It's not failure... it's a success that hasn't occurred yet.

Up is down, war is peace... failure is success that hasn't occurred yet. Truly Orwellian.

But at least Saddam got a "fair trial" before he was hanged. Sadly, that is more that can be said for all those held without charge or trial in Gitmo and elsewhere.

Happy New year!

George W. Lincoln...? I don't think so.

Driftglass, after reading Michael Novak at NRO compare GWB favourably to Lincoln, wipes the vomit from his chin and offers this rejoinder as only driftglass can...

Go read the entire thing if you feel the need for a Yuletide emetic.

As for me, I could barely get past the ponderous piping-bag full of stentorioriffic treasures such as “was it not thus, also…”, “haughty”-freighted “remonstrations” and “No end to the bloodshed flickered in sight” larded onto this shitbrick to hide the taste of writing as flat and unappetizing as stamped tin, and poo truffles like “Wars are often darkest just before the light” peeping out from under every rotting log of prose to notice the basic argument;

That since Lincoln was called a fuckup, and Lincoln was great, isn’t is therefore reasonable to conclude that since Bush is being called a fuckup, he may also be proven to be great if we just wait long enough?

The short answer is: No. Not even close.

The idea that there is some clandestine configuration of facts and conditions that somehow transmutes every fucked up step that Dubya has taken into Fucking Brilliant Sense in a wider context – and that these Sekrit Circumstances will be the Bush Administration’s Big Reveal that makes all the dirty hippies look stoopid – has been floated by everyone from Dubya to Bobo to Bill Kristol in one form or another for the last four years.

And has been righteously laughed at every single time.

Because any hack writer desperately doing an elevator pitch can pull some wildly unlikely set of events out of his ass whereby, say, Richard Nixon comes winging back from his citadel on Io (where he has been hiding from a Kissinger-shaped killbot his enemies sent to assassinate him) to save Christmas.

And any first year philosophy student with a smattering of popular physics under his toga and deep in his cups at three a.m. has stumbled into the “revelation” that, given an infinite amount of space and time, every possible outcome for every possible choice can theoretically occur, each one branching off into its own, separate reality.

So there are undoubtedly realities where JFK never got shot. Where FDR did. Where Dr. King lived to be 90. Where “Homicide” wasn’t cancelled. Where Edith Keeler didn’t get hit by a car and instead spent the 1940s in a tantric fuckfest with Jim Kirk (occasionally enlivened by a ferocious three-way ponn farr with Spock) while Hitler builds a nuke. Where I didn’t get divorced.

And where Dubya “won” his Iraq War, by whatever definition of “win” the Eloi of that reality can be doped into believing.

But this Reality ain’t one of those. This is this reality, and in this reality only the mentally underclocked, the insane or the Last Defenders of Dumbalot would, at this late date, still dare to try an peddle reekingly bad science fiction masquerading as historical parallelism to justify backing a disastrously failed leader and his catastrophically failed war.

Or, to put it another way…

At no point had Lincoln “won the war” but lost the Peace.

At no point in leading us down the garden path to Baghdad did this Administration ever promise us anything but a cheap, ouchless victory followed by a rain of sweets, flowers, low-low prices at the pump and Jeffersonian democracies springing up throughout the region like toadstools.

At no point did Iraq attack us, or attempt to secede from us.

At no point did the Republican Guard shell our Fort Sumter. Or our Fort Anything.

At no point past the first few months has this been a war of fixed formations squaring off and duking it out Old School. This has been ferocious, urban, guerilla warfare and no Pickett’s Charge or Sherman’s March or Sheridan in the Shenandoah is a’comin’ to miraculously transform massed firepower or scorched earth into viable and decisive strategies.

At no point were gentlemen from Tikrit and Sadr City ever elected to Congress and argued in the aisles over slavery.

At no point was Iraq ever a basic and unresolved infection that was crippling the United States Constitution so severely that, sooner or later, needed to be lanced and healed or the country would die.

At no point did Iraq attempt to export a political system inimical to our own into our country.

At no point was there ever a Euphrates Compromise which attempted to avoid war at almost any cost by allowing the expansion of the United States into new territory, half Baathist and half Democracy.

At no point were the actual pros and cons – the actual costs and causes – of invading Iraq ever honestly and openly debated by Bush.

At no point was this about Slavery.

At no point did we and the Iraqis speak the same language.

At no point has our involvement in Iraq been a “brother’s war”.

At no point did the commanders now fighting on every different sides of the war all know each other and serve together.

At no point during the invasion of Iraq was the United States out-generalled.

After the collapse of he government of Iraq and the capture of its leaders, the war did not end.

At no point in Iraq have we fought on our home soil.

At no point are we ever going to be one of the two (or four) sides that have to live together in Iraq once this war ends.

And at no point has George Bush come within a hundred light years of earning the right to say to this nation:

“On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war.

All dreaded it -- all sought to avert it.

While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war -- seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation.

Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.

And the war came.”

This was did not "come". This war was not "deprecated".

This war was pre-measured and mixed and cooked and served as deliberately as a little cake from George Bush's E-Z-Iraq Oven.

And finally, in history not every screwhead fighting for a bad cause is one turn of the historical revision card away from redemption. In fact this is rarely the case.

Which is why Grand Ayatollah Jefferson Davis is not on a fucking postage stamp.

Christmas Milestone

GWB's choice to invade Iraq while falsely citing a connection with the 9/11 attacks, has now resulted in more American deaths that the terrorist plane crashes. Think Progress says:

More U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq than the number of people killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks. At least 2,977 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq, and the 9/11 milestone came on Christmas.

How, exactly, is this making things better...? Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths, untold suffering, the country in chaos, no end in sight... Heck of a job, Bushie!

Driftglass has this to say:

We just keep passing these terrible milestones.

500 dead.

1,000 dead.

2,000.

Longer than Korea.

Longer that the American Civil War.

Longer that WWII.

And now this. Of course since the conquest and occupation of Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, passing this particular number should have no intrinsically tragic value greater or less than any other, but it does.

And as these markers flicker past us in the gloom, they reflect enough gray light to clearly show that we are on a steepening descent. Running downward so fast that soon our toes will barely touch the ground, and we will no longer be able to call it anything but falling.

Into deeper darkness we plunge, and as we go down the man welded inside the bulletproof bubble with the smirk and the room temperature IQ and the nuclear launch codes says over and over again that all is well, that God personally acts through him, and although he is the elected representative of the American people he now mysteriously asserts that some Secret Protocol buried within that job description and known only to him says he no longer has to listen to anyone about anything.

Ever.

And his media minions with their vinyl hair and button eyes continue to marinade in their fascist warporn fantasies and smile and smile and nod and nod.

Sorry, but it doesn’t feel like Christmas right now.

Reflections

As the New Year approaches, one can't help but reflect on the recent past. The incomparable Billmon has been "rummaging around in the Whiskey Bar archives" and he has discovered that

... much of what I wrote back then proved not only true but also extremely prescient -- especially in the first few months after "mission accomplished," when the corporate media by and large was still drinking the White House Kool-Aid and the conservative movement was proclaiming the deification of Emperor George.

[...]

But to piece together the truth in those days you had to scrounge for it, ignore the ignorance and lies pouring out of Donald Rumfeld's mouth and defy the prevailing political tide of arrogant triumphalism. Very few journalists, and even fewer politicians, were willing to do that. Some in Left Blogistan were (Kos, Needlenose and Steve Gilliard, among others, also come readily to mind). As a result we presented a far more accurate picture of the war to our readers than the corporate media -- with a few honorable exceptions -- did to its own. I'm proud enough of that to want to remind the world, and the moronic media blog bashers in particular, of it.

What follows, then, are some selected passages from the Whiskey Bar in that first fateful year of the war, from the fall of Baghdad to the capture of Saddam. They have been edited for length, but not for content or context -- or at least so I think you will find, if you check the original posts.

___________________________

Far be it from me to suggest yesterday's Iraq "liberation" is rapidly descending into tomorrow's Middle East quagmire. I couldn't be heard anyway -- certainly not over the chestbeating and the Tarzan cries from the freepers, the neocons and other assorted Bush babies. But at least consider this gem of a quote, plucked from deep down in the BBC reporters web log:

One of my close Iraqi friends went up to an American marine and said to him: "I'm going to exercise my right of free speech for the first time in my life -- we want you out of here as soon as possible."

The Day After
April 10, 2003

By appearing to ally itself so openly and so closely with one side of the sectarian division in Iraq, the Coalition risks alienating the other side. This could make it easier for Baathist remnants to regroup as a new, pro-Sunni ethnic faction hostile to the occupation government . . .

The Iranian example, however, suggests the Shias are not the best instruments for an American neo-colonial order in Iraq. While the Islamic Revolution’s political hold over the Iraqi Shiite imagination was always exaggerated -- by the Baathists as well as by their enemies – the cultural influence is real and deeply rooted. Here, too, geography is destiny: Iran will always be near at hand and America will always be far away. Proximity eventually may trump raw imperial power -- at least over the long run.

And the Sunni elite? It's living through the final moments of its historic domination of Mesopotamia . . . The Baath is fading away. The future is molten, like lava. Attitudes formed now, decisions made now, could endure after the lava cools.

Elites driven from power usually have much to fear. Fearful people need protection. If the invaders are seen as fundamentally hostile -- or worse yet, allied with a domestic enemy . . . well, the Reconstruction Era KKK wouldn’t be the first terrorist organization to flourish under such circumstances. Or the last.

Geography is Destiny
April 11, 2003

Even now, there are hawks who firmly believe we invaded Iraq to fight the "Islamofascists." Some of us tried to tell them they were wrong -- that the Baath were secular nationalists, and that America risked repeating Israel's mistake in the early '80s of building up Hamas as a religious counterweight to the secular nationalists in the PLO:

"I’m afraid the Bush Administration is about to make a similar mistake – but on a vastly larger scale. By knocking Arab nationalist thugs like Saddam out of the box, aren’t we just taking out the competition for Al Qaeda?"

We may soon learn the answer to that question. The hawks wanted to go to Iraq to fight "Islamofascism." They may get their wish.

Al Qaeda Recruitment Center
June 1, 2003

Whatever chance Iraq had to eventually emerge from Baathist dictatorship into some less horrific form of government has been blown. The only options now are Lebanon-style chaos or an expensive, bloody U.S. occupation -- followed by Lebanon-style chaos once we finally give up and withdraw . . . Bottom line: The conservatives, their beloved president and his neocon revolutionaries have made an ENORMOUS mistake -- of the kind that keep historians busy arguing for decades: How could they have done something so stupid? It's the March of Folly, heading straight over a cliff.

Question of the Day
June 3, 2003

The deception was not in the claim that Saddam had WMDs . . . although that claim indeed may turn out to be a falsehood. The deception was in the claim that Saddam's WMD capability posed an immediate, critical threat to the security of the United States, urgent enough to require a massive military invasion to overthrow his regime. This is the conclusion the administration cooked the intelligence estimates to produce, this is the lie. And every piece of evidence we have seen since the "end" of the war -- up to and including the discovery of Bush's precious trailers -- has demonstrated that it was a lie.

Rope-a-Dope
June 4, 2003

A wise hegemon goes to great lengths to conceal the true extent of its power. It always leaves something in the tool kit, so to speak, so that enemies and allies alike can never be sure exactly what's in there. But the Bush Administration has let the cat out of the bag. It has exposed to the world the limits of U.S. military power -- both in terms of the size of the forces (divisions, troops) and the relative ineffectiveness of those forces on a complex social and political battlefield like the one America faces in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. These events no doubt will be noted, and closely studied, by friend and foe alike.

The End of the American Century?
September 3, 2003

By putting Iraq in play, [Bush and Blair have] opened up an entirely new front, one that sucks up people and resources at an alarming rate, but yields absolutely no offsetting advantages in the struggle against jihadism. It's become the 21st century version of Gallipoli -- at best, a bloody stalemate; at worst, a disastrous strategic defeat . . .

It seems more obvious than ever that neither man has the slightest idea what kind of war they're fighting. They're as clueless as the British politicians who fed men into the meat grinder of trench warfare during World War I, or the French generals who tried to hide behind the Maginot Line in World War II. They have no strategy. They don't even have a concept of a strategy. All they have is warmed over Churchillian rhetoric, as uninspiring as it is irrelevant.

The Price of Folly
November 20, 2003

___________________________

If blogs in general, or this blog in particular, have ever served a useful purpose, it should have been then -- when the consensus had overwhelmingly embraced a policy doomed to catastrophic failure, and mainstream dissent had been cowed almost into silence. But, of course, there were too few of us and our voices weren't nearly loud enough to make a difference. Certainly not compared to the power and majesty of the corporate media.

If I sometimes seem bitter to the point of blind rage at reporters like Tom Ricks or columists like David Ignatius, who now recite the ignorant mistakes and outright crimes that led us into this hellhole, it's because they couldn't see them while they were being committed -- or, if they did see them, kept silent.

[...]

If nothing else, though, the Whiskey Bar archives prove to my satisfaction that it was possible, even for a nonspecialist (which is all I'll ever be in the fields of foreign policy or military affairs) to see at least an outline of the disaster as it started to unfold. What was lacking in the corporate media was not the opportunity, but rather the insight, the courage and the independence to say what needed to be said -- at a time when the both the powers that be and the paying audience were unwilling to listen.

O hush the noise, ye men of strife

I've always liked this Christmas carol, with its "Peace on the earth, good will to men", but particularly this verse:

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife
And hear the angels sing.

- It Came Upon A Midnight Clear (1849)

Its time has come

Digby:

Do the American people really want to continue to mortgage their own future and their children's futures so that George W. Bush can save face? Because that's what this escalation is all about.

Digby:

Back in July of 2004, I wrote a post recommending that people check out this video by fellow blogger and musician Brew. I agreed with the sentiments, of course, but at the time I sort of knew it was prematurely anti-Codpiece for commercial success. The country was still mindlessly flagwaving and Junior was still well over 50 percent.
Brew happened to write me about something else today and I was reminded of his song and wondered what had happened with it. It turns out that like everything else these days, it's up on Youtube.

It's a difficult video to watch. (There are some very harsh images of war, so be advised.) But there are some other images that nobody ever talks about. They barely talked about it when they happened and they don't talk about it today even though the whole country is discussing the massive mistake that Iraq has turned out to be: the millions of people who were against this war from the beginning. And all those millions of people all over the world were not against the war because they were pacifists (although some probably were) and it was not because they were terrorist sympathizers or "hate America firsters" as was popular slander at the time. It was because they knew from the get that George W. Bush and all his neo-poleons were liars.

This song was ahead of their time when Brew and his bandmates put it together. Its time has come.

What do GWB and Ahmadinejad have in common?

Hint: rejected rhymes with dejected. The Guardian reports that Iran's President has suffered an electoral setback.

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, faced electoral embarrassment today after the apparent failure of his supporters to win control of key local councils and block the political comeback of his most powerful opponent.

Early results from last Friday's election suggested that his Sweet Scent of Service coalition had won just three out of 15 seats on the symbolically important Tehran city council, foiling Mr Ahmadinejad's plan to oust the mayor and replace him with an ally.

The outcome appeared to be mirrored elsewhere, with councils throughout Iran returning a majority of reformists and moderate fundamentalists opposed to Mr Ahmadinejad.

As Kevin Drum observes:

I guess last week's Holocaust denial conference, an obvious attempt to rally his base, didn't work. I hear that strategy has been having lots of trouble lately.

Between Iraq and a hard place...

Kevin Drum ponders on this hard choice...

The Washington Post reports that the Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously oppose the idea of "surging" 15-30 thousand troops into Iraq in a last ditch effort to stabilize the country. Why? Because they think the White House is just casting around for plausible-sounding ideas and has no real plan for how to use the additional soldiers:

The Joint Chiefs think the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission and is latching on to the surge idea in part because of limited alternatives, despite warnings about the potential disadvantages for the military.

....The Pentagon has cautioned that a modest surge could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops, the officials said.

....Even the announcement of a time frame and mission -- such as for six months to try to secure volatile Baghdad -- could play to armed factions by allowing them to game out the new U.S. strategy, the chiefs have warned the White House.

If the Chiefs stand their ground, it will be very difficult for Bush to buck them. But if he gives up on the surge, what possible alternative can he offer that even remotely seems like a serious change of direction? Rock, meet hard place.

Wrong Kind of Terrorist

Devilstower at the DailyKos wonders why we haven't heard anything about the conviction of " a would-be bomber who was known to belong to a terrorist organization, who idolized the mastermind behind a previous terrorist attack in the US, and who plotted to use chemical weapons or a dirty bomb to kill thousands". It seems that he "was the wrong kind of terrorist".

Members of the notorious Detroit Sleeper Cell were convicted after one of their members made a video tape of a vacation to Disneyland -- a tape the FBI considered preparation for an attack. The convictions were later overturned, but not before the government had held several press conferences on how they had protected us from the hazard of bad camera work.

Even more publicity went to those crafty karate school members who were arrested in Florida after they tried to recruit an FBI agent into their schemes. Schemes which never went beyond the talking stage. And the Lackawanna Six... we're not sure what they did, but they earned media immortality.

So imagine how much publicity there would be if the government were to catch and convict a would-be bomber who was known to belong to a terrorist organization, who idolized the mastermind behind a previous terrorist attack in the US, and who plotted to use chemical weapons or a dirty bomb to kill thousands. A terrorist who plotted attacks on a federal courthouse and even on Washington D. C. If we were to catch someone like that there would be... there would be.... (sound of crickets chirping)

On Nov. 28... Demetrius "Van" Crocker was sentenced to 30 years in prison. David Kustoff, the United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, where Crocker was prosecuted, tells Salon that "It was one of the preeminent anti-terrorism cases of 2006 nationwide." Whether or not that is true, few outside of the greater Memphis metropolitan area have ever heard of Crocker. Only one reporter, John Branston of the weekly Memphis Flyer, even covered his entire trial. What is certain is that in every particular his case is a study in contrasts with the prosecution of Jose Padilla.

So, why would a terrorist who plotted to blow up a dirty bomb in the US capital fail to draw national attention? He was the wrong kind of terrorist.

The group Crocker belonged to was the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement. The terrorist mastermind he admired was Timothy McVeigh. And the people he most wanted to kill

Crocker told Adams he wanted to kill the black population of nearby Jackson, Tenn., with mustard gas

Right wing terrorist who wants to kill blacks? Sorry, not news.

There's one other thing Mr. Crocker did to keep himself low on the list of discussion topics for Fox & Friends: he got arrested without use of the Patriot Act or secretive wire tapping. The sheriff's department nabbed Crocker the old-fashioned way. Legally.

Meanwhile, as Alex Koppleman's account in Salon points out, the government continues to press its case against Jose Padilla, subjecting him to endless rounds of we-don't-do-torture and extraordinary treatment for the same charges. Sorry, Jose. If only you had been a right wing white terrorist, maybe things would be different.

The abuse Padilla has endured while in custody, they contend, has so scarred him that he can no longer even discuss the case against him. They believe he has been rendered incompetent to stand trial. ... The U.S. Attorney's office agrees that Padilla needs his competency evaluated. We didn't torture him, argue the representatives of the U.S. government, but if we did, and it made him crazy -- well, then, no claims he makes about said torture can be trusted. He is, after all, mentally incompetent.

Who can argue with logic like that?

For or Against?

Much has been made of Sen. Harry Reid's apparent support for Bush's proposed "surge" in troop levels in Iraq while everyone knows that Sen. Hillary Clinton is opposed. Kagro X at the DailyKos explains that these two positions are not very different... except in how they were reported. Truly, one must learn to be a discerning reader if one is to get anything of value from MSM reporting.

If you're having trouble understanding why I could take exception with a statement by Senator Reid that would, in a normal world, be perfectly sensible (even if unnecessary), consider this:

Harry Reid says he'd only support a short term surge if "it’s part of a program to get us out of there as indicated by this time next year."

Hillary Clinton says she'd only support a temporary surge if, "it was part of a broader long-term plan to stabilize the region."

Right?

So now, go Google "Reid," "surge" and the name of the AP writer who wrote the wire story on Reid's statement, "Hope Yen."

Look at the headlines. Almost all read as something along the lines of:

Brief troop surge OK in Iraq, Reid says.

Then, go to Google news and search "Clinton," "surge," and the name of the AP writer who covered Clinton's remarks, "Beth Fouhy."

Compare.

Almost all say:

Sen. Clinton opposes troop surge in Iraq.

Now consider what your neighbors, almost no matter where they live, are gleaning from the papers, and ask yourself which Senator -- given that sending additional troops to Iraq is polling at an abysmal 11% approval -- got the better of this?

The Worst of the Worst

Even before the invasion of Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld referred to the prisoners in Guantanamo as "the worst of the worst." I have always responded to such claims with a demand to: "Prove it!". The point that Glenn Greenwald and I and so many others have long argued is that it is outrageous to lock people up indefinitely without charges, without a fair trial -- without due process, in other words. I am sure that we have all heard the stories of those demonstrably innocent individuals who have been released (without apology or compensation) over the years but this story in the WaPo about the fact that over 100 prisoners in Guantanamo will soon be, or have already been, released, really puts the lie to Rumsfeld's claim.

According to a Defense Department news release yesterday: "The United States does not desire to hold detainees for any longer than necessary." So how long exactly is it necessary to hold people without charge, without proof, without a conviction?

You see, it was all just a little mistake. Jeebus! Truly, those responsible for this travesty of justice are the ones we could categorize among "the worst of the worst."

Surge-ry

David Kurtz at TPM has had it with in-surge-nuts:

I had just about been driven to distraction by the catch-word of the moment: "surge." As in, the President's "New Way Forward" in Iraq calls for a "surge" of additional troops. How can such a ridiculous euphemism makes its way into print past so many editors in one week's time?

But Colin Powell made a good point today about what "surge" really means:

Before any decision to increase troops, "I'd want to have a clear understanding of what it is they're going for, how long they're going for. And let's be clear about something else. . . . There really are no additional troops. All we would be doing is keeping some of the troops who were there, there longer and escalating or accelerating the arrival of other troops."

"That's how you surge. And that surge cannot be sustained." The "active Army is about broken," Powell said. Even beyond Iraq, the Army and Marines have to "grow in size, in my military judgment," and Congress must provide significant additional funding to sustain them.

Suddenly "surge" seems worth co-opting, as a euphemism for ephemeral last gasp.

President Beergoggles

In concluding a post about GWB, "a man standing on quicksand in Iraq, refusing the branch offered by his father's friend to save his presidency and the country from a historic blunder", driftglass exhorts us all to remember how we got here.

Never forget that while Iraq was going up in flames, while the deathreek of the Hell that was coming was as sharp in the air as fresh blood, vomit and gasoline, and while the responsible 49% of the electorate begged and screamed and pleaded for the rest of the country to wake the fuck up, 51% of the electorate drank the Koolaid, shoved their collective heads ever further up their smug asses, called us traitors and voted for this lunatic.

Again.

Which is why the only thing I want to hear from every fucknozzle who voted for Bush in 2004 – from now until the end of time – is “I have quit my job to volunteer full time to work with disabled vets, and I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fucking sorry.

GWB's "New Way Forward"

If you haven't yet given up all hope that the adults might prevail, read Josh Marshall's comments on GWB's Mao-like "New Way Forward"... and weep. I tell you... the magic-thinkers are in control.

If you haven't seen it yet check out the Strobel & Landay piece from McClatchy (formerly of Knight-Ridder). They've got a run-down on what we can expect from the president's 'new way forward' and going from past experience I'd figured their sources are better than anyone else's.

In very broad outlines, it's been what we've led to expect: troop surge, rejection of Baker-Hamilton proposals. But there are some nuggets in here that add to the picture -- and in ways that would be humorous if there weren't so much on the line.

Here for example ...

-A revised Iraq political strategy aimed at forging a "moderate center" of Shiite Muslim, Sunni Muslim Arab and Kurdish politicians that would bolster embattled Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. The goal would be to marginalize radical Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents.

It's hard to disagree with this. But it's also hard to call it a strategy. Sort of like my new strategy which is to get the folks there to chill out about religion and stop blowing so much stuff up. If wishes were horses ...

Then there's this ...

More money to combat rampant unemployment among Iraqi youths and to advance reconstruction, much of it funneled to groups, areas and leaders who support Maliki and oppose the radicals.

In theory, more money for employment and reconstruction is probably a very good idea, certainly in the context of a phased withdrawal of US troops and broader political settlement. But do you trust these doofuses to spend this money? And, to be clear, I mean our doofuses in this case. I guess a ton of money will probably go to Haliburton's recently acquired Maliki Moderate Inc. Who knows.

And this ...

-Rejection of the study group's call for an urgent, broad new diplomatic initiative in the Middle East to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and reach out to Iran and Syria.

Instead, the administration is considering convening a conference of Iraq and neighboring countries - excluding Iran and Syria - as part of an effort to pressure the two countries to stop interfering in Iraq.

Okay, so it'll be us, "Iraq", Jordan and the Saudis holding a conference to get the Syrians and Iranians to stop messing around in Iraq. Why didn't we think of this before?

Here are some other really promising signs ...

Bush appears to have been emboldened by criticism of its proposals as defeatist by members of the Republican Party's conservative wing and their allies on the Internet, the radio and cable TV.

That's excellent. Our C-in-C is sharp enough to get his jones from The Corner rather than the ex-diplomats and foreign policy hands. That's good stuff. Maybe we can swap out John Podhoretz for Chalabi for our approach to Syria.

And of course there's this ...

According to a senior State Department official, the president is listening closely to a former Republican secretary of state, but it isn't Baker. Henry Kissinger, a frequent White House visitor, has been to see Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a half-dozen times, he said.

If you had to pull anybody out of formaldehyde to deal empower the denialists, who would be better?

Exactly!

Glenn Greenwald makes the excellent point that real reporters who really are fair and balanced, don't have to give equal time and weight to both sides of a controversy. It's perfectly appropriate for real reporters to report the fact that one side's arguments are supported by verifiable evidence while the other's is based on demonstrable lies. Sadly, it seems that these reporters will only dare to do this when the party without the facts is already very unpopular e.g. Holocaust deniers. Glenn also makes the point that this isn't a matter of being partisan (or "agin the gummint") but, rather, it's being skeptical and getting the facts straight.

That is what objective and meaningful reporting requires -- not merely uncritically conveying what statement a person makes, but scrutinizing that statement for accuracy and clearly reporting if it is false.

[...]

An adversarial process is designed to uncover deceit and falsehood by ensuring that claims and arguments are subjected to meaningful scrutiny by some opposing force. An adversarial press means that it views its function as a watchdog over the Government, as a check on its power. It fulfills that function by viewing Government statements and actions skeptically and with the intent to scrutinize them and determine their truth, rather than mindlessly convey what the Government asserts. It means that there is a difference between a free press and Pravda.

[...]

Such Government claims -- like Holocaust denial claims (but without equating them) -- are all examples of: (a) factually and verifiably false assertions by the Government (b) for which there is no reasonable basis, yet the media repeatedly recites these statements without pointing out the fact that they are false. Adversarial reporting would mean not that the media sides against the Government in every case, but only that they scrutinize and investigate the Government's claims and then clearly report when they are false. The only "agenda" being pursued is a refusal to allow the Government to mislead citizens.

[...]

And, via Capt in Comments, here is Justice Hugo Black's Concurring Opinion in New York Times v. U.S. (the Pentagon Papers case) (emphasis added):

In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government.

The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.

There are some exceptions still, but that description of the core function to be performed by the press is indescribably distant from what the press actually does.

The time has come...

From Editor & Publisher:

[Joe] Galloway, who has been a persistent critic of the war for three years and early on called for the firing of Donald Rusmfeld, retired earlier this year from Knight Ridder but continues his weekly column for McClatchy and others. He has covered more than half a dozen wars, from Vietnam to Iraq, with distinction, and co-authored the book, "We Were Soldiers Once...and Young" (he is now penning a sequel).

A new CBS Poll released late Monday found approval of President Bush's handling of Iraq dropping from 29% to 21%. Support for his Iraq policy plunged among Republicans from 70% to 47% in less than a month.

Those who call the war a "mistake" now stands at 62% -- one percent higher than the number who labeled the U.S. involvement in Vietnam a mistake in 1971. U.S. combat missions there continued for two years after that.

An excerpt from Galloway's column follows.

***

All the politicians paid the customary lip service in praising the troops and commending them for the terrible sacrifices they must continue to endure while the wrangling and dithering over a futile war goes on with no end in sight.

How can they look at themselves in the mirror every morning?

Some even suggest sending additional U.S. forces to Iraq -- 20,000 to 30,000 more to try to clean up Baghdad, or as Sen. John McCain suggests, 100,000 more to achieve a victory of some kind.

What are they thinking?

The time to use overwhelming force, according to the Caspar Weinberger-Colin Powell doctrine, is when you launch an invasion. Ratcheting up later is just so 1965, and so hopeless a gesture when the situation has already gone to hell.

Let's get a few more things straight right now.

There's no victory waiting for President Bush in Iraq, and nothing that his father's friends say or do can save him from an ignominious end to his presidency in two years and two months, or from the judgment of history.

There will be no convenient and successful negotiation of a "decent interval" with our enemies Iran and Syria to cover our withdrawal from a war that we should never have started.

There can be no successful Vietnamization in Iraq -- standing up more and better Iraqi army and police units and handing control over to them -- when all we're doing is arming and training more recruits for the civil war that clogs the streets of Baghdad with the corpses of the victims of a Sunni-Shia bloodbath.

What we need to do is what none of the commissions and their reports dared to suggest: Begin withdrawing American forces from Iraq right now. Not in 2008. Not after the American death toll has crossed 5,000. Not just in time for a presidential election.

If you worry about the future of Iraq, don't. It will remain what it's always been: a violent, angry land of warring tribes only occasionally beaten and bludgeoned into submission by a homegrown despot like Saddam Hussein.

If you worry about added turmoil and instability in the Middle East, pull some of those departing American forces back to Kuwait and leave them there on standby. Then redirect thought, energy and effort into salvaging Afghanistan, finding Osama bin Laden, saving Lebanon, negotiating peace between Israel and its enemies, rebuilding the U.S. Army and Marine Corps and, oh yes, ending the uncivil war between Republicans and Democrats.

There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there's only one way to leave Iraq: Load our people up on their trucks and tank transporters and Bradleys and Humvees and head for the border. Now.

World Gone Mad

I just read something by Atrios that articulated almost perfectly something that had been bouncing around with those voices in that void between my ears.

In the pre-war period in this country there was something truly wrong with our country. Madness had taken hold and infected our public discourse. Those of us who came to the rather obvious conclusion that the notion that Saddam Hussein was any kind of threat to this country was absurd, and that we should invade Iraq because maybe some day in the future he could become a threat was even more absurd were treated with derision and scorn and utterly marginalized.

What was so frustrating at the time was not simply that a bunch of otherwise intelligent people seemed to have come to the horribly wrong conclusion that invading Iraq was a good idea. What was more frustrating is that there was a collective blindness to the dishonest and destructive way the war was sold, that it seemed not to bother these people that the multiple and shifting dishonest rationalizations for war suggested that there was something deeply wrong with the whole endeavor. It was frustrating that people who supported the war were happy to climb on board not just with the war but with the truly awful people who were the architects of both the war and the propaganda war which, among other things, involved tarring war opponents as brutal-dictator lovers. It was frustrating that they signed up for the whole goddamn enchilada.

Frequently it's been pointed out that they shouldn't have trusted these people to "do it right." But more than that it should have been obvious that they shouldn't have trusted these people to "do the right thing." They made clear during that time that they were, in fact, very bad people.

Our Dictators

As I said Monday regarding the Iraq debacle: "The U.S. has no business determining the future of Iraq and should be looking at holding its war criminals to account". The fact that GWB started a war gets glossed over too often when talking about Iraq. I think that he should be impeached and tried as a war criminal. The thought that someone can commit such a great "wrong" and get away with it is outrageous. And it was this thought that went through my mind when I heard about Pinochet's death. It was a great injustice that he died a free man.

That was bad enough. Then I started to hear tributes being paid to him and talk about a state funeral. WTF? I was not surprised to find that Glenn Greenwald was outraged as well and he wrote a scathing review of a WaPo editorial which had gone so far as to praise Pinochet!

The Editorial Page of The Washington Post today lavishly praised right-wing Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The Editorial begins with the cursory (really almost bored and resentful) acknowledgment that "for some [Pinochet] was the epitome of an evil dictator." Why would the dreaded, unnamed "some" shriek that Pinochet was an "evil dictator"? No good reason; only this:

Mr. Pinochet was brutal: More than 3,000 people were killed by his government and tens of thousands tortured, mostly in his first three years. Thousands of others spent years in exile.

The Post even belittles the contempt expressed for Pinochet by claiming that it is due less to his murder and torture of political opponents -- that can't possibly be the real reason -- and is driven instead by the fact that "he helped to overthrow, with U.S. support, an elected president considered saintly by the international left: socialist Salvador Allende, whose responsibility for creating the conditions for the 1973 coup is usually overlooked."

[...]

It is hard to overstate just how radical and extraordinary it is -- though also unsurprising and revealing -- for the Post, particularly in our current political climate, to expressly embrace Augusto Pinochet and to endorse Kirkpatrick's seminal pro-dictatorship article, titled "Dictatorship and Double Standards," which was published in Commentary in November, 1979 (the headline of the Post's Editorial tracks Kirkpatrick's title).

[...]

Objectively speaking, Kirkpatrick's description of the virtues of "traditional autocracy" sound quite similar to the vision which Bush followers and certain elite enablers (e.g. Fred Hiatt and similar Beltway pundits) have of the Ideal America today.

Despite the radical transformation of our national character over the last five years, The Washington Post continues to be able to earn money and enjoy the rewards of the free market. We continue to "worship traditional gods and observe traditional taboos." And Bush officials "leave in place existing allocations of wealth, power, status, and other resources which in most traditional societies favor an affluent few."

Just as Kirkpatrick argued in 1979 -- and as the Post implicitly endorsed today -- we can all live with some torture and arbitrary arrests and detentions. And we must always keep in mind that things could always be worse -- at least the Bush administration (like Pinochet) is keeping taxes low and corporate profits high. So our view of its human rights abuses (like our view of Pinochet's) should be tempered by our appreciation for its rejection of socialism.

Thus, argues the Post (following along with the illustrious Jonah Goldberg, among others), let's set torture and lawbreaking and indefinite detention to the side. At least George Bush (and Pincochet) aren't Fidel Castro. That this has become the Post's measuring stick for our own government explains much about the last five years in this country.

Cornered Rats

I've had several conversations in Comments here and elsewhere regarding the turning point that the release and, if not rejection, then ignoring, of the ISG's report may prove to be. I'm no fan of the group nor its report but both have the appearance of being main stream, non-partisan, and adult (in the non-childish sense). To see the petulant Boy George respond with his dismissive "whatever" attitude, really does isolate him and his shrinking band of increasingly extreme enablers and further denies them any semblance of reflecting mainstream public opinion.

I was discussing this topic with my daughter this afternoon about why GWB deserved to be impeached when she asked: But he never will get impeached, will he? I replied that it wasn't very likely right now but things are trending strongly in that direction. So it is with morbid fascination that I watch the downward spiral of BushCo and it was that feeling that caused this post by TPM Reader DW to resonate with me.

As students of politics, the next two years are going to be fascinating. Bush is never good under pressure and in the wake of the ISG Report Bush is completely floundering, and he has nothing to buoy him anymore. Bush never really stands on his own so much as he attacks others instead, but that dog won't hunt anymore.

The Congressional Republicans are literally rats fleeing the sinking ship. And although this started before the election, it is now like a tidal wave. Bush's people will come out with their self-serving reports which will meet with bipartisan scorn and only make the situation worse for Bush with him desperately clinging to that nonsense while Baghdad burns.

He and Cheney are completely alone now. We are going to see approval polls in Nixon territory probably by Feb. We are looking at historic lows and how will the DC world react?

I look for the White House to be surrounded by sandbags and barbed wire by spring with Bush and Cheney holed up inside like Howard Hughes.

When have we ever seen anything like this?

It's like the proverbial car crash. I know I shouldn't stare, but I can't look away.

Josh Marshall observes:

This sounds about right to me. Add to this the fact that Bush's reaction to the ISG report now appears to be to find an outside gaggle of whack-jobs who will attack it and let the president off the hook -- so either the neocons themselves, which is most likely, or some equivalent group of nutbars. Believe me, the ISG report isn't gospel. And it's even pretty lame on some counts. But when clinical [sic] won't accept deeply flawed [sic], you know the meds have yet to take effect.

Justice and Humanity

Poputonian makes a point that I heartily endorse. The U.S. has no business determining the future of Iraq and should be looking at holding its war criminals to account. I'm pleased that I'm hearing more of the I-word talk of late.

In the eyes of justice and humanity, how do we -- you and me -- as part of a representative democracy, escape an equal share of responsibility for the carnage? As part of a country where coercive trade and rampant self-enrichment has historically led to the systematic decimation of opposing cultures, including the decimation of the politically weak, why should we also not be held to account? In the eyes of justice and humanity, how does America atone for this mistake in Iraq, reconcile and correct its flawed system of politics, and prevent future debacles of this magnitude? How does America ensure that despots and tyrants don't again so easily gain the highest office in the land?

The only way I can think of is to (not necessarily in sequential order): 1. Undergo Congressional investigation of Bush administration conduct. 2. Appoint a special prosecutor. 3. Actuate a popular movement insisting on impeachment. 4. Remove the guilty from office. 5. Enact legislation to deal with a flawed system of mass media. 6. Enact legislation to fix the electoral process. 7. Pay reparations to Iraq or some international institution.

What else?

Shouldn't the question of impeachment not be one of partisan political strategy, but instead be about justice and humanity as seen through the eyes of the entire world?

Pop Quiz

Following up on the story about Silvestre Reyes not knowing whether al Qaeda was Sunni or Shiite, Digby points out that many (most?) members of Congress and Administration don't have a clue (he singles out George "Slam Dunk" Tenent, Saint John "Stop the bullshit" McCain and Trent "They all look the same to me" Lott) and then offers a suggestion:

Emptywheel at The Next Hurrah has a great idea: A pop quiz for lawmakers. I also think the Democratic leadership would do well to organize some tutorials and lectures on the middle east and require the elected officials and their staffs to attend. I'm not kidding. This is a grave problem and since the administration is led by an idiot and run by a bunch of faith based magical thinkers, it behooves the Democrats to do better.

Baseless, trite, hypocrisy from Frum

Last night I posted something (No principle trumps tribalism) wherein I decried the hypocrisy or double-standards of those who claim that the rightness and wrongness of an act is determined by who does it, not the nature of the act -- the doer, not the deed. Tonight my kindred spirit, Glenn Greenwald writes about yet another example of IOKIARDI. This time David Frum (oh, what a shame that Barbara's son turned out this way) is the hypocrite-de-jour.

This petulant, adolescent, self-victimizing cry of persecution -- Republicans are treated so unfairly, and people always complain when we do something that they let the Democrats do -- has become virtually automatic in the parlance of Bush followers and neoconservatives. It's almost reflexively inserted into any political argument they make. And it's virtually always as baseless as it is trite. Frum's argument here provides an excellent illustration of why that is so.

If Frum tries hard enough, he may be able to find a difference between these two eavesdropping stories beyond the fact that one involves a (D) and the other involves an (R). How about . . . . . what the Clinton administration did is perfectly legal, while what the Bush administration did (and is doing) is a criminal offense under American law? Might that explain the acceptance of the former and the objections to the latter?

[...]

What is so very odd about Frum's complete disregard for the distinction between "legal" and "illegal" behavior is that he previously not only understood the distinction but was one of our nation's most intrepid defenders of the rule of law.

[...]

Frum's original argument was that those who object to Bush's eavesdropping without also objecting to Clinton's eavesdropping are revealing themselves to be unprincipled hypocrites driven by partisan considerations. But given the self-evident principle underlying that position -- namely, that such individuals object to the illegality of Bush's eavesdropping, while nobody claims that Clinton's was illegal -- Frum's accusation of partisan-based hypocrisy was frivolous from the start.

The only partisan hypocrisy one finds here is from those who paraded around piously as Advocates of the Rule of the Law throughout the 1990s, but who then spent the last six years justifying systematic lawbreaking as something noble -- as nothing more than "act[ing] overzealously in defense of the nation."

Once again, Frum is exposed as a shameless hack.

Oh Canada!

via the CEM eNewsletter we learn that, once again, the voices of intolerance don't have much public support in Canada.

*December 8, 2006*

*HARPER’S MOTION TO RE-OPEN EQUAL MARRIAGE DEFEATED!*
/Prime Minister says the issue is settled/

After more than a year of facing the threat that equal marriage would be taken away, we can breathe easy and rejoice: on December 7, 2006 Members of Parliament rejected Stephen Harper’s motion to re-open the divisive equal marriage debate.

The vote wasn’t even close, with the motion being defeated by a vote of 123 to 175. In every single party the percentage of MPs that voted for equality increased. That increase reflects the growing consensus among Canadians that equal marriage is settled. Even in the Conservative caucus, 13 members voted against their own government’s motion, including Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, Treasury Board President John Baird and four other cabinet ministers.

We also note that many MPs who voted against Bill C-38 (last year’s equal marriage bill) now consider the issue settled and voted against re-opening the debate, including Liberal MP Joe Comuzzi, who quit cabinet last year so that he could vote against C-38. In addition, no MPs who voted for Bill C-38 wished to re-open the issue. They all voted against the motion to re-open, including all the Liberal MPs who were Cabinet Ministers when Bill C-38 was passed.

Perhaps most significantly, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced after the vote that he now considers the issue settled. The day after the vote, The Globe and Mail’s front-page headline blared “Same-sex marriage file closed for good, PM says”, and Harper was quoted as saying, “I don’t see re-opening this question in the future.” When asked if the government plans to introduce a “defence of religions” act to counter Bill C-38 (as has been rumoured), Harper replied, “The government has no plans at this time.”

Even Justice Minister Vic Toews, one of the government’s staunchest foes of equal marriage, announced he was moving on. “I don’t think there’s any intention of re-opening it,” he said. “There’s been no commitment in that respect and I don’t see any prospects in that respect.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, who voted against Bill C-38 but opposed re-opening the equal marriage debate, said: “For me, this was just a practical matter. It’s been debated in the House. It’s been considered by the provinces, by the courts, and I think it’s time to move on.”

Most MPs, like most Canadians, have come to understand that equal marriage doesn’t harm anyone, it only makes life better for some. They have come to understand that a generous and inclusive definition of marriage actually strengthens the institution. They have come to understand that the only reason to exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage is discomfort, resistance to change and moral judgment. And they have learned that voting in favour of equality feels really, really good!!

This is the wording of the motion that was defeated:

/“That this House call on the government to introduce legislation
to restore the traditional definition of marriage without
affecting civil unions and while respecting existing same-sex
marriages.”/

Shortly after the vote, Canadians for Equal Marriage held a press conference. We said “This is a bittersweet day, because today does not mark an advance in equality, but rather the defeat of an attack against us. We are happy that we can now avoid years of divisive and difficult debate, but we are weary that for over a year now we’ve had to defend our hard-won inclusion in the fabric of Canadian society.”

Since the courts have ruled, the Harper government’s motion marks the third time in three years, under three successive prime ministers, that the issue of equal marriage has been debated and voted on.

The Twilight Zone

The always readable Barbara O'Brien has seen this show before and it's not pretty.

Jonathan Chait begins his Los Angeles Times column this way:

THERE IS a famous “Twilight Zone” episode about a little boy in a small town who has fantastical powers. Through the misuse of his powers, the little boy has ruined the lives of everybody in the town — for instance, teleporting them into a cornfield, or summoning a snowstorm that destroys their crops. Because anyone who thinks an unhappy thought will be banished, the adults around him can do nothing but cheerfully praise his decisions while they try to nudge him in a less destructive direction.

This episode kept popping into my head when I was reading about President Bush and the Baker-Hamilton commission. Bush is the president of the United States, which therefore gives him enormous power, but he is treated by everybody around him as if he were a child.

I’ve been thinking of that same episode. I think a lot of people are thinking about that same episode.

Chait continues,

Consider a story in the latest Time magazine, recounting the efforts — before the commission was approved by Congress — of three supporters to enlist Condoleezza Rice to win the administration’s approval for the panel. Here is how Time reports it:

“As the trio departed, a Rice aide asked one of her suitors not to inform anyone at the Pentagon that chairmen had been chosen and the study group was moving forward. If Rumsfeld was alerted to the study group’s potential impact, the aide said, he would quickly tell Cheney, who could, with a few words, scuttle the whole thing. Rice got through to Bush the next day, arguing that the thing was going to happen anyway, so he might as well get on board. To his credit, the President agreed.”

The article treats this exchange in a matter-of-fact way, but, what it suggests is completely horrifying. 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.

The GOP still has plenty of apparatchiks to appear on the cable television politics talk shows and explain to us solemnly that this president is thinking this or considering that or wants some other thing, blah blah blah, and you know it’s a farce, and I assume they know it’s a farce, yet the GOP propaganda machine continues to play pretend that this president is actually doing the job of president and is not, in effect, spending his days in search of a missing quart of strawberries.

Chait continues,

And now that the Baker-Hamilton report is out, the commissioners are carefully patronizing the commander in chief. As this newspaper reported, “Members of the commission said they were pleased that Bush gave them as much attention as he did, a full hour’s worth. ‘He could have scheduled us for 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for the cameras,’ said former Atty. Gen. Edwin M. Meese III.” Wow, a commission devoted hundreds or thousands of man-hours to addressing the central conundrum of U.S. foreign policy, and the president gave them a whole hour of his time!

Buried near the bottom of Dana Milbank’s account of the meeting —

Leon Panetta counseled Bush to “look at the realities of what’s taking place.” Eagleburger said after the event that when the group met with Bush, “I don’t recall, seriously, that he asked any questions.”

No questions?

[...]

Let’s see — Bush is not interested enough in the ISG report to ask questions, but don’t you dare tell him he’s not Harry Truman or he goes postal. What does that tell us about this president’s priorities?

Most analysis of the ISG report that I’ve seen says pretty plainly that it gives the President about as much butt covering — a way to exist Iraq without looking like a flipflopper — as he is likely to get. In fact, it’s obvious that the report was crafted more as a political gift to Bush than an actual Best Possible Plan for getting out of Iraq (clearly, it isn’t). I can’t think of any president in American history who has been given such a gift when he’s been in trouble.

As Jonathan Chait explains,

In return for these considerations, the commission generously avoided revisiting the whole question of who got us into this fiasco and how. As the Washington Post put it, “The panel appeared to steer away from language that might inflame the Bush administration.” Of course, “inflame” is a word typically associated with street mobs or other irrational actors. The fact that the president can be “inflamed” is no longer considered surprising enough to merit comment.

If Bush had more smarts than he has narcissism he’d find a way to embrace the ISG report and work with what supporters in Congress he still has. Instead, it’s obvious he’s going to blow it off and continue to do whatever it is he’s doing.

A few days before the midterm elections I predicted that Bush would ignore the ISG report recommendations, whatever they were. I also predicted that Congress and the rest of the nation, including most Republicans, would not be willing to sit on their hands for two years while Bush continues his disastrous “course” in Iraq. Sure enough, John Broder and Robin Toner report in today’s New York Times that the Baker report has revealed a rift in the GOP over Iraq. I expect that, once the new Congress goes to work in January, more and more Republicans are going to be moving away from Bush and toward a plan for withdrawal.

In fact, I won’t be surprised if there’s a bipartisan congressional majority agreement on a withdrawal plan before May 1 (Mission Accomplished Day).

The federal government is facing a constitutional crisis. The original idea behind the separation of powers is that Congress sets war (and other) policy and the President executes it. The Founders worked out a plan for governance that was supposed to prevent any one individual from wielding the power that Bush has assumed. Now it’s up to Congress to take back the powers it rightly has.

And if he resists — impeach the bastard. And his veep, too.

Read what BooMan has to say in How I Know Bush is in Trouble and then let's check back in a year or so and see how prescient he was.

No principle trumps tribalism

I hate it when people in positions of trust betray that trust. I hate it as much as I hate hypocrisy... and I hate hypocrisy. I just finished watching the 60 Minutes segment about Joe Darby, the Army Reserve MP who turned in the pictures of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. The story described how Darby was so vilified in his home town that he and his wife had to be relocated elsewhere for his own safety. The part the really got to me was this one:

The commander of the local VFW post, Colin Engelbach, told 60 Minutes what people were calling Darby.

"He was a rat. He was a traitor. He let his unit down. He let his fellow soldiers down and the U.S. military. Basically he was no good," Engelbach says.

Asked if he agrees with that, Engelbach says, "I agree that his actions that he did were no good and borderline traitor, yes."

"What he says in his defense is 'Look. I’m an MP. And this is something which was illegal,'" Cooper remarks.

"Right. But do you put the enemy above your buddies? I wouldn’t," Engelbach replies. [emphasis is mine --bill]

It's this false choice, so popular among the war's supporters, that so offends me. If you're against me on any issue then you're on the side of the terrorists*. For these people, no principle trumps tribalism. They are classic examples of fundamentalists who define right and wrong actions by who is doing them, not the nature of the deed. They are so unprincipled that they unashamedly defend law-breaking because "our boys did it" and besides, the victims were just "terrorists*". What is so hard to understand about the idea that those hired to enforce the law (laws whose "goodness" is not in dispute) should enforce the law even if the law-breakers were their buddies. Where's the professionalism, the principled stand, the concern for the public good? As Darby concluded:

"We're Americans, we're not Saddam," Darby says. "We hold ourselves to a higher standard. Our soldiers hold themselves to a higher standard."

Asked if he'd do it again, Darby says, "Yes. They broke the law and they had to be punished."

"And it's that simple?" Cooper asks.

"It's that simple," he replies.

There is something all-to-common about this notion that, if it benefits me or mine, then it's OK and, if there isn't anything in it for me then it's not important. It's this complete lack of principles (except self-interest) and the lack of ethical consistency -- the hypocrisy, that disgusts me. If the shoe were on the other foot, then they would sing a completely different tune. When asked how they would respond if the "other" treated them the same way, they would say: oh, that's different... and they wouldn't even be ashamed.


* In Comments at The Liberal Journal, I've asked the ubiquitous anonymous what he means by "the terrorists".

It's just willfully dishonest or stupid to claim that liberals are defending terrorists. Once you prove that they are guilty of being terrorists, there are plenty of laws that provide for punishment that liberals will support. But some of us want to make sure that we've got the right guy before we punish him because it would be just plain wrong to punish someone when it hasn't been proved that they have broken a law... even if it was you... or me.

[...]

The people you seem to be calling "terrorists" are people who have not be convicted of anything. Someone has accused them of being terrorists, "the worst of the worst", yet there is plenty of evidence that many have been wrongfully accused (that's why we have trials).

[...]

You don't seem to understand that the shoe could be on the other foot. Someone could accuse you of being a terrorist. Wouldn't you want your day in court? an opportunity to defend yourself, to demand evidence?

Once they've been convicted, by all means, punish them according to the law. I believe, as did the framers of the constitution, that everyone should have the protection of the law but also be subject to the law.

He, and many others, throw the term "terrorist" around very loosely so as to mask the difference between someone who has been simply labeled a terrorist and someone who is in deed a terrorist. It's pathetic that I have to point out that, were I to call you a terrorist, that wouldn't make you a terrorist. But, for far too many, having GWB make the accusation is good enough for them... provided GWB didn't accuse them. I suppose that in that case... that would be different. *sigh*

Rule by the Wrong

Bob Somerby quotes Russ Feingold about the Iraq Study Group's suspect composition, something that goes a long way toward explaining its suspect recommendations. Somerby goes on to make the point that our dysfunctional media is infatuated with the novelization of the story but not so fond of the facts -- in other words, they just make shit up.

On last night’s Countdown, Senator Feingold touched on a key part of our dysfunctional public culture. You might call it “rule by the wrong:”

FEINGOLD (12/6/06): The fact is this [Baker-Hamilton] commission was composed apparently entirely of people who did not have the judgment to oppose this Iraq war in the first place, and did not have the judgment to realize it was not a wise move in the fight against terrorism. So that's who is doing this report.

Then I looked at the list of who testified before them. There is virtually no one who opposed the war in the first place. Virtually no one who has been really calling for a different strategy that goes for a global approach to the war on terrorism. So this is really a Washington inside job and it shows, not in the description of what's happened—that's fairly accurate—but it shows in the recommendations.

We’ll let others debate Feingold’s view of the Baker-Hamilton recommendations. For ourselves, we were struck by Feingold’s statement about the make-up of the commission itself. In short, to be considered for the commission, you pretty much had to be wrong from the start. But then, it’s often true in our modern public culture: No one who’s right need apply. We first discussed this weird part of our culture in the case of the sad disappearance of Scott Ritter. Before the war, he was right about WMD in Iraq—and therefore was banned from the discourse (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 2/4/04).

But if we’re often ruled by the wrong, we get our script from the fatuous. For example, try to believe what Cynthia Tucker said on Sunday’s Chris Matthews Show. Guest host Andrea Mitchell raised the tired old question about Hillary Clinton’s vote to authorize Bush to wage war (described by Mitchell as her “vote for the war”). “Is she vulnerable to a candidate from the left like Barack Obama, who was against the war—even though he didn't have to vote, he wasn't elected then, at that time—or Al Gore?” Mitchell asked. First, Elisabeth Bumiller took a go. Then, Tucker weirdly said this:

TUCKER (12/3/06): She gives a better answer [about her vote] than John Kerry, who said something like “I voted against it before I voted for it.”

MITCHELL: There is no worse answer than John Kerry's.

JOE KLEIN: Right.

TUCKER: Absolutely. I also think that the peacenik wing of the Democratic Party may have learned a lesson from their failures in Connecticut, where Ned Lamont lost in the general election to Joe Lieberman. The simple fact of the matter is, every serious Democrat who was in the Senate at the time voted for the war—or voted to authorize the president—and Al Gore was one of the few Senate Democrats who voted in 1991 for the first Gulf War.

Let’s start with the pundit corps’ persistent failure to observe even the simplest distinctions, or to maintain even modest respect for the facts. Pundits have never tired of mocking Kerry for the statement which Tucker cited. But Kerry wasn’t talking about his vote on the war resolution (his “vote for the war”) when he made the statement Tucker cited; he was talking about his vote, a year later, on a funding measure. But as we’ve long noticed, the people who run our public discourse are in love with novelized tales, not with facts. Once they’ve come up with a pleasing narration, they’ll recite it in every way possible. Once again, we see it here, as three pundits agree on a pleasing tale. “Right,” says Klein. “Absolutely,” says Tucker—each of them bungling simple facts.

But it was the highlighted part of Tucker’s statement which deserved special attention. After scorning “the peacenik wing of the Democratic Party”—the part of the party which turned out to be right—Tucker made an astonishing statement. According to Tucker, “The simple fact of the matter is, every serious Democrat who was in the Senate at the time...voted to authorize the president.” In saying this, she reinvents the history. No people who were right need apply? Instead, to hear Cynthia Tucker tell it, people who were right didn’t even exist! Thanks to Tucker, they’ve been disappeared. No serious Dem opposed the resolution? Tucker doesn’t say how many Dems voted no. But in her telling, these folk were just clowns.

The reality? In the Senate vote of October 11, 2002, twenty-one Democratic senators voted against the war resolution. Feingold was one of those senators—and yes, he’s a serious person. But then, a long string of serious Dems voted “no” in the Senate. Senator Wellstone voted no; so did Senator Reed, from Rhode Island. Senators Durbin/Leahy/Conrad/Boxer/Levin all voted no; so did Senator Kennedy. But to Tucker, none of these are “serious” people. Neither are Sarbanes and Mikulski, our own state’s senators. Like harlequins, they voted no too.

Tucker’s statement was par for the course, but astounding—and no panelist raised his hand to correct it. Nor did anyone note the fact that the “peacenik wing” of the Democratic Party was the wing which turned out to be right. Of course, we can always make excuses for Tucker, imagining what she meant to say. But Feingold’s statement plays nicely with Tucker’s; together, they show us the shape of our discourse. Because our modern elites are so constantly wrong, they must constantly disappear those who were right. Result? Inside a Washington hearing room, ten well-known people who were wrong from the start tell the nation what to do next. And on our TVs, just three days before, a gang of utterly fatuous scribes hand the simple fact of the matter: No serious person was right on Iraq, our script-runners primly proclaim.

GWB has been arson around here

I can't help myself, I get a real kick out of driftglass:

…So having soaked the ground with pitch,

bulldozed the fire towers,

slashed the tires on the fire trucks,

dissolved the fire department,

outsourced the extinguishers to China,

disbanded to Congressional Committee on Flammable and Inflammable Oversight,

defunded the National Sprinkler Board in a tiny, unnoticed paragraph of my “American Motherhood Makes Jebus Happy” bill,

smeared every bunny rabbit with napalm,

tied oily rags to the antlers of every moose and mule deer,

rained white phosphorus, mercury fulminate, and a box-car full of truck flares over the whole, volatile mess

and publicly attacked as a traitor anyone who tried to sound the alarm…

…I now invite the dirty hippies, cowards, islamofascist collaborators, and other pro-terrorist lefties who my Party and Pravda Media has relentlessly and hysterically vilified for the last twenty years to bend over, grab their ankles and capitulate “cooperate” in underwriting my absolute failure as President and agree to share my liability for the inferno I created as well as…

A) Running the single the most criminally incompetent presidency ever.
B) Pissing away the our good name.
C) Bleeding the Treasury white.
D) Crippling the military.
E) Losing a major American city.
F) All while obstinately steering the nation into the greatest geopolitical catastrophe in modern American history.

That's a pretty good description of the State of the Union under Boy George, don't ya' think...?

Not What the American or Iraqi People Want

William M. Arkin writing in the WaPo says that "the study group recommends an unclear and contradictory course for the American military".

For all the hype, the Iraq Study Group offers two fundamental recommendations that the president might even be able to implement: The group calls for the United States to engage Iraq's neighbors, specifically Iran and Syria. The group recommends a shift in U.S. military force posture and approach from "combat" to training and advice to Iraqi forces.

The Iraq Study Group should be thanked for its service to America in throwing a bucket of cold water on the White House.

[...]

The wise men have confirmed what the American public has known for some time: Iraq is finished. Our strategy, whatever it is, isn't working. It is mighty disappointing, but not surprising, though that the Study Group couldn't see that there is nothing left that the United States can do to really influence what will happen there. What is more, what it actually is proposing in its two fundamental points isn't necessarily going to make any difference.

[...]

I understand that this "new" solution is Washington's way of withdrawing without saying it is withdrawing. But there is too much hope associated with the shift: hope that if we just redouble our effort with the Iraqis, they will all of a sudden get it and transform. In here as well is the strange article of faith that less capable Iraqi military units will succeed where more capable U.S. units failed. It seems to me that if we are admitting that there is no military solution to the problem, there is no Iraqi military solution either.

And then there is the question of Americans in uniform being thrust into an impossible position. I know that the embedded American will be there to teach their Iraqi counterparts how to shoot straight, as show an example of camaraderie, and to school them in human rights and the laws of war. But it is only a matter of time before Americans are thrust in the middle of blood letting and abuse.

Here's how I see Iraq playing out in the short term: The president makes an announcement within a month about his "new" plan. Washington is ever so pleased with a new approach. But the a la carte plan is seen by the Iraqis for what it is; it is not a U.S. timetable for withdrawal. It is not an unequivocal pledge not to establish permanent bases. It is sovereignty and authority in name only for Iraq with continued American control behind the scenes. I can't see who any of this equivocation will deflate the insurgency or stem the hatred for America that is fueled by our presence.

The "plan," in other words, is neither what the American people nor the Iraqi people want.

Dec. 18th: Bush to Announce Reason for Invasion

LithiumCola at DailyKos has what should be a shocking revelation: GWB's not desperately seeking a 'how' regarding Iraq, he's still looking for a 'why' that won't make him look like an idiot and a failure.

Maybe you've heard that the President is going to give a hoo-daddy big speech on Dec. 18. Just in time for Christmas.

This speech is, believe it or not, going to be important. Bush is going to lay out the results of all his thinkin' on the way forward, on Iraq, on what the Baker Group and the Pentagon Group and the White House Group and the Blue Man Group advise. (Okay, not the Blue Man Group.) He's gonna compress all that advice into a diamond of perfected wisdom, and tell us about it on Dec. 18.

He's going to tell us about the next two years of our involvment in Iraq, in other words. But here's a secret: what he's really going to do is tell us why we're in Iraq in the first place. See, he doesn't know yet. But his people promise that he'll have it figured out in time for the Dec. 18th speech. Surprised? Read on . . .

Next week, Bush is going to visit the State Department and the Pentagon to consult with them on "the way forward". He hasn't made a final decision yet on the way forward (more on this later), but the three most likely future paths from which he will choose are already known.

The major alternatives include a short-term surge of 15,000 to 30,000 additional U.S. troops to secure Baghdad and accelerate the training of Iraqi forces. Another strategy would redirect the U.S. military away from the internal strife to focus mainly on hunting terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda. And the third would concentrate political attention on supporting the majority Shiites and abandon U.S. efforts to reach out to Sunni insurgents.

So, Bush is going to say our strategy will be one of the following:

(1) More American troops. Fight insurgents. Secure Baghdad. Train Iraqi troops.

(2) Stop fighting the insurgents. Go after Al Qaeda.

(3) Side with the Shiites.

Notice anything?

What I notice, first, about these three options is how they seem to have no common theme. Bush is going to give a major talk in (checking watch) nine days about the future of the American troop presence in Iraq, the defining policy of not just his Presidency but of American foriegn policy in the 21st Century . . . and he's still trying to decide, at a very basic level, what the hell we're doing there.

Are we siding with the Shiites, or not? Are we going after Al Qaeda, or not? Should we be fighting the insurgents, or not?

Bush is trying to figure out which of those reasons is why we're in Iraq. And he'll tell us in time for Christmas. Well . . . shit; it's not a Playstation 3 but I guess it's better than nothing.

Now . . . back that to that thing I said I'd get back to:

Bush will devote most of next week to his Iraq review. He plans to visit the State Department on Monday to consult with his foreign policy team, then he will host independent Iraq experts in the Oval Office. The next day, he will hold a videoconference with U.S. military commanders and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad in Iraq. He will travel to the Pentagon for more consultations on Wednesday.

That's how Bush is going to get ready for the hoo-daddy Dec. 18th speech.

Do you notice anything the slightest bit odd about that paragraph? I do. Take a minute. Think about it.

What's odd is that this must be exactly what Bush's people told the reporters. "He's going to visit the State Department. He's going to visit the Pentagon. He's going to teleconference with Khalizad."

Obvious question: why? Why is Bush going to "travel to the Pentagon."? Why is he going to "visit the State Department"? Isn't that a rather absurd way for the President to be getting advice?

Obvious answer: So he can say in his Dec. 18 speech: "I travelled to the Pentagon. I visited the State Department. I teleconferenced with Khalizad." Bush's people are going to shuttle him around to these places, where he'll sit, bored, and say stuff every now then, when Condi nudges him. And there will be cameras taking pictures. Pictures pictures pictures. Which, I take it, is the real point of this charade: to show Bush in action.

All of which will cloud the astonishing fact that Bush's three options have no common theme.

The Washington Post story where I got these quotes starts like this:

As pressure mounts for a change of course in Iraq, the Bush administration is groping for a viable new strategy for the president to unveil by Christmas, with deliberations now focused on three main options to redefine the U.S. military and political engagement, according to officials familiar with the debate.

"Groping for a viable new strategy . . ."

But that's not right, he's not groping for a strategy to achieve a previously established goal. Look at the options again. He's groping for a goal.

He's going to tell us about Iraq on Dec. 18, and as of now he's shopping for a reason why we're there.

How George W. Bush has ruined the family franchise.

Eleanor Clift writing in Newsweek removes what little varnish remained on GWB's reputation.

Dec. 8, 2006 - On the eve of a report that repudiates his son’s leadership, former president George H.W. Bush broke down crying when he recalled how his other son, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, lost an election a dozen years ago and then came back to serve two successful terms. The elder Bush has always been a softie, but this display of emotion was so over the top that it had to be about something other than Jeb’s long-ago loss.

The setting was a leadership summit Monday in Tallahassee, where the elder Bush had come to lecture and to pay homage to Jeb, who is leaving office with a 53 percent approval rating, putting him ninth among the 50 governors in popularity. The former president was reflecting on how well Jeb handled defeat in 1994 when he lost his composure. “He didn’t whine about it,” he said, putting a handkerchief to his face in an effort to stifle his sobbing.

That election turned out to be pivotal because it disrupted the plan Papa Bush had for his sons, which may be why he was crying, and why the country cries with him. The family’s grand design had the No. 2 son, Jeb, by far the brighter and more responsible, ascend to the presidency while George, the partying frat-boy type, settled for second best in Texas. The plan went awry when Jeb, contrary to conventional wisdom, lost in Florida, and George unexpectedly defeated Ann Richards in Texas. With the favored heir on the sidelines, the family calculus shifted. They’d go for the presidency with the son that won and not the one they wished had won.

The son who was wrongly launched has made such a mess of things that he has ruined the family franchise. Without getting too Oedipal, it’s fair to say that so many mistakes George W. Bush made are the result of his need to distinguish himself from his father and show that he’s smarter and tougher. His need to outdo his father and at the same time vindicate his father’s failure to get re-elected makes for a complicated stew of emotions. The irony is that the senior Bush, dismissed by Junior’s crowd as a country-club patrician, looks like a giant among presidents compared to his son. Junior told author Bob Woodward, for his book “Plan of Attack,” that he didn’t consult his father in planning the invasion of Iraq but consulted a higher authority, pointing, presumably, to the heavens.

The father also consulted a higher authority: family fixer James Baker. The Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by Baker, pulls no punches in calling Bush’s policies a failure. It’s a statement of the obvious, but when you have a collection of Washington wise men, plus retired Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor (perhaps doing penance for her vote that put Bush in the White House during the disputed 2000 race), it’s the equivalent of last rites for Bush’s Iraq policy, along with his presidency. It’s not a plan for victory because that doesn’t exist except in Bush’s fantasy. The recommendations Baker and company offer—of more international engagement and shifting U.S. troops to a backup role to Iraqi forces—may help the administration manage and mask defeat. Even so, that may be hard for Bush to accept. His body language when receiving the report, while polite, was dismissive, thanking the eminences assembled for breakfast at the White House for dropping off a copy.

This president has lost all capacity to lead. Eleven American servicemen died in Iraq on the day Bush was presented the report, which calls the situation there “grave and deteriorating.” Events on the ground threaten to overtake even this grim assessment. And we’re left to analyze Bush’s tender ego and whether he can reverse course on the folly that is killing and maiming countless Iraqis along with U.S. troops. Historians are already debating whether Bush is the worst president ever, or just among the four or five worst. He has little choice but to accept the fundamental direction of the Iraq Study Group. He’s up to his neck in quicksand, and they’ve thrown him a rope. It’s trendy to make fun of the over-the-hill types in Washington, but they’ve done a noble thing in reminding us that war is not just about spin and a way to win elections. It’s about coming together to find a way out, however unpalatable.

Bush was asked during the campaign in 2000 what would happen if he lost. He said he’d go back to Texas, watch a lot of baseball and have a great life with Laura and the girls. He’s an accidental president, a man who was vaulted into a job he wasn’t prepared for, and who treated war like a lark. Bush’s father observed between sobs in his Florida speech, “A true measure of a man is how you handle victory and how you handle defeat.” He was talking about Jeb, but surely it’s his first-born who triggers the tears.

Ouch! The truth hurts.