The Stubborn Sodomite, Part II (With Updates)

Yes!! (from the AP):

Sen. Larry Craig is reconsidering his decision to resign after his arrest in a Minnesota airport sex sting and may still fight for his Senate seat, his spokesman said Tuesday evening.

"It's not such a foregone conclusion anymore, that the only thing he could do was resign," said Sidney Smith, Craig's spokesman in Idaho's capital. * * *

I love it. All the Democrats need to do on this one is simply sit back and enjoy the show.

UPDATE: This is from a TPM reader:

If Sen. Larry Craig reconsiders and steps all over Gen. Petraeus' week of surge, Bill Kristol's head will explode. That Pentagon media war room they set up will be useless in the face of this cable TV zoo.

Exactly right. BushCo, its apologists, and the Pentagon are wildly spinning their "The Surge Is A Success!!" fabrication as best they can right now, only to have Senator Craig step up and cause yet another big distraction.

But perhaps this distraction is for the best. After all, BushCo's lying with regard to the "success" of The Surge is so transparent that even Wolf Blitzer is calling them on it.

UPDATE II: Although I think the Democrats should pretty much remain silent on this whole Craig deal, I would love to see gay rights groups come out solidly in favor of Senator Craig remaining in the Senate.

Don't get me wrong -- this is already a great "scandal." Indeed, it definitely has the potential of replacing PenisGate as my all-time favorite. But I would never stop laughing if gay rights groups came out in favor of Craig.

Bush's Life As An Ex-President

From the New York Times:

When President Bush is asked what he plans to do when he leaves office, he often replies curtly: “I don’t have that much time to think beyond my presidency” or “I’m going to sprint to the finish.”

But in an interview with a book author in the Oval Office one day last December, he daydreamed about the next phase of his life, when his time will be his own.

First, Mr. Bush said, “I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’ coffers.” With assets that have been estimated as high as nearly $21 million, Mr. Bush added, “I don’t know what my dad gets — it’s more than 50-75” thousand dollars a speech, and “Clinton’s making a lot of money.”

Then he said, “We’ll have a nice place in Dallas,” where he will be running what he called “a fantastic Freedom Institute” promoting democracy around the world. But he added, “I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch.”

This article got me thinking about just what kind of life Bush will have as a former president. Will there be any interest in hearing him speak after January 2009, given that by then he will undoubtedly be viewed as the worst president in American history? Will he be able to demand more money per speech because he was the worst? Will people still protest him after he leaves office?

And what about world travel for Bush? He is so thoroughly hated around the world now that foreign cities basically have to be locked down when he visits them. Will such measures still be necessary after he leaves office?

I can't wait to get answers to these questions. Unfortunately, January 2009 is still a long ways off.

The Stubborn Sodomite

As if the G.O.P. wasn't in enough trouble already (from ABC News):

Despite reports today quoting anonymous 'GOP sources" that embattled Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho., will resign Friday, his aide says the Senator will return to Washington, D.C. next week to continue his work as best he can, Craig's Idaho press secretary tells ABC News.

Although I'm certain that Craig will resign very soon, I would just love it if he dug in and refused to leave the Senate. Mitch McConnell's head would probably explode if that happened.

And speaking of stubborn, this is pretty pathetic:

Yesterday, a plane carrying three U.S. senators and a member of the House was forced to take evasive maneuvers to avoid rocket-propelled grenades as they took off from Baghdad. “It was a scary moment,” said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL). “There were a few minutes there where I wondered: ‘Have we been hit? Are we OK?’” added Rep. Bud Cramer (D-AL).

Despite the close call, the lawmakers continued to insist that progress was being made in Iraq. * * *

How screwed up is that? You travel all the way to Iraq so you could come home and spread more G.O.P. bullshit about how great things are going over there, and then something like this happens to totally undercut you. Stuff like this seems to be happening a lot lately.

Rep. Brian Baird Really Stepped In It (With Update)

Democratic Congressman Brian Baird took a pounding the other night at a town hall meeting in Vancouver, Washington. Baird recently flip flopped on the Iraq War -- he was against the war and now he is apparently for it -- and a lot of his constituents aren't real happy about it. You can watch some video highlights of the town meeting here.

I think Baird saw this as a chance for him to get some national exposure, but his plan backfired because he clearly misunderestimated the backlash he would receive here in the Pacific Northwest on this issue. And since all politics is local, he may have just pissed off enough people to make a 2008 reelection bid a lot more difficult than it would have been otherwise.

For God's Sake, even Oregon GOP Senator Gordon Smith realized long ago -- well, eight months or so ago -- that he had no chance for reelection in 2008 unless he flip-flopped with regard to the Iraq Debacle (which he did do). Smith had enough sense to recognize that a "stay the course" position would be politically impossible for him to maintain during the run-up to next year's election.

Baird, however, clearly lost touch with how people feel locally about the U.S. Catastrophe in Iraq, which is pretty funny because it would have been so easy for him to say nothing, given that most people in this country now favor a withdrawal from Iraq.

UPDATE: My new favorite phrase: Green Zone Fog.

I like This

From TPM Election Central:

John Edwards announced yesterday that as president he would have a policy dubbed "Brownie's Law," named in "honor" of former FEMA head Michael Brown. "Edwards will enact a new requirement — 'Brownie's Law' — ensuring that senior political appointees actually are qualified to perform the job to which they are appointed," according to a campaign fact sheet. "Brownie's Law will require that heads of executive agencies and other senior officials have demonstrated qualifications in the field related to their job." It sure says something about the current state of governmental affairs that such a pronouncement could be considered newsworthy.

And here is an interesting idea with regard to the timing of the whole Bedtime for Gonzo story:

So, was Gonzales’ resignation yesterday specifically timed to happen just as the Daily Show started a two week hiatus? Inquiring (and very disappointed) minds would like to know. Not even to mention the revelations about Larry Craig’s bathroom misdemeanours. It’s very suspicious that the court judgment should have been handed down on August 8 – but that Roll Call should only have published the details yesterday. I seem to recall that the last time the Daily Show went on holiday, there was a similar outbreak of political scandals (the Libby case judgement etc). As they say, developing …

Gonzo Is Gone

BushCo's greatest gift to Democrats has resigned:

Embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, under fire from congressional Democrats and even some Republicans, announced Monday that he has resigned from his post.

“It has been one of my greatest privileges to lead the Department of Justice,” Gonzales said at a news conference, announcing his resignation effective Sept. 17.

Although the Bush Regime has tried to make it sound like a last-minute thing that just developed over the weekend, it appears to me that this has been in the works for some time, with the plan being to have him step down in late August while everyone is vacationing and thus paying little attention to the news.

The most interesting part of all this will, of course, be the confirmation hearings for whomever Bush picks to replace Gonzales.

Bush Compares The Iraq Debacle To The Vietnam Debacle

George Bush suggested the other day that we could have won the Vietnam War had we only kept our forces in the field longer. I found Bush's argument to be hysterically funny given (1) Bush actually deserted his post during the Vietnam War, and (2) we are now trading partners with Vietnam, so that particular war isn't exactly a good example for Bush to use, since he is also claiming that an unmitigated catastrophe would result if we withdrew from Iraq.

As Kevin Drum notes, the idiots on the Extreme Right are really starting to run with this "We Could Have Won In Vietnam" idea:

On the right: the Weekly Standard has posted not one, not two, but three separate pieces — two by idiot savant David Gelernter — that have been hauled up from the archives. Verdict: you bet your ass we could have won in Vietnam.

National Review also has three pieces on the same theme, and Peter Rodman's pretty clearly wins the Wingnut History award for the day. He's not content merely to suggest that the United States could have won in Vietnam — a trope that's common enough on the right — but claims that this is practically a "consensus" among military historians. That's chutzpah! Move along boys, nothing left to argue about here.

It sounds to me like there has been a bit of coordination amongst the extremists on this issue. Drum argues that the Democrats have been too slow to respond to Bush's Vietnam statement, but I'm thinking that this might just be one of those times when no response would be best.

I think most Americans have pretty much made up their minds about Vietnam. Sure, 30% of the country would probably respond to such a bullshit argument, but only because that is probably the percentage of people who already believe that we could have won in Vietnam had we stayed the course there.

I just don't think a bunch of right-wing wackos are going to be able to change very many minds on that particular issue. After all, these are the same idiots who said -- and continue to say -- that the invasion of Iraq was a great idea.

There Was Great Stuff In The New York Times Yesterday

I found this op-ed to be particularly good. It was written by several U.S. soldiers currently serving in Iraq and is a must-read.

The soldiers' piece in The Times should remind Democrats that the U.S. is not "at war" in Iraq. The "war," at least as far as the U.S. is concerned, ended over four years ago. What we are doing over there now is simply occupying the country. In fact, the Democrats should always refer to the situation over there as either "the Iraq Debacle" or "the Iraq Occupation," and should never call it the Iraq "War," unless they are referring specifically to the Iraqi civil war.

Frank Rich's "He Got Out While the Getting Was Good" is also worth a look (thanks for the link, Slic[k]). Rich's piece reminded me how fortuitous Kerry's loss in 2004 turned out to be. Had Kerry won, the Extreme Right would not be as demoralized as it is now. Iraq would have quickly turned into Kerry's problem (after all -- he did vote to authorize Bush's invasion), and the recession we are about to experience would have happened on Kerry's watch instead of on Bush's. The Democrats can still blow it pretty easily -- and it wouldn't surprise me if they did -- but things are really looking up for them right now.

And who do the Democrats have to thank for all of this? Well, Karl Rove of course (with a little help from Dick Cheney).

One of these days, most Americans will realize that radical right-wing extremists -- while possessing great skill at stealing elections, smearing people, and generally being Christo-fascist assholes -- really have no talent for governing.

What Bob Schieffer Said

Last month, Bob Schieffer at CBS News said that the Iraqi parliament's plan to go on vacation in August was pretty much the last straw for him (his exact words: "For me, this does it.")

Here is what Schieffer said this morning:

Sixteen years on Face The Nation has taught me one thing: When I ask a question and guests start laying out conditions such as "first let me tell you," or "the real questions is," or "it is important to put that in context," I know we're headed down the old rabbit trail that will take us anywhere but to a straight answer.

When people want to answer, they do so quickly, directly and clearly. When they don't we get all those conditions and lectures about the importance of context.

So excuse me for getting a little suspicious after hearing the White House is proposing some new conditions on the delivery of General Petraeus' long-awaited report on progress in Iraq – conditions such as the White House wanting the general to deliver the report to Congress behind closed doors while cabinet officers do the talking in public.

And, suddenly we're told the general won't actually write the report but that his thoughts will be incorporated in a summary prepared by the White House. Mind you, this is the report the president has said over and over that he will use to decide where we go from here in Iraq.

Over and over, we've been told not to rush to judgment until we hear from the general. Now we're hearing all these new conditions. Maybe it's because I've been dragged down the old rabbit trail too many times by too many people with something to hide, but this doesn't sound like we're headed to a straight answer.

No, this sounds like anything but. And that is a real shame.

I hear you, Bob. When I first read that The White House was going to write Petraeus' report, I pretty much figured that the Corporate Media would "neglect" to mention this very important fact and simply go along with the fiction that Petraeus himself actually wrote it. So I was very happy to hear Schieffer report on this.

Look, most Americans know that things are going very badly in Iraq. But when the White House (1) has to write General Petraeus' report, and (2) wanted Petraeus to talk to Congress behind closed doors, then the situation in Iraq must actually be a lot worse than we think.

I Like This

Fred Barnes recently wrote that Karl Rove has a "great political mind." Hunter over at Kos offers this response:

Here's the thing. Someday, Karl Rove will die. When that day comes, we will all have to pretend he was something other than a piss-headed man hated by everyone but those he found useful, and as matter of convention we will have to treat him with momentary respect. So let's write his epitaph now, while being as mean to him is still perfectly allowable and much more sporting.

Karl Rove was not a "great political mind". His sole contribution to the nation was getting the worst president in history elected on a campaign of unabashed bullcrap, then proceeding to help guide that president into foreign and domestic policy failures at every opportunity. If that's what passes for Republican brilliance, then it explains... well, pretty much everything, actually.

O'Hanlon's Classic Non-Denial Denial

OK, this is starting to get a little ridiculous (from Think Progress):

On NPR’s On Point today, a caller asked Brookings analyst Michael O’Hanlon to respond to Glenn Greenwald’s recent article which revealed O’Hanlon’s trip to Iraq had been choreographed by the Defense Department. “Well, I don’t have high regard for the kind of journalism that Mr. Greenwald has carried out here,” O’Hanlon said. “I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time rebutting Mr. Greenwald because he’s had frankly more time and more readership than he deserves.”

Well, ain't that just like a Bush apologist. I guess he's just used to the kind of journalism we'd been routinely getting for the last six years, namely, the kind where the journalist isn't interested in the truth but is only interested in making the Bush Regime look good --

-- you know, kind of like that O'Hanlon and Pollack op-ed piece in the New York Times a couple weeks ago.

Jon Stewart Calls The Extreme Right On Its O'Hanlon/Pollack Bullshittery

OK, I've beaten this horse to death, but the GOP still appears to have no problem touting those O'Hanlon and Pollack characters as former Jane Fonda-ish anti-war wannabees who have finally seen the light with regard to our incredible success over there in Iraq.

Bill Kristol, the neocon who has been wrong on Iraq from Day One (and long before that, but who's counting), was on The Daily Show last night, and he responded this way when Jon Stewart asked him who we can trust these days with regard to Iraq:

KRISTOL: Trust skeptics of the war like Mike O'Hanlon and Kevin Pollack, who went over . . . and have seen it in real time . . .

Well, Stewart would have none of that. His response:

STEWART: They weren't skeptics. . . . Kevin Pollack would like us to invade Iran, for God's Sake. Those are two very hawkish guys.

Thank God for Jon Stewart. Now I don't watch the cable news stations around the clock, but that was only the second reference I've seen on television (Countdown being the first) to the fact that O'Hanlon and Pollack lied to this country when they attempted to sell themselves as "war critics." Once again, we have to go to The Daily Show to get the truth.

Oh, and by the way, 175 people were bombed to death in Iraq today, and nine U.S. soldiers have died over there in the last two days.

Glenn Greenwald Interviews Fake War Critic Michael O'Hanlon

A couple of weeks ago, Michael O'Hanlon and Kevin Pollack of the Brookings Institute published an opinion piece in the New York Times which claimed that the United States is "finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms."

Of course, right-wing extremists have been claiming this kind of nonsense for a long time -- who could ever forget Dick Cheney's "the insurgency is in its final throes" remark from 2005 -- but several members of the Radical Right (including Cheney) treated O'Hanlon and Pollack's op-ed piece as gospel because these two men claimed to be "war critics." Well, it turns out (surprise!) that they're not war critics after all. In fact, they are actually Bill Kristol-type war cheerleaders.

Glenn Greenwald has taken the lead in exposing these fakes to the world, and his recent interview of O'Hanlon is nothing short of spectacular. You can read the whole interview here; or, if you don't have that much time, you can read Greenwald's article regarding this interview here.

Of course, Greenwald covers much ground with regard to O'Hanlon's supposed status as a "war critic," and actually got O'Hanlon to make this admission:

As you rightly reported -- I was not a critic of this war. In the final analysis, I was a supporter.

Well, it sure would have been nice if O'Hanlon had admitted that from the start or at least mentioned it in one of the interviews he gave to the Corporate Media after the piece was published. That little detail must have slipped his mind.

But Greenwald's interview is most interesting when he asks O'Hanlon about the trip to Iraq which provided the basis for the O'Hanlon/Pollack op-ed piece. Here are some excerpts from Greenwald's article:

But the far greater deceit involves the trip itself and the way it was represented -- both by Pollack/O'Hanlon as well as the excited media figures who touted its significance and meaning. From beginning to end, this trip was planned, shaped and controlled by the U.S. military -- a fact inexcusably concealed in both the Op-Ed itself and virtually every interview the two of them gave. With very few exceptions, what they saw was choreographed by the U.S. military and carefully selected for them. * * *

I have nothing against O'Hanlon personally; he was perfectly cordial and professional in my dealings with him and I think he deserves credit for agreeing to be interviewed in light of what I had written about his Op-Ed. But it is very difficult to credit him and Pollack with good faith, as though they are guilty of nothing more than sloppy "scholarship."

A failure to disclose obviously critical facts that bear on the credibility of their "findings" and a willingness to ground their conclusions in patently one-sided and highly controlled data are far more serious sins than mere sloppiness. It is difficult to avoid reaching any conclusion other than that they willfully served as propaganda tools in order to bolster the perception of success for a war and a "Surge" strategy which they prominently supported and on which their professional reputations rest.

Read the whole article. It's worth it.

Obama Gets Attacked For Speaking The Truth

Everyone who has talked politics with me over the last couple of weeks knows how pissed off I've been over the fact that Hillary, Dodd, Biden, Romney, and others have been attacking Obama for saying this:

As President, I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional, and I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan.

I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.

Obama's statement made a lot of sense to me, particularly given that BushCo has, over the last several years, attempted to minimize Pakistan's involvement in 9/11 while at the same time falsely claiming that Saddam was somehow involved in those attacks. But Obama was instantly attacked by Hillary and others as "naive" for saying those things about Pakistan. Mitt Romney even compared Obama to "Dr. Strangelove."

So let me see if I got this straight: Someone finally attempts to introduce some common sense into America's counter-terrorism policy, and he gets attacked for it by both Democrats and Republicans. Why?

Well, Josh Marshall figured it out:

All Obama said was that if we have actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of high-value al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, and Pakistan won't act, we will act.

Clearly, no Republican can quibble with this. They're on the record for invading countries because they might become dangers to us at some point in the future. They're hardly in a position to disagree with Obama if he says we'll hunt down people who committed mass casualty terror attacks within our borders. And I'm not sure Democrats are in much of a position to do so either.

The unspoken truth here, I suspect, is that Obama has struck on the central folly of our post-9/11 counter-terrorism defense policy -- strike hard where they aren't and go easy where they are. I think everyone can see this. But Obama got there first. So they need to attack him for saying it.

I am certainly glad to see that Obama isn't backing down from his statements. I liked what he said at the debate the other night about how Hillary and some of the other candidates who are attacking him on this had actually voted to give Bush the authority to launch "the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation."

That was a good start, but he needs to stay on the offensive on this. Hillary's vote to authorize the Iraq War was, in my opinion, one of the greatest acts of political cowardice in recent memory, and voters need to be constantly reminded of this.

Message From Corporate Amerika: We'll Support Bush No Matter How Low His Numbers Go

Doesn't AT&T know that Bush is the most unpopular president in a generation? This is from the LA Times:

In a prominent nod to one of the festival's lead sponsors, the logo for this year's Lollapalooza concerts in Chicago includes the tag line, "delivered by AT&T." But Sunday's headliner Pearl Jam complained that AT&T delivered less than the band's full performance during its Lollapalooza webcast. The powerhouse telco turned off the audio during the song "Daughter" while singer Eddie Vedder was railing against President George Bush. That bit of censorship -- which AT&T says was a mistake -- gave a bit of fuel to the forces arguing for "Net neutrality" regulations.

The missing lines -- "George Bush, leave this world alone" and "George Bush find yourself another home" -- are benign compared to some of Vedder's more pointed critiques of Bush and the Iraq war. This isn't exactly "I'm ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas" territory. So you have to wonder what the person who pulled the plug on Vedder was thinking -- or not thinking, as the case may be.

AT&T spokeswoman Tiffany Nels said the company goofed. Its Blue Room website is open to Internet users of all ages, so it tries to block "excessive profanity" from the broadcasts. It hires contractors to monitor the performances, and the broadcasts are delayed slightly to enable monitors to bleep off-color material. But those monitors aren't supposed to edit songs, just the stage patter between them, Nels said. "It's not our policy" to censor performances, Nels said, "and we regret the error." She added, "There was no profanity. It was a mistake." * * *

Yeah, right.

Look, it would still be wrong, but I could almost understand if AT&T did this, say, when Bush's approval rating was soaring into the low-to-mid forty percentile. But Bush's presidency is a complete failure. I thought that everybody knew this.

Bike Fishing

Phil and I hit the lower Deschutes last Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning for some steelhead fishing. Although it is still a bit early in the season, there were fish available and we did tangle with a few of them.

I thought it was only a two-hour drive from Bend to the mouth of the Deschutes, but thanks to some road construction it was closer to three hours. When I arrived at about 5 pm on Tuesday, Phil had already scored one of the last campsites available at Heritage Landing Campground, so we immediately proceeded up the river on bicycles to see if we could catch a steelhead or two before it got dark. Unfortunately, I had just gotten rid of my mountain bike a couple months earlier, so I had to borrow one of Phil's.

Anyway, we rode up an old railroad grade for a few miles -- there is no motor vehicle access on this part of the river -- then cut down to some nice holding water below a set of rapids. Phil caught a steelhead the week before at this particular spot, and he graciously gave me first shot at it and then walked to a hole about a quarter mile down river.

I brought along both a fly rod and a spinning rod, but it was way too windy to fly cast, so I broke out the spinning rod and tied on a silver-bladed spinner with a green body. I proceeded to wade out into the river so I could get into position to fish a deep slot just in front of a small set of rapids. I then casted my spinner into the aforementioned rapids and let it drift into the deeper water just downstream. The spinner was only in the water for five seconds or so before a steelhead pounded it.

The fish immediately took to the air for a couple jumps and headed upstream for a little ways. I was in shock for the opening moments of the battle, given that I had never hooked a salmon or a steelhead on the very first cast of a trip before. But I eventually grabbed hold a bit and got the fish closer to shore and into shallower water, which caused it to make a long run back toward the middle of the river.

After about a five-minute fight, I brought the fish close enough in to see that it was a hatchery steelhead -- and therefore a keeper -- so I got the fish as close to shore as I could then tossed it up onto the bank. A few minutes later, Phil walked back from downstream and snapped the photo on the left.

We rode back down to camp just before dark, then got up at about 4:30 the next morning and began biking back up the river while it was still dark out. We stopped at the same area we fished the previous evening; and in no time at all, Phil hooked a steelhead on a spinner. It was another hatchery fish that was about the same size as the one I caught the day before.

A few minutes after landing that fish, Phil hooked a much larger steelhead -- probably in the 14-pound class -- which immediately took him quite a ways downriver before breaking off. The fish was probably one of those Idaho-bound steelhead that stopped off in the Deschutes for a bit to enjoy the cooler water and to steal Phil's spinner. We fished for a few more hours before heading home.

Anyway, it was a great trip and I look forward to the next one.

Deja Vu: The Vast Right Wing "After-Echo"

As I was trying to wake up this morning, Central Oregon's local radio station was broadcasting right-wing extremist Paul Harvey's latest "news segment." Harvey had this to say:

Some of the president's critics are conceding that the [Iraq] War is going better, reflecting changes in attitude on the ground. * * * An opinion piece in the New York Times today says: "We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms," and it was written by two Bush critics from the Brookings Institute -- Michael O'Hanlon and Kevin Pollack.

Now, I knew that O'Hanlon and Pollack had an op/ed piece published a week and a half ago in the New York Times about how great things were in Iraq, but according to Paul Harvey, there was one in this morning's Times as well.

Harvey was wrong, of course -- there is no new piece in the New York Times by these so-called "Bush critics." This is just recycled news that the Extreme Right is re-hashing in order to make it look like there continues to be changes of heart with some war critics.

And by the way, calling O'Hanlon and Pollack "war critics" would be akin to calling John McCain a "war critic." Sure, these guys have been critical of how BushCo has handled the Iraq War, but even staunch war enthusiasts like John McCain and Joe Lieberman have done that.

The truth is that O'Hanlon and Pollack have long been war cheerleaders, both with regard to the invasion itself and The Surge. In fact, the Internets have been buzzing for the last week-and-a-half about how these characters really are not war critics; but in case you missed all that, you can read about it here and here. Glenn Greenwald's excellent expose of these faux war critics can be found here.

But the Corporate Media have done little if anything to get out the truth on O'Hanlon and Pollack's actual status as war supporters, and that means that Bush apologists like Paul Harvey can keep recycling O'Hanlon and Pollack's bullshit and make it sound like something brand new and completely legit.

Is this a great country or what?

The Best-Armed Insurgency . . . Ever

Put this one in the "just when you think it can't get any worse" category:

The US government cannot account for 190,000 weapons issued to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to an investigation carried out by the Government Accountability Office.

According to the July 31 report, the military "cannot fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armour and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi forces."

The weapons disappeared from records between June 2004 and September 2005, as the military struggled to rebuild the disbanded Iraqi forces from scratch amid mounting attacks from Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias. * * *

Instead of spending all that money arming "the enemy," we could have spent it on improving America's infrastructure.

Oh well. But it does once again bring up the question of whether it is possible to commit treason through gross negligence.

When Flip-Floppers Attack

I loved this line from Mitt Romney -- he said it during yesterday's GOP debate after Sam Brownback brought up the fact that Romney was once pro-choice but is now anti-abortion:

"I get tired of people that are holier than thou because they've been pro-life longer than I have."

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way, Mitt, because I'm pretty sure your flip-flopping on abortion will come up again and again during this campaign.

I Love This

God help me I do love it so:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) raided the home of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) on Monday, advancing the corruption probe that has ensnared the once-untouchable GOP dean.

The Anchorage Daily News first reported the search of Stevens’s Girdwood, Alaska, residence on Monday afternoon, citing the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s local office.

That home has fueled the investigation into Stevens’ ties to oil-field services company Veco, whose two top executives recently resigned after pleading guilty to bribery and fraud. * * *

More on this here.

Bush Fatigue (with updates)

Here is a great post from Atrios:

Number of times the term "Clinton fatigue" appeared, according to a Nexis search, in major papers during July of 1999: 27.

Clinton Gallup poll approval rating in July of 1999: 64

Number of times the term "Bush fatigue" has appeared, so far, in July of 2007: 1, courtesy of Byron York's hair.

Bush Gallup poll approval rating in July of 2007: 31.

I've complained about this stuff for a long time (here is an example), but one would think that Bush's very low approval ratings would result in a lot more than a single reference to "Bush fatigue" in July 2007.

I know that I am pretty tired of all the bullshit. I used to enjoy attacking Bush, but every time I see him on TV these days, I wish that he and the rest of his incompetent administration would just go away. And although I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling this way, the Corporate Media is basically giving Bush a free pass when compared to what they did to Clinton during the PenisGate Scandal.

Jamison Foser has more on this:

[W]e have long noted that leading news outlets like The Washington Post and The New York Times have, by all available evidence, devoted significantly fewer resources to covering scandalous Bush administration actions than they devoted to covering President Clinton's relationship with a staffer.

When the Monica Lewinsky story broke, the Times and the Post -- like nearly every other news outlet in the country -- dedicated extraordinary resources to covering it. The day after the story broke, the Times and the Post ran a combined total of 19 articles about it, five of them on the front page. Twenty-eight reporters combined to write more than 20,000 words about a "scandal" that boiled down to whether the president told the truth about a consensual relationship that was ruled immaterial to a civil lawsuit that was thrown out of court for being entirely without merit. That's 28 reporters and 20,000 words -- at just two newspapers in just one day.

That relentless wall-to-wall coverage continued unabated for more than a year.

Fast-forward a few years. We have a president who has lied to the country in order to take it to war against a nation that didn't attack us, created a network of secret prisons, embraced torture, held people without trial or access to lawyers or even being charged with anything, used the government to spy on its own citizens, used "signing statements" to declare that he will not follow the very laws he is signing, and presided over an administration that is routinely described as "lawless" and that generally behaves as though the United States Congress has no more authority than the Ridgemont High School student council. Among other transgressions against the truth, the law, the Constitution, and human dignity.

And, it is important to note, those are not my conclusions. Those are conclusions that have each been reached by countless legal experts, scholars, and editorial boards, based on facts reported by countless journalists and placed in countless news reports by countless editors.

So, given what the occupants of the nation's most influential newsrooms clearly know -- what they have said and written before -- shouldn't the media be devoting greater coverage to the basic matter of whether or not we still live in a nation of laws?

Foser goes on to note that, on Thursday evening, CBS News devoted a mere 109 words to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller's testimony contradicting the sworn testimony of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, then spent 490 words on Oscar, the cat who knows when people are going to die.

OK, so the Oscar the Cat story is pretty cool, but come on.

UPDATE: What Digby says:

On the Stephanopoulos bobble head roundtable this morning, Cokie Roberts raised the baton and started the drumbeat: the Democrats risk moving waaaaay too far to the left and that is going to be a biiiiig problem for them "just like it was in Vietnam." Yes, she said it out loud. And David Gergen agreed whole heartedly.

Does anyone recall these gasbags saying that Bush was moving so far to the right with his monarchic, fundamentalist, shock and awe presidency that it was going to be a biiiig problem for them? I must have missed all those warnings. Now that he's at 28% and the conservatives are on the run after having proven that there really is a limit to how far the crazed radical wingnuts can go, they are still warning about the Democrats moving too far to the left. These people have not had an original thought in 40 years.

Amen. Who the hell is this so-called "left" anyway? Something like 55% of the country support legislation to withdraw from Iraq by next spring. Are all these people left-wingers?

The Democrats' big problem right now isn't that they might move too far to the left -- they should instead be worrying about what could happen to them in 2008 if they ignore the wishes of the American people with regard to Iraq.

UPDATE II: Here is a great cartoon connecting Oscar the Cat with the Bush Regime.

Photos From Last June's Crane Prairie Trip

Roxy took these:

The Bush Regime Subpoenas Michael Moore

On the stupidity meter, this is right up there with FauxNews/Bill O'Lielly's lawsuit against Al Franken:

Filmmaker Michael Moore revealed on Thursday's "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno that the Bush Administration had served him with a subpoena regarding his recent trip to Cuba made as part of his new film, Sicko.

Moore told the audience that he was notified of the subpoena backstage.

"I haven't even told my own family yet," Moore remarked. "I was just informed when I was back there with Jay that the Bush administration has now issued a subpoena for me."

Moore declared that the subpoena was unwarranted, saying, "this was a work of journalism."

"I was there to help them and now I’m going to face this further harassment from the Bush people," Moore said, according to a transcript. “Aren’t they busy with something else?"

Moore is going to get a ton of publicity out of this. The idiocy of the Bush Administration never ceases to amaze me.

GonzoGate Update

Olbermann did a great summary last night of Alberto Gonzales' testimony yesterday in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Olbermann's report can be found here. TIME has more on Gonzo's testimony here.

It is pretty clear to me that Bush and Gonzales are in some kind of competition to see which one of them can tell the biggest lie. Gonzo, however, is doing his lying under oath, which tells me that he isn't all that worried about being charged with perjury.

Every Democrat Should Memorize These Numbers

You see it all the time -- some neofascist will be on television "debating" someone who opposes the Iraq War, and this neofascist will inevitably say that any American who wants the US to get out of Iraq is an idiot and should not be listened to. How should the war opponent respond? But running off these numbers from the latest Washington Post poll (summarized by Kevin Drum):

78% think George Bush is too unwilling to change policies in Iraq.

55% support legislation to withdraw from Iraq by next spring.

55% trust congressional Democrats on the war (only 32% trust Bush).

62% think Congress should have the final say about when to withdraw troops.

49% think Democrats have done too little to get Bush to change his Iraq policy (only 17% think they've done too much).

It's pretty easy -- most Republicans are outside the mainstream when it comes to Iraq, and that point must be driven home at every possible opportunity.

Great Piece On The Fall of Condi Rice

Not too long ago, Condoleezza Rice was being touted a possible GOP candidate for president, which I found to be pretty funny given how consistently shitty her job performance has been over the last six years.

Well, the times have definitely changed (from Joel Brinkley of the San Francisco Chronicle):

A few months ago, [Rice] decided to write an opinion piece about Lebanon. She enlisted John Chambers, chief executive officer of Cisco Systems as a co-author, and they wrote about public/private partnerships and how they might be of use in rebuilding Lebanon after last summer's war. No one would publish it.

Think about that. Every one of the major newspapers approached refused to publish an essay by the secretary of state. Price Floyd, who was the State Department's director of media affairs until recently, recalls that it was sent to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and perhaps other papers before the department finally tried a foreign publication, the Financial Times of London, which also turned it down.

As a last-ditch strategy, the State Department briefly considered translating the article into Arabic and trying a Lebanese paper. But finally they just gave up. "I kept hearing the same thing: 'There's no news in this.' " Floyd said. The piece, he said, was littered with glowing references to President Bush's wise leadership. "It read like a campaign document." * * *

As George Bush so famously said: "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

Mike Luckovich

By the way, Bush's approval rating is now at 25% in the latest ARG poll.

This Could Get Very Interesting

Larry Flynt was on Larry King last night talking about more possible revelations with regard to the DC prostitution scandal, and he said this:

FLYNT: We've got good leads. We've got over 300 initially. And they're down to about 30 now which is solid.

KING: When are you going to print?

FLYNT: Well, the last thing now is we don't know if we want to let it to drip, drip, drip or we want to go with everything at once.

KING: You mean you might release 30 names at once?

FLYNT: A good possibility.

KING: Will we be -- I don't want to get into names yet. Will we be shocked?

FLYNT: Yes.

KING: Were you shocked?

FLYNT: I was shocked, especially at one senator but...

KING: One senator especially?

FLYNT: Yes.

Of course, I have a feeling that a lot of Democrats will be implicated here -- after all, the GOP, despite its best efforts, hasn't yet cornered the market on this type of scandal -- but I can't wait to see how many more "family values" Republicans get pulled into this.

And speaking of GOP hypocrites, this Colbert segment is hysterical.

More Photos From Coast Trip

Here are four more photos taken from the beach house we stayed in last week on the Southern Oregon Coast (the last two photos feature the formation of rocks known as The Cat and Kittens):

There They Go Again

BBC correspondent Katty Kay said this on the Chris Matthews Show yesterday (via Think Progress):

Hawks have been calling the White House all week saying: “We hope you’re not going to wobble on Iraq.” And I understand they’ve been getting reassurance from the White House: “No, the policy is not changing.” Bill Kristol wrote a very condemning article saying that the White House must not change policy, must stick with the surge. The White House called back, said: “Why are you giving us such a hit; we’re staying with the surge.”

Good stuff. And if that isn't enough for you, here is what the Idiot Kristol wrote yesterday in the Washington Post: "I suppose I'll merely expose myself to harmless ridicule if I make the following assertion: George W. Bush's presidency will probably be a successful one."

The problem is that Kristol will not be exposed even to mere "harmless ridicule" for his idiocy, at least not by anyone in the mainstream media. This guy has long been one of the Iraq Debacle's loudest cheerleaders, so you'd think someone in the mainstream would at least call him on all his bullshit.

And by the way, I completely agree with Bob Schieffer. He said this yesterday on Face The Nation:

I am still not sure that I believe it: The Iraqi parliament is going on vacation during the month of August.

The White House offers the lame excuse that, after all, Baghdad is hot in August – sometimes 130 degrees.

May I ask a follow-up?

How much hotter do you suppose it is if you are a wearing a helmet, full body armor, carrying ammunition and walking foot patrols through Baghdad?

The last I heard, that is how American troops are spending their August in Iraq.

For me, this does it.

God help the Iraqi people because there is not much America can do to help a government that leaves Americans dying in the streets while the parliament escapes to cooler climes. * * *

Amen.

Photos From Latest Beach Trip

Photos From Recent Fishing Trips

I've gone fishing quite a few times during the last five weeks. The first couple of trips were fun, but pretty much fishless. The last three trips, however, were great. Over Father's Day weekend, Carl, Steve, Steve's extended family, and I hiked in to Marion Lake in the Jefferson Wilderness and probably caught 90 trout total in our group, releasing most of them (of course).

Last Saturday, Danimal, Larry (Danimal's dad), Mark, and I hiked in to some lakes located in the Three Sisters Wilderness (that's a picture of one of them at top). The first lake we tried had no fish in it -- at least none that were interested in biting -- so we decided to hike over to another lake. The other lake wasn't easy to find -- it is not on a trail so we had to do a bit of cross country -- but we finally did locate it and the fishing was good. We caught two brook trout and 13 cutthroat, and kept nine fish (pictured above) for the smoker. The fish were 11 to 14 inches in length, and were actually hitting spinners casted from the shore, which was great fun. The mosquitoes were pretty bad, though -- I wouldn't recommend going into the Oregon wilderness this time of year without lots of bug repellent.

And on Monday, my fishing guide buddy Phil took me, Steve, and Tom sturgeon fishing on the lower Columbia and we had a big day. We had six anglers on the boat, and each fisherman is allowed to keep one sturgeon per day between 45 inches and 60 inches in length. Well, the boat limited out by 9:20 -- the bigger fish pictured above was 57 inches in length -- but we continued fishing until about 12:20 pm doing catch and release, and ended up getting over thirty fish total.

The cool part was that about 24 of the fish we caught were between 45 and 60 inches long, meaning that we ended up bringing an additional three limits to the boat after we limited out. Usually it is the other way around -- you catch a few keeper-sized fish and the rest are sub-legals -- but not that day. That's me on the right holding my keeper sturgeon.

Thanks for a great trip, Phil.

Harold Is $5 Richer Thanks To George W. Bush

Here is an exchange which took place in the comments section of this blog about one month ago with regard to Scooter Libby:

I guess there's a filing to let him stay out during his appeal. If that fails, I will bet Harold $5 that Libby sees the inside of a cell.
Fredrick 06.05.07
-------------------------------------------

I hope you are right, Man, but I'll take that bet, and I'll gladly pay you the money if I lose. Scooter must see the inside of a jail cell -- on this particular case -- for you to win (if he gets picked up for drunk driving in the interim, that doesn't count).

But it is the easiest $5 I've ever made. Remember, this is the president (1) who launched an illegal war resulting in the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, (2) who illegally eavesdropped on everybody, (3) who committed treason by outing a covert CIA operative, etc. etc. etc. If BushCo is willing to do all that, what's to stop it from pardoning Scooter before he see the inside of a jail cell?

Hell, a presidential pardon is a legal act! Sure, it might be politcally perilous for Bush, but his approval rating is already in the low 30s, and I don't think he can go much lower than that -- my guess is that 30% or so of the country would support Bush even if he was filmed sodomizing sheep on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial -- so what political risk would Bush really be taking if he pardoned Scooter?
Harold 06.06.07

Slic[k] suggested today that although Bush's approval rating probably won't drop much as a result of this de facto pardon, this is the kind of thing that will (1) energize the Democratic base and (2) hurt the GOP in the long run.

I think that is probably a fair assessment. Bush's presidency is such a disaster that he doesn't really care about how much damage he is causing the Republican Party, and I think he's probably accepted the fact that his presidency will be considered one of the worst in history. His goal now is simply to avoid being considered the worst.

You Know Republicans Are In Trouble . . .

. . . when they lose to the Democrats on this question (which, of course, was part of a FoxNews poll):

If there is an all-out war between the United States and various radical Muslim groups worldwide, who would you rather have in charge — Democrats or Republicans?

Democrats 41%
Republicans 38%
Both the same
(not listed) 9%
Don't know
(not listed) 12%

Oh, and by the way, Bush got his lowest approval rating ever in a FoxNews poll -- 31%.

Understatement Of The Century

Outgoing Bush Aide Dan Bartlett said this in a recent interview:

There was never a more benign incident that turned into a bigger messaging problem than "Mission Accomplished." It set the wrong tone for what became a protracted, difficult mission. If there was ever a do-over, that would be it.

The rest of the interview is pretty funny as well. Bartlett basically tries to claim that the "Mission Accomplished" banner was placed behind Bush accidently. I love it.

Gore Leads In New Hampshire

From TPM Cafe:

[A] new Suffolk University poll find[s] that a whopping 32% of the state's Democrats would back Al Gore, making him the leader in the Democratic primary there. Hillary Clinton would be particularly damaged by his hypothetical entry, losing a quarter of her support. Without Gore, Clinton leads with 37% of likely Democratic voters, leading Barack Obama at 19%, and John Edwards and Bill Richardson, both at 9%.

And, on a totally unrelated subject, Olbermann's show was pretty interesting last night:

Keith Olbermann announced on Wednesday's Countdown that the White House is refusing on grounds of executive privilege to honor Senate subpoenas and release documents relating to its warrantless wiretapping. In addition, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington, has sent a letter to Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) saying Cheney's office will not comply with oversight by the National Archives because it is not "an agency."

Olbermann then turned to law professor Jonathan Turley, who agreed tentatively that the administration might move slowly enough to "run out the clock" on its time in office. "But there is one thing that might concern them about the court," Turley said, "and that is, you know, for many years, since we first found out about this program, some of us have said that this was a clearly criminal act that the president called for. ... If we're right, not only did he order that crime, but it would be, in fact, an impeachable offense."

"Both sides, both Democrats and Republicans, have avoided this sort of pig in the parlor," Turley continued. "They don't want to recognize that this president may have ordered criminal offenses. But they may now be on the road to do that, because the way Congress can get around the executive privilege in court is to say, we're investigating a potential crime."

I also liked Turley's comment with regard to Addington's position: "In past administrations, if someone like Mr. Addington made such a moronic argument as this one, they would be out of a job the next week. ... I think that what it really shows is the lack of sort of adult supervision within the administration." More coverage on this can be found here.

Turley's "lack of adult supervision" comment was right on target. We've often heard comments that the current administration is the worst in American history, but I've long been of the opinion that the Bush Regime is also the most childish administration in history. I hope Turley's statement -- or something like it -- becomes a Democrat talking point.

Toles

The Washington Post's "Hacktacular" Defense Of Scooter Libby

There they go again.

The Washington Post is once again defending convicted felon Scooter Libby. This time its WaPo columnist (and former Iraq War cheerleader) Richard Cohen who has come to Libby's aid. Here is what Cohen has to say about the Plame Investigation which led to the conviction of his good friend Scooter:

It would not have been conducted if, say, the Iraq war had ended with 300 deaths and the mission had really been accomplished. An unpopular war produced the popular cry for scalps and, in Libby's case, the additional demand that he express contrition -- a vestigial Stalinist-era yearning for abasement. No one has yet explained, though, how Libby can express contrition and still appeal his conviction. No matter. Antiwar sanctimony excuses the inexplicable.

Accountability is one thing. By all means, let Congress investigate and conduct oversight hearings with relish and abandon. But a prosecution is a different matter. It entails the government at its most coercive -- a power so immense and sometimes so secretive that it poses much more of a threat to civil liberties, including freedom of the press, than anything in the interstices of the scary Patriot Act. The mere arrival of a form letter from the IRS will give any sane person a touch of angina.

I don't expect George Bush to appreciate this. He is the privileged son of a privileged son, and he fears nothing except, probably, doubt. But the rest of us ought to consider what Fitzgerald has wrought and whether we are better off for his efforts. I have come to hate the war and I cannot approve of lying under oath -- not by Scooter, not by Bill Clinton, not by anybody. But the underlying crime is absent, the sentence is excessive and the investigation should not have been conducted in the first place. This is a mess. Should Libby be pardoned? Maybe. Should his sentence be commuted? Definitely.

Let me see if I got this right. A Republican-appointed prosecutor gets perjury and obstruction convictions in a jury trial presided over by a Republican-appointed judge in a case where the evidence clearly supported the verdict, and the Washington Post is acting as if history's greatest miscarriage of justice just took place.

Give me a fucking break.

I could go on and on about this and the rest of the Washington Post's bullshit on this topic, but Eric Boehlert has done a much better job than I could ever do. His analysis can be found here.

By the way, TPMMuckraker is reporting that Steven Griles, the former No. 2 guy at the Interior Department, got a 10-month prison sentence for lying to congressional investigators about his ties to Jack Abramoff. The prosecutor on that case was only asking for a prison term of five months. I'm certain the Washington Post is going to have a problem with the sentence as well.

This Is Weak

From The Huffington Post:

The Supreme Court tightened limits on student speech Monday, ruling against a high school student and his 14-foot-long "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner.

Schools may prohibit student expression that can be interpreted as advocating drug use, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court in a 5-4 ruling.

Joseph Frederick unfurled his homemade sign on a winter morning in 2002, as the Olympic torch made its way through Juneau, Alaska, en route to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Frederick said the banner was a nonsensical message that he first saw on a snowboard. He intended the banner to proclaim his right to say anything at all.

His principal, Deborah Morse, said the phrase was a pro-drug message that had no place at a school-sanctioned event. Frederick denied that he was advocating for drug use.

"The message on Frederick's banner is cryptic," Roberts said. "But Principal Morse thought the banner would be interpreted by those viewing it as promoting illegal drug use, and that interpretation is plainly a reasonable one."

Morse suspended the student, prompting a federal civil rights lawsuit.* * *

This Is Hilarious

From The Swamp via Firedoglake:

When the MoveOn.org Political Action Project found out that Lieberman was one of the hosts of a $3,000-a-person Washington fundraiser tonight for Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the grass-roots, anti-war group pounced.

MoveOn has long been at odds with Lieberman, a strong backer of the war who won re-election last year as an independent. He has worked together with Collins for years as leaders of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
The word went out from MoveOn Tuesday: Donate money to defeat Collins, who could face a tough re-election battle next year, it told members in an e-mail.

Within 24 hours, more than 5,600 members donated an average of $63 each, for a total of $355,000.

MoveOn, knowing a good thing, decided to keep it going, and Wednesday sent out another e-mail.

“Wow,” the organization said. “In less than 24 hours, thousands of us around the country chipped in more than $280,000 to help anti-war candidates beat Joe Lieberman’s pro-war fundraiser. It’s amazing.

Keep up the good work, Joe.

Exactly

What Atrios says:

[T]orture is wrong. We shouldn't torture. There should be no procedures in place for torture. Everyone should understand this. But if the Joker does in fact have a nuclear bomb ready to go off underneath Gotham, and vigilante crime fighter Batman needs to employ a little force to learn the magic code needed to stop it before the timer counts down to zero, then I imagine that if Batman does in fact manage to stop the destruction of the city that no jury would convict or that a presidential pardon would likely take care of things if they did.

Bush Is Now The Most Unpopular President Since Nixon

Wow:

In 19 months, George W. Bush will leave the White House for the last time. The latest NEWSWEEK Poll suggests that he faces a steep climb if he hopes to coax the country back to his side before he goes. In the new poll, conducted Monday and Tuesday nights, President Bush’s approval rating has reached a record low. Only 26 percent of Americans, just over one in four, approve of the job the 43rd president is doing; while, a record 65 percent disapprove, including nearly a third of Republicans.

The new numbers—a 2 point drop from the last NEWSWEEK Poll at the beginning of May—are statistically unchanged, given the poll’s 4 point margin of error. But the 26 percent rating puts Bush lower than Jimmy Carter, who sunk to his nadir of 28 percent in a Gallup poll in June 1979. In fact, the only president in the last 35 years to score lower than Bush is Richard Nixon. Nixon’s approval rating tumbled to 23 percent in January 1974, seven months before his resignation over the botched Watergate break-in. * * *

Given these numbers, I think Bush will have no choice but to pardon Scooter. I'd be willing to bet that nearly every person in this country who still supports Bush also wants to see him pardon Libby. If Bush fails to do so and Libby ends up going to prison, expect to see Bush's approval number drop into the upper teens.

Carl Levin -- Political Coward

This Washington Post piece by Democratic Senator Carl Levin made me ill:

I voted against going to war in Iraq; I have consistently challenged the administration's conduct of the war; and I have long fought to change our policy there. But I cannot vote to stop funding the troops while they are in harm's way, conducting dangerous missions such as those recently begun north of Baghdad. I agree with Lincoln, who decided "that the Administration had done wrong in getting us into the war, but that the Officers and soldiers who went to the field must be supplied and sustained at all events." As long as our nation's policies put them there, our troops should hear an unequivocal message from Congress that we support them.

And the Democrats in Congress wonder why their numbers are tanking so badly? It's crap like this that makes me proud I left the Democrat Party last year.

Oh, and by the way, 14 more of our troops have died in Iraq. But let's look on the bright side -- that's 14 less troops that Senator Levin has to "support."

UPDATE: Here is Senator Russ Feingold's response to Levin:

I’m disappointed that Senator Levin chose to announce his shift by disingenuously suggesting that the Feingold-Reid plan would somehow cut funding for troops in harm’s way. Senator Levin knows full well that the plan I introduced with Majority Leader Harry Reid, and which was supported by a majority of Senate Democrats, would end funding for the war in Iraq only after our brave troops have been safely redeployed out of Iraq. It is time for Senator Levin and Senator Jack Reed to drop their opposition to the Feingold-Reid plan to safely redeploy our troops by March 31, 2008, and then end funding for the mistake in Iraq.

BushCo's Pakistan Policy Has Failed Miserably

My thinking in the months following the 9-11 attacks was that we needed to send at least 100,000 of our troops into Afghanistan and use it as a jump-off point from which to invade Pakistan. After all, the Taliban originated in Pakistan, and it was clear that there were elements within the Pakistani government that still supported the Taliban. If they're not with us, then they're against us, right?

Pakistan has nukes, you say? So what. We have more. Plus, we probably could have gotten our allies to help us in such an endeavor, given (1) all the goodwill we had around the world in the months following the 9-11 attacks, and (2) Pakistan was actually linked to the 9-11 attacks through its association with the Taliban (i.e., no need to manipulate the intelligence like BushCo had to do with regard to Iraq). I have no doubt the American people would have supported such an invasion. Americans, after all, supported the invasion of Iraq, at least initially.

But instead, we made a deal with Musharraf and then decided to invade a country that was no threat to us or anyone and that had no ties with the 9-11 attacks. And we know how that all turned out.

The U.S. debacle in Iraq has been expensive for us not only in lives, treasure, and loss of goodwill, but also because Afghanistan is currently going to hell in a hand basket. And now, it's starting to look like our deal with Pakistan is going to come back and bite us in the ass:

Pakistan is on the brink of disaster, and the Bush administration is continuing to back the man who dragged it there. As President Pervez Musharraf fights off the most serious challenge to his eight-year dictatorship, the United States is supporting him to the hilt. The message to the Pakistani public is clear: To the Bush White House, the war on terrorism tops everything, and that includes democracy. * * *

The roots of the crisis go back to the blind bargain Washington made after 9/11 with the regime that had heretofore been the Taliban's main patron: ignoring Musharraf's despotism in return for his promises to crack down on al-Qaeda and cut the Taliban loose. Today, despite $10 billion in U.S. aid to Pakistan since 2001, that bargain is in tatters; the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan, and al-Qaeda's senior leadership has set up another haven inside Pakistan's chaotic border regions.

The problem is exacerbated by a dramatic drop-off in U.S. expertise on Pakistan. Retired American officials say that, for the first time in U.S. history, nobody with serious Pakistan experience is working in the South Asia bureau of the State Department, on State's policy planning staff, on the National Security Council staff or even in Vice President Cheney's office. Anne W. Patterson, the new U.S. ambassador to Islamabad, is an expert on Latin American "drugs and thugs"; Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, is a former department spokesman who served three tours in Hong Kong and China but never was posted in South Asia. "They know nothing of Pakistan," a former senior U.S. diplomat said.

The level of incompetence within the Bush Administration never ceases to amaze me.

Only In [Bush's] America

From the AP:

The cash-strapped city of New Orleans is turning to foreign countries for help to rebuild as federal hurricane-recovery dollars remain slow to flow.
Kenya Smith, director of intergovernmental relations for Mayor Ray Nagin, said city leaders are talking with more than five countries. He wouldn't identify the countries, saying discussions were in the early stages. But he said the city is "very serious" about pursuing foreign help.

"Of course, we would love to have all the resources we need from federal and state partners, but we're comfortable now in having to be creative," Smith said. He did not know if the city would have to overcome any obstacles if it got firm pledges for aid, but "we want to make sure we're leaving no options unexplored."

For months Nagin has complained bureaucracy is choking the flow of much-needed federal aid dollars to New Orleans - slowing the city's recovery. As of June 8, the city said it had received just over half of the $320 million FEMA has obligated for rebuilding city infrastructure and emergency response-related costs. The city has estimated its damage at far more than that - at least $1 billion. And that doesn't include other improvements - such as raised neighborhoods - meant to help build the stronger city promoted by Nagin and his recovery director.

Discussions with foreign representatives have been occurring off and on since the storm, but Smith said the city became re-engaged after a news report in April that millions of dollars in aid offered by foreign countries after Hurricane Katrina went unaccepted. * * *

Deep Vote

Wow:

Iran's parliament on Wednesday voted in favor of a bill that could lead to the death penalty for persons convicted of working in the production of pornographic movies.

With a 148-5 vote in favor and four abstentions, lawmakers present at the Wednesday session of the 290-seat parliament approved that "producers of pornographic works and main elements in their production are considered corrupter of the world and could be sentenced to punishment as corrupter of the world."

The term, "corrupter of the world" is taken from the Quran, the Muslims' holy book, and ranks among the highest on the scale of an individual's criminal offenses. Under Iran's Islamic Penal Code, it carries a death penalty.

The "main elements" referred to in the draft include producers, directors, cameramen and actors involved in making a pornographic video.

The bill is so harsh, in fact, that even "Key Grips" and "Best Boys" aren't excluded from the death penalty.

Iran's parliament also voted to execute the five people who voted "no" on the bill, as well as the four who abstained.

Hellmuth Wins 11th Bracelet

From Fox Sports:

Phil Hellmuth now holds the record he's coveted for years.

The "Poker Brat" won his 11th career bracelet at the World Series of Poker Monday night, taking down event No. 15, a $1,500 no-limit hold 'em event.
He outlasted a field of 2,628 to take down the $637,254 first place prize.

He now leads poker legends Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson by one, and needs just one more final table appearance to tie T.J. Cloutier's record of 39.

Doyle Brunson reportedly bet $300,000 on Hellmuth to win a bracelet this year, then bet another $100,000 at the end of Day 1 when Hellmuth was one of the chipleaders.

This Is What Happens To Democrats Who Wimp Out On Iraq

From TPM Cafe:

A key number in the new Los Angeles Times poll: It finds that approval of Congress has sank to 27%, the lowest in a decade -- and even more tellingly, that less than one-third of liberals approve of the job Congress is doing.

The numbers would seem to suggest the possibility that the Dem leadership's decision to send President Bush a no-withdrawal-timelines Iraq funding bill may be further eroding public support for the new Dem Congress. * * *

I heard on the radio this morning that Harry Reid's approval rating has now fallen below Dick Cheney's approval rating. Maybe these poll results will convince the Democrats to go after Bush aggressively with regard to the Iraq Debacle, but something tells me they won't.

How Do You Spell Hypocrite?

B-O-R-K:

Judge Robert Bork, one of the fathers of the modern judicial conservative movement whose nomination to the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senate, is seeking $1,000,000 in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages, after he slipped and fell at the Yale Club of New York City. Judge Bork was scheduled to give a speech at the club, but he fell when mounting the dais, and injured his head and left leg. He alleges that the Yale Club is liable for the $1m plus punitive damages because they "wantonly, willfully, and recklessly" failed to provide staging which he could climb safely.

Judge Bork has been a leading advocate of restricting plaintiffs' ability to recover through tort law. In a 2002 article published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy--the official journal of the Federalist Society--Bork argued that frivolous claims and excessive punitive damage awards have caused the Constitution to evolve into a document which would allow Congress to enact tort reforms that would have been unconstitutional at the framing. . . .

Here We Go

Turkey invades Iraq (maybe):

Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq early Wednesday to chase Kurdish guerrillas who attack Turkey from bases there, three Turkish security officials said. Turkey's foreign minister denied its troops had entered Iraq.

The senior security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, characterized the raid as a "hot pursuit" raid that was limited in scope. They told The Associated Press it did not constitute the kind of large incursion that Turkish leaders have been discussing in recent weeks.

One official said several thousand troops went less than two miles inside Iraq and were still there in late afternoon. "It is a hot pursuit, not an incursion," one official said.

Another official said by telephone it was "not a major offensive and the number of troops is not in the tens of thousands." He also said the Turkish troops went into a remote, mountainous area.

A third official, based in the border region, said 600 commandos entered Iraq, and were backed up by several thousand troops along the border. He said the commandos raided Iraqi territory across from the Turkish border town of Cukurca before dawn after rebels opened fire from Iraqi soil on Turkish patrols.

The official said the commandos returned to their bases in Turkey later in the day. There was no immediate explanation for the conflicting accounts of the officials.

Next Up -- TreasonGate 2: The Pardon

Via Yahoo News:

Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison Tuesday for lying and obstructing the CIA leak investigation.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, stood calmly before a packed courtroom as a federal judge said the evidence overwhelmingly proved his guilt.

"People who occupy these types of positions, where they have the welfare and security of nation in their hands, have a special obligation to not do anything that might create a problem," U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said.

Walton did not set a date for Libby to report to prison. Though he saw no reason to let Libby remain free pending appeal, Walton said he would accept written arguments on the issue and rule later.

The best thing that can happen would be Judge Walton ordering Libby to start serving his prison term as soon as possible. That would mean that Bush would have to pardon him sooner than later, and I think he might pay a political price for that (i.e., his approval rating will drop from 33% to 29%). I don't expect that Scooter will ever see the inside of a prison cell.