meanwhile, all the Republicans have to look forward to is a recession, the inability of the Iraqis to stand up, and the implosion of Afganistan. Ouch.

Obama may well be the ideal candidate under the circumstances. His high toned rhetoric is softer than that of the pissed-off Edwards. But, he is surely a populist just the same. The thing is, unlike Edwards, he understands how to drive populism all the way to November.

BASICALLY; A LIAR

2007-12-30T06:51:00.000-05:00

Okay, a bit harsh so here's a modifier:

WHAT I DON'T UNDERSTAND

2007-12-28T10:52:00.000-05:00

Rudy's mistress scandals are sinking him and so he will sink.

How he was able to ever get away with promoting anti-terrorist bona fides when both domestic attacks happened in his city on his watch, and, just as bad, he undercut first responder capabilities, moved the city's counter-terrorism command center to the WTC, and endorsed the nomination of gangster Bernie Kerik, (his own ex-police commissioner,) to head the DHS.

Thus I have no idea why anybody at all can overlook the facts and remain enthralled with Il Rudy's cock-sure appeal.

STRANAHAN - NIE & U

2007-12-19T12:42:00.001-05:00

DANG FUNNY

2007-12-05T12:35:00.001-05:00

PANDERAMA

2007-11-29T18:56:00.000-05:00

The CNN/YouTube Republican debate was equal parts amusing and scary. Overall it's hard for me to fathom how much mileage will be made appealing to what remains of the freeper right wing. The general election won't be won by pulling disenchanted voters in the center back to the right; rightward back beyond the imploded promises of the 'uniter, no nation building, compassionate conservative Bush and Cheney Inc..

The debate was disappointing for me because the issue of the destruction of the Constitution wasn't raised. You know: thrashing due process, privacy, protections against illegal search and seizure, whacking habeas corpus, the rule of law and lawful obligations to international law.

Here's the rundown, winners to losers.

WINNER == MIKE HUCKABEE
As I see it, the only sincere and smart right wing Republican in the race. Now, I don't agree with any of his stands. He's smart but not so rational that he hasn't issued nonsense about INTELLIGENT DESIGN. But, he seems quite comfortable in his skin, capable of expressing ambivalence, and appears to be a regular guy.

WINNER -- JOHN MCCAIN
At least he has the courage of his convictions. He'll soon find out that the surge can't be, as he suggested, 'continued.' For the most part his responses were grown up .

LOSER == RON PAUL
Whack job.

LOSER -- TANCREDO
Whack job.

LOSER -- FRED THOMPSON
Fred is reaganesque: aping the dottering cognitive decline of Reagan in his last few years in office.

BIGGER LOSER -- THE RUDY
The Rudy is Cheney on steroids. He seems to be an unlikely and unelectable candidate. What's to like? ...very dangerous world class liar, a duce.

BIGGEST LOSER -- WILLARD ROMNEY
Not much to take seriously after McCain ripped Romney a new rectum after Romney offered incomprehensible spin about waterboarding. Then Huckabee bounced Romney down the hill over immigration. Willard is really struggling to remake himself.

ONE TRICK PONY

2007-11-26T07:05:00.000-05:00

FROM HER HIGHNESS

2007-09-29T07:09:00.000-05:00

SEC. 1535. SENSE OF SENATE ON IRAN.

(a) Findings.--The Senate makes the following findings:

yada yada

(b) Sense of Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate--

(1) that the manner in which the United States transitions and structures its military presence in Iraq will have critical long-term consequences for the future of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, in particular with regard to the capability of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to pose a threat to the security of the region, the prospects for democracy for the people of the region, and the health of the global economy;

(2) that it is a vital national interest of the United States to prevent the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran from turning Shi'a militia extremists in Iraq into a Hezbollah-like force that could serve its interests inside Iraq, including by overwhelming, subverting, or co-opting institutions of the legitimate Government of Iraq;

(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies;

(5) that the United States should designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, as established under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and initiated under Executive Order 13224; and

(6) that the Department of the Treasury should act with all possible expediency to complete the listing of those entities targeted under United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1737 and 1747 adopted unanimously on December 23, 2006 and March 24, 2007, respectively.

Prompting The Hillary to vote in favor and then offer the following from her perch on Mount Olympus.

September 26, 2007

Statement of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment

Washington, DC – “Earlier today, I voted for a non-binding resolution that designates the Iranian Revolution Guard as a terrorist organization. The Revolutionary Guards are deeply involved in Iran's nuclear program and have substantial links with Hezbollah.

“I voted for this resolution in order to apply greater diplomatic pressure on Iran. This resolution in no way authorizes or sanctions military action against Iran and instead seeks to end the Bush Administration's diplomatic inaction in the region.

“Iran has gained expanded influence in Iraq and the region as a result of the Bush Administration's polices which have also rejected diplomacy as a tool for addressing Iranian ambitions. While the United States has spurned talks, Iran has enhanced its nuclear enrichment capabilities, armed Iraqi Shiite militias, funneled arms to Hezbollah and subsidized Hamas, even as the government continues to damage its own citizens by mismanaging the economy and increasing political and social repression.

“I continue to support and advocate for a policy of entering into talks with Iran, because robust diplomacy is a prerequisite to achieving our aims.

“This legislation reaffirms my policy of engagement and refers specifically to the statement of Defense Secretary Gates who said that "diplomatic and economic means" are "by far the preferable approach" for dealing with the threat posed by Iran.

“In February, after troubling reports about the possibility of military action against Iran, I took to the Senate Floor to warn that President Bush needs Congressional Authorization before attacking Iran. Specifically, I said it would be a mistake of historical proportion if the Administration thought that the 2002 resolution authorizing force against Iraq was a blank check for the use of force against Iran without further and explicit Congressional authorization.Nor should the President think that the 2001 resolution authorizing force after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, in any way, authorizes force against Iran. If the Administration believes that any use of force against Iran is necessary, the President must come to Congress to seek that authority.

“Nothing in this resolution changes that.”

I can only hope that Cheney Inc. doesn't shock and awe Iran for the panopoly of obvious reasons; reasons which suggest an attack would be a catastrophe for Iran, the US, the global economy, and global relationships.

Secondarily, Hillary's astonishing arrogance in proposing that what didn't work as a congressional obstacle the first time around would work a second time because she's so formidable a opponent really strikes me as coming from on-high.

Cheney Inc. continues to play most congressional Dems and The Hillary like the feckless fiddles that they are.

Now, The Hillary's feet should be held to the fire because she should explain to all us little people what legislative mechanisms she'd push the start button on the day after Bush used whatever pretext and extant 'legal' verbiage were necessary to his goal of Iranian regime change.

ANTI-DEMOCRACY

2007-09-19T06:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday the Senate was unable to garner enough votes to move a bill to grant residents of the District of Columbia a congressperson. The bill in question lined up its ducks: granting a likely Republican in Utah while calling for an expedited Supreme Court review, (so as to meet the dodgy 'constitutional' objection raised by Republican anti-democrats.) So, what's good for Iraq isn't good for DC.

Republican Party discipline was maintained with exceptions,Hatch, Lugar, Collins, Snowe, Specter, Coleman, Voinovich, Bennett. Democratic Senators Robert Byrd and Max Baucus voted against moving the bill forward. Byrd presumably has a constitutional objection while at least Baucus's anti-democracy principles were pithily stated, "It would hurt Montana's influence." Meanwhile, John Warner, who is in favor of granting DC statehood, voted no, while promising to offer a constitutional ammendment later this year or next year.

Needless to say, the White House is against democracy at home.

Fortunately, having undermined their support amongst Catholic hispanic citizens, the 21-30 year old cohort, and soccer moms, and the elderly, all the long term trends are pushing the Republican party down a slippery slope of their own arrogant making.

Booyah.

HOPING AGAINST HOPE

2007-09-14T09:22:00.000-05:00

The crash of clashing assumptions, I predict, will be amplified by unpredicted events in Iraq's part of the world. To name a few of the assumptions:

(1) The hold-and-clear leads to a stable transition phase via which 'we stand down so that the Iraq nation-loyal army stands up.

(2) The various interests of the US will be sustained by a necessary presence of multi-spectrum force structure for an indefinite yet interminable period.

(3) The prospective victory over AQiI, past its end game, will allow for a ramp over which democracy-inclined Sunni leaders will march to take their place at the tables of national power.

(4) The government of Al-Maliki will slowly forge a unifying solution to power sharing, revenue flows from national assets, and finish the development of a public, (rather than back room,) governing regime.

(5) Southern Iraq will be inspired by #1-4 to end their own sectarian jockeying for power and thus will reverse the slide to warlordism.

(6) Peshmurga plans to defend Kirkuk will be subsumed into a national military plan for Kirkuk's protection.

(7) Yes, Shi'a enlistees can be trained to defeat their religious brethren.

(8) A reinvigorated system of law enforcement and justice and the rule of law will eradicate corruption and staunch the flow of wasted monies.

(9) Slowly but surely electricity infrastructure will not be subject to attacks, copper theft, vandalism, and so rates of delivery will be substantially increased.

(10) Most of these assumptions will be favorably inclined because it will become increasingly less death-defying for male Iraqis to work on 'em.

Note I haven't focused here on the loopy assumptions engaged by various views of how US military tasking will evolve. We're at a critical 'psychological' moment, nailed by Jon Stewart this week, when a 4 star general admits the future is hard to predict except for how easy it is to predict. And, this crosses with the transformation of politics extended by way of war into sentiment extended by way of war. Which is to suggest that when the last standing rationale is protecting the honor of the troops, one has to loudly point out the illness of protecting the honor of dead and wounded troops by having more of them killed and wounded.

General Petraeus's performance was a performance. I don't think the questioning was at all very good and this seems to imply that lawyers lose their chops when they become representatives. I read and heard the General's report to be very dour, in the main. Besides the nonsensical parsing of civilian casualties, GP seemed to me to mostly deliver very bad news forthrightly and with a hopefulness that nothing much will interfere with the favorable short-term trends.

Sure, it was wrapped up in encouraging packaging, yet the telling implication was: the actual odds are very long.

ASK FREDSTER IF THIS IS A GOOD IDEA

2007-09-13T21:58:00.000-05:00

Report: US to attack Iran in 8-10 months
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 13, 2007

Germany's unwillingness to impose further sanctions on Iran has pushed the United States closer towards a decision on a military strike, FOX News reported on Wednesday.

According to the report, Germany's decision has spurred senior US army officials to try and convince US Foreign Secretary Condoleezza Rice to abandon once and for all the diplomatic route of preventing a nuclear Iran. The report further stated that the date of preference for an attack against Iran is in eight to 10 months - after the US presidential candidates for both the Democrats and the Republicans have been chosen, but before the major presidential campaign kicks off.

The report stated that the attack would be comprised of two main strategies: cutting off the Iranian gas supply, which the US hopes would pressure the Iranian people towards action against their government, and an aerial bombing campaign, which would be meant to paralyze Iranian defenses and allow American bombers to destroy the nuclear facilities.

Opponents to a military strike claim that an attack would require at least one week of intense bombing, and that it would only set the Iranian nuclear program back a few years, the report said. Two other claims of the opponents is that an American strike would provoke Iran into attacking Israel, and that abandoning diplomatic action would negatively impact Iraq and the US troops stationed there.

BABBLE FROM BABYLON

2007-09-10T07:02:00.000-05:00

Anthony Cordesman, a cherished by many Iraq policy wonk at The Center for Security and International Studies, has long argued that Cheney Inc.'s retailing of Iraq policies should be bolted onto a forthright presentation of the factual reality. This 'best world' principle seems to represent a blind spot. Cheney Inc. has never been willing to 'go there' and the reasons cohere with an ethos that is longstanding in the policy retailing game.

Which is to suggest that the point of mendacity is to sucker and the point of suckering is to generate enough support to get your way. My view? 'Twas ever thus.'

On the other hand, others approach the mendacity and self-serving rhetoric by moving toward counter-mendacity. Those efforts can also be encumbered by b.s. but the point of countering deception should rely on non-deception. Such voices tend to be voiced from the wilderness of uncertainty and complexity where facts are just what they happen to be, but goals are never much more than a kind of intelligent odds-making. Obviously this odds-making can never be certain.

So Cordesman's view is clear about what the odds-making should be plugged into: a rigorous and rational evaluation of the facts on the ground in Iraq.

Today General Patraeus will, no doubt, attempt to have it both ways. He will present a version of some of the facts and then either implicitly or explicitly express upon what implications of this incomplete set of facts favorable odds will be based. Twas ever thus.

Meanwhile the Neocon apparachniks, their minions in the media, have been scrambling to shape the rhetoric around an adaptation to a very small subset of the facts, the new fangled bottom-up support of the Sunni Tribal side in Al-Anbar. This largely question-begging exercise is part of the two part success trend in Iraq. The other is the mitigation of violence in those parts of Baghdad where US troops hold neighborhoods in the aftermath, fundamentally, of ethnic cleansing.

There are numerous contradictions at play. I'll mention one: if the strategy and tactics have been successful, why then is this successful strategy not likely to be subject to being scaled up?

In the run-up to Patraeus's moment in the lights, we know casualty figures have been manipulated, we know southern Iraq has been ceded to Shi'a militias, we know Oxfam has reported the magnitude of displacement and the slide to sub-subsistence, we know somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% of the professional middle class has quit the country, and we know the metrics on energy production, healthcare, education and the economy remain very telling about the challenge of constituting a civil society in the midst of low grade civil war, the tribal equivalent of warlordism, chaos.

Will Patraeus and Crocker be telling of this forthrightly?

...not bloody likely.

CALTAGIRONE IS A DICTATOR WANNABEE

2007-08-22T06:45:00.000-05:00

When civic journalists uncover unseemly facts about august politicians, it sometimes happens that the politicians act with law of the jungle fervor. The specific law of the jungle is might makes right.

Pa. pol Tom Caltagirone is gaining increasing notoriety for literally trying to squelch the following posting on Berks Democrats. Read the successive posts and then google /Berks Democrats blog censorship/ for the full wave effect.

Indy bloggers have a unique protective factor built into the smart mobacracy of the blogosphere. I call this the Paul Revere effect. Caltagirone and his shady crew of DINO operatives have now made themselves darkly famous and, hopefully sealed their political futures in a place the sun doesn't shine.

August 16, 2007
Caltagirone Campaign Reports

Since so much was made recently of Mike Morrill's campaign finance reports, all legally registered with the County since 2005 (I looked at them myself today) I decided to take a fine comb to Rep. Caltagirone's reports to see what's interesting therein. Here's what I've found.

First, in his 2007 cycle 2 report his reports using a non union printer, Pagoda Printing, (he uses them frequently) to the tune of $500+ for event invitations. That's a real mistake for someone who accepts considerable contributions from unions. In fact when you sift through years of reports he frequently uses non union printers. He also spent $304 at West Lawn Graphics, Christian Leinbach's company. These were for City Council candidate Tasha Isaac. Hmmmm.... On that very same page he reports an expenditure of $725.87 for signs for Stefan Kosikowski from Phil Levin Company of Harrisburg.

Want to know why Stefan so stridently defends Caltagirone on the local blogs? This is why.

Here are some of the unions who have provided member's funds to Rep. Caltagirone for him to use at non union Pagoda Printers:

Independent State Store Union PAC
Carpenters
Political Labor Action-Now PLAN
IBEW Local 743
AFSCME Council 13
Laborer's Local 1174
Steamfitters Local 420
International Union of Operating Engineers PAC
Ironworkers Local 420
Boilermakers Local 13
Bricklayers & Allied Craftsman
Plumbers Local 690
Sheetmetal Workers League
Teamsters Joint Council 53

On April 11, 2006 he gave $10,000 to Rep. Dante Santoni Jr. On October 17, 2006 he gave another $2500. I'm sure all the other State House candidates who received $500 apiece from Tom laundered through the County Committee will be grateful to even be remembered. He gave $125 to the National Rifle Association on October 20, 2006 for his five year membership dues. Unfortunately one of his aides was slain by a gun recently. On January 3, 2005 he paid Republican consultant David Kamioner $2500 for professional services.

Tom Caltagirone uses his campaign committee to pay personal expenses like his AAA membership and Rajah Shrine, small donations to various Catholic churches and organizations. Even a parking ticket! He couldn't even pay an $8.00 dues to the 1900 Beneficial Association himself. Does he pay for anything out of his own pocket?

Interestingly he gave a $500 campaign contribution to Republican Attorney General candidate Tom Corbett on March 17, 2004. As much as disliked Bill DeWeese he gave him $1000 back in 2004.

While on the subject of Democrats contributing to Republicans it's odd that County and State Committee woman Anne Perrige gave $200 to Prothonotary Marianne Sutton when she ran against Democrat Don Raifsnider Jr. a couple years ago. She's also given to Barry Jozwiak when he ran against Bill Evans and Paul Yatron when he ran against John Boccabella for Judge. It's a violation of State Committee rules for a State Committee person to contribute financially to a Republican running against a Democrat.

THE RUDY

2007-08-17T07:37:00.000-05:00

Giuliani's electability quotient, presumably high, nevertheless would have the family values wing gobble a pile of ill-tasting sh*t were they to have their turd cake and eat it too.

Besides that, The Rudy is a liar.

“I was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers,” Mr. Giuliani said last week in Cincinnati. “I was there working with them. I was there guiding things. I was there bringing people there. But I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I’m one of them.”

...and a massive ego maniac, strident authoritarian and world class narcissist, whose kids have rejected him, likely for better reasons than he looks silly in a dress.

The Rudy is the king of the mendacious claim and his staggeringly ignorant views on the GWOT are--alone--enough to dismiss his foreign policy bona fides.

However, given his long list of deficits, he presents, literally, red meat for engrossing attack ads that represent real tonnage.

So, even if I think The Fred will stone his flinty ass, I hold out hope he becomes the candidate simply because it will be so amusing.

FIREFIGHTERS ON GIULIANI

2007-08-02T06:19:00.000-05:00

THE RUDY HAS AN OFFER

2007-07-28T07:11:00.000-05:00

WILLING OTHERS INTO THE GRAVE

2007-07-17T06:46:00.000-05:00

The US has absorbed close to 30,000 casualties, Iraq has lost somewhere between 100,000-1,000,000 innocent lives and untold injured, and

David Brooks comes to praise the Decider.

Brooks isn't on my side of the fence and he's wasted reams of paper with truly stinkeroo efulsions, but this ecomium reflects an act of breathtaking intellectual naivete and ignorance.

Brooks: I left the 110-minute session thinking that far from being worn down by the past few years, Bush seems empowered. His self-confidence is the most remarkable feature of his presidency.
...
Rather, his self-confidence survives because it flows from two sources. The first is his unconquerable faith in the rightness of his Big Idea. Bush is convinced that history is moving in the direction of democracy, or as he said Friday: “It’s more of a theological perspective. I do believe there is an Almighty, and I believe a gift of that Almighty to all is freedom. And I will tell you that is a principle that no one can convince me that doesn’t exist.”
...
He is confident in his ability to read other leaders: Who has courage? Who has a chip on his shoulder? And he is confident that in reading the individual character of leaders, he is reading the tablet that really matters. History is driven by the club of those in power. When far-sighted leaders change laws and institutions, they have the power to transform people.

Many will doubt this, but Bush is a smart and compelling presence in person, and only the whispering voice of Leo Tolstoy holds one back.

Tolstoy had a very different theory of history. Tolstoy believed great leaders are puffed-up popinjays. They think their public decisions shape history, but really it is the everyday experiences of millions of people which organically and chaotically shape the destiny of nations — from the bottom up.

According to this view, societies are infinitely complex. They can’t be understood or directed by a group of politicians in the White House or the Green Zone. Societies move and breathe on their own, through the jostling of mentalities and habits. Politics is a thin crust on the surface of culture. Political leaders can only play a tiny role in transforming a people, especially when the integral fabric of society has dissolved.

If Bush’s theory of history is correct, the right security plan can lead to safety, the right political compromises to stability. But if Tolstoy is right, then the future of Iraq is beyond the reach of global summits, political benchmarks and the understanding of any chief executive.

Starting from the end, obviously both Bush and Tolstoy may each be incorrect. Duh!

This noted, history is full of leaders who thought they possessed the key to unlocking history. At least Tolstoy's generalization correctly contextualizes the actuality that human nature at the scale of peoples is complicated. Whereas Bush's teleological assumption isn't very credible given the evidence of history. It comes as no surprise that Bush doesn't know this but Brooks certainly should be able to see great political men of history have their run and then history runs them off to the good night, or worse.

Brooks should also know that Bush's supposition,

I do believe there is an Almighty, and I believe a gift of that Almighty to all is freedom. And I will tell you that is a principle that no one can convince me that doesn’t exist.

is either globally true or true only for Bush and any others who happen to believe it is globally true whether it actually is true or not. Where the world is subjected to the most powerful man in the world's subjective belief, the truth or untruth of the belief is paramount. Brooks isn't concerned with this at all and swiftly proceeds to how remarkable it is that Bush is able to stick to his guns.

Wait a second David. If Bush's posit is true than how do you account for even a single deprivation of freedom implemented against an innocent, freedom-yearning anybody anywhere?

For example, Bush is strongly committed to protecting the potential for being free of an embryonic stem cell, yet, at the same time, thousands of Iraqi civilians have been accidentally killed long past the stage of embryo and birth. How do you square this with the posit?

One can't square it. Brooks doesn't care about this and doesn't seem to mind.

It is worth considering, then, whether this global attribution about the gifting of a God Almighty is true, and whether, if true, it ramifies substantial obligations.

I don't think it is true. It's certainly not demonstrably true. All who have tried to demonstrate its truth have failed. It's not true just because anybody says it is true. Old problem.

Be that as it may, even as a proposition it begs questions. The primary counterfactual question has to do with what is the status of people who reject this proposition. This leads to: who gets to decide what is true for somebody else other than the believer in this proposition? Again, these obvious avenues of inquiry don't enter into Brook's analysis.

Heck, Brooks doesn't care to define "freedom" for that matter. Who knows what Bush's understanding is.

There's another way to look at all this, which is to psychologize the bare facts of assertions made by one person about all persons. Many many millions of people have had their potential for anything at all abruptly terminated by other people who sincerely believed they had the best idea of all about the goal of human life.

The psychological problem should jump out: what kind of constitution of personality, belief, and intention, promotes a belief so grandiose that one would not only act upon it as if it is true, but, would also, in doing so, defy its ramifications without any appeal to this being justified or not?

Brooks not only doesn't go there but I seriously doubt he can go there; he's too ignorant. If freedom is the core construct in Bush's proposition, then his unjustified termination of people's freedom is only sensible as a result of Bush's subjective sense of his own power and mission. Bush hasn't offered any justification for his God-like powers over other persons' freedom, including over those who would reject his global, teleological proposition.

And this we know by the term, nihilism. ...freedom vanquished into nothingness just because somebody can enact their will to power to that effect.

MONANARCHY

2007-06-28T10:12:00.000-05:00

WAPO; 6/28:

In a letter to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), Cheney Chief of Staff David S. Addington wrote that the order treats the vice president the same as the president and distinguishes them both from "agencies" subject to the oversight provisions of the executive order.

Addington did not cite specific language in the executive order supporting this view, and a Cheney spokeswoman could not point to such language last night. But spokeswoman Lee Anne McBride said the intent of the order, as expressed by White House officials in recent days, was "not for the VP to be separated from the president on this reporting requirement."

Addington did not repeat a separate argument that has been previously advanced by Cheney's office: that it is not strictly an executive branch agency but also shares legislative functions because the vice president presides over the Senate.

Okay, straight unitary executive play; although the EO seemed comprehensive, in fact, the understanding was that Darth could except himself at his discretion because in his "not being separated" he's allowed to presume what the Borg already knew what was the correct position. Got it?

I think we're in the land of Nixonian 'If the President or Vice President does it, it cannot be illegal'.

ROLLING HAMILTON

2007-06-27T13:15:00.000-05:00

Invaluable, from Pat Lang. sic_semper_tyrannis

Dick Cheney and the Return of the King.

"..Cheney and Addington will go down in history as the most aggressive and successful advocates of executive powers in this nation's history. As Fritz Schwarz and I have charted, Cheney and Addington were in large part responsible for the 1987 Congressional Minority Report out of the Iran-contra affair, which first asserted that the White House could wield "monarchical notions of prerogatives." They grounded their vision of executive power on the prerogatives exercised by the British kings who were overthrown by the American Revolution. Aziz Huq, writing in The Nation, Cheney and the Constitution

The high schooler's history lesson was that the initial negotiation, before the Constitution was ratified, was between those who thought George Washington might be deployed as a King-like ruler and capture the loyalties of the beaten royalists and the early era equivalent of Tories. This was played out between the triangular flux of ideation between Hamilton, Madison and Jefferson. Later, in what some refer to as the second American Revolution, Jefferson won and the harsh claims of Adams et al were dismissed in accordance with the vote of the people, and the flow of their authority into the governing executive.

There's no originalist foundationalism that can both revert to a never realized foundation and fight to a better conclusion--today--of the battle won by Republican over Whig, Hamiltonian Federalists, quasi-royalist, American Tory. Of course a lot of history would unfold as these same forces jockeyed throughout the 19th century, up through the third American Revolution, the Civil War, and, later, showcased in the populist rebuff to the royal pretentions of Hanna via McKinley. Then comes Wilson and a hop and skip to Nixon, where Cheney's 'will to power' comes to be charged.

But, if Cheney's real point is that the rule of law and the system of checks and balances and a Constitutional Republic is not fit for the challenges of our modern era, then he might as well come out and say so, and so should The Rudy and any others.

This has nothing to do with anything 'Constitutional;' it's just naked power eating away at the historical foundations.

BOLD, BALD, BARKING

2007-06-26T15:51:00.000-05:00

EO 13292 defines "agency":

"Agency" means any "Executive agency," as defined in 5 U.S.C. 105; any "Military department" as defined in 5 U.S.C. 102; and any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.

Excellent commentary I've run across in addition to the WAPO series.

See Mark Letterman, writing on the Constitutional law blog, Balkinization

Orinn Kerr at The Volkh Conspiracy discovers definitive evidence of Cheney's arguymnet being in the main convenient rather than legalistic.

Law prof Glenn Reynolds, by nature able to cut the Darth Veep slack, nevertheless kisses off:

The argument that the Vice President is a legislative official isn't inherently absurd. The Constitution gives the Vice President no executive powers: The VP's only duties are to preside over the Senate, and to become President if the serving President dies or leaves office. The Vice President really isn't an Executive official, and isn't part of the President's administration the way that other officials are -- for one thing, the VP can't be fired by the President: As an independently elected officeholder, he can be removed only by Congress, via impeachment. (In various separation of powers cases, the Supreme Court has placed a lot of weight on this who-can-fire-you test).

But here's the thing: Whatever executive power a VP exercises is exercised because it's delegated by the President, not because the VP has it already. So to the extent the President delegates actual power (as opposed to just taking recommendations for action) the VP is exercising executive authority delegated by the President, but unlike everyone else who does so he/she isn't subject to removal from office by the President (though the President could always withdraw the delegation, of course). However -- and here's where the claim that Cheney is really a legislative official creates problems for the White House -- it seems pretty clear that the President isn't allowed to delegate executive power to a legislative official, as that would be a separation of powers violation. So to the extent that this is what's going on, the "Cheney is a legislative official" argument is one that opens a big can of worms.

Beckett?

Q Does the President think that the Information Security Oversight Office should be abolished?

MS. PERINO: No, and I don't think that anyone has suggested that. I went back and I looked at this EO -- I don't know if anyone else had a chance to actually read it. I think one thing is clear: first of all, it's the President of the United States who is the author of the EO, and is the sole enforcer of the EO, the executive order on classified materials. [A] And it's clear from the reading of it, the Vice President is not treated separately from the President in the EO. Agencies are treated separately, for just the small section on this ISOO provision. Everything else does apply, except for that one section, for the Vice President.

Q Including the reporting provision?

MS. PERINO: Correct.

Q So that -- he is exempt from reporting? You support --

MS. PERINO: If you look at the EO, the President, in the performance of executive duties, and the Vice President are treated separately from agencies. The President did not intend -- I went back and looked into this -- the President did not intend for the Vice President to be treated separately from how he would treat himself. Agencies are to report to ISOO, and they do. I don't think there's any suggestion that no one else is complying. The Vice President was not intended to be separate from the President in this regard.

Q But part of the rationale the Vice President's office gave is that as President of the Senate, he's part of the legislative branch, almost distancing himself from the executive branch.

MS. PERINO: I saw those reports yesterday, as well, and I think that while that's an interesting constitutional discussion [B] about the separation of powers and different branches, between executive branch and legislative branch, and different functions, under the role -- as his unique role as the Vice President of the United States. The point of Chairman Waxman's letter yesterday regarded this small portion of an executive order of which the President is the sole enforcer, and of which he did not intend for the President [sic] to be treated separately from himself.

Q I'm a little confused here. Is the President's office and the Vice President's office, are they handling this the same way? In other words, Waxman was asserting that the Vice President's office was saying, we don't want to be inspected to make sure that we are following the procedures laid out in this EO. Is the President -- does he feel the same way?

MS. PERINO: The President and the Vice President are complying with all the rules and regulations regarding the handling of classified material and making sure that it is safeguarded and protected.

What is different is, regarding that small section of this ISOO office, that they are not subject to those -- they are subordinate to the sole enforcer of the EO, which is the President of the United States, and they are not subject to such investigation -- as I understand it, as I read the EO and as I had preliminary discussions in between the gaggle and today.

Q Well, then why did the Vice President not have any issue with this in 2001, 2002?

MS. PERINO: That I don't know. All I know is what I have here, which is the executive order that was released in 2002, I think, did not intend to treat the Vice President any differently than he would treat the President. [C]

Q So what are you saying? That he --

Q Yes, Dana, what are you saying? So the President supports the Vice President saying that he doesn't want these inspections?

MS. PERINO: I don't think that he -- it's not a matter of wanting, it's a matter of who's subject to them. And I think that it's important to remember, the Vice President, his office yesterday said that they are in full compliance with all laws regarding classified materials, [D] as is this President, and the President expects that of everyone here at the White House and of all the agencies across the executive branch that handle classified information.

Q Then why isn't it public?

Q So is he supporting -- so he's supporting what the Vice President is doing, by saying he's not part of the executive branch --

MS. PERINO: If you go back and you read the EO, it's -- the President's intention was never to separate the Vice President out from himself. The President, as the sole enforcer of the EO, is instructing agencies on how to handle classified material on a range of issues. The issue that we're talking about yesterday -- that Chairman Waxman was talking about in his letter yesterday is a very narrow one. [E]

Q But the people at the National Archives say that they are meeting with resistance from the Vice President's office, and only the Vice President's office, not from the White House, not from the Office of the President.

MS. PERINO: That's what I just said, I don't think that there's any -- I don't think there's been any complaint about compliance, except for, in this regards, to the Vice President's office. And as I just said, the President's intention was not to have him separate. If you read that, that's clear in the EO. In the EO, as well, the ISOO does have the capability to go to the Department of Justice and ask for an opinion, of which they have done.

Q They did that in January and still haven't heard anything.

MS. PERINO: You'll have to put that question to the Department of Justice.

Q So that they have to apply to the President for any documents that the Vice President has charge of.

MS. PERINO: All of the -- all of the President -- all of the President's documents and all the Vice President's documents are safeguarded, they are held, they are held in the Archives as part of the Presidential Records Act. And all of those rules and regulations are followed.

This small section regarding just the reporting requirements to the group that -- the ISOO that's out of the National Archives is different. [F]
Q Why? He's a public servant, paid by us. He's accountable.

MS. PERINO: And all the laws and regulations regarding classified materials are being complied with. And that's what you, as a taxpayer, should expect.

Q How do we know that?

MS. PERINO: Because I think that if there weren't, there are other ways for people to challenge and find out.

Q Dana, what do you make of what Congressman Waxman referred to as "absurd," which was the Vice President's contention that his office is not part of the executive branch?

MS. PERINO: As I said, I think that that is an interesting constitutional question that people can debate. What I think is absurd is --

Q But do you agree with his contention?

MS. PERINO: -- it's -- I think what was heard is Chairman Waxman --

Q Hang on a second, do you agree with the --

MS. PERINO: -- asserting -- I think what's absurd is Chairman Waxman asserting --

Q Hang on a second. Do you think with --

MS. PERINO: I think what is absurd is Chairman Waxman asserting some sort of authority over the President regarding an executive order, of which he is the sole enforcer.

Q Do you agree with the contention that the Office of the Vice President is not part of the executive branch?

MS. PERINO: What I know -- and I am not a lawyer; and this is an interesting constitutional question that legal scholars can debate and I'm sure you'll find plenty of them inside the beltway -- is that the Vice President has a unique role in our United States government. He is not only the Vice President of the United States, but in that role he is also the President of the Senate. I will let him go ahead and --

Q So there's a fourth branch of government.

MS. PERINO: -- I will let that debate be held. But what I'm answering questions on in regard to this morning was Chairman Waxman's accusations about this small provision, going back and reading the EO and realizing that the President did not intend to have the Vice President treated any differently than himself; and remembering that the executive order is enforced solely by the President of the United States. I think this is a little bit of a non-issue.

Q But, Dana, the director of the Information Security Oversight Office, in his letter to the Attorney General, says that the Vice President's office did initially comply in 2001 and 2002, and then stopped complying. They view that the Vice President's office should be participating and is not, and further suggest that the response from Counsel to the Vice President was to eliminate the role of this office in handling and supervising how these classified documents are dealt with.

MS. PERINO: I am not disputing that there is a dispute in regards to how this executive order should be -- who should comply with the executive order in regards to ISOO's questions about the Vice President's office. They have the right to seek a clarification from the Department of Justice, of which they've asked for. That has nothing to do with the President or our office, in terms of the timing of when that's released. I'll ask you to take that to the Department of Justice; I haven't talked to them about that today.

Q Does the President think the Vice President is too secretive?

MS. PERINO: I think the President thinks that the Vice President is a great representor of the United States and that he complies with all the laws regarding secret documents, classified documents, and that he's someone who truly believes in the institution of the presidency and in keeping that intact.

Q Does the President think that the Vice President -- does he agree with the Vice President's handling of this matter?

MS. PERINO: I don't see any reason not to agree with it, especially --

Q So that's a yes?

MS. PERINO: -- when you read the plain face of the EO.

Q So he's not going to tell him --

Q And he's not concerned at all that there's too much secrecy; that he complied with it before; or why he wouldn't want to do the same thing he was doing before?

MS. PERINO: I think that what the President wants to make sure of is that all of the rules and regulations regarding classified materials are being followed, and he is assured that that is the case.

Q Even though it's still being looked at, and even though they're looking at this as an executive branch?

MS. PERINO: I don't think there's a question of the handling of the documents. I think there's a question of the reporting. In the handling of the documents, we are confident that we are in full compliance.

Q And does he have concerns about the reporting?

MS. PERINO: I didn't talk to him about that. I don't believe so. Especially since, as I just said in the EO, he's the sole enforcer of the EO, and he never intended for the Vice President to be treated separately from himself.

Alexis.

Q Dana, can I just clarify -- since he's the sole enforcer of this executive order, was the White House's Counsels Office knowledgeable about the letter trail, the dispute trail, when you consulted them today to ask about --

MS. PERINO: Well, as you know, I think that this letter trail goes back many years, and we have a new Counsel and many new people in the Counsel's Office. So I'm not exactly clear on that.

Q But you have members of the Counsel's Office who preceded Mr. Fielding, so I'm curious, when you consulted, can we write or say that the White House Counsel's Office, on behalf of the President, was fully knowledgeable of the dispute before --

MS. PERINO: I can't tell you that right now, because I don't know, but I can check. There are a lot of new people, and I can't tell you that the people that I talked to were here before.

Q But, I mean, there could have been a paper trail --

MS. PERINO: I'll go back and check. The people I talked to weren't necessarily here before.

Q Can we just go back to this phrase that the President never intended for the Vice President to be treated any differently than -- I'll confess, I'm missing the whole thing here. The Vice President is not getting treated any differently, he's acting differently, according to the National Archive.

MS. PERINO: No, but in the EO, who is directed and how they respond -- if you look on page 18 of the EO, when you have a chance, there's a distinction regarding the Vice President versus what is an agency. And the President also, as the author of an EO, and the person responsible for interpreting the EO, did not intend for the Vice President to be treated as an agency, and that's clear.

Q But the Archive doesn't have an issue with, say, the way the President is handling this; the inspectors, the procedures, the protocols are all being followed. It's the Vice President who is acting differently.

MS. PERINO: Right, but that's because the President never -- the President treats him differently in this EO, separate from an agency. And again, I'm not disputing that there's a dispute that the ISOO has with the Vice President's office, and they have a right under this EO to take that to the Justice Department. But the Vice President was not to be treated -- to be interpreted to be treated separately from the President in this executive order.

Q Can we expect to hear from the Vice President as to why his office did comply for two years, and then made a decision to stop complying?

Q Bring David in here.

Q Why is it separate?

MS. PERINO: If I could -- I'll ask the Vice President if he'll come to the press briefing room and answer your questions.

Q Wow.

Q I mean, it is a little curious that all of this -- this breaks, and all we get is like a line response from the Office of the Vice President, we're confident that everything is kosher. I mean, I --

MS. PERINO: I'm here today to try to flesh it out a little bit more for you, and I'm doing the best I can with all that I've got.

Q But why does the Vice President not want to be seen to be in compliance?

MS. PERINO: There's no question that he is in compliance, in terms of the meat of the issue, which is classified -- the handling of classified documents. It's just simply a matter of a small portion of an executive order regarding reporting requirements, of which he is not subject to, and -- the interpretation of the EO.

Q But if he's not monitored, we don't know that --

Q Why isn't he subject to this?

MS. PERINO: Because the President gets to decide whether or not he should be treated separately, and he's decided that he should.
[G]
Q Why did the President decide that he shouldn't be subjected to this?

MS. PERINO: And if you look at the EO, throughout the Vice President's office is called out on many other issues, and making sure that they are complying, just as with any other agency. But in this regard, it's different.

Q But if he's not monitored, how do we know that, that he's in compliance?

MS. PERINO: I think there are many other ways -- I'm not a lawyer, but --

Q How? Because it's not as though --

MS. PERINO: Well, Victoria, maybe we can let you in there and you can have an interview and check out his classified materials.

Q The office is not giving away information.

MS. PERINO: Right, they're not giving away classified information, either.

Q Who is making sure they're in compliance?

MS. PERINO: That's a good question. I'm not positive.

Q But you can stand up there and say they're in compliance, but you don't know why or how or who is checking on it.

MS. PERINO: What I said is that the Vice President's office says that they are in compliance, and I can tell you on behalf of the President that we are in compliance with all matters regarding classified materials.

Q And it's just them saying we're in compliance?

MS. PERINO: I'll see if there's any other ways. The ISOO is not the only -- I would believe that ISOO is not the only agency that can check that.

Q Dana, when you make requests to the OVP about this, could you please specify that the big, large, takeaway question is, why no problem in 2001, 2002, and it starts in 2003? Does it have to do with the war, does it have to do with Scooter Libby, does this have to do with what? Why then?

MS. PERINO: I will check into it. I don't know when -- I don't know why the change, and I'll see if there was any different interpretation --

Q Why is an exemption at all? Why is he exempt?

MS. PERINO: He's not exempt from following the laws of the United States. He's exempt just from this reporting requirement in this particular executive order.

Q And why was an announcement not made back then when they stopped reporting, that in fact this was the case, that he was to be treated the same as the President?

MS. PERINO: Why wasn't there a press release announcing it?

Q Yes.

MS. PERINO: We issued the EO. You could have -- it says it right here. It was released publicly.

Q There was no announcement like this. In other words, nobody knew.

MS. PERINO: I think that's kind of a backwards way to treat us. We could go back through and we could find any possible EO that the President has issued in the past seven years, and try to figure out, maybe the press might be interested in this five years from now. I think that's a little bit of a stretch to require us -- I think that we put out information, and you're welcome to read it.

Q What was the date of the EO?

[A] read: 'at the President's discretion;' a crucial feature of the presumption to unitary executive power.

[B] interesting, or, completely novel?

[C] "I think, did not intend to treat the Vice President any differently than he would treat the President." I think this means that the VP can opt out because the President himself could opt out if he so wished.

[D] Okay, since the VP has opted out and is in full compliance, obviously this compliance does not require either the reporting or auditing to apply to the VP's office.

[E] Devious language! Actually, Waxman wants to know why the VP hasn't complied with the EO, given the explicit language of the EO that contains no opt out provision whatsoever.

[F] Dana is fibbing here because she knows full well that the ISOO has also been refused Audit access to the VP's administrative suite at the WH.

[G] i. "Especially since, as I just said in the EO, he's the sole enforcer of the EO, and he never intended for the Vice President to be treated separately from himself."

ii. "Because the President gets to decide whether or not he should be treated separately, and he's decided that he should."

[H} Please note that the President himself has met the reporting requirements.

RADICAL RE-CONSTRUCTIONIST

2007-06-22T05:58:00.000-05:00

Darth Cheney offers a new one: the Office of the Vice President isn't part of the Executive Branch so its not compelled to comply with an executive order requiring its handling of classified material to be monitored by the National Archives. His argument is that despite being called the Vice-President, despite having his main office in the White House, despite his sitting on the NSA, despite any advantages his office has acquired by other executive orders having to do with his office being in the executive branch, as an entity, (so-called,) hs office is in the legislative branch.

Whatever. Now its the heroic Henry Waxman's turn to make the Constitution whole.

WHAT THE HECK

2007-06-21T09:26:00.000-05:00

Okay, Mike Bloomberg runs. My opinion? A third party run centered on a billionaire's top down fantasy won't create a durable third party. Duh. Bloomberg would go on a Quixotic quest and deliver a devastating blow to the Democrats.

If I'm a Republican strategist, I like Fred Thompson's chances a whole bunch. I position Fred like this:

1. Law and Order anti-illegal immigrants; no amnesty.
2. The Dems are Al-Q appeasers and in la la land about our geopolitical interests in the Mid-East.
3. Flat Tax; tax simplification
4. no: gay marriage; roll back Rowe vs. Wade; originalist Constitutionalist

In doing this I write off:

(historically) African-American vote; youth vote; Suburban soccer moms

{by choice) Hispanics

Election between The Hillary, Fredster; The Mike: Thompson wins South; Plains and Central states.

Fred Thompson....40%
Hillary Clinton......36%
Mike Bloomberg...24%

But the Democrats pick-up 20-30 seats in the House and 2-5 seats in the Senate.

Gridlock, yes, but also much more "Unitary Executive" rule too.

You heard it here first. (without Bloomberg, today I'd guess The Hillary beats Fredster 52-47.

ALLEGED CRACK DEALER ENDORSES RUDY

2007-06-19T17:32:00.000-05:00

Thomas Ravenel goes down in electoral history as an indicted state campaign head for The Rudy. His alleged crime? Dealing coke.

He spends so much time on crime in the youtube capture of his endorsement of Rudy, Ravenel also gets to go down in the annals of windbaggery as a world class hypocrite.

LOOPY LURITA

2007-06-17T14:55:00.000-05:00

The sweep of lies and memory loss and kooky rationales tends to blur when it reaches the magnitude moving forward out of the thoroughly corrupt Bush administration.

If there is a negative art form in testifying before a Congressional Committee and delivering obfuscation, it seems likely Lurita Doan is the equivalent of Maria Callas. Her testimony was jaw-dropping. Incredibly, leaving a paper trail of emails and transcripts and written responses and reports, and, starting out her GSA tenure with a clear agenda to both diminish the oversight responsibilities of the GSA, and, to tip the GSA toward various political missions, she--nevertheless--batted back, (rudely,) any presentation suggestive of what is obviously the case.

John Pruett, Project on Government OversightIn December of last year, WaPo recorded a quote from General Services Administration head Lurita Doan remarking on the GSA’s Office of Inspector General. She stated, “There are two kinds of terrorism in the U.S.: the external kind and internally, the IGs have terrorized the regional administrators.”

At the time, Doan’s remark comparing the IG’s office to terrorists seemed not only shocking and extreme, but also uncalled for, a little bit left field. Yet hindsight has since revealed that Doan knows a threat when she sees one. The IG has since revealed that Doan herself is the subject of a conflict-of-interest investigation.

Doan’s alleged wrongdoing is a classic example of reverse revolving door corruption. Before joining the GSA, Doan had personal and professional dealings with Public Affairs Group, Inc. President Edie Fraser. After becoming head of GSA, Doan personally awarded a $20,000 no-bid contract to Public Affairs Group for public relations services. After review by GSA contracting officials, it was determined that the contract violated regulations and so it was terminated.

What’s Doan’s justification for her actions? Her comments on procurement rules for a March 12 FCW article sheds some light:

Doan said she doesn’t discount the importance of compliance with contracting rules. At the same time, she added, “we don’t want to spend so much time on being compliant that we don’t get it done.”

Apparently Doan views federal regulations as just one factor to consider when making contracting decisions. Luckily for the public, the IG doesn’t take the issue as lightly. It also looks like a few congressmen don’t either. Just this week, Senators Byron Dorgan and Ron Wyden, responding to the conflict-of-interest charges and also her possible violations of the Hatch Act, called for Doan’s resignation.

Not to her credit, Lurita hectored and disrespected many of her interrogators, making me come to wonder if she is one of those radical unitary executive-coordinated government types who, not so deep down, believes the Congress has no Constitutional right to conduct oversight.

But it's the tip of the iceberg:

via Think ProgressThe Office of Special Counsel, which has already recommended that GSA chief Lurita Doan be suspended or fired for participating in partisan activities while on the job, is now moving forward with its investigation of nearly 20 other administration agencies.

Eighteen agencies have been asked by the Office of Special Counsel to preserve electronic information dating back to January 2001 as part of its governmentwide investigation into alleged violations of the law that limits political activity in federal agencies.

The OSC task force investigating the claims has asked agencies, including the General Services Administration, to preserve all e-mail records, calendar information, phone logs and hard drives going back to the beginning of the Bush administration. The task force is headed by deputy OSC special counsel James Byrne.

The White House has admitted that roughly 20 agencies have received a PowerPoint briefing created by Karl Rove’s office “that included slides listing Democratic and Republican seats the White House viewed as vulnerable in 2008, a map of contested Senate seats and other information on 2008 election strategy.”

YOU'RE IN THE ARMY NOW

2007-06-15T06:20:00.000-05:00

Helen Thomas: I have one follow-up. Are there any members of the Bush family or this administration in this war?

MR. SNOW: Yes, the President. The President is in the war every day.

Q Come on. That isn't my question.

MR. SNOW: If you ask any President who is a Commander-in-Chief --

Q On the front lines --

MR. SNOW: The President.

Alright, the chickenhawk Dubya was rehabilitated to the absolute pinnacle of the military food chain from where the commander-in-chief commands the world's largest war machine. Sort of like Napolean.

Ahh, you don't get to wear a uniform but probably there is a specially created top dog uniform hanging in some closet in case of, say, a national emergency.

I suppose it all makes sense: this seems of a piece with the unitary executive, coordinated government, restoration of primacy to a fearless leader with the cajones to be the martial, titular head of all fights against evil and evil-doers.

Too bad for El Super General Bush we have elections in the US.

MORE THAN KNUCKLEHEADS

2007-06-06T06:58:00.001-05:00

William Arkin, on his essential blog, Early Warning, at the WAPO, today ends his column,

I am not arguing that Iran's effort to develop nuclear weapons is justified. It isn't. I am saying, however, that the U.S. should not use its nuclear weapons to threaten Iran. And not just from a moral standpoint, but from a practical one: When we brandish our own nuclear arsenal, we only play into the hands of supporters of Tehran's plans to develop its own.

He was charitable in characterizing the paleo war mongering Republican debators as knuckleheads in their appeal, with the exception of Ron Paul, to "leaving no option off the table."

Consider this: because of the nuclear test ban, no one at the Pentagon has any idea of what the actual destructive footprint of a low-yield tactical nuke would be should one be screwed into an Iranian facility or two or three or (?).

Still, were one sitting at home watching TV and suddenly the dark bulletin arrives and we then learn the US has attacked Iran's nuclear facilities with bunker buster nukes, the consequences would quickly unfold.

What would those consequences be? They are, in many ways, too horrific too contemplate. Aside from the immediate risk to our Iraq project, to our energy sources, and to the war on terrorism, one supposition would be clear. One would suppose that for a second time it would be readily apparent that the terrible weaponry is not in safe hands when it is in fact in the hands of a western democracy.

To use nukes is to undermine the idea that they should not be possessed because they should never be used. Duh.

Arkin is right and soft ball tosser Blitzer might have followed his question with several more gritty and to the stark point inquiries.

JERKING THE RABBIT

2007-06-03T10:23:00.000-05:00

Back in 2003, in the run-up to Mess-o-potamia, cynics on the left supposed--to almost zero acclaim--that the war was really about longterm energy resources in the form of Iraq's oil and oil reserves. Later, by the fall of 2004, those same crazed cynics pointed out, evoking hardly any sympathetic clamor, the 10-15 large bases being built by Cheney Inc. in the desert only made sense as permanent hard platforms for future force projection. And, this general agenda could easily morph into the more particular agenda of protecting Iraqi oil.

In the fog of more grandiose rationales, each one either false or accomplished, the Iraqi project now has travelled back to the cynic's suppositions and configured itself as another "last" rationale, but this time, the reasons are couched as realpolitik sense, and, as the two-minute drive big save of the policy.

Immanual Wallerstein, writing in Middle East Online June 2:

If, in early 2008, the United States announced that it was reducing its troop presence by half, and that it was largely withdrawing its troops from frontline action, what would be the consequence? First of all, it would blunt the attack by the Democrats that nothing is being done to reduce U.S. casualties and involvement. Secondly, it would put the Democrats in the embarrassing situation of having to say whether or not they favor long-term bases in Iraq. Chances are that many, perhaps most, Democratic leaders favor this. Chances are also that even a Democratic president, if elected in 2009, would continue such a policy.

What would the United States lose in this? It would probably lose its ability to interfere on a daily basis in Iraqi politics. It might well lose the oil bill Bush (and the Democrats) want the Iraqi parliament to enact. It would probably lead to increased Iranian soft power in Iraq. But the United States would have the bases, and it would blunt blame on the Republican Partys for the Iraq fiasco.

His piece echoes David Sanger, writing in the NYT today, With Korea as Model, U.S. Ponders Long Role in Iraq.

Administration officials and top military leaders declined to talk on the record about their long-term plans in Iraq. But when speaking on a not-for-attribution basis, they describe a fairly detailed concept. It calls for maintaining three or four major bases in the country, all well outside of the crowded urban areas where casualties have soared. They would include the base at Al Asad in Anbar Province, Balad Air Base about 50 miles north of Baghdad, and Tallil Air Base in the south.

“They are all places we could fly in and out of without putting Americans on every street corner,” said one senior official deeply involved in the development of Iraq strategy. “And our mission would be very different — making sure that Al Qaeda doesn’t turn Iraq into a base the way it turned Afghanistan into one.”

A long-term presence is envisioned by many experts, and it has been raised as a possibility by the Baker-Hamilton Commission, whose report on Iraq has now been embraced by President Bush — five months after he all but dismissed its conclusions. But the problem, as one senior administration official acknowledged last week, is that there is little reason to believe that American bases will stop Iraq from being “the great jihadist training camp it is today.”

One can sketch underneath these articles something of the landscape the administration would like to handoff to a Republican successor, once the candidate has fully drunk another pitcher of neocon kool-aid. The surge tales off as Sunni tribal militias turn against homegrown and imported jihadists, Baghdad slowly cools. The Iraqi military and the Pesh Murga buffer the Sadr militia, and the other Shi'a factions melt placidly into the new landscape.

US troop levels are substantially cut after the first of the year, and, in case you haven't noted this already, Bush co-opts what is today The Hillary's Iraq strategy. Probably Fred Thompson holds The Hillary's feet to the fire as the singular rhetoric of the Presidential campaign becomes: "Who do you trust more to continue the successful fight against Al-Q et.al. at the central frontline in Iraq?"

You heard it here first. Sort of...

Too bad Iraq isn't a dictatorship with an "our bastard" strong man at its helm. This seems to me the missing link in what otherwise could be a time-honored geoploitical strategy in Iraq: aligning an ally with our interests - based on removing any high probability of counterproductive democratic turmoil from the picture.

Wallerstein suggests Sadr will be compelled to align with Sunni anti-occupation interests to form a bloc able to force a complete US withdrawal. I have to grant Wallerstein his far greater expertise, yet, I don't see why Sadr can't just wait it out. It seems obviuous that the Iraqi political process will come into future elections seasons for which support of the US imperium will be untenable.

My opinion is this will be untenable even if Iraq settles down enough to provide a safer environment for reconstruction. My reasoning is that even if US forces withdraw to huge gated military outposts, there will still be large numbers of contractors around and their presence can only sustain the daily gringo face of occupation. Also, it seems just as obvious that any new mission will also have to be focused on civic and contractor "force" protection as well as quick strikes against jihadis.

Still, to play around with this potential new paradigm raises a number of other serious questions. For example, would the new mission leave non-Jihadi Sunni attackers alone? Of course it wouldn't, so the sales pitch is only honest if it forthrightly admits the enemies include the various dead-enders. What then would change? Presumably, the US would, this time, really stand down and turn over counter-insurgency operations to Iraqi forces.

A host of problems come in with this implicit objective. I've mentioned them before. In the main they orbit the probably unsolvable problem of training "in" loyalty to a tenuous national leadership and to a the fragile abstractions named Iraq, the nation.

Among numerous, and to some extent imponderable challenges, the most significant one would surely be what the level of exposire would be to US forces in their smaller footprint if any of the following comes about: Sistani is assassinated, Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities, the Iraqi government fails, Sadr's militia attacks Iraqi army outposts, Kirkuk and/or Mosul destabilizes, Iraq's rulers suspend the political process. Etc.

Nevertheless, as a domestic political ploy, the new Declare Victory and Stick Around shift in policy direction might be enough to send The Hillary packing. Although I believe The Hillary to be the worst of all Democratic Party candidates, the irony of her losing the election to a Republican after said Republican co-opts her own realpolitik Iraq policy, isn't lost on me.

My own opinion is: Iraq's low grade civil war might be able to simmer for a year or two. The mild boil shouldn't be mistaken for substantial progress. If Bush can pull off this new paradigm and should the Republican candidate win the Presidency, the "I Told You So" position will remain with the grizzled cynics.

Cynics, who might point out today: the oil isn't worth it if you're stuck in Iraq when the pot boils over.

From the NYT today, Iraq's Curse:

Caught in the middle of the civil war are the Americans. To Iraq’s factions, they are the weakest of all the armed groups in one crucial respect: their will is ebbing and their time here is limited. That leaves Iraqis more motivated than ever to cling to their weapons, preparing for what many see as an inevitable plunge into the abyss.

“Everyone — the Sunni, the Shia — is playing the waiting game,” an Iraqi leader told me over dinner at his home in the Green Zone. “They’re waiting out the Americans. Everyone is using time against you.”