Peter Daou: 10 Pro-War Fallacies

The verdict is in on GW's Asia trip: it was a waste of time. Foreign leaders are treating Bush as he's being treated at home, like a lame-duck loser. Get used to it folks, nothing much will get done in terms of foreign policy while he remains in office. And who pays for it? We do.

The 403-3 charade the GOP attempted to pull recently was nothing more than a flat-out, bald-faced politicial stunt in every sense of the word. Believing otherwise simply displays massive ignorance and furthermore endorses the willful partisan wedging that GW and Cheney have been so vociferously arguing against. It's the old say one thing, do another....

Eleanor Clift:

Democrats gave Murtha a standing ovation behind closed doors, but most kept their distance in public. “It’s a trap,” explained a Democratic strategist. “If the party comes out for a unilateral six-month withdrawal, that would become the issue for ’06, and they [Republicans] would kill us again.”

Can someone tell me the last time a so-called Democratic strategist was correct about anything?

Bull Moose: "The President has lost the confidence of the American people and the once well-oiled GOP Congressional machine is becoming unglued. President Bush is approaching the LBJ-range where the American people do not trust his each and every word. It does not matter what he says - they are turning him off. While in purely partisan terms that is good news for the Democrats, it is ominous for the nation."

GW's latest pathetic attempt to save face over the Iraq debacle is to claim he may have screwed up -- but so did the Dems since they saw the same intel.

If this were in fact true (which it's not), shouldn't the president of our country then be doing something(s) about it, as opposed to just pointing out supposed truisms and letting them fade into the air (for political purposes)? Isn't his job to remedy wrongs for the good of the country, or is it just about one-upping the opposition party??

Great post by Max Blumenthal, clearing the air on the guy who called Murtha a coward. Turns out he's "a low-level right-wing operative who has spent more time in the past ten years engaged in symbolic Christian right crusades." Anyone surprised?

On the front page of today's NY Times, this story:

DENVER, Nov. 19 - Private companies and individuals would be able to buy large tracts of federal land, from sagebrush basins to high-peak hiking trails around the West, under the terms of the spending bill passed Friday by a two-vote margin in the House of Representatives.

Looks like another case where energy interests successfully had GOP representatives slip a seemingly mundane provision into a larger spending bill with the hopes of it either going unnoticed or that politicians would simply ignore it to pass the larger bill.

Of course, jurisdiction for this matter falls under the Interior Dept., and who is the head of that important arm of the government but none other than Gail Norton, a former industry lobbyist herself. More so, Norton's name has come up repeatedly during recent Abramoff proceedings. To me it appears as if she was holding out for a higher sum of $$ paid to the right-wing organization she helped found before a face-to-face meeting was granted. Again, in my opinion, she's skating by here with little media attention paid to this aspect of the widespread Abramoff scandal. Bloggers, please help take up the cause of exposing what appears to be highly questionable behavior.

It's a problem. With all of the current on-going scandals, it's easy to lose track of the many names of those who could be implicated and yet are hovering quietly under the radar, with us instead focusing on just the bigger names hurled into the limelight by the MSM. There's a ton of bat-sh*t stink to go around and the noxious fumes are enough to make anyone turn and flee. However, we must don the gas masks and get to the bottom of every last scandal, for the good of the country.

I'm willing to wager that our soldiers in Iraq will be back on U.S. soil before the last GW administration scandal has been put to rest. Way back in 2000, GW once uttered on the campaign trail, "ask not only what is legal but what is right, not what the lawyers allow but what the public deserves." What a joke. If that were the case, Rove would've been fired by now.

GW has managed to lower the ethical state of affairs in Washington to a point that barely flutters above the Watergate era. When you throw in the lies, distortions, and manipulations concerning everything from Iraq, to the passage of bills, to defending their own incompetence, it's much worse than Nixon's lowest point (as John Dean has already stated in book-length).

Like with anything else he's touched in his life, GW has managed to f*ck this up big-time. He's the quintessential anti-Midas of our time.

Yesterday that infamous right-wing rag, NY Post, criticized Bill Clinton in an editorial for speaking out against the Iraq debacle. The Post stated that "it has long been accepted that former presidents do not publicly criticize their successors."

Boy, the right-wingers spend most of their time running around condemning the MANY folks of all stripes and colors who are increasingly voicing harsh words against the Iraq situation. They simply can't keep up with the slamming of labels like "unpatriotic" and "helping the enemy."

Look, regarding Clinton, I for one say it's the least he can do after prostituting himself for the Bush clan, joining up with Bush Sr. -- allowing Sr. to appear less cold-blooded -- when in fact Bill could've went it alone with the charity work ala Jimmy Carter. That said, yes, normally a code of silence would apply in most situations as the Post infers. HOWEVER, given the magnitude of failure with this debacle and the many signs of manipulation and underhandedness resulting in its successful marketing, no, Iraq is not a normal situation.

The lead-up and the execution of this occupation has been an unprecedented monstrosity that if anything, DEMANDS that prior presidents speak out, strongly pointing out the wrongs that have occurred. It's their patriotic duty at this point.

Is it any wonder that former president Bush Sr. is reportedly not speaking to his son?!

Kevin Drum and I are in agreement on this:

My prediction: we've already started to see this, but I think Republicans are about to crumble. Pressure is going to mount on the White House to use the December elections as an excuse to declare victory and go home, fueled by equal parts disgust over Dick Cheney's lobbying for the right to torture; unease even among Republicans that the president wasn't honest during the marketing of the war; lack of progress on the ground in Iraq; Congress reasserting its independence of the executive; a genuine belief that the American presence has become counterproductive; and raw electoral fear, what with midterm elections looming in less than a year.

I also think the Rove/Cheney/Bush counterattack is going to backfire. Congressional Republicans are looking for cover right now, and I don't think they believe that a ferocious partisan attack from the White House is what they need right now. The public is looking for answers, not administration attack dogs on the evening news every day, but this particular White House doesn't know any other way. It's going to cost them.

Yup, as I've repeatedly written, the GOP is imploding with the rats scrambling for their political lives at this point. With GW's poll numbers in the 30s and Cheney's in the 20s, and last Tuesday's election results speaking volumes, we see the fracturing picking up speed.

Also, as Kevin points out, Rove knows only one mode of operation and that's attack, distort, and polarize. He's once again trying to do that now with GW and Cheney lashing out (with lies and distortions) but it won't work. Times have changed and the public has seemingly smartened up. That slash-and-burn BS is likely to just sink their numbers even lower, and again, you can see that other Republicans are not joining on board with the harsh words (except McCain?!) but rather staying clear, or if anything joining the Dems with harsh words about Iraq.

An active, scheming Rove is now a useful pawn for the Dems. Like a tragic Greek play, the person who delivered GW to the top will have a heavy hand in what ultimately takes him down.

A precinct in Ohio is reportedly very pleased with their new voting machines. The only small problem is an inability to receive a ballot receipt:

Jessie said the only problem she encountered was some people who were confused as to whether or not they received a receipt.

“After you press to cast your vote it will make a loud noise like it’s running paper through to print you a receipt, but all it’s doing is submitting your vote,” Jessie said.

She added that you could see your final selections through a glass screen to the right of the machine, but once you cast your ballot they disappeared.

Cast your vote and it disappears with no receipt delivered, i.e. no paper trail. But other than that, the machines performed wonderfully!

The Republicans in both houses have seen the handwriting on the wall with last Tuesday's election results and GW's ever-plummeting poll numbers. So their apparent gameplan? Appear to give in to and adopt some Dem ideas and initiatives, only first gut any meat in such initiatives. Example:

The GOP-controlled Senate rejected a Democratic call Tuesday for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq but urged President Bush to outline his plan for "the successful completion of the mission" in a bill reflecting a growing bipartisan unease with his Iraq policies.

On the surface, the Republicans will have you believe they voted for some kind of new accountability reform that will force the president to be more forthcoming on progress in Iraq. Hilarious. At least the Dems attempted to call for true accountability in the form of a proposed timetable -- a measure that was stripped by the GOP members.

Frist had the gall to call the Dem action as a "cut-and-run strategy," which of course is a lie. It's been how many years now since we've been in Iraq, how many lives lost, how many billions spent, and yet to simply request a timetable for eventual withdrawal is deemed cut-and-run? The GOP, truly the party for idiots.

Oh, I almost forgot, "The measure faces a veto threat from the administration over a provision that imposes a blanket prohibition on the use of 'cruel, inhuman and degrading' treatment of terrorism suspects in U.S. custody." GW hasn't vetoed a damn thing in his five years in office but he'll threaten to use it for the first time to insure that we can torture people -- just like a compassionate conservative!

"I was against abortion before I was for it...."

And why didn't Condi, among others, have the honor to do this?

In his typical lucid prose and thorough reasoning, Kevin Drum has recently written about the question of whether GW & Co. manipulated intel regarding Iraq or were just sincerely wrong. He makes a very strong case for manipulated. Must read stuff here and here.

David A. Rosenberg, North American Economist at Merrill Lynch, is not someone I would describe as liberal. He recently had the following to say:

"We said two weeks ago that the November 8th gubernatorial elections were going to be a litmus test as to what may possibly happen in Nov/06 - we can no longer take for granted that the GOP will sweep the midterm elections, with grave implications for the longevity of the 2001 and 2002 Bush tax cuts, notably the shelf life of the 15% dividend tax rate, which expires in 2008. First, in New Jersey, the surprise wasn't John Corzine's victory, but the magnitude (53% to 44% for GOP candidate Forrester). And the win by Kaine over Kilgore in Virginia (a state painted in blue) by 52-46 is a real eye-opener. Not to mention the huge defeat of Arnold in the Golden State on all four of his propositions ... widely considered a referendum on his governorship. As we saw in the '94 backlash against the DEMS, the tide may be turning against the GOP. Note that in the 1993 governorships, the Republicans won both NJ and Virginia and that proved to be an early litmus test (Christine Todd Whitman won NJ and George Allen took Virginia). And also take note that, at 40%, President Bush's approval rating is right where Bill Clinton's was at this juncture in 1993 - again, this foreshadowed what was about to unfold in the coming year at the Nov/94 midterm elections as the Democrats got swept out of the House and the Senate."

Yes, let's hope the pattern repeats.

When the topic of Iraq comes up, don't let the wingnuts shift the focus to how well things are going over there (don't look at me! their claim), with their bitching about how the MSM is not reporting the smiley-face news about a new sewer finally being built or a day going by with no civilian deaths. Never forget that the reason we're there in the first place -- resulting in over 2000 U.S. dead soldiers and counting -- is because Iraq was deemed a nuclear WMD threat to the United States (by cherry-picked, fit-to-the-policy intel) AND was linked to 9-11 (via Cheney). Period.

GW/Cheney/Rummy were NOT bloviating back then about how they wanted to reshape Iraq into a beautiful democracy. Of course, they wouldn't have been saying such things because they knew if it just came down to freeing the Iraqi people of Saddam, the American public would not have gone along with the invasion. No, the only way to win over the U.S. public was to play up fear via the yellow cake bullsh*t and to stoke their anger via the 9/11 linkage lie.

The reasons for the invasion have shifted as the "mission" has evolved through one disasterous stage after another. They were stuck with rebuilding Iraq as a democracy for some time, but with the recent explosions in Jordan you can see GW pathetically trying to refocus the aim to "we have to kill them over there" and "war on terror" is everywhere.

Daily Kos had something to say on this subject:

Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus have a pretty thorough critique of the Bu$hCo bullshit offensive we've seen for the past couple of days. How sad is it when a (P)resident is reduced to lying about lying? It's certainly a must read for anyone in the reality based community.
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Sorry, Junior, but that Silberman-Robb dog won't hunt and I'm glad that some in the MSM are starting to point that out. That is a blatant and intentional misrepresentation, a lie, if you will.
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"We all looked at the same intelligence". Once again, this is complete and utter bullshit and it's intentionally misleading. A lie, in other words. In fact, given that lies of omission are still lies and the NIE shared with congress was full of omissions, you could say that this lying about a whole package of lies. It's quite literally bullshit upon bullshit.
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This is the lie that is been most chapping my ass lately. Look, Junior, no one voted to "remove Saddam Hussein from power". You may have thought that they did because that's what you wanted and were planning to do all along. But, they didn't. They (quite stupidly IMHO) voted to give the (P)resident the authority to get tough and to defend "against the continuing threat posed by Iraq." You'll notice there's no mention of removing dictators or bringing democracy to Iraq or freedom marching or any other such nonsense. That's because you sold this war to America based on fear and LIES.

You may have had some grand vision of rebuilding the Middle East, but you didn't tell the American people that. You and and your entire coterie of lying neocon fuckwits told us that we needed to go to war right fucking now because if we didn't, a major American city would disappear beneath an Iraqi mushroom cloud or that Iraqi drones were gonna spray us with god knows what awful stuff.

It was bullshit then and lying about it today, on fucking Veteran's Day no less, isn't making it smell any better, Jackass.

Bill Kristol recently wrote that if the American public came to believe that "Bush lied us into war, his presidency will be over." In large part, the results of last Tuesday's elections confirms that the public has come to believe just that, in four words, "Bush is a liar."

But it goes beyond just Iraq. As with any liar when caught with their pants down, it's then natural to suspect and doubt anything they've said in the past -- much less anything they will say in the future.

GW is toast when it comes to credibility. Once that's lost it's near impossible to recover; the genie has left the bottle.

With all of the flak he's justifiably receiving concerning his $200+ mil. taxpayer-funded "pork" bridge to nowhere, Alaska's GOP Sen. Ted Stevens has attempted to shift the focus by throwing red meat to his base by making noise about regulating cable and satellite radio. Ah yes, if oneself is in trouble, look to bash and censure Howard Stern. Don't you just love the way the righties lambaste the government for overreaching and being too large on some things, and yet when it comes to matters like the airwaves or the Patriot Act or privacy concerning abortion, then they want a government as big and huge as possible.

Pat Robertson, in his usual infinite wisdom, has helped to uncover the big lie within the ID debate. With his harsh scolding of Dover, PA, Robertson made clear that the ID supporters are all about God -- despite many such ID folks proclaiming their side is not God-centric. What they want is to appear as if they're not violating the separation of church and state precedent, yet to do so exactly in a wink-wink fashion. For more, click here to read a piece by the rightwing Ayn Rand Institute.

The following is a day late (Veterans Day) but I wanted to post anyway:

Dems Who Served
Richard Gephart
Tom Daschle
Al Gore
Bob Kerrey- Medal of Honor, Vietnam
Daniel Inouye- Medal of Honor, WWII
John Kerry- Silver Star, Bronze Star, Vietnam
Charles Rangel- Bronze Star, Korea
Max Cleland- Silver Star, Bronze Star
Ted Kennedy- US Army 1951-53 (France)
Tom Harkin
Jack Reed- Army (Ranger) 1971-79
Gray Davis- Bronze Star, Vietnam
Pete Stark
George McGovern- Silver Star, WWII
Jimmy Carter
Walter Mondale
Tom Lantos- Hungarian Underground WWII

GOP POW
John McCain, Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Vietnam

GOP Served
Chuck Hagel, Vietnam
Tom Ridge, Vietnam
Darrel Issa, W. Germany

GOP Did Not Serve
Dick Cheney
Denny Hastert
Tom Delay
Roy Blunt
Bill Frist
Mitch McConnell
Rick Santorum
Trent Lott
Jeb Bush
Karl Rove
Saxby Chambiss
Paul Wolfowitz
Richard Perle
Douglas Feith
Eliot Abrams
John Kyl
Christopher Cox
Dana Rohrbacher
Rudy Giuliani
Don Rumsfeld- Flight Instructor, US Navy

DID NOT SERVE- Wingnuts
Sean Hannity
Rush Limbaugh
Bill O’Reilly
Michael Savage
George Will
Chris Matthews
Paul Gigot
Bil Kristol
Ken Starr
Ralph Reed

POTUS Did Not Serve, Did Not Inhale
Bill Clinton

POTUS, Did Serve (?), Did Inhale
George W. Bush

Keith Olbermann cited the following from the most recent NBC-WSJ poll:

"The pollsters did not call it the $64,000 question, but they might as well have. Do you think that President Bush gave the country the most accurate information he had before going to war with Iraq, or do you think that President Bush deliberately misled people to make the case for war with Iraq? Fifty-seven percent now saying the president deliberately misled this country. Thirty-five percent say he gave the accurate info."

So nearly 60% of the country believes the president committed a treasonous act, worthy of impeachment. Well then, let's get on with it already....

If this were a stock, would you buy it? Ticker "GW" is a loser.

Frank Rich recently wrote about Cheney, how he said on "Meet The Press" that:

"It's been pretty well confirmed" that there was a direct pre-9/11 link between Mohammed Atta and Iraqi intelligence. When the Atta-Saddam link was disproved later, Gloria Borger, interviewing the vice president on CNBC, confronted him about his earlier claim, and Mr. Cheney told her three times that he had never said it had been "pretty well confirmed." When a man thinks he can get away with denying his own words even though there are millions of witnesses and a video record, he clearly believes he can get away with murder.

He's not the only one who is psycho enough to believe that he can deny saying something that was clearly caught on tape. He joins the ranks of other nut cases like Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and Pat Robertson -- all of which have attempted this incredible act of lunatic fringe denial. And yet in this case we're talking about the #2 guy in charge of the nation! Astoundingly frightening.

Rich continues:

Watergate's dirty tricks were mainly prompted by the ruthless desire to crush the political competition at any cost. That's a powerful element in the Bush scandals, too, but this administration has upped the ante by playing dirty tricks with war.

Playing tricks to the tune of 2000+ dead U.S. soldiers.

There should be a bumper sticker, No One Died Due To The "Third-Rate Burglary"

UPDATE: The real question is can there be a politician more evil than Cheney?

With the dropping of ANWR from this latest bill, it's another sign of the diminishing power of Cheney/Rove/(gw). Drilling in the Alaska refuge has been a top administration priority. GW's poll numbers continue to plummet, this one from the right-wing WSJ. And a FOX News poll too.

I've mentioned repeatedly (since January) the implosion of the GOP, and it appears as if it definitely has been occurring over the last few months. Josh Marshall recently described it:

What we're seeing today are the cascading effects of the breakdown of Republican party discipline, beginning with the collapse of the president's popularity (especially the rather sudden recognition of that fact within Washington) and echoing out from there.

Moderate Republicans have toed the Bush line because they've believed he could protect them, as indeed he has. They don't believe that now. So a lot of them don't want to go into the election next year with ANWR drilling hanging over them.

They balk on the left and then in response the 'wingers on the other right refuse the compromises they've agreed to. Suddenly the whole thing starts to pull apart since there's no centripetal force, no organizing power to hold things together -- sort of like Hobbesian state creation run in reverse.

The recognition has sunk in: The president is unpopular and weak. And it's every Republican for him or herself.

Ouch, rough day for Bush yesterday. He shows up to campaign for Kilgore in Virginia and poof, Kilgore loses. In a state that has one of the best batting averages for picking the eventual U.S. president, New Jersey went for Corzine over the Republican. Ahnold went 0-4 in California. And in PA, "All eight members up for re-election to the Pennsylvania school board that had been sued for introducing the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in biology class were swept out of office yesterday by a slate of challengers who campaigned against the intelligent design policy." [NY Times] With any luck, the times are a changin.

The wingnuts are screaming about how Clinton pointed out Saddam's threat regarding WMD, but did Clinton take such intel and twist it like a pretzel to then hoist on Congress and the American people in an effort to persuade that war is the way to go? Did Clinton pull crap like this? (if so, show any proof)

I wrote this on Saturday and I give kudos to Reid for holding a press conference to among other things, make this demand. Now he needs to repeat it over and over and over....

"The White House, in negotiations led by Mr. Cheney, is insisting that the Central Intelligence Agency be exempted from the proposed ban [against torture]." -- NY Times, 11/4/05. A few days later, Scott McClellan is performing his tap dance of lies:

Q I'd like you to clear up, once and for all, the ambiguity about torture. Can we get a straight answer? The President says we don't do torture, but Cheney --

MR. McCLELLAN: That's about as straight as it can be.

Q Yes, but Cheney has gone to the Senate and asked for an exemption on --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, he has not. Are you claiming he's asked for an exemption on torture? No, that's --

Q He did not ask for that?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- that is inaccurate.

Apparently it didn't begin and end with O'Reilly: "Fox News Is Accused in Bias Suit"

Look at that, the Vatican injects some reason into the out-of-control ID debate.

For those who correctly scratch their heads and try to figure out who are the 30-35% who remain in favor of Bush, just remember President Nixon's approval was at 25% by the time of his resignation. You're always going to have a group of people who simply reside well beyond rational explanation.

Click here to view something that's both hilarious and chock full of truthful insights.

Jacob Weisberg recently wrote one of the best pieces of journalism I've read in years.

He discusses the role Rove has played in GW's time in office and how the base they've worked so hard to woo and lock-up has become a double-edged sword.

Many things have gone wrong for Bush, but the underlying problem is his relationship to the constituency that elected him. Bush's debt to his big donors and to religious conservatives has boxed him in and pitted him against the national consensus on various issues.
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The Harriet Miers nomination was an attempt to satisfy both the militant conservative base and the eternally moderate American electorate. With the Alito nomination, Bush has acknowledged that splitting this difference is impossible.

GW is a hostage and has Rove to blame. Weisberg continues:

The genius of Reagan's method, which was to placate the religious right without giving in where it mattered.
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Bill Clinton managed to keep liberal interest groups onboard without advancing their politically untenable wish list.
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Bush seems able to appease his base only by surrendering to its wishes.

Rove is not such a genius after all. He simply delivers to the rapid base what they want -- as opposed to employing any kind of political finesse to appease a wider audience, and therefore more Americans. Instead, Rove operates via cold, hard calculations, taking care of those that matter to secure power: those with the money (for obvious reasons) and those who will vote no matter the weather (religious right).

Weisberg reminds us that GW/Rove are repeating the mistakes Gingrich made:

Gingrich thought he'd won a mandate for radical change and enshrined a new governing majority. He forgot about the country's nonideological majority, which likes Medicare, Social Security, national parks, and student loans. Republicans have retained control of Congress since Gingrich's downfall, but only by reversing his austerity program and spending like a bunch of drunks.

The GOP-controlled Congress has bought votes more cravenly and irresponsibly than any "tax & spend" version of Congress in recent memory. The hypocrisy never ends.

The author ends by offering a strong hint that the antidote to GW is John McCain, who just happens to "loathe" Karl Rove. For the sake of the country, 2008 couldn't come fast enough.

I just viewed the recent Bill Maher show that had on Tony Snow as the resident right-wing pillar of reason. When the subject of Libby/Plame came up, Snow -- coming off as a smug prick -- simply wondered aloud what's the big deal, a guy's in trouble over speaking to reporters. Yes, Snow's Kool-Aid reality of the situation is really just a matter of stories getting confused over the telling of things to reporters. Based on his comments, the fact that a CIA agent was outed is no biggie, and also the fact that those things being said to reporters resulted in a treasonous act, and that what was being conveyed to the grand jury ended up being potential perjury (why else the indictments?). Nope, none of this meant squat to Snow, who chose to just belittle the whole affair as if it will blow over tomorrow. (Recall that Frank Rich recently reminded us that Watergate went on for many years -- not blowing over either; wake up Snow).

Maher rightfully brought back the Clinton perjury sh*t as a point of reference, with Maher going ballistic over how the right-wing nuts spent $60 million on Clinton's "crimes" involving a plump intern, as opposed to the Plame stuff which truly involves national security, the country going to war on false pretense, White House officials covering up wrongful acts, etc. But of course, Snow just glibly sidestepped these points. The fact is if you want truth, you're not going to get it from the likes of Tony Snow, another GOP mouthpiece that will look you in the eye and tell you lies without flinching.

Maher also briefly had on Richard Clarke. If you haven't seen Clarke on these types of shows before you're missing a display of bracingly succinct and direct truth-telling. The contrast between Clarke's answers to Maher's questions and Snow's couched, mealy-mouthed replies were quite telling. Clarke is that rare expert who isn't afraid to speak out, choosing to tell it like it is as opposed to mincing words and protecting buddies. You can tell that Clarke truly cares about conveying the truth, and if he doesn't have a fact-based answer to a question, he defers stating he doesn't have the knowledge to reply.

Wow, an expert who doesn't always profess to be an expert on everything -- how refreshing (vs. O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc.).

There's much speculation that even if Libby is found guilty, GW will likely pardon him at some point -- like his father did for all of the Iran-contra guilty parties. E.J. Dionne recently wrote,

If Libby, through nods and winks, knows that at the end of Bush's term, the president will issue an unconditional pardon, he will have no interest in helping Fitzgerald, and every interest in shutting up. If Bush truly wants the public to know all the facts in the leak case, as he has claimed in the past, he will announce now that he will not pardon Libby. That would let Fitzgerald finish his work unimpeded, and we would all have a chance, at last, to learn how and why this sad affair came to pass.

Dems should press for Bush to make this pledge publicly. Of course, GW will refuse, but again the Dems should demand it repeatedly, making it an echo chorus on the airwaves the same way the Republican mouthpieces recited the "criminalization of politics" phrase.

How about this, regarding Roe, I say let them overturn it. Yeah, it will be a disaster, but the blood (literally) will then be on the GOP's hands. The Dems will be able to make a direct connection back to the GOP folks who put in the judges to get this to happen, and they should be able to eventually cite news stories on a daily basis regarding coat hangars, deaths due to botched back-alley procedures, teen suicides due to unwanted pregnancies, etc. That combined with the public favoring choice all along (all polls show this fact) will have the public awaken to the nightmare and rightfully blame the GOP.

Somewhat similar to the above suggestion is the recent rejection of TABOR in Colorado. Citizens thought this anti-tax legislation was a good idea, they believed the right-wing nonsense / rhetoric, but they've since realized it's been a disaster.

Go ahead, let the right-wing have its way. They win in the short-run but almost always lose in the long-run. They set their own noose.

Can anyone tell me why Libby is hobbling around on crutches? Is this due to a recent accident (riding bikes with GW?), or is it a ploy to gain sympathy?

Please read this story and ask yourself: shouldn't Gale Norton be under the microscope?

The Dems should go after these thugs and go after them hard. The closed session "stunt" should just be the beginning of many gloves-off acts of gumption and downright political maneuverings. Hilarious that the Republicans cry foul -- they cry foul when the opposing party finally wakes up and goes toe-to-toe with the kind of tactics they themselves have been using for the last five years. However, the Dems aren't resorting to Swift Boat baloney but rather exposing what is reality and truth, exactly what the GOP leadership has been keeping in the dark for so long.

The Dems finally smell blood in the water and they're attacking. With these ruthless bullies in office, one must kick them when their down and keep kicking them. Don't give them a chance to regroup, brew a new batch of lies and talking points, and before you know it GW is making another flak-jacket or megaphone appearance to win the hearts and minds of the stupid.

Kristof recently wrote:

Mr. Rove escaped indictment, but he has been tarred. He apparently passed information about Valerie Wilson to reporters and then conveniently forgot about one of those conversations. He also may have misled the president, and the White House ended up giving false information to the public. It's fine for Mr. Rove to work as a Republican political adviser, but not as White House deputy chief of staff.

No one is naive enough to believe that if Rove were to (justifiably) resign that he would then have nil impact or influence on GW. He'd likely have just as much access and power to direct things as he did as chief of staff.

However, what GW & Co. are trying to avoid is the explicit showing of weakness that comes with a resignation. It would be just another example for the Dems to run against in '06 and '08, another item for the campaign ads. As always for GW, politics comes first, doing what's right is a far, far distant priority.

Richard Cohen recently wrote, "One could almost forgive President Bush for waging war under false or mistaken pretenses had a better, more democratic Middle East come out of it."

Come again? It's OK for the President of the United States to lie if the eventual outcome of whatever it is he/she lied about is deemed virtuous? Huh? Is Cohen drinking 100-proof Kool-Aid?

Even if Iraq becomes the greatest democracy on Earth, it STILL does not let GW off the hook for going to war based on lies and falsehoods. Period.

It's similar to if after the 2000 election Bush would've become one of the greatest of U.S. presidents, it STILL would not have changed the fact that Gore received more votes and that the Supreme Court installed him in office via a ruling that confounds most legal scholars to this day.

Just more hypocrisy from the right. When it comes to dissing those judges who "legislate from the bench," the wingnuts should be criticizing their own.

Over the summer, the NY Times had a piece that showed the more conservative Supreme Court justices to be much more likely to inflict their opinions and change established law. The so-called liberal justices were at the bottom of the list, i.e. much less "active." Here's the graphic:

Thomas: 65.63%
Kennedy: 64.06%
Scalia: 56.25%
Rehnquist: 46.88%
O'Connor: 46.77%
Souter: 42.19%
Stevens: 39.34%
Ginsburg: 39.06%
Breyer: 28.13%

Justice Thomas is at the top of the list, voting to overturn 65.63% of Congressional laws, whereas liberal Justice Breyer is at the bottom -- with the other liberals.

So the next time you hear a wingnut blabbering about the need for "judicial restraint" or for less "judicial activism," what he/she is really complaining about are judges not ruling or being active enough towards their views. The "active" and "restraint" stuff is all bullsh*t; a justice is A-OK in their book if he/she is active as hell -- for their side. (Oh, and let's not forget this example of judicious careful restraint: the astounding, without-precedent 2000 decision to anoint Bush over Gore).

"For those about to rock, we salute you!" As if he read my latest blog entry, tagging Reid and the Dems as "soggy wet noodles," Harry goes ahead and shocks the hell out of me by shocking the entire Senate. Hopefully this closed door session act marks the birth of the new revitalized and empowered opposition party. (Click here to read Reid's statement).

Although Bush claims to have killed something like thirteen #2 Al-Qaeda operatives (?), at least one has escaped.

Kevin Drum has an excellent post on the filibuster. It's become a game of chicken or dare, with the GOP having much to lose in the long-run. I agree with Kevin's assessment:

One of the drawbacks of the filibuster is that it prevents the American public from understanding what each party really wants to accomplish. Without a filibuster, Republicans would no longer have an excuse for failing to pass the legislation that the Christian right has been demanding for years. So they'd either have to pass it, and lose a huge chunk of middle America, or vote it down, in which case they'd lose their right-wing support. Right now, the political cover provided by the filibuster is probably the only thing keeping them in power.

Rather then "go nuclear," it should be called "go naked."

I recently wrote, "GW will likely replace existing charlatans with new charlatans." Well, while it appears Bush is not likely to replace anyone (!), Cheney did go ahead and replace one charlatan with two. These guys are so knee-deep in slime they can't bring in new fresh blood; it all must stay within the family.

Some segments from a great Bob Herbert column:

Who knows why Mr. Libby did what he did. Misplaced loyalty? An irrepressible need to be punished for his sins? Maybe he's just a dope. Of greater consequence for the republic is the fact that Mr. Libby is no hapless functionary who somehow lost his way. He's a symptom, the hacking cough that should alert us to a dangerous national disease, and that's the Bush administration's culture of deceit.

Scooter Libby was the main man of the most powerful vice president in the history of the United States. The most important aspect of the prosecution of Mr. Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice is the tremendous spotlight it is likely to shine on the way this administration does its business - its relentless, almost pathological, undermining of the truth, and its ruthless treatment of individuals who cling to the old-fashioned notion that the truth matters.
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That's the game plan of this administration, to fool the people as much as possible (not just on the war, but on taxes, Social Security, energy policy and so on) and punish, if not destroy, anyone who tries to counter the madness with the truth.
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It should tell you something that the administration's resident sleazemeister, Karl Rove, who is up to his ears in this mess but has managed so far to escape indictment, continues to be viewed not as an embarrassment, but as President Bush's most important and absolutely indispensable asset.

Many liberal bloggers are writing about the expected heated war to occur over the nomination of Alito, with Dems ready to throw the gloves off and really mix it up.

Although I hope they're right, I just can't fathom how it can happen. The Dems have been soggy wet noodles for as long as I can remember, all bark no bite. Sure, during the hearings we may see lots of grandstanding for the cameras, but will we see them go nuclear? Will we see them fulminating on TV and radio, not in a controlled, paced manner ala Schumer, but in a passionate, piercing delivery? Will they orchestrate a unified, all-front attack that will effectively register with the public? Or will they instead opt for MoveOn.org-type coma-inducing meet-ups and sit-ins?

Sorry, I have near zero faith in Reid, Pelosi, and Dean when it comes to such things. A first step could be connecting the dots for the public to see with regards to polls showing most Americans in favor of choice and yet this president nominated someone who would overturn this majority sentiment. They need to spell out how GW is repeatedly about pleasing the minority at the expense of the majority. He takes care of the select few special interests first, whether it be the ultra rich, oil executives, friends and cronies, or in this case, religious extremists. The big moderate middle -- which is most of us -- is of little use or concern to him.

Hilarious, and very true, JibJab poke at Wal-Mart.

In the spirit of Halloween, a truly scary story. If this trend continues, the country is doomed.

I've always found Lawrence O'Donnell to be too much of a mild-mannered, overly cordial and polite liberal talking head. Well, I don't know what's happened to him of late but he appears to have gone through a transformation since writing for The Huffington Post.

His latest entry pulls no punches:

'The White House dodged a bullet' is the single stupidest bit of nonstop echo punditry we've heard this weekend. Karl Rove not getting indicted presents the White House with a worse problem than an indictment would have. The problem being -- Rove is going to go to work Monday morning at the White House with TV cameras following his every move and with 47% of the public believing he did something wrong, according to today's Washington Post poll.

What the White House desperately needed on Friday was Rove's resignation. As long as he keeps his White House pass, Rove is a cancer on the presidency.

The Washington Post poll shows that the best outcome for the Democrats would be Rove staying in the White House till Bush's last day. The Post reports, "Barely a third of Americans -- 34 percent -- think Bush is doing a good job ensuring high ethics in government, which is slightly lower than President Bill Clinton's standing on this issue when he left office." Keeping Rove on the job will keep that number where it is today.

The pundit world, having spent years in awe of Karl Rove, will never understand how bad he is at his White House job. His second term agenda destroyed this presidency long before Patrick Fitzgerald's press conference. Rove sent his president on a political death march on Social Security reform with the most hopeless legislative idea since the Clinton health care bill. That showed Congress how powerless the second-term Bush would be. Without the Social Security collapse-which I predicted on day one of the Social Security crusade -- Senate Republicans and the right wing would not have dared defy their president on a Rove-managed Supreme Court nomination. And Rove obviously had no feel for the politics of Katrina which pulled Bush poll numbers to record lows.

As long as Karl Rove stays in the White House doing the terrible job he is doing and bringing the stench of scandal with him every time he walks in the door, the Bush presidency will remain a powerless gang that couldn't shoot straight. And the 'dodge the bullet' chorus will never understand that.

From David Rosenberg at Merrill Lynch:

The President's approval rating was already at a lifetime low going into last week's trio of bad news - the 2,000 U.S. fatality in Iraq, the Harriet Miers withdrawal and "Scooter" Libby's indictment. It can no longer be taken for granted that the GOP will sweep the House and the Senate again come the November 7, 2006 midterm elections at this point, and what is interesting is that Mr. Bush's approval rating of 40% is exactly where Bill Clinton's was at this same stage in the fall of 1993 - and the Dems were booted out of both houses the next year.

Fred Kaplan makes the point: where have these GOP critics been with their insightful, harsh words? To come out now, Johnny come lately, translates into much less purposeful effect and is a bit like the cowardly boy who kicks the bully once he's been pummeled by a fed-up gang. The numerous failures of Bush are not suddenly evident but rather have been readily apparent for quite some time. To not acknowledge this point is to simply admit to being overly influenced by partisan rhetoric and to be in denial of reality (i.e. drinking the Roveian Kool-Aid).

Shame on these late-to-the-party, bandwagon GW bashers. Now that their clown/tool is down for the count it's very easy to jump ship, esp. since he's the lamest of ducks. Some say with Miers withdrawing that GW may regain some backers, as if they're willing to give him a second chance. Fine, let it happen, but the cards have been dealt and the smart ones will continue to look for convenient excuses allowing them to flee this loser with some dignity/face.

As for the others, if they truly believe winning in '08 will require that they stay the course with GW, I say go for it! Just like they believed with Newt in the '90s. You think you can go to the well one more time by scaring the public with 9/11 imagery to win votes? Fool me once, fool me twice, but three times? Who knows with this voting public but I like to think they've finally come to their senses and realize that we can do MUCH better than this guy in office.

The wingnuts love to harken back to this past election, as if frozen in time, when they had the smear campaigns at full blast and gay marriage used as a Blair Witch scare tactic. They're very good at such things to gain votes ("win at all costs"). But over the last several months, removed from the pre-election hysteria and thus without the benefit of $$-backed orchestrated smears and lies, GW's poll numbers have gone steadily down. What will cause them to go back up? I haven't a clue. And again, many of the brighter Republicans realize this also and will shrewdly venture away from GW and his corrupt, failed cabal. In effect, the party will splinter.

As I predicted in January, the GOP is imploding and once an implosion starts it's very difficult to stop.

UPDATE: Today's Washington Post reminds that Bush was down once before in '01 but 9-11 helped to reverse his fate. Uh, big difference now in that 1) can he depend on another 9-11 type incident?, and 2) then he wasn't lame duck; fellow GOPers had to play ball.

The right-wing blogs continue to play down the case against Libby/Rove, pretending to see no wrongdoing. After today, don't believe them.

Kevin Drum puts it best:

For now, here's the bottom line: Fitzgerald didn't charge Scooter Libby with mistakenly making a few unimportant false statements to the grand jury. He charged him with deliberately constructing a false story about how he learned about Valerie Plame, and then repeatedly telling this story to both FBI agents and the grand jury. That story was a lie, and it was a premeditated lie designed to cover up the fact that he had engaged in a long and persistent effort to uncover information about Joe Wilson's wife and disseminate it to reporters.

Libby could have told the truth, but then he would have had to admit his role in outing a CIA agent in order to score political points against a critic of the administration. He didn't want that campaign to become public, so he invented a cover story, repeated it under oath, and stuck to it on multiple occasions.

It's serious stuff.

Will a Rove indictment be necessary to fatally wound Bush for the next 2+ years? Has the public seen enough already to all but consider Rove guilty and a forever-tainted official? Or lacking an indictment, will they eventually forgive & forget, no doubt helped by the tidal wave of brainwashing rhetoric sure to come from the GOP?

With the onset of this in-house turmoil, GW will likely replace existing charlatans with new charlatans. Nothing will change because the deeper problem is at the nexus of power: GW himself. He's not wise and he surrounds himself with these types of bottom-feeding cronies and filthy dirtbags, making it just a matter of time before bad decisions are put forth due to incompetence and laws are broken due to the lack of morals in those chosen to serve.

A fish rots from the head....

No doubt the timing of the Miers announcement (which comes as a shock, NOT) was purposeful, wag-dogging the Fitzgerald indictment announcement, but does it really serve the intended goal? Yes it may drown out the indictment news due to sheer noise and crowding out of newspaper headlines, however my reaction may be the one many Americans experienced. I just shook my head and absorbed (further) the astounding mess this administration has created and sadly forces the country to wallow in.

The bang-bang announcements help to crystallize the obvious realization that the current state of affairs is like an Etch-a-Sketch screen that is bombarded with hundreds of crazy lines: it begs for a vigorous, thorough shaking to clear the screen and start anew. There's really nothing worth saving, nothing meaningful to build on, but instead too much that needs to be erased with enormous amounts of required fixing to occur.

The next decade or two will be all about mending the damage that's been inflicted on the country and getting us back to square one -- if it's not too late already. GW's eight years will go down as the most unproductive and wasteful in the Republic's history.

UPDATE: The day came and went, no Fitzgerald announcement. Was this to be all along or did he wait due to the Miers news? Do we have a cat-and-mouse game in process? Nonetheless, Fitzgerald best be ready for an organized, Swift Boat-ish smear campaign ("criminalization of politics" etc.) the likes of which has not been seen versus a completely decent & fair person.

Needlenose is describing in premise what I supported during Clinton's Monica mess: for Bill to resign and allow Gore two years of on-the-job performance to run on come 2000. Then it was easy to see that post-hearings Clinton would become lame-duckish so what better for the party then to give Gore a substantive running start. In my mind, it would've made all the difference for Gore's chances, allowing not just the image of President to take hold and resonate but also for him to more easily distance himself from Bill's stupid indiscretions.

That said, I'm not sure if I completely agree with Needle's dire warning for the Dems. Yes, it would hoist Condi into a better position to run in '08 but nonetheless she would still have hefty obstacles to overcome. If Bush remains unpopular, it will be very difficult for her to distance herself from his wreck-of-a-legacy (similar to Gore with Clinton/Monica problem), and in this case she was complicit on many of the issues and reasons for why GW's eight years were awful. Is it any wonder why McCain in particular is already creating distance between himself and Bush on the issues? Rice as VP will just make it that much easier for him to run against her. Also, let's be brutally realistic, her other obstacles include she's 1) a woman, 2) African-American, and 3) never married. Those three facts combined with her close association to GW will likely be enough to sink her, esp. versus a popular McCain.

The question is, given the above and assuming she does in fact want to run in '08, will she decline the VP spot if it's offered?

Guess in which red state these fine folks reside.

Kay Baily Hutchinson (R-TX) on Meet The Press yesterday:

"I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation were not a waste of time and dollars."

Compare the above to her quote years ago about the Clinton impeachment:

"The edifice of American jurisprudence rests on the foundation of the due process of law. The mortar in that foundation is the oath. Those who seek to obstruct justice weaken that foundation, and those who violate the oath would tear the whole structure down. Every day, thousands of citizens in thousands of courtrooms across America are sworn in as jurors, as grand jurors, as witnesses, as defendants. On those oaths rest the due process of law upon which all of our other rights are based. The oath is how we defend ourselves against those who would subvert our system by breaking our laws. There are Americans in jail today because they violated that oath. Others have prevailed at the bar of justice because of that oath. What would we be telling Americans -- and those worldwide who see in America what they can only hope for in their own countries -- if the Senate of the United States were to conclude: The President lied under oath as an element of a scheme to obstruct the due process of law, but we chose to look the other way? I cannot make that choice. I cannot look away. I vote `Guilty' on Article I, Perjury. I vote `Guilty' on Article II, Obstruction of Justice."

Wow, just look at the sheer volume of bloviating she had to convey regarding Clinton, as compared to Rove/Libby.

The level of hypocrisy is both astounding and yet unsurprising.

Jonathan Chait states the obvious:

Bush is mainly interested in harvesting votes from religious conservatives in order to implement an agenda dominated by his economic backers. In liberal-ese: Social conservatives are hapless GOP dupes.

I agree, and have for years. In fact, Bush is playing this hand quite shrewdly. The religious right are indeed zombie-like voters, usually basing their entire rationale on one, maybe two, issues, and that's it. If a candidate is against abortion rights and gay marriage then that person is VERY likely to get their vote no matter what they stand for on anything else. If the candidate also supports anti-environmental measures or the NRA or tax cuts for the extremely rich, well that doesn't matter, it's ignored. What counts are those few issues that would seem to insure that the voter is on the side of Jesus. But as I constantly remind, Bush endorsed pro-choice Specter over pro-life Toomey, i.e. politics before supposed principles.

Again, can you blame Bush? He realizes he can continuously stomp on these folks since they have no alternative. What are they going to do, vote for the Satan-loving Democrat? Behind closed doors, he and Rove simply laugh at the fools -- but thank the Lord they exist! As Chait writes, "With allies like these, Bush doesn’t have much incentive to work harder to reward his social conservative base."

From Harold Meyerson in The Washington Post:

Congress is back in session, and it's gunning for the American poor.

A revolt of House conservatives has persuaded that body's Republican leadership to offset the increased federal spending going to rebuild the Hurricane Katrina-devastated Gulf Coast by reductions in Medicaid, food stamps and other programs for the indigent. If things go according to plan, this week the House will begin to cut $50 billion from those efforts.

The emerging Republican response to Katrina, apparently, is to comfort the drenched poor and afflict the dry.

For a moment last week, it looked as though the Republicans were going to enact across-the-board spending cuts.

That, however, would have meant less money for defense contractors and the highway industry and other contributors to congressional Republicans' campaigns. GOP committee chairmen made that point so forcefully that the idea was scrapped.

The beauty of taking the cuts out of Medicaid and student loan programs, by happy contrast, is that it doesn't reduce the flow of funds to the Republican campaign committees by a single dime.
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What we have here is an ideologically driven dereliction of duty. If the Bush White House had been put in charge of the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer and Teller would still be puttering around in the New Mexico desert today.

And it gets worse. The same Republican zealots who demand fiscal responsibility by cutting $50 billion for the indigent sick are now also demanding a new $70 billion in tax cuts, including the permanent repeal of the estate tax, that would chiefly benefit the rich. For a few brief weeks after Katrina, Republicans actually suspended their advocacy of tax cuts, but this onset of sanity came to a shuddering halt once the cameras were removed from the Superdome.

Not that it seems to bother them in the least, but the Republicans' post-Katrina priorities and those of the American public couldn't be more diametrically opposed. Earlier this month, Peter Hart's polling firm asked respondents if they believed cutting Medicaid and like programs by $35 billion (the GOP's targeted cut had not yet risen to $50 billion) and cutting taxes by $70 billion was the right or wrong priority. By a margin of 67 percent to 24 percent, the respondents said it was wrong. And in a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll last week, 48 percent of those questioned said they wanted the Democrats to control the next Congress, while just 39 percent favored the Republicans.

You'd think these figures would give the Republicans pause. Instead, they increasingly act as though they were immune to the laws of political gravity. Republicans have grown so accustomed to winning elections by gerrymandering districts, activating their faithful and attacking Democrats over trumped-up issues that they believe they can survive even major shifts in public sentiment.

Perhaps their obscene hubris stems from their knowing confidence in the tipping point that favors them: the no-paper-trail electronic voting machines; whatever state uses them "miraculously" becomes a red state.

What happened to the uproar and calls for investigating the flaws in these robo-vote-deliverers? Reid? Pelosi? Anyone??

In just the last two evenings, avowed "traditionalist" Bill O'Reilly has had the following topics featured on his TV show: Mexico and illegal immigrants, the Horowitz murder, hurricane Wilma, a high school principal banning a prom, the Minnesota Vikings sex/boat scandal, and John Gibson discussing his "War On Christmas" book. (And of course Bill plugging his "Factor gear," i.e. shilling coffee mugs and doormats at a price).

Do you notice any oddly missing topics of the day? Yeah, right, where's the controversy surrounding DeLay, Rove, Libby, and Frist, not to mention Bush and Cheney? The only item I noticed in the two evenings was when Dick Morris appeared to plug his book. He first commented on illegal immigrants (of course, to O'Reilly the #1 problem facing the country), and then O'Reilly brings up Miers but then when finally referring to Rove/Libby (forget DeLay's recent mugshot, etc.) all he did was in ten seconds time ask Morris for a prediction on indictments. That's it, no discussion, nothing. And then back to plugging Dick's book.

I know, I know, you can't take this guy seriously, who in their right mind would? But that's the sad part, many people do.

And the GOP implosion accelerates.

Those who thought investigations were a wonderful thing when Bill Clinton was president are suddenly facing prosecutors, and they don't like it. It seems like a hundred years ago when Clinton's defenders were accusing his opponents of using special prosecutors, lawsuits, criminal charges and, ultimately, impeachment to overturn the will of the voters.

Clinton's conservative enemies would have none of this. No, they said over and over, the Clinton mess was not about sex but about "perjury and the obstruction of justice" and "the rule of law."

The old conservative talking points are now inoperative.
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These cases portray an administration and a movement that can dish it out, but want to evade responsibility for doing so and can't take it when they are subjected to the same rule book that inconvenienced an earlier president. An editorial in the latest issue of the conservative Weekly Standard is a sign of arguments to come. The editorial complains about the various accusations being leveled against DeLay, Libby, Rove and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and it says that "a comprehensive strategy of criminalization had been implemented to inflict defeat on conservatives who seek to govern as conservatives."

I have great respect for my friends at the Weekly Standard, so I think they'll understand my surprise and wonder over this new conservative concern for the criminalization of politics. A process that was about "the rule of law" when Democrats were in power is suddenly an outrage now that it's Republicans who are being held accountable.
-- E. J. Dionne Jr., 10/18/05

In sum, it's irony and hypocrisy in their most primal, naked state. Period. (And they're the chosen party for followers of Jesus?! Incredible.)

But after all, isn't this always what this version of the GOP has represented? Whether it be supposedly pro-life Bush endorsing pro-choice Specter, or lockem-up-and-throw-away-key Rush Limbaugh doctor shopping for drugs, or supposed free-market Republicans insuring that a prescription bill was passed that blocked price competition, this party for far too long has been about saying one thing and doing another, bilking the distracted public every step of the way.

May the might of justice slam them hard.

I completely agree with this. McCain is offering up more of a GW alternative than anything brewing in the Dem tent. Amazingly, he appears to be more at odds with Bush/Cheney on issues than any potential Dem prez candidate. Yeah, where is Cheney -- but likewise, where the hell is Hillary?

As for Reid, he simply must go. He's been a disaster. Incredibly, he has managed to make Daschle look like DeLay!

It would be bad enough if you simply focused on that absurd filibuster deal he helped orchestrate. Recall where he pledged not to filibuster in exchange for nothing. But then how also do you explain his voting "Ney" for Roberts but indicating to Bush that he's A-OK with Miers? Huh? I am simply stumped as to the logic behind these actions.

I understand any Dems reservations with Roberts, but at least he was on-paper absolutely qualified and although it was difficult to discern his biases on certain issues, we could at least hang some hope on his apparent high-intellect and respectful knowledge of the Constitution. Now turn to Miers, who lacks much of what I just described about Roberts, and worse yet has pledged to GW/Rove (thanks Dobson) that she will overturn Roe/Wade. As opposed to Roberts, Miers is being sent in as a one-purpose-only justice, like a heat-seeking missile and Roe/Wade is the hapless target. Anything else she rules on will likely match the Thomas mode of functioning: plagiarize Scalia.

Yes, Reid either must go or perhaps even better, other figures in the party should compete for the high-profile pulpit, speaking out and behaving in a way that makes he/she the defacto leader. Much like DeLay runs the House even though Hastert is the official stooge in charge.

Regarding the sham 212-210 vote for helping out the profit-laden oil companies with taxpayer money, it would be nice if we discovered what DeLay offered the two Republicans to flip their votes. It took 45 minutes past the deemed time for the vote to close -- so what graft was finally agreed upon in that lengthy time? Reason would dictate it must've been some generous enticing to get the two flippers to say "it's a deal!"

Imagine how many close votes could've been changed under Clinton's eight years if he had a corrupt Congress that was willing to operate as they pleased, defying rules and keeping vote times open until the outcome was finally modified. These are people who respect our government and the Constitution? It's beyond shame.

"Right now, with the Bush administration in meltdown on multiple issues, we're hearing a lot about President Bush's personal failings. But what happened to the commanding figure of yore, the heroic leader in the war on terror? The answer, of course, is that the commanding figure never existed: Mr. Bush is the same man he always was. All the character flaws that are now fodder for late-night humor were fully visible, for those willing to see them, during the 2000 campaign." -- Paul Krugman, 10/14/05

"The conservative standard is clear - when a Democratic President is the target it is about the 'rule of law' and when the 'victim' is a Republican it is about the 'criminalization of politics.' It is particularly rich that Tom DeLay, the relentless pursuer of Clinton, is making this claim." -- Bull Moose

Bloomberg: "In an interview yesterday, [Joseph] Wilson said that once the criminal questions are settled, he and his wife may file a civil lawsuit against Bush, Cheney and others seeking damages for the alleged harm done to Plame's career. If they do so, the current state of the law makes it likely that the suit will be allowed to proceed -- and Bush and Cheney will face questioning under oath -- while they are in office. The reason for that is a unanimous 1997 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that Paula Jones' sexual harassment suit against then-President Bill Clinton could go forward immediately, a decision that was hailed by conservatives at the time."

Beautiful, delicious irony.

So John Fund writes that Dobson was assured Miers would overturn Roe v. Wade. Imagine if under Clinton a similar such arrangement was made for Rev. Jesse Jackson....

"If a senior White House staffer had intentionally outed an American spy during World War II, he'd have been shot. We're at war, George Bush keeps reminding us. We cannot continue with business as usual. A pre-9/11 mentality is deadly. Putting the lives of our troops at risk is treason. Then why is the White House and the Republican party engaged in a concerted campaign to make treason acceptable during a time of war?" -- AMERICAblog

From the Financial Times:

Even among the strongest advocates in Washington of the war in Iraq there is a sense of alarm these days, with harsh criticism directed particularly at the draft constitution, which they see as a betrayal of principles and a recipe for disintegration of the Iraqi state.

Expressions of concern among conservatives and former Iraqi exiles, seen also in the rising disillusionment of the American public, reflect a widening gap with the Bush administration and its claims of “incredible political progress” in Iraq.

Over the past week, two of Washington's most influential conservative think-tanks, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Heritage Foundation, held conferences on Iraq where the mood among speakers, including Iraqi officials, was decidedly sombre.

Just more evidence of the rightwing suddenly and miraculously waking up to reality -- the timing coincident with the wheels fast falling of the GW fantasy train. Yup, the implosion continues.

Oh, and more evidence: McCain shrewdly backing positions that are in stark contrast to GW's (recent example: bill against torture). He knows to begin now to create massive distance between what he believes and what the current mess of an administration supports. Any hopeful GOP presidential candidate is going to do likewise, to quite overtly be on the side of issues that oppose GW/Cheney/Rove. It's no-brainer stuff.

I ask, does anyone buy that the wingnuts are truly annoyed that GW selected Miers? I don't. Instead, I believe they're using this latest GW decision to finally jump ship, from one that is sinking mighty fast. GW's poll numbers continue to plummet each week and with indictments mounting many extreme followers have come to the realization that this is as good a time as any to flee association with a certain loser and to start anew.

Ann Coulter recently said on Bill Maher's show that unlike liberals, the rightwing has principles. Hah! The audience erupted into giggles as Maher correctly feigned laughter. What the rightwing does care about more than anything else is winning, getting their way. When signs point to this not happening, they panic, first attacking each other and finally just abandoning their own currently in power. Principles -- yeah, OK.

As I've been predicting since early January, the GOP will implode -- if it hasn't already.

It's hilarious. The wingnuts remain pissed off about the Miers nomination. They simply don't believe that she can be trusted to not turn Souter on them. This despite both Cheney (on Limbaugh's show) and Rove (to Dobson) have attempted to calm the base by assuring them that Miers will do what they desire. And yet the continued resistance.

Hmm, it appears as if the rightwing does not trust the word of Cheney, Rove, or GW these days. Is there anyone left who believes anything these clowns have to say? Even their staunch followers are highly skeptical and doubtful regarding their reassurances -- speaks volumes.

"Everybody is hoping that something will happen on Miers, either that the president would withdraw her or she would realize she is not up to it and pull out while she has some dignity intact." Look for a new nominee, either by forced withdrawal or an unflattering leak. It's actually quite pathetic that GW chose an already flawed crony as opposed to a more qualified person on paper and yet one who was extreme enough in his/her views that it would've meant for a bitter, dragged out fight. GW chose the more timid and safe route. He's showing his true colors.

Apparently DeLay is still running the House show. That's not surprising. What is is that he still wields power enough to change votes. He's feared and his underlings are just a hoarish bunch of cowed suck-ups.

Fitzgerald is putting together quite a blockbuster case. You go boy!

Kevin Drum makes an excellent point regarding the many people who say Rumsfeld should've originally sent more troops to Iraq:

Why do people keep saying stuff like this? The fact is that we didn't, and don't, have any more troops. Rumsfeld's misjudgment wasn't that he decided to use fewer troops than he could have, his misjudgment was in thinking that the occupation could be pulled off successfully with the troops we had available.

Bottom line: if you argue that we needed more troops in order to invade and occupy Iraq properly, you're just arguing that we shouldn't have invaded and occupied Iraq at all. When will conservative supporters of the war own up to this?

Finally O'Reilly utters something truthful.

From Reason.com:

First Five Years, Percentage Changes in Real Discretionary Spending

LBJ: 25.2%
Nixon: -16.5%
Reagan: 11.9%
Clinton: -8.2%
Bush: 35.2%

GW blows away LBJ, but look at Reagan compared to Clinton.

USA Today: "A newly released report published by the CIA rebukes the Bush administration for not paying enough attention to prewar intelligence that predicted the factional rivalries now threatening to split Iraq.
Policymakers worried more about making the case for the war, particularly the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, than planning for the aftermath, the report says." Simply more proof of thorough and complete incompetence.

Regarding Frist, another guy who's toast: "What I find most appalling is the Senate calls it a qualified blind trust when it's not blind," Clark said. "Since the Senate says it's OK, the Senate has made it a political question. It's up to the voter. But there's no doubt it's a conflict of interest."

Wasn't invading Iraq supposed to make oil cheaper for the U.S.?

Hasn't Al-Qaeda's #2 guy been killed about 9 times over?

"Call it environmentalism, Bush style. A new federal tax credit will help allay the extra cost of purchasing hybrid vehicles, but the Byzantine formula for calculating the savings provides greater financial incentives for buying heavy SUVs than more fuel-efficient cars."

Recruiting efforts has dropped off so much thanks to GW's Iraq debacle that the Army is now borrowing personnel from the Air Force.

"The U.S. administration is spending about $7 billion a month to wage the war on terror and costs could total $570 billion by the end of 2010."

From Harpers:

Year in which perfluorochemicals, used in Teflon and other nonstick products, were first introduced : 1956

Percentage of U.S. children who now have one of these nonbiodegradable chemicals in their bloodstreams : 96

Minimum number of prescription drugs currently under investigation for Medicaid price-gouging or marketing fraud : 500

Percentage markup that Abbott Laboratories charged in 2001 on solutions of sodium chloride, i.e., salt water : 20,735

Just desserts.

From the Washington Post:

Republican politicians in multiple states have recently decided not to run for Senate next year, stirring anxiety among Washington operatives about the effectiveness of the party's recruiting efforts and whether this signals a broader decline in GOP congressional prospects.
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With an unpopular war in Iraq, ethical controversies shadowing top Republicans in the House and Senate, and President Bush suffering the lowest approval ratings of his presidency, the waters look less inviting to politicians deciding whether to plunge into an election bid. Additionally, some Capitol Hill operatives complain that preoccupied senior White House officials have been less engaged in candidate recruitment than they were for the 2002 and 2004 elections. These sources would speak only on background because of the sensitivity of partisan strategies.

Historically, Senate and House races are often won or lost in the year before the election, as a party's prospects hinge critically on whether the most capable politicians decide to invest time, money and personal pride in a competitive race. Often, this commitment takes some coaxing.
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A senior Republican familiar with the recruiting process agreed that the climate has shifted for the GOP because of a confluence of problems from Iraq to Hurricane Katrina and high gasoline prices: "Looking at polls from June or July and then looking at them now, the deterioration is really bad."

Another Republican, pollster Tony Fabrizio, said a recruiting chill was inevitable. Candidates "aren't stupid," he said. "They see the political landscape. You are asking them to make a huge personal sacrifice. It's a lot easier to make that sacrifice if you think there's a rainbow at the end."

Hey wingnuts, apparently poor poll numbers do have some impact. Remember this the next time you swiftly wish to dismiss anything other than rigged elections. As for the above, I sure hope the Dems are actively taking advantage of these circumstances, but there's no guarantee. Most evidence still points to the other party remaining in some sort of stunted coma, as if the severely wounded DeLay and Rove still wield tremendous whipping power. Hey, and perhaps they still do; in DC, it takes more than a few indictments to neuter a man.

"President George W. Bush's overall job approval rating has reached the lowest ever measured in this poll [since 1983], and evaluations of his handling of Iraq, the economy and even his signature issue, terrorism, are also at all-time lows."

Washington Post:

"The CIA will not seek to hold any current or former agency officials, including ex-director George J. Tenet, responsible for failures leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, CIA Director Porter J. Goss said yesterday, despite a recommendation by the agency's inspector general that he convene an "accountability board" to judge their performance."
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"The inspectors general of the departments of State, Justice and Defense completed their own investigations without publicized disciplinary actions taken against anyone. The CIA's report, which severely criticized actions of senior officers, will remain classified, Goss said in his announcement, which was welcomed by some former officials mentioned in the document but assailed by families of victims of the attacks."

So in other words, Goss protects the guilty at the expense of the innocent. Just one more crony in high power.

Molly Ivins:

Separation of church and state is in the Constitution because this country was founded by people who had experienced both religious persecution and state-supported religions. I think John F. Kennedy's 1960 statement to Baptist ministers ("I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.") should stand as a model of how public servants should handle the relation between religious belief and public service.

Nevertheless, we are now beset by people who insist on dragging religion into governance--and who themselves believe they are beset by people determined to "drive God from the public square."

This division has been in part created by and certainly aggravated by those seeking political advantage. It is a recipe for an incredibly damaging and serious split in this country, and I believe we all need to think carefully before doing anything to make it worse.

As an 1803 quote attributed to James Madison goes: "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries."

Financial Planning.com:

It is possible that this Peak Oil is an empty threat, like Y2K--something to keep alarmists up at night. But even if this is so, bear in mind that preparations for Y2K served the U.S. well in a later emergency, the terrorist attacks of 2001. Despite serious damage to electric, phone and data lines in lower Manhattan, the vital financial information generated there was never endangered.

Likewise, it can't hurt us to prepare for Peak Oil. In the worst case, we'll have spent some money to develop alternative energy sources while oil remains plentiful. That's hardly a disaster, and could even have positive economic consequences.

I think Chad might be on to something:

I'll be the first to say that my skills for political analysis are pretty much on par with my aptitude for Nigerian basket-weaving: both are non-existent. Which is why I feel comfortable saying that I think Miers is a set-up.
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I think Bush has chosen a nominee that he expects will be shot down. On the chance she is confirmed, she's still a strong conservative voice on the Supreme Court.

However, if rejected, how much harder would it be for the Dems to shoot down a second, more qualified (and possibly more conservative) nominee?

As I referred in a prior post, say what we will about GW's unimpressive intellect, the man does get advice from some pretty cagey and shrewd folks. If Chad's right, in the confirmation hearings, look for the Republicans to do the heavy hammering against Miers. By doing so, they'll throw red meat to the highly upset voter base and at the same time insure Miers' sinking, allowing for a second go-around with a more qualified on paper, and more hard right leaning, nominee.

While this outcome could be very negative for the Dems, let's not forget that there's some extremely explosive stuff going on that could erupt into huge news. Reports are that one or more high-ranking Bush official will soon be indicted -- this in addition to the DeLay indictments and Frist stock scandal.

I thought GW said in 2000 he was going to clean up Washington? It looks as dirty as Texas air to me.

The more things change the more they stay the same. We've seen this before, the House holding open a vote for an extra 50 minutes past schedule to strong-arm fence sitters. It succeeded as the bill passed by a razor-thin 212-210 margin. It's reported that DeLay was instrumental in all the behind-the-scenes, sleazeball shenanigans. The bill was another in a series of gifts (from taxpayers) to the already bursting-with-profits energy companies. Sacrificed: environmental regulations and the federal budget.

As we saw with CAFTA and the prescription drug bill, the House continues to defy accepted rules and make up their own procedures as they see fit, extending vote deadlines to get their way. Imagine the outcry if Dems were in control and pulled this shit. Also, the emphasis remains on producing more oil and not conserving what we use. As energy companies would want it, the #1 message is CONSUME, with weak, maudlin pleas to conserve getting just lip-service with no serious legislation passed to encourage this "virtuous" behavior.

The runaway train that is the GOP-controlled Congress continues to race us towards the grim abyss....

George Will recently criticized Bush in a NY Post piece regarding his selection of Miers, and Peggy Noonan recently did the same in the WSJ. Ho hum. Yeah, we're supposed to raise an eyebrow when GW's buddies lash out at him, but I'm not buying it.

What I believe is all this right-wing bluster is simply meant to blunt any frontal attack from Democrats. With the likes of Will, Noonan, and Trent Lott not pleased, many a liberal is going to think Miers can't be that bad. Don't fall for it!

Look, Rush Limbaugh was initially hesitant but it took a stunt like Cheney calling in to his radio program to allay any doubts, saying Miers "has a conservative judicial philosophy that you [Limbaugh] would be comfortable with." Effectively, this was a wink-wink "trust me" moment directed at Rush. Cheney was reassuring Limbaugh that she won't be another Souter (I love how the right deems this as such a heinous thing).

I am willing to bet that Cheney and his thugs metaphorically threw Miers up against a wall, forearm hard against her throat, and menacingly threatened, "You will NOT pull a Souter -- kapisch?!"

It's almost certain that she will most likely be like Thomas: a Scalia lackey. She'll change a few words but ultimately write decisions that more/less mimic that of Antonin. The fact that she lacks the impressive qualifications or seasoning as a prior judge makes her less likely to be impervious to the imposing influence of the brutish Scalia. Also, it stands to reason she might be more impressionable since there's less of a for-the-record stance on anything. Besides, like I said, I'm certain GW & Cheney et al have given her firm, definite marching orders, specifically addressing the now infamous Souter tendency.

Sound sexist? Nope, I'd say the same if it were a male with similar lacking qualifications or known positions (picture FEMA's Brown). The fact is because of Souter, there is now much less of a chance of a future Souter. He's become such a bugaboo and poster boy of what could go wrong that great measures are now taken to insure against it. I mean heaven forbid you have someone who's moderate and reasonable....

No, better to have a Scalia, who's stridently partisan enough to pen the Gore 2000 decision, a legal abomination. Mark my words, odds favor Roberts pulling a Souter much more so than Miers (not that either will necessarily become moderate).

House ethics committee has decided they won't investigate DeLay. Reason: "We don't have the resources." Ahh, but they seem to have unlimited resources to investigate Democrats, specifically with the last name of Clinton.

"Prediction: at least three high level Bush Administration personnel indicted and possibly one or more very high level unindicted co-conspirators."

I've been saying for weeks that the land down there in New Orleans will, unfortunately, be toxic and uninhabitable for many years to come. (Similar to the air around 9/11 WTC site for weeks/months after). One can only hope that people are informed of the facts, else we'll have many a lawsuit down the road against the government (which you and I will pay for).

More Americans are beginning to wake up and ask: "Why isn't energy conservation a higher priority?" And not just lip-service via GW but passed into legislation.

If you can't recruit the best, lower your standards and get what you can. More evidence that GW's trumped-up Iraq war will cost our military in quality soldiers for many years to come.

It's time to demand more polls on impeaching Bush.

Look for more and more former soldiers to run for office (nearly all as, surprise, Democrats).

Who's more nuts, O'Reilly or Pat Robertson? And why is Wesley Clark dignifying this show? Oh, and O'Reilly defames WW2 troops.

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Notice how DeLay, and his defenders, have attempted to make the case against him sound more complicated than it really is. This tactic is a Rove/GOP favorite. Purposefully try to create an atmosphere of complexity and confusion about an issue that is in fact fairly straightforward and quite easy to comprehend.

In this instance, it's extremely simple. It's illegal for corporations in Texas to give money to state political races. DeLay's PAC, TRMPAC, accepted corporate money and then laundered it via writing a check to the RNC stipulating which candidates should receive the money.

He of course claims ignorance to this scheme but it stands to reason that Ronnie Earle would not have indicted him if he did not possess enough evidence and/or that Earle has someone(s) who is ready to sing against DeLay. In addition, newspaper reports have already established that DeLay was very much directly involved with the corporate contributions.

And as for Ronnie Earle himself, it's already been published here and everywhere that he's prosecuted more Dems than Republicans (12 to 3 ratio!). In addition, it's been stated that every single person that Earle has indicted over the years, whether Dem or Republican, has cried foul due to politics. You can now include DeLay in that group.

The fact is liberals can only hope that new Chief Justice Roberts will be as "partisan" a judge as Ronnie Earle has been.

The most recent issue of The New Republic has some insightful things to say about this latest bit of DeLay scandal, pointing out that his indictment actually symbolizes a greater stench:

Of course, even DeLay himself is merely a cog in a Washington Republican machine that has abandoned morality in its fanatical pursuit of power. Beyond rooting for a jury in Travis County,Texas, to return a guilty verdict in the months ahead, Democrats need to make clear to the public that his indictment represents a mere fraction of the Republican Congress’s corruption. The House ethics committee, for instance, must continue to investigate Abramoff’s sleazy lobbying, which envelops several other GOP congressmen and reveals the disgusting influence K Street lobbyists enjoy over federal lawmaking.

DeLay has taken the House and turned it into the revolting, decaying house in this movie. As TNR writes, "with any luck, it could be the beginning of a desperately needed fumigation of Capitol Hill."