S#*t Storm

Finally, we know our new white house press secretary. He's known for having a better sense of humor than his predecessors and he'll need it to get through the next few months.

More details are emerging on the bizarre New Hampshire phone jamming case. This is real Nixon style low jinks and the white house may have been involved. It sure smells like Rove.

A CIA official contends that the intelligence agencies knew the truth about Iraq WMD's, told the white house, but they chose not to listen. Remember this the next time you see a white house operative blame the CIA's faulty intelligence for the Iraq debacle.

Also, according to Josh Marshall, this CIA official told his story to the Robb Silbermann Commission and the Pat Roberts led Senate Commission into pre-war intelligence.

The same Pat Roberts who is now trying to split his committee's reports on pre-war intel into two parts, saving the most potentially damaging report for after the midterm election. The same Pat Roberts who already split the report in two parts- delaying findings on white house use of intelligence until after the 2004 elections. Remember all this the next time you hear someone cite these investigations as proof that the white house did not politicize intelligence.

The eighth general in recent days has called for Rumsfeld's dismissal.

Today, Karl Rove is giving testimony for his fifth grand jury appearance. One report claims that Rove has received a target letter from Fitzgerald "signalling that the Deputy White House Chief of Staff may face imminent indictment."

At the heart of all this is the outing of Valerie Plame, who is said to have worked on "tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran."

So, not only did the White House spend valuable time and effort smearing an obscure ex-diplomat, they may have compromised U.S. intelligence efforts regarding Iranian wmd's. Remember this the next time you see an overfed neo-con on TV, saber rattling about Iran and claiming that Plame was an ineffectual desk jockey.

Regardless of whether anyone violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, if Libby and Rove lied to the FBI and to Fitzgerald, who was appointed by the Attorney General, what does that tell us about their attitude toward the law? Toward the truth?

I guess it's easy to lie to the FBI and the Justice Department when your governing philosphy is based on hating government. It's easy to sleep while New Orleans drowns, but cut your vacation short for Terri Schiavo. It's easy to try to dismantle social security, undercut the U.N. and the IAEA, politicize the CIA, and ignite a raging fire in Iraq. (think that has anything to do with the gas prices?)

These guys behave more like nihilistic bandits than government stewards.

View from Over There

The Economist Thursday (20 April) offered its evaluation of the up-coming elections here in the US. The main article concludes in part by saying that the Democrats' "current platform is not, as Newt Gingrich put it, a mere "Contract with San Francisco and Vermont". But neither is it a compelling vision of America's future. That said, it may be enough to win in November." Let's hope so.

Now, I can't agree with all that the Economist writes, but three key points appear accurate: 1) Republican failures have been costly and upsetting. In reference to their guarded preference for Kerry in '04, the Economist, in the leader related to the above-mentioned story, says that "Republican incompetence has exceeded even our worst fears."

2) The Democrats appear fragmented and confused; or, in the paper's words, "if the Republicans reek of decay, the Democrats ooze dysfunctionality." Now Chris has recently pointed me to an interesting essay from Washington Monthly defending the Democrats against such charges, and also to a blog entry on the American Prospect site that argues that "compared to both recent and much more longstanding historical precedent, the current Democratic opposition has not only been disciplined and unified, but effective." Whether or not that is true, it seems that folks have become obsessed with an image of Democrats as 'dysfunctional.'

The Economist, in fact, quotes Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, the DailyKos guy, and Jerome Armstrong as saying that for "the Americans in the middle, who have no strong partisan allegiances, we have failed to articulate a real plan or vision.”

This image may reflect certain realities--as the Economist points out, the Democrats have no president, no clear leader to focus their efforts. My fear, though, is that part of the appearance of confusion is the result of timidity: how is it that no one rallied to support Feingold's censure measure? The courage to say that breaking the law is bad: anyone?
In any case, the perception of 'dysfunction' is real; something must change.

Finally, 3), the Republicans have made such a mess that the Democrats seem to have a shot at taking both houses back in November. Some stats from the Economist: "Only 36% of Americans think George Bush is doing a good job as president. Even Republican states are lukewarm: his approval rating is above 50% only in Idaho, Nebraska, Utah and Wyoming. And Americans like the Republican-led Congress even less: a paltry 23% of them approve of its performance."

So far, so good. But what is the Economist's take on all of this? They argue that what the Democrats need to do is focus on 'liberal' (keep in mind this is a British paper, so liberal means more John Stuart Mill than Michael Moore) issues and abandon their support of unions and of teachers in favor of liberal (that is, free) trade. Go CAFTA, and workers' rights be damned! That and--apparently, it's hard to parse at times--stop thinking that repealing the Bush tax cuts is a reasonable goal (?).

Not that they should become Republicans: "there are plenty of areas where liberal America needs to stand up bravely for its beliefs: against the death penalty, in defence of civil liberties, sounding a warning on global warming."
Um, forgive me, but those are fine goals, and at least two of them would be a significant move away from the Bush insanity; but if that's it, if it comes down to issues like that, then I give up. The budget, the war, the exploitative trade policies: are these to be let go? And health care? (or is that a civil liberty? huh)? You've got to have health care in the mix.

In fact, I would argue that if any one issue--in addition to the obvious anti-corruption business--if any one issue should work to focus the Democrats, it ought to be health care. I'm ready.

Watch Out For Dropping Shoes

Now this is some good Rove news.

Apparently Fitzgerald convened the grand jury this morning. Robert Luskin (Rove's attorney) is no longer claiming that Rove will not be a target of Fitzgerald's investigation.

These developments put the recent White House personel shifts in a new light.

Maybe McClellan's departure was announced early to cloud the motivation behind Rove's reassignment. I say McClellan's announcement was early as I find it odd that there was no replacement announced at the time. Two days later there is still no replacement.

This is all conjecture, and maybe they just want Rove to focus on 2006. I'm sure that's the case, but that may not be all there is to it.

The McClellan departure definitely feels rushed to me, paired with the Rove shift and the Fitzgerald grand jury news, and they may be in more trouble than we thought.

We know this White House doesn't like to change anything until they absolutely have to.

Before long, Rove may have to scale back his midterm election duties to focus on staying out of prison.

One More Hearing

To the list of offensives in previous posts I would like to add the policy of 'extraordinary rendition'—"a highly classified American program in which individuals are seized — abducted — without any semblance of due process and sent off to be interrogated by regimes that are known to engage in torture." Bob Herbert discusses this abhorrent practice in his column in today's Times (alas, his column is only available to the Select—a subject for another post, I suppose).

In that column Herbert writes that there "is no way to know how many people have been seized, tortured or killed. Since there are no official proceedings, there is no way to know whether a particular individual who is taken into custody is a legitimate terror suspect or someone who is innocent of any wrongdoing." Surely an open government, a government of laws, ought to be above such practices: no official proceedings? how can that be a justifiable policy?

What's worse, as Herbert points out, is that this policy has already resulted in the detention—for months, and in the case of Maher Arar in a "rat-infested cell about the size of a grave"—of people later found to have no ties to any terrorist organizations.

Herbert refers to a recent Amnesty International report from 5 April 2006, Below the radar: Secret flights to torture and 'disappearance', in which the policy is described in great, and upsetting, detail. That report describes the policy as involving the transfer of suspects to "states – including Egypt, Jordan and Syria – where physical and psychological brutality feature prominently in interrogations. The rendition network’s aim is to use whatever means necessary to gather intelligence, and to keep detainees away from any judicial oversight."

The report goes on to point out that these 'renditions' involve multiple human rights abuses, including illegal arrest and detention: it goes on to say that every "one of the victims of rendition interviewed by Amnesty International has described incidents of torture and other ill-treatment."

The most offensive quote I've found in the report (also cited by Herbert):
"They promptly tore his fingernails out and he started telling things."

Vincent Cannistraro, former Director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center,
describing what happened to a detainee who was rendered to Egypt.

Despite assurances from people like Condoleeza Rice that the renditions do not lead to torture, the fact that they have requested assurances from the other countries that torture will not occur is, as Amnesty International argues, "inherently self-contradictory. If the risk of torture or ill-treatment in custody is so great that the USA must ask for assurances that the receiving state is not going to carry out such a crime, than the risk is obviously too great to permit the transfer."

The report is grim reading, but it is important. This policy goes against much if not all that I find laudable in our system of government—it denies the freedom from arbitrary arrest, for one; and any sanction, however circuitous, of torture is inexcusable.

I will allow Bob Herbert the last word on this:
"Congress needs to investigate it, document it and shut it down."

Don't Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out

Say goodbye to Scott McClellan. He lasted longer than any punching bag should.

McClellan took over from Ari Fleischer on July 15, 2003. Most of the bad press, scandals, disasters, and hunting accidents occured after that time.

Scottie is the son of Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a former Texas Comptroller who is currently aiming to unseat Gov. Rick Perry (R) as an independent. His father, Barr McClellan, is famous for writing a book alleging that LBJ was involved in the JFK assassination. More on this in The New Yorker.

The amazon.com review of the artfully titled BLOOD, MONEY, AND POWER: HOW LBJ KILLED JFK notes "his evidence is meager and murky, even by the standards of Kennedy conspiracy scholarship . . . McClellan relies on what he heard during his years at Clark's law firm-e.g., a partner told him that Clark arranged the assassination-and the description of scenes in which a "a fixed stare," vague, unspoken understandings, and "code words" proved that Johnson and Clark were conspiring . . . His confusingly structured, evasively argued, often nonsensical theories attest to the crime's continuing potency as a symbol of America's mythic heart of darkness."

So McClellan was not a stranger to politics or fantasy before joining the administration.

The rumor now is that the White House has offered the job to Fox news anchor Tony Snow.

Thanks to brainyquote.com, we can rehash our favorite Snowisms, and can imagine what is to come if he takes the job:

"Even though divorce rates remain revoltingly high, the institution of marriage maintains a unique place in the American heart."

Let's Bang Some Gavels

Sorry I'm late, but I'm ready to start Dancing with Mr. D.

I'd like to addresss Yancy's concern about the lack of outrage on this wiretapping business. I think many people are not neccessarily opposed to domestic spying during a pseudo wartime, and I doubt that most Americans are conversant in the FISA laws that Bush seems to have ignored.

Ultimately, what keeps any one scandal from captivating the public is the fact that there are so damn many of them. This has been the case since at least 2004, when we found out about Abu Ghraib, the leak scandal was progressing, and it was clear that the Iraq fiasco was not going as advertised.

On vanityfair.com, Carl Bernstein (a man who knows from wiretaps and executive overreach) makes the case for Senate hearings on all of the above.

"There are huge differences between the Nixon presidency and this one, of course, but surprisingly few would appear to redound to this administration's benefit, including even the fundamental question of the competence of the president." -Carl Bernstein

The negative news cycle continues for the White House, each new horror distracting us from the last: new details that implicate Bush and Cheney in the leak case are bumped from the headlines because of Sy Hersh's scoop on the plan to use 'nukes on Iran and the ex-generals going public with their Rummy Diaries.

So why not have Senate hearings on all of this mess? See what holds up (policy wise and politically) and see what connects.

Pulitzer Prizes: a Moment of Reflection on the Year

I haven't heard much from Mr Lee, the other contributor, and so I've decided to take a moment to reflect on the past year by way of mentioning a couple notable Pulitzer Prize winners.

This cartoon by Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution won the Editorial Cartoon prize, and seems to speak for itself. (Or does it? In case it's too small to read, the word 'why' is made up of the names of the US soldiers killed in Iraq.)

Two Public Service prizes were awarded for coverage of Hurricane Katrina, one to the Sun Herald of Biloxi, Mississippi, and one to the Times-Picayune of New Orleans. Grim reminders of a tragic event, and of a tragic failure of government.

The coverage of the Jack Abramoff scandal in the Washington Post won for Investigative Reporting; here's hoping the indictments keep coming.

The San Diego Union-Tribune and Copley News Service won a prize in National Reporting for their disclosure of Republican Congressman Randy 'Duke' Cunningham's bribe-taking.

And finally, what would the Pulitzers be without the New York Times? James Risen and Eric Lichtblau's reporting on domestic spying for the Times also won in the National Reporting category. Click here to read. It boggles my mind that more people aren't horrified by this obviously illegal violation of American citizens' rights; maybe this prize will re-invigorate discussion.

(Note: some links may take you to more stories than were considered for the prizes; for a complete list of winners, click here.)

coming soon