Bush Demotes Tony Snow
Having called Bush an embarassment, Tony Snow was demoted today from his cushy, high-paying job in the Republican machine as an “Anchorman” at Fox “News.” He has been assigned to the lowly job of White House Press Secretary.
Of course, Snow knows exactly what he must do to get back into the good graces of Bush and the machine … lie.
Should be fun!!
Covering Up for the New Saddams
Is it a lie when you promise to inspect all of the more than one thousand Iraqi detention facilities and almost 6 months later you’ve only inspected 6? Didn’t we all understand that we were executing an 80 year plan?
In case you were wondering, as I was, the Washington Post updates us on the promised inspections of Iraq’s prisons. Only six inspected … and evidence of abuse of prisoners found at all of them.
We are helping install guys who think Saddam was only bad because of what he did to their sect but not because of the methods he used.
Let’s be honest — the slow pace of the inspections and the lack of candor about the ones that have occurred is for one reason — to mislead the American public; both as to the moral low ground occupied by the new Iraqi government and the Bush administration’s knowledge of it.
"How the GOP Lost Its Way"
Today’s Washington Post published an article titled, “How the GOP Lost Its Way“. Although its author is not kind to Democrats, the article spells out in detail what is wrong with the attitude of the Republican leadership toward ordinary people.
Most of us who read this blog are Democrat and liberal. This article provides an excellent opportunity to better understand what the current political leadership has been trying to do to this country. I highly recommend this article to anyone who has even the slightest concern about the direction this country has taken for the last several years.
Here are a few excerpts:
“The immigration reform debate has highlighted a long-standing fissure in the GOP between the elitist Rockefeller business wing and the party’s conservative populist base. Whether the two groups can continue to coexist and preserve the Republican majority is increasingly doubtful as conservatives begin to consider — and in some cases cheer — the possibility that the GOP may lose control of Congress this fall.
The two camps are deeply divided. The business elites are interested in a large supply of cheap labor and support unfettered immigration and open borders. The populist base supports legal immigration but is concerned about lawlessness on our border, national sovereignty and the real security threat posed by porous borders.“
“Far from being driven by xenophobia and intolerance, conservative populists are motivated by a profound respect for the rule of law and by a patriotic regard for America’s sovereignty and national security. Upholding the rule of law and protecting our country’s borders is important to conservative populists and to most Americans.“
“The Republican Party is now unraveling. Sept. 11, 2001, and the war on terrorism stanched a lot of wounds inside the party, but resentment is growing over steel tariffs, prescription drug benefits, a League of Nations mentality, the growth of government and harebrained spending, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, the increasing regulation of political speech in the United States and endemic corruption.“
Most telling is this statement taken from the closing paragraph: “But it may be too late, because conservatives don’t want to be part of the looming train wreck.“
Good Tunes Friday
Okay, it’s late Friday night on week that was slow on the political news. So I’m going to try something different. Since there has long been a strong connection between liberalism and music, I’ve got some short takes on some great new discs you should check out:
Ben Harper - Both Sides of the Gun (Disc One): this is the mellow disc from Ben’s new two disc set. Most of Harper’s past outings (with the exception of the classic Fight for Your Mind) have been inconsistent - mixing 4 or 5 great tunes with a number of throwaways. This disc is strong throughout. Set your player to repeat and press play. The tunes feature lush string arrangements and, as always, great guitar work. But it’s Harper’s vocals that carry the day. The dude is as passionate about his music as Marvin Gaye or the seventies era Stevie Wonder. And if you want a religious experience better than church, go see Ben Harper live. He offers incredible musicianship (he’s got a great band) and tunes that immediately take a hold of you.
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood: One of my ATF female vocalists. I own everyone of her solo outings and - though very different - this one rivals Furnace Rooom Lullabies as Case’s best. This one’s a lot less alt-country and is really genre-less. The album is a bit odd in that many of the songs lack a chorus but, thankfully, not Neko’s great melodies. Like Harper’s set, the vocals rule, followed closely by the lyrics. Neko’s got some stories to tell.
Ghostface Killah - Fishscale: Urban radio - at least where I live - sucks right now. They play the same ten songs over and over to the point it sounds like one never-ending bore-a-rama. It’s a shame because there is some truly great hip hop being made. Last year, we got the DangerDoom album. This year, an early entrant for album of the year, regardless of genre, is the new Ghostface Killah onslaught. Instead of trying to sound like the Neptunes (like virtually everybody else), Ghostface relies heavily on vocal samples which by themseelves might sound weird but come across spectacularly when coupled with deft beats. Killah’s forte is storytelling - but he’s telling different stories than Neko.
Mylo - Destroy Rock & Roll: Electronic melodies with only the rare spoken vocal. Great for background music but also offering amazing subtlety for those who give it a closer listen.
I hope you all enjoy a little Friday night break from all the politics.
Why are the Dems being Dumb on Iran??
I am going to be extremely cynical in the following analysis of the Democratic non-position concerning Iran:
Via Billmon, Raw Story is reporting the following:
Most aides refused to speculate whether Democrats might support a military operation in Iran. Several aides acknowledged, however, that some Democrats in Congress could support a military strike . . . Any military action Democrats supported, one aide said, would not include the use of nuclear weapons.
Asked about Democratic strategy on Iran, the aide said, “The strategy is simple: Give the Republicans enough rope and they’ll hang themselves.”……..
Democrats are caught on the fence – they must satisfy an anti-war base while at the same time projecting a hardline image on national security matters which will increase the attractiveness of Democratic candidates to independent-leaning voters in the 2006 midterm elections.
There is no political advantage to not taking an opposition position to Bush on Iran. The current best estimate, the National Intelligence Estimate, has Iran at least ten years from the capability of making usable nuclear weapons, which is a bump up from five years. Therefore, the timing makes one extraordinarily suspicious that this is primarily a political stunt being pulled by Bush and his administration. Whip up the fear, whip up the flag, and go once more for a rally around the flag effect.
One of Bush’s greatest political talents over the past fifteen years of his career has been his ability to claim disproportionally large credit for successes or perceived to be short term successes while taking the share of credit from the Democrats and marginalizing it. He has played this game on tax policy, on Iraq (see Gephardt and Daschle’s meekness in 2002 concerning Iraq, and then the Cleland attack ads for the best example) and education. It is a common pattern, and he is very good at it.
The Democratic leadership should realize that bipartisanship is losing tactic right now. I think that Congresswoman Pelosi and Senator Reid have done a very good job of creating distinctions on domestic issues in Congress, and stopping some of the dumbest ideas proposed by the Republican majority from moving forward. This is the job of an opposition party; create distinctions and show that the governing party has some really dumb ideas(see Social Security privatization for the best example.) The same logic should be applied to the dumb idea of attacking Iran.
There is no political pay-off from backing Bush on Iran. If the action is successful and the Democrats have backed Bush, most of the credit will be successfully claimed by Bush. He’ll then use the short term political capital as a club for Republican candidates in the Congressional elections. If later on the action which seemed to be successful, but becomes a complete clusterfuck in the medium future, Dems backing Bush put themselves into the same internal paralysis that they are experiencing on Iraq right now while also being tarred for the failure.
Now if there are serious repercussions, or failure, or a general uprising against the US lines of communication in Southern Iraq, due to a military confrontation with Iran, and the Democrats have been consistently saying that going to war against Iran is a dumb idea, much like going to war to remove the non-existent weapons of mass destruction, no going to war against Osama bin Hussein for his role in 9-11, no going to war to reduce the price of oil, we are going to war to bring democracy to Iraq was originally or now has become a really dumb idea, there starts to be a consistent and coherent position on the Democratic Party’s theory of power, military usage, and international affairs. We go to war when there is a clear and present danger to US national interests, and we do it with focus on the achieving the actual mission. Iran, much like Iraq, is a distraction from destroying or at the very least severely marginalizing Al-Quaida, and its offshore, global guerillas.
Shit, that almost sounds like a coherent critique and it is one step away from moving towards a positive national security agenda.
There is no political gain to siding with Bush on Iran; any credit that will be given will be collected by Bush indpendent of whether or not the Democrats support his Iran position, and remember his Iran position is about the only one that matters. Siding with Bush and seeing a failure will only allow the public to blame both parties equally. Offering a clear critique and contrast that gives Bush significant political costs of showing his usual degree of competence seems to be the best option for the Democrats.
The Exploding Costs of the Iraq War
The Raw Story has a sneak preview of tomorrow’s Washington Post story about the incredible increasing costs of the war in Iraq.
Here’s a key excerpt:
With the expected passage this spring of the largest emergency spending bill in history, annual war expenditures in Iraq will have nearly doubled since the U.S. invasion, as the military confronts the rapidly escalating cost of repairing, rebuilding and replacing equipment chewed up by three years of combat. The cost of the war in U.S. fatalities has declined this year, but the cost in treasure continues to rise, from $48 billion in 2003 to $59 billion in 2004 to $81 billion in 2005 to an anticipated $94 billion in 2006, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
The U.S. government is now spending nearly $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from $8.2 billion a year ago, a new Congressional Research Service report found. Annual war costs in Iraq are easily outpacing the $61 billion a year that the United States spent in Vietnam between 1964 and 1972, in today’s dollars.
Is there any end in sight? Not as long as Bush is President.
And where was the fair assessment of these costs before the war? Where did they ever tell the American public that this was what to expect?
Rebuilding Iraq: The 3% Completion Story
ABC has the story — in March of 2004, Parsons Global was awarded a $190 million contract to build 150 health clinics in Iraq. After two years, 5 are complete.
This isn’t to say the contractor is to blame. Security concerns and U.S. and Iraqi government mismanagement seem to top the list.
Stories like this, on first blush, seem to support the arguments of the “more troops” crowd. Yet, I’ve never been convinced as to where all these hundreds of thousands of additional troops were to come from.
Further, why should we continue to dump billions of American taxpayer dollars into Iraq if this is the result we can expect?
Used Wars - Part 2
Philippines
We made it to La Trinidad after much delay….They lost our luggage, but maybe it will be here tomorrow…
No Time Like The Present!
All that exercise ought to be good for something…
Discussion or Distraction?
So the current topic of national discussion is immigration. Congress is arguing about it, the president has commented on it, public demonstrations about it are happening across the US.
Why now?
Just like other recent topics of national discussion, such as same-sex marriage or abortion, this is another issue that cannot be resolved quickly. So why are these the current topics of national discussion?
Consider these important issues:
- Iraq appears to have been in a state of civil war for some time, and the situation there is deteriorating.
- GW Bush’s approval ratings are low, and continue to sink.
- GW Bush has been implicated in the leaking of an intelligence report, one which has since been proven to be inaccurate.
- More and more Republican party leaders are being implicated in an increasing number of scandals.
- The price of gasoline is approaching $3/gallon.
- The Federal budget deficit is out of control.
- The international trade deficit is out of control.
- More and more people are underemployed or have given up on looking for work, making the official unemployment figures nothing but a bad joke.
- The number of Americans without health insurance is reaching epidemic proportions. Meanwhile, the soaring cost of health insurance is seriously depleting the disposable income of most Americans.
So why is the government instead focusing so much on hot-button controversial issues?
Because they hope the American people will forget about the real issues in the upcoming elections, and instead focus on the distractions.
My Iran Thoughts
In an interesting conversation with Xranger in comments to my previous post, I mentioned that right now we are in a minimize maximum regret decision making process on what to do with Iran, and that there are no cost free optimizing choices to be made.
The Glittering Eye lays out what I wish I was able to write as concisely and succintly, but was not able to do so:
Just for the record I oppose either invading Iran or bombing it. I do think that reminding the Iranian government that if an Iranian nuclear weapon is used against America, Americans, or American interests either here or overseas (fissibles have detectable signatures; if it’s an Iranian bomb we’ll know) that we will respond in kind with disproportionate force is long overdue. That’s been our policy for more than a half century.
We also need to take this matter very, very seriously without dilly-dallying. I don’t know of a single government (other than the Iranian government) that denies that Iran has a nuclear weapons development program. The evidence, which I’ve gone into before, is pretty dispositive. I don’t deny that it’s a perfectly reasonable thing for Iran to (in fact, I’ve argued in favor of the Iran regime’s rationality) but I also don’t much care: it’s perfectly rational of us as well to do what we can to prevent their acquiring nuclear weapons.”
This excerpt encapsulates my thoughts extremely well.
So what are the options that I would find favorable and given my extremely high distrust in the competence of the Bush administration to do anything other than play narrowminded hardball politics, and that includes a distrust in their ability to tie their own shoes, find plausible in its execution.
The first option is to step back and let the EU, Russia and China, all of whom have much greater amounts of leverage that does not fall from 40,000 feet with the Iranian government than the United States. Offer a deal where the Russians, Chinese and the EU member nations offer Iran enriched uranium sufficient for civilian grade reactor operations on the conditions of gram for gram accounting of the material as it is sent into the country and then taken back out of Iran for reprocessing or storage in exchange for full inspections and verification, including the military sites. This gives Iran the nuclear fuel cycle that they say they need for their civilian nuclear programs, while denying the infrastructure needed to enrich the uranium or divert the plutonium from the reactors for weaponry. At the same time, China, Russia and the EU pressure the US to give Iran a security guarantee that is credible.
I find this scenario rather unlikely as it is calling both the US and Iranian bluffs, but it is a good first pass to get some more cards on the table at a rather low cost.
The second element of this scenario is to reiterate that the US doctrine is overwhleming retaliation for a traceable nuclear strike, and given the joys of nuclear engineering, all detonated nuclear weapons are traceable. If one is worried about the Loose Nuke problem, traceability and the promise that the US considers a loose nuke employed by a stateless group to be the responsibility of the country of origin, deterrence is still very, very, very credible. At the same time, there is a potential for cooperative engagement where the US, UK, or France offers significant help in improving the accounting, and command and control nodes on nuclear weapons for recent nuclear powers so risk reduction can occur.
The status quo is a viable policy alternative, for the US has learned to live with a Soviet nuclear arsenal, where MAD was a viable reality, we have learned to live and reach an accomodation with a communist Chinese nuclear arsenal. We have learned to live with a credible North Korean nuclear deterrant. We have learned to live with an Indian nuclear arsenal, and we are actively cooperating and enhancing some of the confidence building measures that I outlined in my second option with Pakistan. A nuclear Iran is not a desired end state, but it is a highly probable end state, and it is an end state that the US can live with and should live with if the other policy options have significantly higher risks, which I think that they do.
Bush Job Approval Continues to Drop
I know I have not posted in weeks but sitting here at the Pittsburgh International Airport waiting for a flight I couldn’t help but notice this story in today’s Washington Post: Bush’s Job Approval Rating Continues to Swoon.
Political reversals at home and continued bad news from Iraq have dragged President Bush’s standing with the public to a new low and boosted Democratic chances of wresting control of Congress from Republicans in the November elections, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.The new survey found that 38 percent of the public approved of the job Bush is doing as president, down 3 percentage points in the past month and his worst showing in Post-ABC polling on this key measure since he became president. Sixty percent disapproved of his performance.
Not that this is ground breaking news or something, it’s just that it gives me an opportunity to plug the old schwag again. Yes Folks, it is true W is once again at 38% and dropping…
Thoughts on Hersh’s Iran article
Seymour Hersh will be having a very interesting story in the New Yorker this week. Steve Gilliard has kindly posted several long excerpts that I want to grab and analyse a little bit more.
The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.
This is a pushback from Hersh’s earlier reporting that strikes on Iran were set for sometime in March of 2006. The pilot programs would produce enough enriched uranium to train the Iranians how to do their job properly, but not enough uranium to produce a credible deterrant. There is some value here, but the cheaper and much more reliable way of blocking the entire nuclear fuel cycle would be to pay the Russians to provide a guaranteed supply of uranium enriched to civilian specifications and then do a gram by gram input-output accounting of that material into the Iranian civilian nuclear program.
One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”
Assuing that a bombing campaign does occur — I am very curious as to what historical parrallel the know-nothing fantastists will abuse as the historical tendency has been a short bombing campaign creates significant rally around the flag effects in pretty much any population. Breaking the morale of the enemy through air power has been a US Air Force and previously the US Army Air Corps obsession since at least the time the first translations of Douhat were provided to Dayton. It has yet to happen. Air power is very useful for destroying things and a little less useful for surveying things, but it will not seperate a regime from its population. Ask the Germans, Koreans, Vietnamese, Serbs, and Iraqis for their experience.
One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One target is Iran’s main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, nearly two hundred miles south of Tehran. Natanz, which is no longer under I.A.E.A. safeguards, reportedly has underground floor space to hold fifty thousand centrifuges, and laboratories and workspaces buried approximately seventy-five feet beneath the surface. That number of centrifuges could provide enough enriched uranium for about twenty nuclear warheads a year.
There are some cultures where it is extraordinarily difficult and impolite or career killing to say “NO, this is really, truly, an amazingly dumb idea” to a project in general. Instead the polite way of saying the above is to find a ridiculous means of implementing the stupid proposal in the hope that the proposer looks at the solution, and realizes that he asked an amazingly dumb question. The Pentagon is one of those cultures. The first use of nuclear weapons falls under the category, I hope, of a polite way of saying “This is fucking crazy” instead of directly saying no.
I personally am not putting a whole lot of credence into any attack Iran columns or claims that have a start date before September, 2006 for three reasons. The first is a logistical/troop movement reason. The second is another practical reason, and the final one is a political reason.
The current rotation of US forces into Iraq has pretty much completed its insertion. What is in Iraq for the US Army today is what will be in Iraq until September-October when the next round of rotations start again. The US has used the temporary surges in offensive ground combat formations due to hand-overs as a means of conducting major offensive operations in Iraq for the past three hand-offs. The next major rotation is scheduled to start in September, so the natural bumping up of the ground combat component will be a hedge against Iranian counter-reactions. [The Marines and the US Air Force are on shorter schedules, so I am not sure when the next big USMC overlap is]
Secondly, I concur with Steve Gilliard that if the US takes overt military actions against Iran, it is an easy way to wave goodbye to any semblence of a functioning unitary state in Iraq, especially if there is still no central government in Baghdad that can claim any legitimacy. The US supply lines into Iraq are in decent shape only because the Mahdi Army/Badr Brigades — oops, I meant the brave, secular, loyal only to the concept of a united Iraq, Iraqi Army — have decided that the current system of taking US money and not shooting at US convoys while buddying up to Iran is a pretty good situation.
Finally, the most cycnical, but probably the most relevant reason is a political reason. An early attack will not sustain the rally around the flag effect that right now looks to be about the only way that the GOP does not get creamed in November. Prof. Pollkatz shows that the rally around the flag effect of 9/11, start of the Iraq war, capturing Hussein, and the January elections have successively gotten smaller and shorter each time. An attack next month should not perform any differently than this current trend.
( my manipulations)
My colleague colleague, Cernig disagrees with this analysis and makes a strong argument as to what his disagreement implies — hint WWIII. However, I don’t think the short term timing makes any sense. I’ll revise and extend this analysis once I get more information.
Why Leak Instead of Openly Declassify? To Deceive
The New York Times, the recipient of the Bush-Libby-NIE leak, finally weighs in with a breakdown of the deceptive nature of the leak entitled Iraq Findings Leaked by Cheney’s Aide Were Disputed.
Though the whole thing deserves a read, here’s a key portion of the story:
The court filing asserts that Mr. Bush authorized the disclosure of the intelligence in part to rebut claims that Mr. Wilson was making, including those in a television appearance and in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on July 6, 2003. The filing revealed for the first time testimony by Mr. Libby saying that Mr. Bush, through Mr. Cheney, had authorized Mr. Libby to tell reporters that “a key judgment of the N.I.E. held that Iraq was ‘vigorously trying to procure’ uranium.”
In fact, that was not one of the “key judgments” of the document. Instead, it was the subject of several paragraphs on Page 24 of the document, which also acknowledged that Mr. Hussein had long possessed 500 tons of uranium that was under seal by international inspectors, and that no intelligence agencies had ever confirmed whether he had obtained any more of the material from Africa.
Too bad the NYT didn’t think enough of the American public to bring a lil skepticism to the Bush administration’s leaks back in the day. Liberal indeed.
Leaky Bush: The Breakdown
Some of our friends on the right are (predictably) arguing the revelation regarding Libby’s testimony that Bush authorized his leaks is insignificant. They argue that it wasn’t technically illegal. While they are probably right on that issue, there are numerous other reasons why this matters beyond mere legality.
First, the story if true (and to date it is not being denied by Bush or Cheney) further destroys the fraudulent image of Bush as a Washington outsider who detests the dirty side of Washington — mainly leaks.
Second, it shines further light on how Bush and his entire administration abuse security classifications for political purposes as opposed to reasons of national security. In effect, the Bush defenders are arguing that they are O.K. with Bush (and Cheney) declasifying information on the fly, in an ad-hoc manner that ignores the declassification procedures and without informing others, specifically the American public, when information is declassified. As this instance shows, their ad hoc, declassification process has more to do with politics than anything else. Yet, we live in a democracy that is supposed to value transparency over gamesmanship. We know that this administration is the worst abuser of classifying information to keep politically harmful information from the public. Now it appears that the president himself declassifies so that anonymous sources can then spin the media and ultimately manipulate the public for purely political purposes. Americans do not view governments that engage in this stuff as moral, think the USSR and Pravda. Nor should Bush’s actions in this regard be viewed as moral.
Third, the issue raises a myriad of questions about the President’s innvolvement in manipulating the case for war generally and, more specifically, as to what role he may have played in the leaking of Plame’s identity. Ignoring the prewar stuff for now, one question that needs asking is was Plame’s identity one of the items Bush “declassified” in this ad hoc manner so that Libby and Rove were authorized to leak it. If so, it points out a stark problem with this ad hoc procedure being employed. Isn’t it obvious that it is extremely dangerous to be revealing the identity of CIA NCOs without first telling the CIA and that agent?
Just because the President has legal authority to do something does not mean that he should. Further, doing something, at best, immoral and, at worst, a heinous act putting the lives of other people in danger is worthy of criticism at least.
UPDATE: Kevin Drum has a concise post up as to what’s wrong with Bush’s leak and he adds a second post quoting Andrew Sullivan’s also concise takedown of this tactic.
Knocking Pat Roberts Off Of Pandora’s Box?
Wow!!!
We got a hot one here tonight!. The big story of the day is that Libby testified before the grand jury in the Plame case that Bush authorized him to leak classified information contained in the National Intelligence Estimate. While the story doesn’t say whether he was specifically authorized to leak Plame’s identity, if memory serves, the NIE did include a discussion regarding Plame’s identity (wasn’t this the same document that was aboard Air Force One on the Africa trip?).
Remember how Bush hates leaks and has promised to fire anyone involved in the Plame leaks. Well, he’s got some ’splaining to do.
More importantly, will this story open up pandora’s box (knocking Pat Roberts off the lid) as to what exactly the White House did to massage the intelligence and manipulate the American public into supporting a bogus war?