The media horse race and the presidency

I don't want any more unqualified presidents. I don't want any more Fundamentalists, or ideologues who want to abolish Social Security, or anyone else with fringe ideas, either, but the worst problem with Bush is his complete lack of qualifications (and I don't mean credentials, or other paper qualifications) to be president.

Hillary is a nice person, who knows a lot about health insurance but not much else. Most of the people who back her seem to think she would bring Bill back to the White House, and that is what they are really interested in. Nineties nostalgia is what it's all about. Bring back the nineties.

Barack Obama is wonderful. I love him, but as a first term Senator, with no foreign policy experience, and little national experience, he's just not qualified yet. He's got plenty of years to go (I know, we thought that about Jack Kennedy, too, until his assassination - but you can't worry about that except to try to prevent it) so there's no hurry to make him president.

Edwards? Please. He couldn't carry his own state last time, and didn't even run for Senate from there because his own fellow North Carolinians were ready to dump him. His whole thing seems to be that he's southern, and the Democrats have to nominate a southerner if they expect to win the White House again. Maybe, but Edwards won't win the south.

All of these people will go down in flames in the general election. I'm not saying I wouldn't vote for them. I can't imagine voting for any Republican over any of them, but I know they're going to lose the general election.

General Clark is the most qualified to lead the country out of the two wars we are in. If you're worried that electing a general will lead to militarism or more wars, there's no historical precedent for it. Of the six professional military generals we've had for president (Washington, Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant and Eisenhower) only Eisenhower has had a war during his term. He inherited the Korean War and shut it down as fast as he could. Eisenhower is also the only president who has warned us about the military industrial complex.

General Clark promises to do the same thing to Bush's war in Iraq, and he is the only candidate who knows how to do it safely. Furthermore, he knows as much about economic issues as the other candidates, and is the only candidate who will unabashedly call himself a liberal. But somehow the media keep ignoring him.

He's the only candidate who knows what he's doing. All he has to do to get my vote is to ask for it.

Oh, and he's a southerner, if you're worried about that. I don't care. I'll vote for him anyway. ;-)

Secretary Rice's history lesson

I already said she had the wrong qualifications for an administration with two wars going on in the Islamic world.

Keith Olbermann lets the world know just how bad it is.

Bush losing even his new friends

Remember how Bush's "tough" policies had (supposedly) finally tamed Colonel Qaddafi? How Bush's invasion of Iraq had convinced Qaddafi to stop terrorism and turn in his WMD, before he got invaded likewise? Well, this is just in from the BBC:

Britain and America now suggest the Libyan leader is a model for others to follow.

Libya - by rejecting terrorism and then, in 2003, surrendering its nuclear and other unconventional weapons research - earned the lifting of sanctions and lost the status of a pariah.

But still Col Gaddafi can be combative.

"Libya has not been properly compensated, so other countries, like Iran and North Korea will not follow his lead."

"This should be a model to be followed, but Libya is disappointed because the promises given by America and Britain were not fulfilled...

"And therefore those countries said we are not going to follow Libya's example because Libya abolished its programme without any compensation... This destroyed that model... no-one is going to follow that model as a result," he said.

Read the rest of the Interview at the BBC website.

That "House divided" quotation

I've been listening to the Congressional debate about the Iraq resolution, and I'm listening over and over to Congressional representatives quote the saying "A house divided against itself cannot stand." (Somehow no one says anything about a Senate.) They all attribute it to Abraham Lincoln.

I know that most Americans associate the phrase with Lincoln, and for good reason, because he used it to great effect in the Lincoln Douglas debates. But Lincoln was quoting someone else.

One of Lincoln's favorite sources was the Bible, that indispensable basis of English literature. The quote is actually from Jesus, in the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 12:

22. Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. 23 And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David? 24 But when the Pharisees heard [it], they said, This [fellow] doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils. 25 And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: 26 And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? 27 And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast [them] out? therefore they shall be your judges. 28 But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. 29 Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house. 30 He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. 31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy [against] the [Holy] Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. 32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the [world] to come. 33 Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by [his] fruit. 34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. 36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. 37 For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

I quote from the King James version, not because I think it is the best translation, but because it is the literary version in English, and this is about allusion in English, not about theology.

What really shocks me is that many of the Congressional representatives who think they are quoting Lincoln, not realizing that he was quoting Jesus, think they are Bible-believing Christians and that the United States is supposed to be a Christian nation based on the Bible. Have they even read the Bible? They certainly don't know it very well. By their words in the Congress they shall be judged, and by their words in Congress they shall be condemned.

Republicans are the real "Democrat Party"

Huh?

No, I'm not kidding. The Republican Party in the U.S. belongs to something called the "Democrat International". It is an international organization of political parties that organizes Conservative and rightist parties. Their membership is worldwide, but is especially strong among European conservative parties. They cooperate in the European Parliament, and seek to extend their influence elsewhere. Why the Republicans are in the International with them I do not know.

For the record, the Democratic Party is in neither the Liberal International, nor the Socialist International, and is, AFAIK, not in any international political organization.

Wow, that was fast!

Here's the lowdown:

The Army court-martial of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, which ended in a mistrial Wednesday, may have stranger turns ahead: Prohibitions against double jeopardy may keep prosecutors from having a second trial, his lawyer and a legal expert say.

I suspect that the military and the administration don't want a ruling on the legality of the war, and are afraid they will lose. Too bad. I was hoping they would lose.

Why DID the US invade Iraq, anyway?

We know it wasn't 9/11. Bush never even pretended it was, and I don't know how anyone got any idea that there was some connection between Iraq and 9/11.

WMD? Joseph Wilson and others debunked that before we went in. Bush knew there weren't any, and he lied about it, not just to the public, but to Congress, which is criminal.

To impose democracy? That's a great oxymoron. I can't take that seriously. I hope they didn't. They never even made noises about invading Equatorial Guinea, North Korea (which actually has WMD) or Myanmar.

Bush wouldn't even take the question from Cindy Sheehan. Helen Thomas cornered him at a press conference, but he couldn't come up with a coherent response.

Oil? Why not invade Venezuela? Bush doesn't exactly like them either. Or Equatorial Guinea.

I guess it was "This guy tried to kill my Dad." Bush really thinks his family owns the US of A.

Civil disobedience

The American tradition that everyone, even Nat Turner, is entitled to a day in court is so strong that people will deliberately violate the law to get a day in court and challenge the law. H.D. Thoreau did it personally to challenge the Mexican War. The IWW had free speech fights to challenge the kind of threats to freedom of expression that called forth the ACLU into being. Dr. King did it to challenge segregation laws. Billy Mitchell even did it to bring attention to the future of air power. Of course his situation was a little different. The law he broke wasn't the one he wanted to make the issue, but the principle is the same. He went out of his way to deliberately violate a law to get a day in court and turn it into a platform. Lt. Watada violated the law that he wished to make the issue, and his day in court is a wonderful chance to challenge the legality of the war in Iraq. I hope he wins his case. [crosposted @ D-Kos]

The latest as of today:

On the first day of the court-martial in Fort Lewis, an Army base near Seattle, Watada explained that he saw the order to go to Iraq and support combat operations as illegal because the war itself was illegal.

Wesley Clark at the DNC Winter Meeting, February 2, 2007.

Democrats.org has a post called "Wesley Clark Video" that's worth checking out...

Wes's speech still isn't tuned to the audience, which was hardcore Dems who reacted more to Hillary than to Wes. But I think that Wes's sentiments will appeal more to the country at large, not to mention the fact that he has far more experience with foreign policy and national security affairs. Hillary does have the one issue of health care down, and I know that that's important, but I don't think it's as critical as either the threat of global warming or the disastrous war and our relations with the rest of the world. We can deal with health care when we get more pressing issues out of the way, and Hillary would be the person to push universal coverage through Congress.

But let's not forget Barack Obama! He doesn't have enough experience to be president yet, but one day he will make one of the best we ever had.

In the meantime I think Wes Clark is not only the most qualified candidate in any party, I think he is the Democrat with the best chance of winning in today's world. Maybe he should have used this speech instead:

Studying countries that no longer exist

Condoleeza Rice and I have something in common. We are both experts in the history of countries that no longer exist.

Now, when she began to study the Soviet Union it did exist and she did not expect it to become history as soon as it did. No one did.

The successor states to the Soviet Union are still important in world affairs. Russia in particular is still a major power, if no longer a superpower in the same category as the United States. So her expertise is important.

However, many of the problems of the world today, from Bosnia to Palestine to Iraq, are the result of the collapse of an empire which collapsed long before the Soviet Union. I am, of course, referring to the Ottoman Empire. The problems caused by the collapse of that long ago empire, not the problems caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union, are the problems that are causing the most problems for the United States today.

Isn't it about time we had a Secretary of State, or a National Security advisor, who is an expert on the Ottoman Empire?

I was wrong

I've been saying that the era of airline hijackings was over. After 9/11 and United flight 93 no passengers would sit still for a hijacking. The shoe-bomber just proved the point, as far as I was concerned.

This just in from Sudan.

So I was wrong. At least I didn't bet any money on it!

Are the Bushites afraid they will be prosecuted?

I hope so. But even more, I hope they WILL be prosecuted for their crimes. It would do a lot to fix the United States of America, and almost as importantly, to fix our reputation in the rest of the world. Watergate didn't affect our international reputation as much as the Iraq invasion has. That was affected by the Vietnam War, which Nixon and Kissinger could argue they inherited and were trying to end, and by such bad deeds as the overthrow of Allende, which really wasn't very related to Watergate. But I digress.

Here's the story from TPMmuckraker.com:

At an oversight hearing this morning, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) grilled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales over the sudden departure of several U.S. Attorneys at the administration's request.

This is informative

I think most people with any knowledge of history, or old enough to remember Khrushchev and his shoe, will recognize that the Soviet threat was not invented by the Neocons.

You should also know that "Jahiliyya" literally means "ignorance" and refers to the state of illiteracy and polytheism that the pre-Islamic Arabs lived in. That this "ignorance" of God and of the benefits of civilization is something Sayyid Qutb saw taking over the world speaks more to his own troubled mind than to reality.



N.B. Most, almost all, Islamists are western educated, and have been cut off from traditional Islamic knowledge. Some of the best and most informed attacks on them have been by traditional Islamic scholars.

TIME

No, not the newsmagazine, the way things keep changing, and how they never change back. The "inexorable march of" thing, if it is a thing. the direction of which is defined by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Is it an illusion? Certainly we experience events in time, but to an objective observer (God?) are all events at any point in time just as real? Is it only from the way we experience events that they seem to happen in sequence? Why can't we go back (or forward) to experience events out of sequence? Will we be able to go back and/or forth when we understand the nature of time better? Why hasn't anyone come back to experience us yet? Or maybe they have? Is antimatter just matter going backwards? It looks that way in a Feynman diagram.

Living in the present (how can you avoid it?) does it really avoid the other times? Does the present moment include all three times (and if so are there nine times? the past, present and future in the past, the same three times in the present, and again in the future?) or does it exclude them? If the present, which so quickly becomes the past, is real, is not the past which it becomes just as real? Or is the present even real? If existence in time is not real, what is? Is there existence outside of time? If it is outside of the space-time continuum that we call the universe (i.e. all that exists) can we call it "existence" at all? How can we divide the present from the future and the past, when the future seems to slide as seemlessly into the present as the present does into the past? "Carpe Diem" sounds nice, but by the time we seize the day it disappears and becomes yesterday. Non-abiding is all we can do, and we must accept it.

Speaking of the space-time continuum, I wonder if there are other universes in which movement in time is free, but movement in a spatial dimension is constant, inexorable and unidirectional, as with what we experience as time in this universe. Would that spatial dimension become the functional equivalent of time? Is that what "time" in our dimension constitutes? From the outside, if there is an outside, is time another spatial dimension? What would the universe, experienced differently, "look" like? What does it look like experienced from outside of time, (assuming that there is an experience of that perspective)?

But why speculate about this? It is typically human to wonder about things we can never know. We humans think ourselves blessed by this faculty, and hope to have answers some day. Maybe instead of being blessed we are cursed with this, and will never know answers. I don't know. I only know that I have questions, but not their answers, and that there are worse things than speculating about these things. Maybe they are what life is all about, just questions, never any answers.

My favorite Jazz musician is no longer with us!

from e-jazz news:

Jazz pianist Alice Coltrane, widow of jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, died on Friday, January 12th at the West Hills Hospital near Los Angeles, California. She was 69.

Mrs. Coltrane was born Alice Lucille McLeod in Detroit, Michigan August 27, 1937. As a young girl, she studied classical piano and began playing organ in local churches. Bud Powell was one of her early teachers. She played piano with her brother, Ernest Farrow, in several Detroit clubs before moving to New York in the early 1960’s to pursue a career in jazz. There, while playing at Birdland with vibraphonist Terry Gibbs, she met John Coltrane. They later married, and she performed in his quartet beginning in 1966 until his death in July of 1967.

There's so much sadness in me right now. She has meant so much to me for so many decades now. There is a void that will not be filled, not for a long, long time. If you never heard her music, go to iTunes or someplace and listen. She took off where John ended, moving into beautiful Indo-Jazz fusion in the 1970s. She didn't record as much as I would have liked, but I have most of her albums. Now there will never be new music from her.

I'm sorry. I just want to be alone right now. Excuse me.

As usual Olbermann says it better!

Thanks, Keith. Keep up the good work.

Who favors the "death tax"?

Everyone who follows the issue knows that Warren Buffett favors the inheritance tax.

What most people don't know is that the whole thing was the brainchild of Andrew Carnegie, who convinced Theodore Roosevelt to push for it to be made law. Carnegie made his money himself, and thought that others should make their own money, not inherit it. Permanent dynasties would be bad for the American "land of opportunity" dream.

Carnegie gave his money back to society, and felt other millionaires should do the same. If they didn't the government should take the money. If they didn't want the government to take the money, they should give it to charities of their own choice.

Bush isn't sending more troops

Bush doesn't have more troops. He's not sending anyone who hasn't already been to Iraq, over and over and over. He's asking the troops who've already been there to do more, and more, and more. Bush is taking a military that's stretched to the breaking point, and he's trying to stretch them just a tiny little bit more. Just to see if they break? Or because those voices in his head (that he thinks are God) tell him to? Or because he hates the US government and wants to destroy it? Or because he's seriously stupid?

I don't know. I just know he's not sending any more troops. Not because the Democrats (and a lot of the Republicans) in Congress won't let him. Because he doesn't have any more troops to send to Iraq. He's just asking the troops he has to do more when they're already doing all they can. That's why more of his generals have left. The same generals whom he says he listens to and whose advice he says he follows.

The man needs to be impeached. Yesterday.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum

It's not hard to say nothing bad about Gerry Ford. He was a nice guy, a rarely honest man in a profession full of scoundrels. He was also my first Congressional representative.

Everyone else has given their respects and their eulogies, although I have yet to hear anyone mention Gerry's being the straight man on the old "Ev and Gerry Show" back in the 1960s. He and Senator Everett Dirksen led the Republicans in the Congress, and went on TV to give the regular Republican response to the Democratic presidents' press conferences.

I'd like to remember Gerry for something personal, though. One of my first political memories is of a tornado in the district, and how Gerry got federal aid to the victims. Ever since I was a little kid I had warm feelings about him, more so as I learned how atypical he was as a politician. I was very happy to see him become the first president who never campaigned for the office (or at least for Vice President) since George Washington, and I didn't find it strange that he, who had so little of the consuming ambition that makes and breaks politicians at every level, also became the first and only president who lost a war. He did what had to be done, and we are a better nation for everything he did for us. I never voted for him, but I listened carefully to everything he said and I always respected him.

They don't seem to make Republicans like that anymore, or many politicians of any party.

Celebrities and politics

I've always had mixed feelings about celebrities and politics.

I know many celebrities feel that promoting their opinions in public is bad for business. Politics and religion are always controversial and talking about them might alienate potential customers. Better to keep one's controversial opinions to oneself, and use the money to fund causes close to one's heart. But on to my own mixed feelings about celebrities and politics.

On the one hand they're entitled to their opinions, just like everyone else. And I suppose they are entitled to use their celebrity, if they want, to promote their opinions, just like other people use their money, or writing skills, or other abilities to promote their opinions. The real question is "Should they?"

Let me give two examples, from the right and from the left.

Jane Fonda was famous for her opposition to the war in Vietnam. She came to my university to speak against the war. I was the only person working against the war who spoke against her coming, not because I thought she was wrong to sit in the seat of a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun (although she was), but because she was not an expert on the history or politics of southeast Asia. What difference did it make what she thought? She was not someone was worth listening to about the topic.

I was over-ruled, not on the grounds that anyone respected her opinion (they didn't), but on the grounds that she would draw people to the forum. She did, but how much effect she had on any of them is open to question. We got some starry eyed people who were all agog that they had seen a REAL MOVIE STAR up close. (Big deal! I used to live in L.A. and I am NOT impressed. In fact I'm rather jaded about tourists hunting movie stars.) None of them seemed to pay any attention to what she, or anyone else, had to say about the war, and they crowded out people who came for information, and who would have come anyway. And I was impressed neither with Ms. Fonda's intelligence nor with the extent of her knowledge about the war, at least compared to those of a real expert. She had a right to her opinion, but I wasn't very impressed with it. I am impressed with her films, though. She's a great actress. I have to admit her body is very impressive too. She's kept it in very good shape since the 1960s.

The example I have from the right is Charlton Heston. He has become a spokesperson for the NRA, speaking against gun control. He is a more impressive speaker than Ms. Fonda. He's really got the Moses act down, although he's not much better at reading a script than Ms. Fonda. His movies are at least equally impressive as hers, but that's not why I'm writing this.

Many people told me that they thought Michael Moore had been unfair to him in "Bowling for Columbine" when he pestered him with questions at the end about gun control. I disagree. If Charlton Heston is going to be a spokesperson for the NRA he is going to have to take the tough questions. Unfortunately he couldn't take them. The NRA was unfair to have asked Mr. Heston to take on the task of being their spokesperson. He was a fool to accept. He wasn't qualified.

It's possible, at least theoretically, for a celebrity to be a good spokesperson and advocate for a cause. Maybe George Clooney is finally giving us an example in his campaigning for Darfur. But people have to remember that starring in a movie doesn't necessarily require brains (although it certainly doesn't preclude it, either, any more than having muscles precludes having brains.) Why should I listen to someone who starred in films about any issue other than acting? Why should I listen to a specialist in foreign affairs about their taste in films? No reason at all.

Bennett and Blacks

If you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down.

That would be an impossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down,

(from CNN.com)

In all the months after Bill Bennett said that I haven't noticed anyone, even The Nation, point out what WOULD happen if we aborted every black baby in the United States. We'd just go back to having Irish criminals. My Irish history professor (no Hibernophile) gleefully claimed to have seen statistics that showed that "every petty thief in the British Isles has an Irish last name." Personally I wouldn't doubt it at all.

Almost immediately someone jumped on him to explain why the Irish, the street criminals of the British Isles, became the stereotyped policemen in the United States, arresting blacks, Puerto Ricans and others who occupied the same social category that the Irish had occupied in the British Isles.

Crime is caused by social conditions, not the existence or non-existence of certain racial and ethnic groups. Until the social conditions that cause crime change crime will continue, regardless of whether we get rid of certain ethnic or racial groups.

A victim of his last conversation?

from the LA Times:

Rice apparently believed that Bush would simply follow the advice of whoever he spoke with. Therefore the one factor determining whether Bush would support the commission was whether Cheney or Rice managed to get to him first.

I've heard Prince Charles described the same way, but no one lets him be the Decider.

Here's what was wrong with Bush from the beginning

He said it himself:

I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style.

For those who don't understand capitalism, a group which unfortunately includes the president, you don't spend capital. You invest it. That's what makes it capital, not money. You spend money, or you save it and it becomes capital. You invest capital. That's why savings = investment (S=I) in economics.

But this president doesn't understand economics, capitalism or capital, so he squandered all the political capital he got from 9/11 and his re-election, and now he is bankrupt. And the way he is running the United States, the country will be too, very soon.

Wes Clark's ideas for Iraq

It's hard to explain a new option in an op-ed format, but if anyone can do it, Wes Clark can.

Here's what he wrote for USA Today:

What about a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals? Today, setting a rigid, Washington-driven timetable is an option, but a bad one. A precipitous troop reduction could have far-reaching effects: emboldening Iran, weakening U.S. security promises to friendly states, and even sparking military initiatives by other powers — Turkey or Iran — to deal with the resulting security vacuum. Our weakened position in Iraq also could undercut our leverage in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

What about imposing a tripartite division of Iraq? That would merely feed ethnic cleansing and likely lead to a wider, more intense conflict.

The right approach is a coordinated diplomatic, legal, economic and security campaign drawing upon broader dialogue in the region and intensified political work inside Iraq.

Read the whole thing here.

It's official

from Forbes:

The war in Iraq has now lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in the war that President Bush's father fought in, World War II.

That's the War in Iraq, not the war against Usama bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida. Remember them? The people who attacked us on 9/11? The people Bush and Cheney and Rummy let get away?

The question is, what do we do about it?

George W. Bush's Resume

George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Past Work Experience

Ran for congress and lost.
Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas; company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money. Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.
With father's help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.
Accomplishments in Previous Positions

Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union.

Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America. Cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.

Set record for most executions by any governor in American history.

Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my father's appointments to the Supreme Court.

Accomplishments As President

Attacked and took over two countries.
Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
First president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in U.S. history.
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
Set the record for most campaign fundraising trips than any other president in U.S. history.
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.
Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in U.S. history.
Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in U.S. history.
Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in U.S. history.
Presided over the biggest energy crises in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
Presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
Dissolved more international treaties than any president in U.S. history.
My presidency is the most secretive and unaccountable of any in U.S. history.
Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history (the 'poorest' multimillionaire, Condoleezza Rice, has an Exxon oil tanker named after her).
First president in U.S. history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
First president in U.S. history to order a U.S. attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation.
Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in U.S. history.
First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the human rights commission.
First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the elections monitoring board.
Removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in U.S. history.
Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
Withdrew from the World Court of Law.
Refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
First president in U.S. history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. elections).
All-time U.S. (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
My biggest lifetime campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in U.S. history.
First president in U.S. history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
First president to run and hide when the U.S. came under attack (and then lied saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1)
First U.S. president to establish a secret shadow government.
Took the biggest world sympathy for the U.S. after 9/11, and in less than a year made the U.S. the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in U.S. and world history).
With a policy of 'disengagement' created the most hostile Israeli-Palestine relations in at least 30 years.
Fist U.S. president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
First U.S. president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the U.S. than their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated U.S. law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
Failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive.'
Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capital building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects.
In the 18 months following the 9/11 attacks I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.
Removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in U.S. history.
In a little over two years created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided the U.S. has ever been since the Civil War.
Entered office with the strongest economy in U.S. history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.
Records and References

At least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available)
AWOL from National Guard and deserted the military during a time of war.
Refuse to take drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father's library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
For personal references please speak to my daddy or uncle James Baker (they can be reached at their offices of the Carlyle Group for war-profiteering.)

Good take on Clark

There's a lot to be said about the fallacy of political pundits and conventional wisdom about Wes Clark, too much in fact.

and too much in the article for me to quote. I'll let you read "The Donkey in the Room" for yourself.

Not the greatest generation any more

Look at this sick sh*t:



And then Americans wonder why they hate us. The kids that grew up in the privation of the Great Depression went on to hand out candy and chocolate bars in Europe and Japan, making friends that helped us win the Cold War. Their grandchildren fighting in Iraq, against people who never attacked us and who might have been our friends, are busy making enemies that will haunt us longer than I care to predict.

Maybe this is an isolated incident, but I don't think so. The Iraqis greeted us as liberators. Now they hate us. Now you know why.

MSNBC won't print this

because it attacks someone else's comments about Wes Clark's op-ed about Iraq.

Gregg says:

"Iraq is far more complicated than any one of you here realize. If the politicians, think-tankers, Bush bashers and everyone none active military would get out of the way, the military could handle this situation ASAP."

Gregg, Iraq is far more complicated than YOU realize. That's why we need someone who does understand it to sort it out. Could you have even found it on a map before we invaded?

BTW, you contradict yourself when you complain that Wes Clark didn't win wars, but ask everyone else to get out of the military's way. The military already won in Iraq, but Wes Clark realizes that war is more than a military problem. You don't. That's why he was a general and you weren't. And for the record I know someone who is being sent to Iraq. Just shared a beer with him AAMOF, and hope to see him again before he goes.

Why do these people hate the Constitution?

from MSNBC:

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The U.S. military called no witnesses, withheld evidence from detainees and usually reached a decision within a day as it determined that hundreds of men detained at Guantanamo Bay were “enemy combatants,” according to a new report.

and why pick on these people? If they are terrorists, there should be evidence. If they are not, they should be released. And if you have no evidence that they are terrorists, why do you believe them to be?

more from MSNBC:

Twenty-one first-year law students at Seton Hall University in Newark, N.J., analyzed the documents to create a database analyzed by eight second- and third-year students.

Among their findings:

* The government did not produce any witnesses in any hearing.
* The military denied all detainee requests to inspect the classified evidence against them.
* The military refused all requests for defense witnesses who were not detained at Guantanamo.
* In 74 percent of the cases, the government denied requests to call witnesses who were detained at the prison.
* In 91 percent of the hearings, the detainees did not present any evidence.
* In three cases, the panel found that the detainee was “no longer an enemy combatant,” but the military convened new tribunals that later found them to be enemy combatants.

“No American would ever consider this to be hearing,” Denbeaux said. “This is a show trial.”

Welcome to Stalinism, American style!

I'm back

I've been busy and I've been busy celebrating the Democratic victory when I wasn't busy otherwise. Maybe I should post a series of short pieces on introducing Islamic studies or something like that? Well, I'll post new messages as I have time.

I still am worried about our democracy, though. We need to do some things ASAP.

1. Get ballots with certifiable paper trails to confirm the voters' choices. The opinion polls very consistently overestimated the actual poll results as far as Democrats went. The obvious explanation to me is that the polls were rigged. Not enough to stop a Democratic landslide but enough to slow it down.

2. Repeal the noxious portions of the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. I take my oath to defend the Constitution "against all enemies, foreign and domestic" very seriously.

3. Investigate the worst aspects of the Bush regime, to stop their crimes and promote the idea of impeachment. At the very least the public needs to know what the &%$#! has been going on in the Bush regime.

4. Try to change course in Iraq so that we're not going it alone any more. The options are so much worse than they were before or should be now.

5. GET BIN LADIN! Dead or alive. (But I'm not holding my breath waiting for the Commander in Chief to order that one.)

We are in very deep shinola here!

This is from the Military Times newspaper group editorial about Rumsfeld:

It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.

Did you get that? Rumsfeld is losing control of the military.

So what is the solution? The Military Times group of Newspapers suggests that Rumsfeld be fired. I have long thought Rumsfeld should have been fired for many, many reasons, but the call for firing him to restore discipline in the military worries me. That would only whet the appetite of political generals in the military. We are lucky to have a nonpolitical military in the US, and to have civilian control of the military. We need to keep that more than almost anything.

What worries me about this editorial is the argument that the opinion of the majority of Americans is not important, but that the opinion of the generals is. That doesn't sound like civilian control.

To be fair, they ambiguously complain that Rumsfeld is losing control of the military, but their solution to his loss of control is to give more power to the top military brass, letting them decide who gets to give them orders.

It's been argued elsewhere that the Cheney gang is so adamant about retaining Rumsfeld because Bill Clinton let the generals (e.g. Wes Clark) call all the shots, and the new administration wanted to restore effective civilian control. I don't know. I do know we are in trouble here. It needs a steady hand. It needs someone who's got a history of strong military experience, and a strong committment to a nonpolitical military and civilian control. Maybe a retired, nonpolitical general?

Rumsfeld should be removed because (1) he has failed, and (2) he has lost the faith of the country at large. That he has lost the trust of the generals is incidental. They have a vote, like everyone else, but they don't have voice. Civil servants in general are "Hatched" but military personnel do not have the same rights of free speech as civilians. Nor should they. They are the core of the government. Lose control of the military and you lose the republic. There's no crossing the Rubicon in reverse. It's that simple.

I thought it would have been Boykin!

How did I miss this? I've been away too long, I guess. But the news is just getting too surreal for my taste.

MIAMI (AFP) - The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God. "He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

OK, the guy is under Rummy in the chain of command, so he'd better say nice things about him, but "the good Lord tells him is best for our country"?!? I thought military were supposed to sign oaths to defend the Constitution of the United States. Hasn't this guy even read that Constitution?

Even stranger, OK, suppose this guy believes the Bible literally and thinks King Solomon talked to God. How does he come off thinking Rummy does, too? Or is he just being very subtly sarcastic? That must be it. It's very dry humor, over Rummy's head.

another straw man from a Republican

This Republican is pretty extreme, so I don't think I should use him to speak about all Republicans. David Horowitz does speak for many, though, and he has enough big Republican money behind him to get some attention. Here's his latest straw man argument about Democrats:

if only America left Iraq and focused on killing Osama bin Laden, the Islamic jihad would be over.

Of course he can't actually quote any real Democrat saying something so simplistic. I can quote him, here, confusing Sunni jihadists and Shi'ite jihadists (notice that they are killing each other in Iraq, with our troops in the middle) as "the Islamic jihad" in his blog entry.

Given Horowitz's obvious intelligence, and history of Communism, he's probably making a deliberate misrepresentation of what Democrats have been saying. Still, it's nice to know that we're having some effect, and that they can't just accuse us of supporting the terrorists anymore. Well, some Republicans will always do that, but Horowitz seems to want to be believed in his lies.

This lie is disturbing, though:

Those who attack us from within without offering a constructive policy for winning are helping the enemy. They are not criticizing the Administration; they are sabotaging the war. I have yet to come across a single Democrat who has a plan to prosecute the war more effectively.

If he hasn't "come across a single Democrat who has a plan to prosecute the war more effectively" it's his own fault for not visiting Wesley Clark's "Securing America" site. He's more likely lying again, and setting up Democrats to become inmates of the American Gulag his Republican friends are building.

National security? I don't think so.

Ever since he was in college George W. Bush talked down Social Security. He thought it would be his legacy to turn back the New Deal, especially it's cornerstone, the Social Security program. And it looks like he won't give up. Here's the latest:

Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said Republicans can hold their congressional majority by focusing on national security and the economy, and that he will return to overhauling Social Security as a top domestic priority for his last two years in office.

He thinks that being a War President gives him "political capital" and that then he gets to spend it. The sap doesn't understand that you don't spend capital, you invest it. That's what makes capital different from money. This president doesn't even get the basics of capitalism. No wonder he wants to abolish Social Security. He doesn't realize that it saved capitalism, because he doesn't understand capitalism.

Could Bush secretly be a Communist? No, I think he's just a little dense. After all, even intelligent Communists understand the difference between capital and money. They've read Das Kapital.

The Ox-Bow President

Does anyone else remember when America stood for the rule of law, for justice and fair play? Does anyone else remember when our wartime movies, even the ones that didn't have Nazi villains, even the ones that weren't overt propaganda, featured the kind of values that made the United States the last best hope of earth? Not anymore. Habeas Corpus has been flagrantly abolished without even a pretense of invasion or rebellion to justify it.

From the New York Times editorial:

While the Republicans pretend that this bill will make America safer, let’s be clear about its real dangers. It sets up a separate system of justice for any foreigner whom Mr. Bush chooses to designate as an “illegal enemy combatant.” It raises insurmountable obstacles for prisoners to challenge their detentions. It does not require the government to release prisoners who are not being charged, or a prisoner who is exonerated by the tribunals.

The law does not apply to American citizens, but it does apply to other legal United States residents. And it chips away at the foundations of the judicial system in ways that all Americans should find threatening. It further damages the nation’s reputation and, by repudiating key protections of the Geneva Conventions, it needlessly increases the danger to any American soldier captured in battle.

In the short run, voters should see through the fog created by the Republican campaign machine. It will be up to the courts to repair the harm this law has done to the Constitution.

I think a Hollywood writer said it far better in the darkest days of World War II, when the US and the world faced an enemy far greater than al-Qa'ida and Usama bin Ladin:

A man just naturally can't take the law into his own hands and hang people without hurtin' everybody in the world, 'cause then he's just not breaking one law but all laws. Law is a lot more than words you put in a book, or judges or lawyers or sheriffs you hire to carry it out. It's everything people ever have found out about justice and what's right and wrong. It's the very conscience of humanity. There can't be any such thing as civilization unless people have a conscience, because if people touch God anywhere, where is it except through their conscience? And what is anybody's conscience except a little piece of the conscience of all men that ever lived?

I agree with what he said, but I can't defend his right to say it

General Dannatt wants British troops out of Iraq immediately:

The point that I'm trying to make is the mere fact that we are still in some places exacerbates violence from those who want to destabilise Iraqi democracy.

I've always been amazed at two types of people: those who said it was inapproriate for retired generals to speak out against the war, and those who complained that no serving generals spoke out against it. No serving generals spoke out because such speech is insubordination and a breech of discipline. If you're in the service and you want to criticize any higherups in the chain of command, you have to get out of the service. It's called military discipline.

It feels strange to say this, but I agree with what the general said, but I have to oppose his right to say it. Billy Mitchell was right about Air Power, too, and today everybody knows it. We have an Air Force, an Air Force Academy, a Department of Defense and everything else he asked for. We even know that he was right about the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor. But he shouldn't have said it without resigning from the military first, and the court martial was right to convict and punish him.

If you've ever seen an insubordinate, undisciplined military you would understand what I am talking about. It's dangerous.

Wes Clark says what needs to be said!

and he says it so well. Listen for yourself:



Here's more from coverage of his speech in Alabama:

Bin Laden’s strategy, Clark said, is to encourage the U.S. to invade Iran and Syria.

“His strategy is to create zones of chaos and savagery," Clark said. “He wants more Iraqs … where he can go in and emerge with leadership.

“Why do we want to play his game, when it is totally against our interests?"

I only hope his voice holds out until the 2008 election.

Fair and balanced? How?

Faux news claims to be fair and balanced, but here's what they did in a report on what they called

Vanderbilt Univ. discussion on 9/11 turns into a Bush-bashing festival

There was no chance for any of the faculty members to defend themselves, only the prosecution, and a witness for the prosecution. Faux News did have their punching bag "liberal" to make some mealy mouth comments that were supposed to be a defense of something (free speech?) but the accused were not given a chance to defend themselves, nor were any witnesses for the defense allowed to testify.

That's Faux News for you! Liberals are guilty, guilty, guilty of treason, treason, treason!

And the idea of debate between two sides is a quaint relic of liberalism. Which means freedom.

Remember, the president says the terrorists hate us become we are free, so as soon as we become unfree the terrorists will stop hating us and the GWOT will be over. Unless we try to become free again. So don't even think about freedom anymore. Much less a fair and balanced debate.

It's all Clinton's fault!

I don't believe these people. When Bush finally leaves office in 2009, they will still swear that everything bad that ever happened during his eight years was Clinton's fault. I guess the "Party of Personal Responsibility" was the party of other people's personal responsibility.

Et tu, McCain?

Yes, John McCain blames Clinton, too:

Sen. John McCain, a likely 2008 U.S. presidential contender, blamed former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday for failing to stop an unfolding nuclear threat from North Korea in the 1990s.

The Arizona Republican also took a swipe at Clinton's wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, a New York senator and possible Democratic rival for the White House.

It's time for Bush to take responsibility for his own policies and their failures. Clinton's policy on North Korea wasn't perfect. What policy could be for a country that expects to be applauded for its nuclear test? But Bush's policy is clearly worse, and if Bush won't admit making a mistake with it, McCain should be adult enough to tell him to change course again.

And blaming Hillary is really low, even for a Republican.

How to get the Usama clock?

Colorado Bob, who runs "Thank you, Keith Olbermann" among other blogs, wants to know where to get the Usama clock. I just copied and pasted the source code from another blog. I suggest everyone else do the same.

I rewrote the shpiel, and changed the spelling. There are only three vowels in Arabic (a, i, u). The other two vowels (e, o) are written in Roman script to to try to show short vowels, but I think it's confusing. There's no good method of showing vowel length in English. But I digress. You can write "Osama bin Laden" if you want.

Put up the clock and edit it yourself. I don't think we can remind enough people that this is the first time in American history that it has taken more than four years to catch the people responsible for an attack on the US and put a stop to their activities. The Confederates and the Japanese military were both out of action four years after Fort Sumter and Pearl Harbor, respectively. We can't let bin Ladin get away!

The president's voices

are getting stranger and stranger. "The President hears what he wants. . . . He hears things that only he can hear." I couldn't have said it better than Keith Olbermann: Watch here!

Clinton on Faux News!

Did he flip out, or did he smack them down?

Check out the video here, and decide for yourself?

Surprise, surprise!

Read it and weep:

WASHINGTON - The war in Iraq has become the primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers are increasing faster than the United States and its allies are eliminating the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

I'm back, and I want my country! (I love country)

As you can probably guess from those last few posts, I've been getting pretty depressed considering the state the country is in, but I just got cheered up. By a country song of all things! Check this out:



I've always loved country music (yes, "I was Country when Country wasn't Cool" FWIW), and I'm a big Merle Haggard fan. In fact I've been a fan of his since before "Okie from Muskogee" and I really loved his last albums. Especially the one with "Rebuild America First!"

I guess I can't close a blog entry about Country music without mentioning Willie Nelson's drug bust. Marijuana prohibition is at best a waste of everyone's time, at worst a policy disaster that is making things worse than legalization would be. LEGALIZE MARIJUANA NOW!!!

Who was B. Traven?

(OK, I'm a little drunk so this may not make total sense.)

If you don't know who B. Traven is, just google the name or google "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" instead.

He spoke German and English, was an anarcho/socialist, and wanted to keep his identity totally secret.

In other words,

He was a Wobbly, full of their cult of anonymity and wanted to keep his identity secret, which was harder and harder as his books kept selling and even became best selling movies, and everyone wanted to know who he was.

You want to know who he was? Look for a Wobbly who spoke German and had to flee, who disappeared. But there are too many people who fit that description, aren't there? You'll never find him now. Which was his idea. And I sympathize. Totally.

B. Traven went to Mexico and tried to be anonymous, tellling lie after lie after lie to be anonymous. Wouldn't you? If you were smart, and he was, wasn't he? If you were a Wobby wanted by the law in the US, and probably Germany, too. I don't know who he was, but I'm sure everything told by now is full of lies. B. Traven was a Wobbly, probably (almost certainly) wanted by the law, and afraid of being found out until he died.

I'll drinkn to the wobblies. Especially if B. Traven was one of them.

Maybe more when I'm sober. Hasta la vista, baby!

In the meantime, here's to B . Traven!

The fix is on!

TRENTON, N.J. - A Princeton University computer science professor added new fuel Wednesday to claims that electronic voting machines used across much of the country are vulnerable to hacking that could alter vote totals or disable machines.

That's right. The election is already rigged. But I'm not giving up.

Read more here.

Watch the video:

The right still believes it was just a "Wag the Dog" distraction!

Does anyone want evidence of my claim at the beginning of this blog that the Right was not on the ball about bin Ladin?

When Bin Ladin attacked the US and Bill Clinton went after him a lot of Republicans insisted this was a "wag the dog" distraction from the real threat to the republic, Monica Lewinsky's mouth. Some of this is still up on the Internet

This is from Redstate:

Everybody thought his response to the embassy bombings was sleight of hand to distract from Lewinsky. I know I did.

We got hit on 9/11 because the Republican right didn't believe that the threat was real. They have continued to blow the war ever since. We have to get rid of them.

5 years after 9/11, a reason for the Iraq invasion

But it's not new. It's the old, original claim that Iraq was an immediate threat. It wasn't. And they knew it at the time.

I don't want to hear about this president anymore. He's an embarrassment to the nation. Get rid of him. Look, he even promised he wouldn't politicize this speech, then, when I listened to it, he seemed to spend more time on Iraq than on what he was supposed to talk about, 9/11.

Get rid of him!

Just in case you think Bush was behind use of the "g" word in Darfur

It's a black thang:

Almost two years ago when the U.S. Congress declared the atrocities Genocide, I was so elated and proud, believing that we were going to do something to save lives. I was so sure that this time around it was going to be different, assuming we learned from Rwanda. I must confess I never thought I was going to succeed even getting the resolution passed in the House, let alone see our government declare Genocide.

That's from "Africa: Remarks of Congressman Donald M. Payne - 36th Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference" as reported by AllAfrica.com

Bush's real priorities

Here it is, from Yahoo! News.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush hopes to revive his plan to overhaul the U.S. Social Security retirement program if his Republican party keeps control of the Congress in the November midterm elections, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

That's right, Bush doesn't care any more about national security than he did before the last election, and as soon as this next one's over he's going to go after Social Security instead.

Despite polls suggesting Democrats have their best chance in years to regain control of the House of Representatives, Bush told the newspaper in an interview he was confident a power shift was "not going to happen."

And that's right, too. Preprogrammed voting machines are in place to keep the Republicans in power until Kingdom come. Let's hope that's soon.

Dems lay into Bush about bin Ladin

Here's the webad!



Of course, some people think the US government is actually going after bin Ladin. How do we explain to these people that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 or bin Ladin, that we took our troops out of the search for bin Ladin in Afghanistan to put them in a needless, counterproductive war in Iraq, and that that's why we can't find bin Ladin?

Where do people get this?!?

from CNN

Asked whether former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 52 percent [of Americans] said he was not, but 43 percent said they believe he was. The White House has denied Hussein's 9/11 involvement -- most recently in a news conference August 21, when President Bush said Hussein had "nothing" to do with the attacks.

So if Bush denies that Saddam was involved, and they have NEVER said he was, where the &%$#! do 43% of Americans get the idea that he WAS involved?

I mean, people, PLEASE, if Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks, he has gotten off too lightly.

But please, somebody, tell me WHERE THE &%$#! DO 43% OF AMERICANS GET THE CRAZY &%$#! IDEA THAT SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS INVOLVED IN THE SEPTEMBER 11TH ATTACKS?!?!?

Has half the country gone stark raving lunatic?

Darfur on the brink?

There are serious predictions of an impending bloodbath. Kofi Annan is trying to get UN troops in but the Sudanese government won't cooperate. They've even thrown out the AU troops that they said they had no objection to. According to the very reliable BBC the AU has agreed to get out. But according to the VoA Nigeria is sending more troops without asking the Sudan's permission. The Sudanese government, on the other hand, is launching a major new offensive.

PlameGate isn't over yet!

It seems that Armitage wasn't the only one to finger Plame:

But officials at the White House also told reporters about Wilson's wife in an effort to discredit Wilson for his public attacks on Bush's handling of Iraq intelligence. Karl Rove confirmed to Novak that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, and days later offered the same information to Time reporter Matt Cooper.

So Armitage was one of the sources, but not the most important one, or the one who kept the story out running for so long.

Darfur, D-Kos and diaries

(crossposted at Securing America)

At least two D-Kos diaries (1, 2) about the UN vote on Darfur have already scrolled offscreen. That's typical of Darfur diaries on D-Kos, but nothing has appeared about it at the Clark site, either. I reckon y'all were a-waitin' for me? ;-)

from Aljazeera (the island? the peninsula? It obviously refers to the "Arab island" that Mecca is on, so it doesn't include the Sudan, but I digress)

The UN security council has approved a resolution authorising the deployment of up to 17,000 peacekeepers to Darfur, with the Sudanese government swiftly rejecting the plan.

from the Beeb:

The Sudanese government has vehemently rejected a UN Security Council resolution that would send a UN force to Sudan's Darfur region.

from Monsters and Critics:

Acting in the shadow of the Rwanda genocide, UN Security Council members said Thursday their decision to send troops to Sudan's Darfur region without government consent is aimed at protecting civilians caught in the conflict despite the Sudanese government's objection.

from The International Herald Tribune:

Sudan on Thursday rejected a U.N. resolution giving the world body authority over peacekeepers in the war-torn region of Darfur on condition that the government in Khartoum gives its consent.

from Africa Action via AllAfrica.com:

This morning at the United Nations (UN) Security Council, a resolution authorizing the deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur passed with a vote of 12 in favor, with China, Russia and Qatar abstaining. This resolution, introduced two weeks ago by the U.S. and the U.K., was altered in negotiations this week to include a provision requiring the consent of the Sudanese government. Africa Action, which has been calling for the deployment of UN peacekeepers for more than two years, recognized the importance of this step and expressed concern that the resolution will be rendered useless without a diplomatic action plan that ensures Sudanese consent for a UN intervention.

Just to be fair and balanced, here is the article from Faux News:

The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution Thursday that would give the United Nations authority over peacekeepers in Darfur as soon as Sudan's government gives its consent — which it has so far refused to do.

The resolution is meant to give more power and funding to a force, now run by the African Union, that has been unable to stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur that has killed more than 200,000 people and continues to worsen.

background from the Beeb:

Rwanda's army spokesman says there have been delays in paying peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region because the African Union is short of cash. Some of the Rwandan troops who make up over 2,000 of the 7,000-strong AU force in Darfur have complained they have not received their $25 daily allowance.

Maj Jules Rutaremara told the BBC the AU mission is reliant on international funding which has not been forthcoming.

and I can't help editorializing that it would be MUCH CHEAPER AND MORE EFFECTIVE to fund the AU force that is already there on the ground than to authorize a UN force. It is hard for me to avoid the suspicion that the Bush administration is just grandstanding. What UN forces are they going to send? They don't have enough forces for Lebanon!

Here is an analysis from Sudan Tribune:

Will the supporters of Al-Qaida strike in East Africa Sooner than later??

By Scott A. Morgan

August 31, 2006 — The supporters of Al-Qaida and their supporters and colleagues in the upper Nile Basin must realize that they may soon be in a target rich environment. They are having a currently successful campaign to consolidate their power within Somalia, Reports indicate that the Government of Eritrea is currently arming the currently successful Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) as they attempt to install the Government that they want. Sudan whose Government is under current Pressure from the UN Security Council to accept a more powerful peacekeeping force for the long-standing strife plagued region of Darfur.

What would embolden these groups to take such actions? There are two answers that are plausible. First is the current situation within Iraq where successful insurgency has tied down thousands of Amercan troops with over a thousand fatalities. The second answer is the recent war in Lebanon. This conflict which can be seen as a Public Relations Disaster for Israel and major coup for Hizbullah demonstated that it was possible to tie down their enemies in a protracted Miltary Campaign. US Forces have been in Iraq since 2003 and the UN stepped in to end the violence in Southern Lebanon

And I can't help but add my comment (they were almost identical) from the two D-Kos diaries:

UN resolution says they "invite" Sudan's approval

but isn't clear whether said permission is required or not. Now the lawyers have to argue about it. However, even if we can pressure the Sudan's government into approving it means little because:

1. What troops are they going to send? Butros Butros-Ghali wanted a permanent military force under the office of the S-G (himself) along with tax powers to fund it. (This is the same B B-G who was so upset that African genocide doesn't get the attention that genocide in Europe does.) Jesse Helms went ballistic and considered the UN making an explicit threat to US sovereignty. (This is the same Jesse Helms who was upset about the United States's threat to North Carolina's sovereignty, i.e. the Civil War.)

2. How are they going to fund the troops? There are troops already there on the ground, the African Union force, but they don't have enough money to do their job. They could be augmented with more troops and do a better job for less money than a UN force of troops from outside the continent, they have already been approved for the job, even by the government of the Sudan, but they don't have enough money for the force that is there now. Who is going to pay for it?

This UN resolution is simply a way for the US to wash its hands of the mess without doing anything, while convincing Arab conspiracy theorists that it is all a US plot against the "Arab nation". If they really wanted to do something they would pony up some more $$$$$ for the African Union force that is already there and call the Arab League's bluff about helping finance the AU force. In the meantime, Darfur is a test case for the AU. If it doesn't act, it should be replaced by a United States of Africa that can act.

No sense of irony! (or humor?)

From the Christian Broadcasting Network news (i.e. Pat Robertson):

"For the U.N. to be effective,” Bush said, “there must be consequences if people thumb their nose at the U.N. Security Council."

Well, Mr. Bush, let's face the consequences of your thumbing your nose at the U.N. Security Council, shall we?

Hurricane Katrina won't go away!

Looks like the ethnic cleansing explanation might not be paranoia:

Forensic engineers have since uncovered design and construction flaws that some say border on criminal negligence.

I already talked about Lieberman

Here it is:

Building a majority party involves creating coalitions within the party, not circular firing squads. That means we all have to compete cleanly within the party primary, then swallow our pride and support the nominee who was chosen by the majority of our fellow Democrats, who are not really our political opponents, much less enemies.

I was talking about Hackett and Senator Schumer there, but it goes for Lieberman, too. It even goes for anyone who loses to a Democrat to their right. We can't afford to fight each other this year. There is too much at stake!

Let's keep focussed on reality

Let's all remember what really happened in the latest terror plot.

Pakistan found out about the plot and notified the British:

Reports from Pakistani intelligence, suggesting the direct involvement of senior Kashmiri militants linked to al-Qaeda, convinced British intelligence that the plot had to be taken seriously. Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist branch was brought in to the operation last December.

The Bush administration had nothing to do with it..

No, the US administration is too busy in Iraq to do anything about al-Qa'ida.

But how will the latest terror plot play in the US heartland?

We all know that the Republicans and their media will try to paint the Democrats as soft on terror. They've already started by saying that the Democrats have been hijacked by extremists.

Thank God some papers at least report it right:

Democrats contend that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a distraction from the war against al-Qaida. A new CNN poll shows that 60 percent of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq.

And it looks like the American people are finally starting to wake up:

Democrats were favored over Republicans by 46 to 38 percent in an ABC-Washington Post poll early this week when people were asked whom they trusted more to handle the fight against terrorism.

Let's hope they stay awake through election day!

More on the Arab League and Darfur

I've already complained that expecting the Arab League to stop the killing in Darfur is like expecting the Ku Klux Klan to stop the lynching of Blacks in the US. (Yes, there are people, even Black people, who actually expect the Arab League to intervene to stop the killings.)

Now someone else seems to have picked it up:

The message seems clear: the Arab League is not as concerned with the DEPTH of the evil as they are with PERPETRATORS of the evil. Two hundred Arab civilians killed by Israel is a more newsworthy story than 20,000 Africans killed in an Arab League country. Perhaps the urge to be self-critical is unwise and bad for “Arab morale” in this time of asymmetrical warfare, entropy in Iraq and widely rampant anti-Arab sentiments. But further neglect of Darfur will be for the Arab League what Rwanda was for the UN: the grossest moral failing of its existence . . . the beginning of the end.

I don't know if Rwanda was the beginning of the end for the UN. I don't claim to foretell the future. I will reiterate that the Arab League should not be expected to intervene when Arabs kill non-Arabs. That's not why it was created. It was created to support the ethnic interests of Arabs, i.e. to foster Arab nationalism. I don't think it should continue to exist. And anyway, it can't even defend the ethnic interests of Arabs in Lebanon. It is at best impotent, at worst evil. Get rid of it.

And for humanity's sake, someone please fund an adequate African Union force, and if necessary an OIC force, to Darfur.

How to solve the Israel/Palestine problem:

Meteor Blades asked everyone on D-Kos, and my position got a lot of good ratings, more than almost any on the message thread, so I thought I should put it up here too.

1. Palestinians have to recognize that Israel exists. It's not going anywhere. It's not part of the International Elders of Zion Conspiracy. It's people who started out as poor refugees, just like the Palestinians are today. It's not even a European invasion. As much as it is Holocaust refugees, it is the Jewish millets of the Ottoman Empire coming together. If the Palestinians want to blame anyone for that, they can blame their "Arab brothers" the same "brothers" who don't do anything for the Palestinians except say "Let's you and him fight." and "Here are some guns. Please kill our Jews for us. We'd do it ourselves, but we're scared of the big bad Jews."

2. Israel has to recognize that Palestinians exist. Not Arabs, Palestinians. Arabic has been called a dead language that they refuse to bury. Israelis and their apologists have to stop insisting that other Arab countries have to take in refugees the way Germans took in refugees after World War II. Besides the fact that Germans realized that they had brought their problems on themselves, while Palestinians blame others for the situation, Arabs are coming to speak different languages. Arab nationalism is bull[bleep] and even Colonel Qaddafi has come around to realizing it.

3. Obviously that means a two-state solution. Recognizing the need for a Palestinian State is probably the only thing G. W. Bush has gotten right his whole time in office. But he hasn't moved it forward, he's moved it backward. That's why going back to a Democratic administration is necessary to solve this problem. Carter and Clinton moved things forward. Bush balled it all up.

4. Back when Clinton was helping the negotiations they almost got it solved. They had everything divvied up except for one small hill in Jerusalem. The only way I can see out of that is to internationalize the city under religious control. I know many Muslims and Jews think this is just a Christian conspiracy to take over without fighting, because Christians outnumber Muslims and Jews put together. Tough. The Jews and Muslims have, between them, driven out almost all the Christians. The least they could do is let the Christians share in the rule of one city.

That's my two cents, FWIW.

Ah, the white man's burden!

Remember the push to get a UN force into Darfur, where genocide is happening? Notice how long it is taking to agree on that force, and get approval, and coordinate the logistics? Notice how by the time anything is done, at the rate things are moving, that all the non-Arabs in Darfur will be dead?

This news is just in from the Middle East:

Planning for the force is in early stages, but officials said they anticipate it including 10,000 to 20,000 troops led by a contingent from France or Turkey.

That's right, the world body, allegedly dominated by third world governments and their concerns, is once again rushing to stop attacks against white people. In this case they do not even rise to the level of genocide. This is not to argue in favor of Israel's attacks on Lebanon, which I consider disproportionate. It is simply to point out that systematic murder of people from other ethnic groups, genocide, is going on in Africa, while the world dithers. There are plenty of African troops willing to go into Darfur, they just don't have the money. Now watch the "international community" (anyone have any idea who that is? I sure don't) send their money to Lebanon instead.

Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, first African Secretary General of the United Nations, put it best:

A genocide in Africa has not received the same attention that genocide in Europe or genocide in Turkey or genocide in other part of the world. There is still this kind of basic discrimination against the African people and the African problems.

Crazier and crazier

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Tuesday once again charged that the Holocaust was a fantasy concocted for the West to take over the Middle East through Israel, and proclaimed that Israel was on the verge of collapse, the news agency ISNA reported.

I wonder what kind of historical research is permitted in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The government is active in publishing copies of The International Jew by Henry Ford and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and distributing them around the world.

Worst president ever?

You gotta read this article by Sean Wilentz in Rolling Stone magazine:

George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.

From time to time, after hours, I kick back with my colleagues at Princeton to argue idly about which president really was the worst of them all. For years, these perennial debates have largely focused on the same handful of chief executives whom national polls of historians, from across the ideological and political spectrum, routinely cite as the bottom of the presidential barrel. Was the lousiest James Buchanan, who, confronted with Southern secession in 1860, dithered to a degree that, as his most recent biographer has said, probably amounted to disloyalty -- and who handed to his successor, Abraham Lincoln, a nation already torn asunder? Was it Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, who actively sided with former Confederates and undermined Reconstruction? What about the amiably incompetent Warren G. Harding, whose administration was fabulously corrupt? Or, though he has his defenders, Herbert Hoover, who tried some reforms but remained imprisoned in his own outmoded individualist ethic and collapsed under the weight of the stock-market crash of 1929 and the Depression's onset? The younger historians always put in a word for Richard M. Nixon, the only American president forced to resign from office.

Now, though, George W. Bush is in serious contention for the title of worst ever. In early 2004, an informal survey of 415 historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a "failure." Among those who called Bush a success, many gave the president high marks only for his ability to mobilize public support and get Congress to go along with what one historian called the administration's "pursuit of disastrous policies." In fact, roughly one in ten of those who called Bush a success was being facetious, rating him only as the best president since Bill Clinton -- a category in which Bush is the only contestant.

They're not even pretending to look for bin Ladin!

This has been going around the news lately. Here's the New York Times take:

C.I.A. Closes Unit Focused on Capture of bin Laden

WASHINGTON, July 3 — The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday.

The official administration spin is that it doesn't mean anything:

Agency officials said that tracking Mr. bin Laden and his deputies remained a high priority, and that the decision to disband the unit was not a sign that the effort had slackened. Instead, the officials said, it reflects a belief that the agency can better deal with high-level threats by focusing on regional trends rather than on specific organizations or individuals.

"The efforts to find Osama bin Laden are as strong as ever," said Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, a C.I.A. spokeswoman. "This is an agile agency, and the decision was made to ensure greater reach and focus."

What does the guy who knows most about it have to say?

Michael Scheuer, a former senior C.I.A. official who was the first head of the unit, said the move reflected a view within the agency that Mr. bin Laden was no longer the threat he once was.

Mr. Scheuer said that view was mistaken.

"This will clearly denigrate our operations against Al Qaeda," he said. "These days at the agency, bin Laden and Al Qaeda appear to be treated merely as first among equals."

So why are they really doing this?

In recent years, the war in Iraq has stretched the resources of the intelligence agencies and the Pentagon, generating new priorities for American officials.

That's right, the War in Iraq is making it impossible to fight the people who really attacked the United States.

Is George Bush really so stunningly incompetent, or doesn't he want to catch the people who attacked us on September 11th?

That's the real question about almost all of the administration's policies. Stupidity and incompetence, or deliberate sabotage of the United States? Was the Hurricane Katrina response just an incredible foulup, or deliberate ethnic cleansing? The list goes on and on and on and on and . . . .

Let me get this straight

The same people in the American administration who hate the UN, who think it is incompetent and worthless and ought to be scrapped or at least totally overhauled, want it to take over the African Union mission in Darfur?WTF?