BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jun 07 - 06:09 PM

Paul Newman's opinion of the Bush Administration can be succinctly viewed here.

How's that. Dickey-me-boy?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 03:44 PM

Seven compelling essays treating the degradation of American values under the Bush administration can be found on this page from Coldtype. Interesting reading.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 03:57 PM

From the Washington Post:

An Exit to Disaster

By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, June 27, 2007; Page A19

History seems to be settling on some criticisms of the early conduct of the Iraq war. On the theory that America could liberate and leave, force levels were reduced too early, security responsibilities were transferred to Iraqis before they were ready, and planning for future challenges was unrealistic. "Victory in Iraq," one official of the Coalition Provisional Authority told me a couple of years ago, "was defined as decapitating the regime. No one defined victory as creating a sustainable country six months down the road."

Now Democrats running for president have thought deeply and produced their own Iraq policy: They want to cut force levels too early and transfer responsibility to Iraqis before they are ready, and they offer no plan to deal with the chaos that would result six months down the road. In essential outline, they have chosen to duplicate the early mistakes of an administration they hold in contempt.

The Democratic debate on Iraq has become an escalating contest of exit strategies. Sen. Hillary Clinton outlines a "three-step plan to bring the troops home starting now." Sen. Barack Obama pledges to "have all our troops out by March 31 of next year." Former senator John Edwards wants a "timetable for withdrawal" that would generously leave "some presence to guard the embassy, for example, in Baghdad."

No one can confidently predict the outcome of a precipitous withdrawal, but the signs aren't good. Experts such as Fred Kagan at the American Enterprise Institute believe a full-scale Iraqi civil war would result in massive sectarian cleansing that "might not leave a single Sunni in Baghdad." Hundreds of thousands or more, he expects, would die.

Nearby powers in that nasty neighborhood would be tempted to intervene in favor of various Iraqi factions, raising the prospect that civil war might escalate into a regional conflict. "Even if it is kept at the proxy level," says Ken Pollack of the Brookings Institution, "proxy fights can be ruinous to countries around it."

And the descent of Iraq into complete lawlessness would allow terrorists to carve out fiefdoms. According to the national intelligence estimate issued in January, al-Qaeda "would attempt to use parts of the country -- particularly Anbar province -- to plan increased attacks in and outside Iraq."

When pressed to address these consequences, most of the Democratic candidates offer a response similar to Edwards's: "As we withdrew our combat troops out of Iraq, I would not leave the region." So America would defend its interests from a safe distance in Kuwait. But how effective has it been to fight terrorist networks in Pakistan from a distance? How effective has it been to fight genocide in Sudan from a distance? This is less an argument than an alibi.

Some Democratic foreign policy experts think that talk of immediate withdrawal is just politics for Iowa consumption; they give the candidates credit for their insincerity. A new Democratic president could easily announce that "circumstances are worse than I had feared" and adopt a more gradual and responsible plan.

But there is a problem with this approach. Feeding America's natural isolationism -- no country relishes sending its sons and daughters to fight in a far-off desert -- can create a momentum of irresponsibility that moves beyond control.

In 1974, a weary Congress cut off funds for Cambodia and South Vietnam, leading to the swift fall of both allies. In his memoir, "Years of Renewal," Henry Kissinger tells the story of former Cambodian prime minister Sirik Matak, who refused to leave his country.

"I thank you very sincerely," Matak wrote in response, "for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you, and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it. You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is no matter, because we are all born and must die. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you [the Americans]."

Eventually, between 1 million and 2 million Cambodians were murdered by the Khmer Rouge when "peace" came to Indochina. Matak, Kissinger recounts, was shot in the stomach and died three days later.

Sometimes peace for America can produce ghosts of its own.

[e-mail]

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 04:33 PM

U.S. Senate panel subpoenas White House, Cheney's office


www.chinaview.cn 2007-06-28 03:28:31

   
    WASHINGTON, June 27 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas on Wednesday to the White House and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney for documents about the warrantless eavesdropping program.

    The committee also subpoenaed the Justice Department and the National Security Council over the program, which President George W. Bush authorized shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

    "Our attempts to obtain information through testimony of administration witnesses have been met with a consistent pattern of evasion and misdirection," Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the committee, said in letters for the subpoenas.

    He said there was no legitimate argument for withholding the requested materials from the committee.

    The four parties subpoenaed were asked to comply before July 18.

    The panel was seeking documents about internal disputes within the administration about the legality of the program.

    In December 2005, The New York Times disclosed that soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush authorized a highly classified program, without seeking approval from a special foreign-intelligence surveillance court, that allows the National Security Agency to monitor, without court warrants, international telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens with ties to al Qaeda suspects abroad.

    The disclosure of the spying program caused a political uproar in Washington, and congressional hearings were held to investigate its legality.

    After the program was challenged in court, the administration earlier this year put it under the supervision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

    At the White House, spokesman Tony Fratto said they were aware of the committee's action and "will respond appropriately."

    "It's unfortunate that congressional Democrats continue to choose the route of confrontation," he said..

---

I cannot agree; with this much sleaziness going on, confrontation is the most patriotic and honest path available.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 12:57 AM

White House: Bin Laden wanted Iraq as a new base
May 22, 2007 Ed Henry CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush on Tuesday declassified intelligence showing in 2005 Osama bin Laden planned to use Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks in the United States, according to White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Johndroe said the intelligence was declassified so the president could discuss the previously secret material on Wednesday during a commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut.

The speech will be aimed at defending a key part of the president's war strategy -- the contention that the United States cannot withdraw from Iraq because al Qaeda would fill the vacuum in the Middle East.

"This shows why we believe al Qaeda wants to use Iraq as a safe haven," said Johndroe. He added the president will talk about al Qaeda's "strong interest in using Iraq as a safe haven to plot and plan attacks on the United States and other countries."

The decision also coincides with an ongoing push by the Democratic majority in Congress to force an end to U.S. involvement in Iraq. (Full story)

Bin Laden and a top lieutenant -- Abu Faraj al-Libbi -- planned to form a terror cell in Iraq in order to launch those attacks, Johndroe said.

Al-Libbi was a "senior al Qaeda manager" who in 2005 suggested to bin Laden that bin Laden send Egyptian-born Hamza Rabia to Iraq to help plan attacks on American soil, Johndroe said.

Johndroe noted that bin Laden later suggested to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, then leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, that America should be his top priority. That was followed in the spring of 2005 with bin Laden's ordering Rabia to brief al-Zarqawi on plans to attack the United States, Johndroe said.

Johndroe added the intelligence indicates al-Libbi later suggested Rabia should be sent to Iraq to carry out those operations.

But al-Libbi was captured in Pakistan and taken into CIA custody in May 2005. After al-Libbi's capture, the CIA's former acting director, John McLaughlin, described him as bin Laden's chief operating officer, the No. 3 man in al Qaeda.

"Catching terrorists is sometimes like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle without seeing the picture on the box," McLaughlin said at the time. "This is a guy who knows the picture on the box. He knows what the big picture is."

Al-Libbi is a Libyan who joined al Qaeda in the 1990s and fled to Pakistan after the United States invaded Afghanistan in late 2001. U.S. officials say al-Libbi was in contact with and directing alleged al Qaeda members in the United Kingdom who were planning attacks there and in the United States. He was also believed to be behind two 2005 attempts to assassinate Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf.

Rabia took over al-Libbi's position in the organization but was killed in in the North Waziristan tribal area of Pakistan near the Afghan border in December 2005.

Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike north of Baghdad in June 2006.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/05/22/iraq.binladen/

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 01:14 AM

I am just a tad skeptical that Bush established his war policy in 2005. Nor do I quite understand that he would keep a gem of justification like this out of the public eye, if it was reliable. Could be so, but I kinda doubt it.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 05:37 AM

Ratings for Bush, Congress sink lower

By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 12 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - Like twin Jacques Cousteaus of the political world, President Bush and Congress are probing the depths of public opinion polling as voters exasperated over Iraq, immigration and other issues give them strikingly low grades.

In a remarkable span, the approval that people voice for the job Bush is doing has sunk to record lows for his presidency in the AP-Ipsos and other polls in recent weeks, dipping within sight of President Nixon's levels during Watergate. Ominously for Republicans hoping to hold the White House and recapture Congress next year, Bush's support has plunged among core GOP groups like evangelicals, and pivotal independent swing voters.

Congress is doing about the same. Like Bush, lawmakers are winning approval by roughly three in 10. Such levels are significantly low for a president, and poor but less unusual for Congress.

"The big thing would be the war," said independent Richard MacDonald, 56, a retired printer from Redding, Calif. "I don't think he knew what he got into when he got into it." As for Congress, MacDonald said, "It's just the same old same old with me. A lot of promises they don't keep."

Bush was risking more unpopularity by commuting I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison term in the CIA leak case, and his refusal to rule out a full pardon. Polls in March after the former White House aide's conviction showed two in three opposed to a pardon.

The public's dissatisfaction may be more serious for Republicans because even though Bush cannot run again, he is the face of the GOP. He will remain that until his party picks its 2008 presidential nominee — and through the campaign if Democrats can keep him front and center.

"Everything about this race will be about George Bush and the mess he left," Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., a member of the House Democratic leadership, said about 2008. "He'll be on the ballot."

Congress' numbers could signal danger for majority Democrats, since they echo the low ratings just before the GOP 1994 takeover of the House and Senate, and the Democratic capture of both chambers last November.

But unlike the president, Congress usually has low approval ratings no matter which party is in control, and poor poll numbers have not always meant the majority party suffered on Election Day. Voters usually show more disdain for Congress as an institution than for their own representative — whom they pick.

A majority in a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. survey in late June said Democratic control of Congress was good for the country. Yet only 42 percent approved of what Democratic leaders have done this year — when Democrats failed to force Bush to change policy on Iraq.

Republican strategists hope the dim mood will help the GOP in congressional elections.

"The voters voted for change and they expected change, and they see an institution still incapable of getting anything done," said GOP pollster Linda DiVall.

The abysmal numbers are already affecting how Bush and Congress are governing and candidates' positioning for 2008.

Last Thursday's Senate collapse of Bush's immigration bill showed anew how lawmakers feel free to ignore his agenda. Republican senators like Richard Lugar of Indiana and George Voinovich of Ohio have joined increasingly bipartisan calls for an Iraq troop withdrawal.

This year's GOP presidential debates have seen former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Arizona Sen. John McCain and others criticize Bush or his administration for mishandling the war and other issues. Some Republican congressional candidates have not hesitated to distance themselves from Bush.

"President Bush is my friend, and I don't always agree with my friends," said Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., facing a tough re-election fight next year. "And on the issues of Iraq and immigration, I simply disagree with his approach."

Bush's doleful numbers speak for themselves.

In an early June AP-Ipsos poll, 32 percent approved of his work, tying his low in that survey. Other June polls in which he set or tied his personal worst included 27 percent by CBS News, 31 percent by Fox News-Opinion Dynamics, 32 percent by CNN-Opinion Research Corp. and 26 percent by Newsweek.

The Gallup poll's lowest presidential approval rating was President Truman's 23 percent in 1951 and 1952 during the Korean war, compared with Nixon's 24 percent days before he resigned in August 1974. Bush notched the best ever, 90 percent days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The AP's June survey showed that compared with an AP exit poll of voters in November 2004, Bush's approval was down among swing voters. His support dropped from about half of independents to a fifth; from half to a third of Catholics; and from nearly half to a fifth of moderates.

Among usually loyal GOP voters, his approval was down from about eight in 10 to roughly half of both conservatives and white evangelicals.

Congress had a 35 percent approval rating in a May AP-Ipsos survey. Polls in June found 27 percent approval by CBS News, 25 percent by Newsweek and 24 percent by Gallup-USA Today.

Congress' all-time Gallup low was 18 percent during a 1992 scandal over House post office transactions; its high was 84 percent just after Sept. 11.

In the AP poll, lawmakers won approval from only about three in 10 midwesterners, independents and married people with children — pivotal groups both parties court aggressively.

___

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 04 Jul 07 - 01:58 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The hypocrisy is unpardonable. President Bush's decision to commute the sentence of a convicted liar brought out the worst in both parties.


Activists, one costumed as Scooter Libby, demonstrate across from the White House on Tuesday to protest President Bush's decision to spare Libby from jail.

In keeping I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby out of jail, Bush defied his promise to hold wrongdoers accountable and undercut his 2000 campaign pledge to "restore honor and dignity" to the White House. And it might be a cynical first step toward issuing a full pardon at the conclusion of his term.

Democrats responded as if they don't live in glass houses, decrying corruption, favoritism and a lack of justice.

"This commutation sends the clear signal that in this administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice," said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

It was a brazen statement from a woman entangled in many Clinton White House scandals, including the final one: On his last day in office, President Clinton granted 140 pardons and 36 commutations, many of them controversial.

One of those pardoned was Marc Rich, who had fled the country after being indicted for tax evasion and whose wife had donated more than $1 million to Democratic causes.

Clinton's half brother, Roger, who was convicted of distributing cocaine and lobbied the White House on behalf of others, also received a pardon.

Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham, was paid tens of thousands of dollars in his successful bid to win pardons for a businessman under investigation for money laundering and a commutation for a convicted drug trafficker. Her other brother, Tony, lobbied successfully for clemency on behalf of a couple convicted of bank fraud.

It's hard to fathom that those pardons had absolutely nothing to do with cronyism or ideology, but Hillary Clinton defended them. She drew a distinction between her husband's pardons and Bush's commutation.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the senator said Bill Clinton's pardons were simply a routine exercise in the use of the pardon power, and none was aimed at protecting the Clinton presidency or legacy. "This," she said of the Libby commutation, "was clearly an effort to protect the White House."

Indeed, there is ample evidence that Libby's actions were fueled by animosity throughout the White House toward opponents of the president's push to war against Iraq.

But Hillary Clinton will have a hard time convincing most voters that her brother-in-law would have gotten a pardon in 2001 had his name been Smith. Or that Rich's pardon plea would have reached the president's desk had he not been a rich Mr. Rich.

The hypocrisy doesn't stop there.

Bush vowed at the start of the investigation to fire anybody involved in the leak of a CIA agent's identity, but one of the leakers, adviser Karl Rove, still works at the White House. Libby was allowed to keep his job until he was indicted for lying about his role.

The president said Libby's sentence was excessive. But the 2 1/2 years handed Libby was much like the sentences given others convicted in obstruction cases. Three of every four people convicted for obstruction of justice in federal court were sent to prison, for an average term of more than five years.

Want more hypocrisy? Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney praised the commutation for Libby, quite a departure for a guy who brags that he was the first Massachusetts governor to deny every request for a pardon or commutation. Romney even refused a pardon for an Iraq war veteran who, at age 13, was convicted of assault for shooting another boy in the arm with a BB gun.

What about all the Republican politicians who defied public sentiment and insisted that President Clinton be impeached for lying under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky? Many of them now minimize Libby's perjury.

What about all those Democrats who thought public shame was punishment enough for Clinton lying under oath, basically the position adopted today by Libby's supporters? Many of those Democrats now think Libby should go to jail for his perjury.

"There appears to be rank hypocrisy at work here on both sides of the political spectrum," said Joe Gaylord, a GOP consultant who worked for House Speaker Newt Gingrich during impeachment. "It causes Americans to shake their heads in disgust at the political system."

The Libby case followed the same pattern of hype and hypocrisy established during Clinton's impeachment scandal. It's as if we're all sentenced to relive the same sad scene:

A powerful man lies or otherwise does wrong.

He gets caught.

His enemies overreach in the name of justice.

His friends minimize the crime in pursuit of self-interest.

And the powerful man hires a lawyer.

Marc Rich had a high-priced attorney for his battles with the justice system. His name was Scooter Libby.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: goatfell
Date: 05 Jul 07 - 10:11 AM

The man is a dickhead and a arsehole and so are the people that voted for him

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Jul 07 - 07:50 PM

Well, yeah, the Dems purdy much suck...

The '06 election wasn't a vote of confidence for the Dems but a vote of no confidence for Bush and the Repubs...

Time fir poeple to think seriously about a 3rd party... These two ain't workin' and they both are financed by corporations...

That's what some people here just don't get... This ain't about Dems and Repubs... It's about terrible policies that have been pushed on our country by the corportist/industrialists...

If you all can't see that this partisan bickering is just a tool to keep the Repubocrats in power than you are either blind or ignorant of the real world...

Oh, those terrible Democrats..

Oh, those terrible Repubs...

Geeze...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Jul 07 - 06:25 AM

"Well, yeah, the Dems purdy much suck...

The '06 election wasn't a vote of confidence for the Dems but a vote of no confidence for Bush and the Repubs...

Time fir poeple to think seriously about a 3rd party... These two ain't workin' and they both are financed by corporations..."




I HATE it when I agree with Bobert!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jul 07 - 09:52 AM

In a major blow to the Bush administration, U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici just endorsed a plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.

This is big. Domenici is a senior ranking and stalwart Republican, with 36 years in the Senate under his belt. He sits on the defense appropriations subcommittee. He's also up for reelection in 2008.

Come September, I suspect we'll be hearing a lot more Republicans sounding like this:

I want a new strategy for Iraq.... I am unwilling to continue our current strategy.

I have carefully studied the Iraq situation, and believe we cannot continue asking our troops to sacrifice indefinitely while the Iraqi government is not making measurable progress to move its country forward. I do not support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq ... but I do support a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to coming home."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jul 07 - 10:16 AM

Sacrifice Is for Suckers
   

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: July 6, 2007, NY Times

"On this Fourth of July, President Bush compared the Iraq war to the Revolutionary War, and called for "more patience, more courage and more sacrifice." Unfortunately, it seems that nobody asked the obvious question: "What sacrifices have you and your friends made, Mr. President?"

On second thought, there would be no point in asking that question. In Mr. Bush's world, only the little people make sacrifices.

You see, the Iraq war, although Mr. Bush insists that it's part of a Global War on Terror™, a fight to the death between good and evil, isn't like America's other great wars — wars in which the wealthy shared the financial burden through higher taxes and many members of the elite fought for their country.

This time around, Mr. Bush celebrated Mission Accomplished by cutting tax rates on dividends and capital gains, while handing out huge no-bid contracts to politically connected corporations. And in the four years since, as the insurgency Mr. Bush initially taunted with the cry of "Bring them on" has claimed the lives of thousands of Americans and left thousands more grievously wounded, the children of the elite — especially the Republican elite — have been conspicuously absent from the battlefield.

The Bushies, it seems, like starting fights, but they don't believe in paying any of the cost of those fights or bearing any of the risks. Above all, they don't believe that they or their friends should face any personal or professional penalties for trivial sins like distorting intelligence to get America into an unnecessary war, or totally botching that war's execution.

The Web site Think Progress has a summary of what happened to the men behind the war after we didn't find W.M.D., and weren't welcomed as liberators: "The architects of war: Where are they now?" To read that summary is to be awed by the comprehensiveness and generosity of the neocon welfare system. Even Paul Wolfowitz, who managed the rare feat of messing up not one but two high-level jobs, has found refuge at the American Enterprise Institute.

Which brings us to the case of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr.

The hysteria of the neocons over the prospect that Mr. Libby might actually do time for committing perjury was a sight to behold. In an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled "Fallen Soldier," Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University cited the soldier's creed: "I will never leave a fallen comrade." He went on to declare that "Scooter Libby was a soldier in your — our — war in Iraq."

Ah, yes. Shuffling papers in an air-conditioned Washington office is exactly like putting your life on the line in Anbar or Baghdad. Spending 30 months in a minimum-security prison, with a comfortable think-tank job waiting at the other end, is exactly like having half your face or both your legs blown off by an I.E.D.

What lay behind the hysteria, of course, was the prospect that for the very first time one of the people who tricked America into war, then endangered national security yet again in the effort to cover their tracks, might pay some price. But Mr. Ajami needn't have worried.

Back when the investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity began, Mr. Bush insisted that if anyone in his administration had violated the law, "that person will be taken care of." Now we know what he meant. Mr. Bush hasn't challenged the verdict in the Libby case, and other people convicted of similar offenses have spent substantial periods of time in prison. But Mr. Libby goes free.

Oh, and don't fret about the fact that Mr. Libby still had to pay a fine. Does anyone doubt that his friends will find a way to pick up the tab?

Mr. Bush says that Mr. Libby's punishment remains "harsh" because his reputation is "forever damaged." Meanwhile, Mr. Bush employs, as a deputy national security adviser, none other than Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty to unlawfully withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair. Mr. Abrams was one of six Iran-contra defendants pardoned by Mr. Bush's father, who was himself a subject of the special prosecutor's investigation of the scandal.

In other words, obstruction of justice when it gets too close to home is a family tradition. And being a loyal Bushie means never having to say you're sorry. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jul 07 - 10:08 PM

Dear Friend:

I want to let you know about legislation that I am cosponsoring that is designed to protect the Constitutional rights we all hold dear.

The Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007 (S.185) would repeal provisions of the Military Commissions Act that currently deny habeas corpus rights to those persons detained by the United States. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this important bipartisan bill.

The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized habeas corpus as "the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action." The principle of habeas corpus permits an accused person to challenge whether his or her imprisonment is lawful. It is the foundation of our legal system that protects every one of us – not just those accused of a crime.

This 900-year-old legal standard was eliminated by the Bush Administration in the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Reestablishing habeas corpus rights is critical to repairing the damage that has been caused by the Administration's harmful and misguided detention policies.

I will work to pass S.185 and other legislation that is consistent with America's guiding principles of fairness, justice, and the rule of law.

Sincerely,

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jul 07 - 10:41 PM

growing number of Republican lawmakers are dissenting from the administration and urging for a change of course.
By Noam N. Levey, LA Times Staff Writer
July 7, 2007


'I do support a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to coming home.'
— Sen. Pete V. Domenici, (R-N.M.) on his defection from Bush's war approach

WASHINGTON — Wearied by the lack of progress in Iraq and by the steady stream of military funerals back home, a growing number of Republican lawmakers who had stood loyally with President Bush are insisting his strategy has failed and are calling on him to bring the war to an end.

In the last two weeks, three GOP senators — including one of the party's leading voices on foreign affairs and one of Bush's strongest allies — have urged the president to change course now so U.S. troops can start to withdraw.

And Friday, in interviews with the Los Angeles Times, two more Senate Republicans bluntly voiced disappointment with the president's approach and pressed for change.

"It should be clear to the president that there needs to be a new strategy," said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. "Our policy in Iraq is drifting."

Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, who helped lead the charge earlier this year against Democratic efforts to oppose Bush's troop buildup, said: "We don't seem to be making a lot of progress."

It is vital to have "a clear blueprint for how we were going to draw down," he said.

None of these GOP lawmakers has embraced Democratic legislation to compel a troop withdrawal. But nearly five years after congressional Republicans overwhelmingly answered Bush's call for military action against Iraq's Saddam Hussein, some are doing what was once unthinkable: challenging a wartime president from their own party.

By publicly branding Bush's buildup a failure and calling for troops to begin coming home, they are forcing a reluctant White House to reassess how long it can maintain a large military presence in Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jul 07 - 02:30 PM

The NEw York Times editorializes:

"Just as Iran should come under international pressure to allow Shiites in southern Iraq to develop their own independent future, Washington must help persuade Sunni powers like Syria not to intervene on behalf of Sunni Iraqis. Turkey must be kept from sending troops into Kurdish territories.

For this effort to have any remote chance, Mr. Bush must drop his resistance to talking with both Iran and Syria. Britain, France, Russia, China and other nations with influence have a responsibility to help. Civil war in Iraq is a threat to everyone, especially if it spills across Iraq's borders.

•

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans' demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened — the result of this unnecessary invasion and the incompetent management of this war.

This country faces a choice. We can go on allowing Mr. Bush to drag out this war without end or purpose. Or we can insist that American troops are withdrawn as quickly and safely as we can manage — with as much effort as possible to stop the chaos from spreading."


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Dickey
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 09:49 AM

Court orders dismissal of U.S. wiretapping lawsuit

"...The appeals court ruled that the plaintiffs didn't prove they had been affected by the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program, authorized by President Bush in 2002. The program allowed the NSA to monitor communications between U.S. residents and people in other countries with suspected ties to the terrorist group al-Qaeda...."

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9026379

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 10:50 AM

The Patriot Act needed all the help it could get in the first few days.

Is it possible that the anthrax attacks were launched from within our own government? A former Bush 1 advisor thinks it is.

Francis A. Boyle, an international law expert who worked under the first Bush Administration as a bioweapons advisor in the 1980s, has said that he is convinced the October 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people were perpetrated and covered up by criminal elements of the U.S. government. The motive: to foment a police state by killing off and intimidating opposition to post-9/11 legislation such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the later Military Commissions Act.

"After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush Administration tried to ram the USA PATRIOT Act through Congress," Boyle said in a radio interview with Austin-based talk-show host Alex Jones. "That would have set up a police state.

"Senators Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)
were holding it up because they realized what this would lead to. The
first draft of the PATRIOT Act would have suspended the writ of habeas
corpus [which protects citizens from unlawful imprisonment and
guarantees due process of law]. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere,
come these anthrax attacks."

"At the time I myself did not know precisely what was going on, either
with respect to September 11 or the anthrax attacks, but then the New
York Times revealed the technology behind the letter to Senator
Daschle. [The anthrax used was] a trillion spores per gram, [refined
with] special electro-static treatment. This is superweapons-grade
anthrax that even the United States government, in its openly
proclaimed programs, had never developed before. So it was obvious to
me that this was from a U.S. government lab. There is nowhere else you
could have gotten that."

Boyle's assessment was based on his years of expertise regarding
America's bioweapons programs. He was responsible for drafting the
Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 that was passed
unanimously by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President
George H.W. Bush.

After realizing that the anthrax attacks looked like a domestic job,
Boyle called a high-level official in the FBI who deals with terrorism
and counterterrorism, Marion "Spike" Bowman. Boyle and Bowman had met
at a terrorism conference at the University of Michigan Law School.
Boyle told Bowman that the only people who would have the capability to
carry out the attacks were individuals working on U.S. government
anthrax programs with access to a high-level biosafety lab. Boyle gave
Bowman a full list of names of scientists, contractors and labs
conducting anthrax work for the U.S. government and military.

Bowman then informed Boyle that the FBI was working with Fort Detrick
on the matter. Boyle expressed his view that Fort Detrick could be the
main problem. As widely reported in 2002 publications, notably the New
Scientist, the anthrax strain used in the attacks was officially
assessed as "military grade."

"Soon after I informed Bowman of this information, the FBI authorized
the destruction of the Ames cultural anthrax database," the professor
said. The Ames strain turned out to be the same strain as the spores
used in the attacks.

The alleged destruction of the anthrax culture collection at Ames,
Iowa, from which the Fort Detrick lab got its pathogens, was blatant
destruction of evidence. It meant that there was no way of finding out
which strain was sent to whom to develop the larger breed of anthrax
used in the attacks. The trail of genetic evidence would have led
directly back to a secret government biowarfare program.

"Clearly, for the FBI to have authorized this was obstruction of
justice, a federal crime," said Boyle. "That collection should have
been preserved and protected as evidence. That's the DNA, the
fingerprints right there. It later came out, of course, that this was
Ames strain anthrax that was behind the Daschle and Leahy letters."

At that point, recounted Boyle, it became very clear to him that there
was a coverup underway. He later discovered, while reading David Ray
Griffin's book on the 9/11 attacks, The New Pearl Harbor, that Bowman
was the same FBI agent who allegedly sabotaged the FISA warrant for
access to [convicted co-conspirator] Zacharias Moussaoui's computer
prior to 9/11. Moussaoui's computer contained information that could
have helped prevent the attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon.

In 2003, Bowman was promoted and given the Presidential Rank Award by
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote a
letter to Mueller, chastising the organization for granting such an
honor to an agent who had so obviously compromised America's security.

During the anthrax scare, the House of Representatives was officially
shut down for the first time in the history of the republic. Once
opposition from Leahy and Daschle evaporated in the wake of the
attempts on their lives, the USA PATRIOT Act was rammed through.
Testimony by Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) revealed that most
members of Congress were compelled to vote for the bill without even
reading it.

"They were going to move to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, which is
all that really separates us from a police state," Boyle said. "And
that is what they have done now with respect to enemy combatants [in
the Military Commissions Act of 2006]." Boyle added that lawmakers are
now arguing that Amendment XIV, which guarantees due process of law to
all Americans, does not mean what it has been taken to mean and that,
under the Military Commissions Act, any U.S. citizen can be stripped of
citizenship and be labeled an enemy combatant.

Continued Boyle: "In other words, they have taken the position that at
some point in time, if they want to, they can unilaterally round up
United States native-born citizens, as they did for Japanese-Americans
in World War II, and stick us into concentration camps." Boyle asserted
that top officials, such as White House legal advisor John Yoo and
former Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith (now a professor at
Harvard Law School), are pushing for the legalization of torture as
well.

"The Nazis did the exact same thing," said Boyle. "They had their
lawyers infiltrating law schools. Carl Schmidt was the worst, and he
was the mentor to Leo Strauss, the [ideological] founder of the
neoconservatives. So the same phenomenon that started in Nazi Germany
is happening here, and I exaggerate not. We could all be tortured; we
could all be treated this way."

Boyle stressed that it is vital to keep up the pressure on Senator
Leahy, who now chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, giving him
subpoena power. Since Leahy was himself a target, he may have
sufficient motivation to get to the bottom of the attacks. The FBI and
the Justice Department have so far refused full disclosure to Congress.

In addition to his credentials as a government advisor, Boyle also
holds a doctorate of law magna cum laude and a Ph.D. in political
science, both from Harvard University. He teaches international law at
the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Boyle also served on
the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-92) and
represented Bosnia-Herzegovina at the World Court.

Boyle alleged that due to his activities as a lawyer, he was
interrogated by an agent from the CIA/FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force in
the summer of 2004. The agent tried to recruit him as an informant to
provide the FBI with information on his Arab and Muslim clients. When
he refused, according to Boyle, the FBI placed him on the government's
terrorism watch lists.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 12:27 PM

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans' demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened — the result of this unnecessary invasion and the incompetent management of this war.

This country faces a choice. We can go on allowing Mr. Bush to drag out this war without end or purpose. Or we can insist that American troops are withdrawn as quickly and safely as we can manage — with as much effort as possible to stop the chaos from spreading.



New Yorkl Times

---

The complete self-centered stupidity of Bush's major decisions on almost every front is perhaps the trademark of his tenure. He is clearly an interloper in the history of civilization, a fraud and pretender in the ranks of thinking men.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 12:32 PM

Excerpt from "A Profile in Cowardice"
            By FRANK RICH (NY Times Columnist)
Published: July 8, 2007


THERE was never any question that President Bush would grant amnesty to Scooter Libby, the man who knows too much about the lies told to sell the war in Iraq. The only questions were when, and how, Mr. Bush would buy Mr. Libby's silence. Now we have the answers, and they're at least as incriminating as the act itself. They reveal the continued ferocity of a White House cover-up and expose the true character of a commander in chief whose tough-guy shtick can no longer camouflage his fundamental cowardice.


The timing of the president's Libby intervention was a surprise. Many assumed he would mimic the sleazy 11th-hour examples of most recent vintage: his father's pardon of six Iran-contra defendants who might have dragged him into that scandal, and Bill Clinton's pardon of the tax fugitive Marc Rich, the former husband of a major campaign contributor and the former client of none other than the ubiquitous Mr. Libby.

But the ever-impetuous current President Bush acted 18 months before his scheduled eviction from the White House. Even more surprising, he did so when the Titanic that is his presidency had just hit two fresh icebergs, the demise of the immigration bill and the growing revolt of Republican senators against his strategy in Iraq.

That Mr. Bush, already suffering historically low approval ratings, would invite another hit has been attributed in Washington to his desire to placate what remains of his base. By this logic, he had nothing left to lose. He didn't care if he looked like an utter hypocrite, giving his crony a freer ride than Paris Hilton and violating the white-collar sentencing guidelines set by his own administration. He had to throw a bone to the last grumpy old white guys watching Bill O'Reilly in a bunker.

But if those die-hards haven't deserted him by now, why would Mr. Libby's incarceration be the final straw? They certainly weren't whipped into a frenzy by coverage on Fox News, which tended to minimize the leak case as a non-event. Mr. Libby, faceless and voiceless to most Americans, is no Ollie North, and he provoked no right-wing firestorm akin to the uproars over Terri Schiavo, Harriet Miers or "amnesty" for illegal immigrants.

The only people clamoring for Mr. Libby's freedom were the pundits who still believe that Saddam secured uranium in Africa and who still hope that any exoneration of Mr. Libby might make them look less like dupes for aiding and abetting the hyped case for war. That select group is not the Republican base so much as a roster of the past, present and future holders of quasi-academic titles at neocon think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute.

What this crowd never understood is that Mr. Bush's highest priority is always to protect himself. So he stiffed them too. Had the president wanted to placate the Weekly Standard crowd, he would have given Mr. Libby a full pardon. That he served up a commutation instead is revealing of just how worried the president is about the beans Mr. Libby could spill about his and Dick Cheney's use of prewar intelligence.

Valerie Wilson still has a civil suit pending. The Democratic inquisitor in the House, Henry Waxman, still has the uranium hoax underlying this case at the top of his agenda as an active investigation. A commutation puts up more roadblocks by keeping Mr. Libby's appeal of his conviction alive and his Fifth Amendment rights intact. He can't testify without risking self-incrimination. Meanwhile, we are asked to believe that he has paid his remaining $250,000 debt to society independently of his private $5 million "legal defense fund."

The president's presentation of the commutation is more revealing still. Had Mr. Bush really believed he was doing the right and honorable thing, he would not have commuted Mr. Libby's jail sentence by press release just before the July Fourth holiday without consulting Justice Department lawyers. That's the behavior of an accountant cooking the books in the dead of night, not the proud act of a patriot standing on principle.

When the furor followed Mr. Bush from Kennebunkport to Washington despite his efforts to duck it, he further underlined his embarrassment by taking his only few questions on the subject during a photo op at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. You know this president is up to no good whenever he hides behind the troops. This instance was particularly shameful, since Mr. Bush also used the occasion to trivialize the scandalous maltreatment of Walter Reed patients on his watch as merely "some bureaucratic red-tape issues."

Asked last week to explain the president's poll numbers, Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center told NBC News that "when we ask people to summon up one word that comes to mind" to describe Mr. Bush, it's "incompetence." But cowardice, the character trait so evident in his furtive handling of the Libby commutation, is as important to understanding Mr. Bush's cratered presidency as incompetence, cronyism and hubris. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jul 07 - 06:30 PM

This week, the showdown between the White House and Congress over the improper firing last year of nine U.S. attorneys is set to come to a head. At the center of the dispute are subpoenas issued last month by both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees for the testimony of two former White House aides, Sara Taylor and Harriet Miers, as well as documents related to their involvement in the firing process. Last month, the White House invoked executive privilege to block the release of the documents. Today, President Bush is due to provide "a detailed justification of his executive privilege claims and a full accounting of the documents he is withholding."

But the White House has signaled it will defy the order, with counsel Fred Fielding expected to tell "lawmakers that he has already provided the legal basis for the claims and will not provide a log" of the requested documents. Taylor, an ex-aide to Karl Rove who served as White House political director, is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, but her lawyer has said that though she is willing to testify, the White House is urging her to ignore the subpoena. This morning, Bush invoked executive privilege to block Taylor and Miers from providing testimony. Bush's defiance of the subpoenas may lead Congress "to seek criminal contempt citations against the White House," which would bring the battle over separation of powers into the court system, leading to what could be an unprecedented constitutional struggle, as "no president has mounted a court fight to keep his aides from testifying on Capitol Hill."

CONGRESS CONSIDERING HOLDING WHITE HOUSE IN CONTEMPT: On June 29, after the White House invoked executive privilege, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the respective chairmen of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, sent a letter to Fielding demanding the details of "which documents, and which parts of those documents, are covered by any privilege" that the administration may invoke. The requested records log, "according to the committees, should describe each document withheld, including its source, subject matter, date and recipients."

Though Leahy and Conyers note that "such privilege logs have been provided by the White House in previous Administrations," and that the Justice Department has already provided similar logs, the White House is balking, viewing "the request as a backdoor attempt to get sensitive information about deliberations." If Fielding refuses to provide the logs today, as is expected, the committees will "move to proceedings to rule on [the executive privilege] claims and consider whether the White House is in contempt of Congress," according to the letter. "We're going to pursue our legal remedies to press forward with the subpoenas," Conyers said yesterday on ABC's This Week.

BUSH BLOCKING AIDES' TESTIMONY: On Saturday, W. Neil Eggleston, the attorney for Sara Taylor, sent a letter to Leahy, writing that "Ms. Taylor expects to receive a letter from [White House Counsel Fred] Fielding on behalf of the President directing her to not comply with the Senate's subpoena." In his letter, Eggleston claimed that "Taylor would testify without hesitation," but that she "faces two untenable choices": follow the President's wishes and be held in contempt of Congress or work with the Senate and risk alienating the President, "a person whom she admires and for whom she has worked tirelessly for years."

Reacting to the letter, Leahy said, "The White House continues to try to have it both ways -- to block Congress from talking with witnesses and accessing documents and other evidence while saying nothing improper occurred." Taylor's testimony to Congress would be an important step in the investigation of why nine U.S. attorneys were singled out for firing last year, as she was one of the main contacts between the White House and the Department of Justice during the deliberations over the purge.

TAYLOR WAS DEEPLY INVOLVED IN FIRINGS: Taylor, who stepped down from her position at the White House in May, is reported to have been intimately involved in the firing process, especially the replacement of former Arkansas U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins with former Rove-protege Tim Griffin. According to Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Taylor put "pressure" on the Department of Justice to bypass the Senate and install Griffin as the U.S. Attorney in Arkansas.

Additionally, Taylor had a direct role in misleading the Senate about White House's actions when she signed off on a January 2007 letter to Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) claiming that "that 'not once' had the Bush 'administration sought to avoid the Senate confirmation process' by exploiting the Patriot Act." After Cummins suggested publicly that the White House orchestrated his ouster, rather than the Justice Department, Taylor led the charge behind the scenes to attack and discredit him. In a February 2007 e-mail to Sampson, Taylor wrote that though she doesn't "like attacking" her friends, they should "tell the deal" on Cummins. In another e-mail, Taylor called Cummins "lazy," implying that he had been fired for performance-related issues -- the charge that first led the ousted U.S. attorneys to speak publicly about their dismissals.


ADMINISTRATION -- ROVE: 'I MAKE NO APOLOGIES' FOR ANY OF ADMINISTRATION'S BLUNDERS: This weekend at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Karl Rove spoke at length about his involvement in a series of key administration blunders related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rove grossly distorted the conditions at Guantanamo Bay prison, claiming, "Our principal health problem down there is gain of weight, we feed them so well." In fact, Guantanamo prisoners are facing a mental health crisis, with over 40 suicide attempts, including one suicide in May.

Some have been treated by "experts in treating torture victims." Rove fearmongered that 80-90 percent of violence in Iraq is due to al Qaeda. In fact, as former Secretary of State Colin Powell noted earlier in the Aspen conference, only 10 percent of violence in Iraq is due to al Qaeda. Rove also argued that "we all thought [Saddam Hussein] had weapons of mass destruction. The whole world did." But U.N.weapons inspectors and prominent members of the international community strongly disagreed with this assessment before the invasion.

Downplaying his role in the CIA leak scandal, Rove said, "My contribution to this was to say to a reporter, which is a lesson about talking to reporters, the words 'I heard that, too.'" In fact, Rove may have intentionally leaked Valerie Plame's identity, writing in an e-mail to a reporter that "[Joe] Wilson's wife...works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction]." One reporter said his conversation with Rove was the first time he heard anything about Plame. Subsequently, Rove partook in an "an aggressive campaign to discredit Wilson." Nonetheless, Rove remains confident today. "Look, I make no apologies," he said. 

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 08:36 AM

Bush directs defiance of order to testify
Claims of executive privilege mean ex-aides won't explain roles in firing of attorneys
By Jesse J. Holland
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - President Bush, again claiming executive privilege, directed former aides Monday to defy congressional subpoenas ordering them to explain their roles in the firings of U.S. attorneys over the winter.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding insisted that Bush was acting in good faith in withholding documents and directing Fielding's predecessor, Harriet Miers, and Bush's former political director, Sara Taylor, not to testify before congressional committees this week.

Fielding renewed the White House offer to let Miers, Taylor and other administration officials meet with congressional investigators off the record and with no transcript -- an offer congressional Democrats have rejected.

As a result, a showdown looms in which lawmakers could hold the subpoenaed officials in contempt of Congress.

Here are questions and answers about the process of contempt of Congress:

Q: What is contempt of Congress, and why would Congress want to use this power?

A: Congress can hold a person in contempt if he or she obstructs proceedings or an inquiry by a congressional committee. Congress has used contempt citations for two main reasons: to punish someone (1) for refusing to testify or refusing to provide documents or answers, or (2) for bribing or libeling a member of Congress.

What is the process for holding someone in contempt of Congress?

A: The procedure can start in either the House or the Senate. The two chambers do not work together on contempt citations. It takes only one chamber to refer a person to be prosecuted for contempt.

It takes a majority vote for the citation to move to the full House or Senate. There, it must be debated by the full chamber like any other resolution. It is subject to the same filibuster and procedural rules as any other resolution. It takes a majority vote to be approved.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 03:19 PM

Report: Gonzales knew of FBI violations
By LAURIE KELLMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON -- Democrats raised new questions Tuesday about whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may have known about FBI abuses of civil liberties when he told a Senate committee that no such abuses occurred.

Lying to Congress is a crime, but it wasn't immediately clear if Gonzales knew about the violations when he made those statements to the Senate Intelligence Committee or intentionally misled its members.

One Democrat called for a special counsel. President Bush, meanwhile, continued to support his longtime friend.

"He still has faith in the attorney general," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel told reporters Tuesday.

On April 27, 2005, while seeking renewal of the broad powers granted law enforcement under the USA Patriot Act, Gonzales told the Senate Intelligence Committee, "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse" from the law enacted after the 9/11 terror attacks.

Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information to which they were not entitled, according to The Washington Post. Gonzales had received a least half a dozen reports describing such violations in the three months before he made that statement. The newspaper obtained the internal FBI documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

The violations, the Post reported, included unauthorized surveillance and an illegal property search.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a longtime critic of the Patriot Act, called for a special counsel.

"Providing false, misleading or inaccurate statements to Congress is a serious crime, and the man who may have committed those acts cannot be trusted to investigate himself," Nadler, D-N.Y., said in a statement.

Each of the FBI's violations cited in the reports copied to Gonzales was serious enough to require notification of the President's Intelligence Oversight Board, which helps police the government's surveillance activities, the Post reported.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the inconsistency was troubling and pointed out what he said was another one: the Justice Department's accounting of when Gonzales became aware of the FBI's abuses of so-called National Security Letters - which allow agents to secretly obtain private information on ordinary Americans in terrorism investigations.

According to the department, Gonzales became aware of the abuses "prior" to March 9 this year, when Justice's inspector general released a report documenting them. Gonzales had been receiving reports of FBI abuses in terrorism investigations for months before that, according to the Post.

Leahy said the contradictions warrant further inquiry and said he'd be asking Gonzales about them prior to the attorney general's scheduled testimony before Leahy's committee July 24.

"It appears the attorney General also failed to disclose the truth about when he first knew of widespread abuses by the FBI of National Security Letters (NSLs)," Leahy said in a statement.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jul 07 - 09:40 AM

Budget Deficit Narrows to $205 Billion
               E-Mail

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 11, 2007
Filed at 9:19 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's budget deficit will drop to $205 billion in the fiscal year that ends in September, less than half of what it was at its peak in 2004, according to new White House estimates.

It's also a gain over the $244 billion predicted by President Bush in February, but not as great an improvement as anticipated by other forecasters.

Bush planned to discuss the figures in an afternoon appearance as the White House's Office of Management and Budget as part of its midyear update of the budget picture.

The deficit last year was $248 billion and has closed in recent years due to impressive revenue growth from the healthy economy. Bush and Democrats in Congress have both promised to erase the deficit by 2012, though they have greatly divergent views on how to achieve the goal, with Bush and Republicans insisting on extension of his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts when they expire at the end of 2010.

---

See? There is another side.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jul 07 - 09:46 AM

WASHINGTON, July 10 — Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional panel Tuesday that top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to "water down" a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.

Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.

And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization's longtime ties to a "prominent family" that he refused to name.

"I was specifically told by a senior person, 'Why would you want to help those people?' " Dr. Carmona said.

The Special Olympics is one of the nation's premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people, and the Kennedys have long been deeply involved in it.

When asked after the hearing if that "prominent family" was the Kennedys, Dr. Carmona responded, "You said it. I didn't."

In response to lawmakers' questions, Dr. Carmona refused to name specific people in the administration who had instructed him to put political considerations over scientific ones. He said, however, that they included assistant secretaries of health and human services as well as top political appointees outside the department of health.

Dr. Carmona did offer to provide the names to the committee in a private meeting. ...

From the New York Times

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jul 07 - 10:15 AM

Overprivileged Executive
               



Published: July 11, 2007
NYT Editorial

It is hardly news that top officials in the current Justice Department flout the law and make false statements to Congress, but the latest instance may be the most egregious. When Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wanted the USA Patriot Act renewed in the spring of 2005, he told the Senate, "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse." But The Washington Post reported yesterday that just six days earlier, the F.B.I. had sent Mr. Gonzales a report saying that it had obtained personal information it should not have.

This is hardly the first time Mr. Gonzales has played so free and loose with the facts in his public statements and Congressional testimony. In the United States attorneys scandal — the controversy over the political purge of nine top prosecutors — Mr. Gonzales and his aides have twisted and mutilated the truth beyond recognition.

Congress and the American public need to know all that has gone on at the Justice Department. But instead of aiding that search for the truth, President Bush is blocking it, invoking executive privilege this week to prevent Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, and Sara Taylor, a former top aide to Karl Rove, from telling Congress what they know about the purge of federal prosecutors.

Mr. Bush's claim is baseless. Executive privilege, which is not mentioned in the Constitution, is a judge-made right of limited scope, intended to create a sphere of privacy around the president so that he can have honest discussions with his advisers. The White House has insisted throughout the scandal that Mr. Bush — and even Mr. Gonzales — was not in the loop about the firings. If that is the case, the privilege should not apply.

Even if Mr. Bush was directly involved, Ms. Miers and Ms. Taylor would have no right to withhold their testimony. The Supreme Court made clear in the Watergate tapes case, its major pronouncement on the subject, that the privilege does not apply if a president's privacy interests are outweighed by the need to investigate possible criminal activity. Congress has already identified many acts relating to the scandal that may have been illegal, including possible obstruction of justice and lying to Congress.

The White House argues that its insistence on the privilege is larger than this one case, that it is protecting the presidency from inappropriate demands from Congress. But the reverse is true. This White House has repeatedly made clear that it does not respect Congress's constitutional role. If Congress backs down, it would not only be compromising an important investigation of Justice Department malfeasance. It would be doing serious damage to the balance of powers.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 11 Jul 07 - 12:23 PM

Partisanship vs. the Children

By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, July 11, 2007; Page A15

Extending health insurance to uninsured children is perhaps the least controversial public policy goal in Washington. So it sets up a test: If progress is not possible on this issue, progress in our divided, embittered political system is no longer possible at all.

Ten years ago, in a passing fit of bipartisanship, Congress enacted the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Under SCHIP, states are given block grants to cover uninsured children whose parents make too much to qualify for Medicaid (the safety net entitlement for Americans in the worst poverty). Six million children, largely from families of the working poor, now get their health care through SCHIP, which is successful, popular and set to expire later this year. An additional 9 million American children, however, remain uninsured.

Reaching this group of the vulnerable is important, but not easy. Nearly two-thirds of that 9 million, according to James Fossett of the Rockefeller Institute, are already eligible for health care through Medicaid or SCHIP, but their parents haven't filled out the paperwork. Fulfilling the most basic parental responsibilities can't be legislated. Yet some of the problem might be solved through aggressive outreach and marketing by state governments, and by making the SCHIP bureaucracy easier to navigate.

Millions of other children, however, are exposed to risk because the traditional way of providing health insurance through businesses is breaking down. Escalating health costs have caused some firms to drop insurance coverage entirely or to boost costs beyond the reach of many employees. And this problem is working its way up the income scale, from the working poor to the middle class. States have responded by expanding eligibility for SCHIP to higher incomes; this year, New York state increased the threshold to 400 percent above the poverty line.

Some see this as a scandal. But consider the situation of a self-employed single mother in New York who is forced to self-insure. The average policy costs about $13,000 a year. So even if she makes $60,000, she will pay more than 20 percent of her pretax income just on health insurance. Giving her some help is not unreasonable.

Advocates of SCHIP such as John DiIulio at the University of Pennsylvania believe that $3 billion to $5 billion in additional funding a year -- maybe $25 billion over five years -- would make health coverage for children affordable for most American families under the median income. He even offers a slogan: "No child left uninsured."

But the debate in Washington on SCHIP has quickly become badly polarized. The administration's budget request is timid -- a measure of how compassionate conservatism has been drained of boldness by budget hard-liners. At $5 billion additional over five years, there are serious questions as to whether the proposal would even maintain coverage for the number of children currently in the program. The administration's attempt to limit eligibility to families at 200 percent of the poverty line or below is too restrictive. And its alternative -- a stingy tax deduction for the purchase of private health insurance -- would be more credible if it were a generous and refundable tax credit.

At the same time, Democrats are in full overreach mode, intent on stuffing themselves at the endless buffet of liberal opportunity. Their proposal -- a $50 billion increase over five years -- represents a barely hidden agenda. Instead of reasonably expanding a successful program, they want to bloat SCHIP beyond its original purposes -- to cover more and more adults -- as a step toward their utopia of government-run universal health care. And this overreach actually reduces the prospect of political agreement that would bring swift help to uninsured children.

There are serious gaps in health insurance for grown-ups, not just children. But here the administration is correct: The answer is not SCHIP and Medicare for everyone. For the hardest cases, public programs can be useful, but all Americans benefit from the innovation and quality of a predominantly private health system.

The complete triumph of public bureaucracies, in the long run, would give us the British model of decaying hospitals and take-a-number-and-wait surgery. A serious, refundable tax credit, in contrast, would allow the working poor and the lower middle class to purchase their own health coverage, while maintaining the benefits of private medicine. Two weeks ago, President Bush signaled his openness to such a credit.

There are splittable differences on these issues. It would be a reasonable compromise to expand SCHIP significantly, while offering adults a generous tax credit to purchase health insurance. But in Washington today, to call something a "reasonable compromise" may be the kiss of death.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jul 07 - 01:24 PM

An opinion piece excerpted from the Seattle Times:

George of Arabia vs. sanity
By Eugene Robinson


WASHINGTON — Don't think it's over, folks. Even though Republican senators are coming to their senses about George of Arabia's tragic war in Iraq, and even though Democrats seem to have remembered why voters put them in charge of Congress, no one should be lulled into thinking there's any guarantee that sanity will prevail.

This is the Decider we're talking about, after all.

Pay attention to what White House spokesman Tony Snow said Monday, knocking down a report that some advisers were advocating troop withdrawals: "There is no debate right now on withdrawing forces right now from Iraq."

I suppose that second "right now" in Snow's response leaves open the possibility that officials are talking about a pullout sometime in the near future. But I doubt it. Allowing himself to be forced to retreat from Iraq would ruin George W. Bush's fantasy of being seen as a latter-day Churchill. Bush keeps a bust of the British leader in his office, and has praised Churchill for being so "resolute."

Since I know he's read a book or two about his hero, hasn't Bush gotten to the part about how Churchill, T.E. Lawrence and Gertrude Bell created Iraq at the fateful Cairo Conference of 1921? And how the object was to get British forces out of Mesopotamia, leave the fractious locals to their own devices and wish them the best?

"Our object and our policy is to set up an Arab government," Churchill told Parliament later that year, describing the new country he had helped design, "and to make it take the responsibility, with our aid and our guidance and with an effective measure of our support, until they are strong enough to stand alone, and so to foster the development of their independence as to permit the steady and speedy diminution of our burden."

Bush's contribution is essentially to have destroyed the Iraq that Churchill cobbled together.

In the coming weeks, as more members of Congress distance themselves from Bush's war, some will blame the failure of the U.S. occupation not on the president but on the Iraqi leadership. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his parliament, we will be told, failed to make the "tough decisions" that could have ended the sectarian civil war and allowed a pro-Western democracy to grow and flourish.

It's convenient to put it all on those disputatious Iraqis, but it's also unfair. Bush's invasion so thoroughly obliterated the apparatus of the Iraqi nation-state that the populace was left with nothing to rally around but sect, clan and ethnicity. Where else were people to turn in the midst of post-invasion chaos? How else were they to ensure that their interests were protected?

...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 10:31 AM

As we debate what to do in Iraq, here are two facts to bear in mind:


...
First, a poll this spring of Iraqis — who know their country much better than we do — shows that only 21 percent think that the U.S. troop presence improves security in Iraq, while 69 percent think it is making security worse.

Second, the average cost of posting a single U.S. soldier in Iraq has risen to $390,000 per year, according to a new study by the Congressional Research Service. This fiscal year alone, Iraq will cost us $135 billion, which amounts to a bit more than a quarter-million dollars per minute.

We simply can't want to be in Iraq more than the Iraqis want us to be there. That poll of Iraqis, conducted by the BBC and other news organizations, found that only 22 percent of Iraqis support the presence of coalition troops in Iraq, down from 32 percent in 2005.

If Iraqis were pleading with us to stay and quell the violence, maybe we would have a moral responsibility to stay. But when Iraqis are begging us to leave, and saying that we are making things worse, then it's remarkably presumptuous to overrule their wishes and stay indefinitely because, as President Bush termed it in his speech on Tuesday, "it is necessary work."

We can't afford universal health care at home — but we can afford more than $10 billion a month so that American troops can be maimed in a country where they aren't wanted? If we take the total eventual cost of the Iraq war, that sum could be used to finance health care for all uninsured Americans for perhaps 30 years.

Or imagine if we invested just two weeks' worth of the Iraq spending to fight malaria, de-worm children around the globe and reduce maternal mortality. Those humanitarian projects would save vast numbers of lives and help restore America's standing in the world.

On Tuesday, Mr. Bush argued that we should give the surge a chance and that the costs of withdrawal would be enormous.

Just because President Bush says something doesn't mean it is fatuous. It's true, for example, that our withdrawal may lead to worse horrors in Iraq. But don't ignore the alternative possibility, believed overwhelmingly by Iraqis themselves, that our departure will make things better.

Mr. Bush is also right that the surge is only just in place and may still enjoy modest success. Sectarian violence initially dropped in Baghdad (although it seems to have risen again since May), and it's impressive to see Sunni tribes cooperating with us in Anbar against foreign jihadis. Then again, even the Green Zone is now a daily target, Turkish troops may invade Kurdistan and brace yourself for battles in Kirkuk between Kurds and Arabs.

Meanwhile, since Mr. Bush announced the surge, 600 American troops have been killed and 3,000 injured.

But whatever happens on the streets that the Americans patrol, the only solution in Iraq is political, not military. The surge was supposed to build political space for that solution, and that is not happening.

Progress has stalled on de-Baathification and constitutional reform, one-third of Iraq's cabinet is boycotting the government and people are turning to sectarian militias for protection. The Pentagon itself reported last month that 52 percent of Baghdad residents say that militias are serving the interest of the Iraqi people.

In this desperate situation, the last best hope to break the stalemates in Iraqi politics will come if Congress forces Iraqi politicians to peer over the abyss at the prospect of their country on its own. If Congress makes it clear that the U.S. is heading for the exits — and that we want no permanent bases in Iraq — that may undercut the extremists and lead more Iraqis to focus on preserving their nation rather than expelling the infidels.

It's nice that Mr. Bush is still confident about Iraq, telling us on Tuesday: "I strongly believe that we will prevail."

Apparently, we're doing almost as well today as we were in October 2003 when he blamed journalists for filtering out the good news and declared: "We're making really good progress."

Then in September 2004, Mr. Bush assured us that Iraq was "making steady progress." In April 2005: "We're making good progress in Iraq." In October 2005: "Iraq has made incredible political progress." In November 2005: "Iraqis are making inspiring progress."

Do we really want to continue making this kind of inspiring progress for the next 10 years?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 10:52 AM

from the Washington Post:

A Consensus Waiting to Happen

By David Ignatius
Thursday, July 12, 2007; Page A23

The last time I remember Ambassador Ryan Crocker warning about a possible bloodbath, it was in September 1982 as the Sabra-Shatila massacre was taking place in Beirut. So when Crocker tells the New York Times that a rapid U.S. withdrawal from Iraq could produce a human tragedy on a far larger scale, people should take notice. He has seen it happen before.

Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, described the dangers starkly on Monday in explaining what might happen if the United States withdraws its troops too quickly from Iraq: "The dangers could be a civil war, dividing the country, regional wars and the collapse of the state."

Those are the stakes as the Senate debates the military authorization bill this week. The daily death toll measures the cost America and the Iraqis already are paying, but Crocker and Zebari are right in warning that a sudden U.S. withdrawal could be even more costly: The violence that is destroying Iraq could spread throughout the region -- an inferno stretching across Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria, and even Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- with devastating consequences for global security.

Getting into Iraq was President Bush's decision, and history will judge his administration harshly for its mistakes in the postwar occupation. But getting out of Iraq is now partly in the hands of the Democrats who control both houses of Congress. History will be equally unforgiving if their agitation for withdrawal results in a pell-mell retreat that causes lasting damage.

The Iraq debate in Washington this week is intense and angry. But as with the Palestinian conflict, the rhetorical fireworks mask the fact that there's an emerging consensus on what the final result should be. Leaders on both sides endorse the broad strategy proposed in December by the Iraq Study Group: a gradual withdrawal that shifts the American mission to training, force protection, counterterrorism and border security. That formula gets wide support from members of Congress and administration officials alike. As a senior administration official puts it, it's "where everybody agrees you want to go." The problem is getting there.

The essential elements of the compromise that's necessary don't seem all that complicated. Democrats need to be assured that the troops are beginning to come out; the administration needs to be assured that they aren't coming out so quickly that it will undermine regional security.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates appears to recognize what's necessary, politically and strategically. He is said to favor an announcement by September that the United States will withdraw some troops from Iraq before year-end as a sign that it is committed to a "post-surge" redeployment. The opportunity for a modest drawdown will arise this fall, when two battalions, several thousand troops at most, are scheduled to rotate out of Iraq. One of those is a Marine battalion in Anbar province, where the administration has been touting U.S. success. A good way to underline the gains in Anbar would be to reduce U.S. troop levels there.

Another chance for compromise is the United Nations authorization for the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, which must be renewed this year. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki wants a plan to reduce the number of American troops in his country as much as any member of Congress does. Here's the real opportunity for "timelines" on withdrawal -- ones jointly negotiated by U.S. and Iraqi diplomats rather than imposed by Congress. In a perverse sense, that's the greatest gift America can bestow on the Iraqi government -- to engineer the joint "liberation" of Iraq from U.S. occupation, but "slowly, slowly," as the Arabs like to say.

It used to be said of the Palestinians that "they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." Sadly, that has been true for the Bush administration during the past year in its failure to shape a bipartisan policy on Iraq. The release of the Baker-Hamilton report in December provided an opportunity; Bush missed it. Another chance arose in late May, when Bush himself proclaimed that his strategy for the future was " Plan B-H," meaning Baker-Hamilton. But he didn't follow through.

The president should have gathered the members of the Iraq Study Group in the Rose Garden the next day and dispatched them to visit members of Congress. Sorry, Mr. President, but Democratic Study Group members Vernon Jordan and Leon Panetta would be more effective lobbyists right now than anyone from the White House.

There's broad agreement on the need to put Iraq policy on a sustainable path that will gradually withdraw American forces without producing the bloodbath that frightens people such as Ryan Crocker in Baghdad. But Bush and the Democrats are running out of opportunities to make it happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 10:53 AM

from the Washington Post

Wishful Thinking on Iraq

President Bush isn't the only guilty party.
Thursday, July 12, 2007; Page A22


IT SEEMS like just weeks ago, because it was, that Congress approved funding for the war in Iraq and instructed Gen. David H. Petraeus to report back on the war's progress in September. Now, for reasons having more to do with American politics than with Iraqi reality, September isn't soon enough. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) says he wants a vote in the next week or two "to truly change our Iraq strategy," by which he means starting to withdraw U.S. troops. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), the leading Democratic candidate for president, urged President Bush on Tuesday "to begin ending the war . . . today." Increasing numbers of Republicans agree. But many of them seem reluctant to confront the likely consequences of a U.S. troop withdrawal.

We agree with Mrs. Clinton that President Bush has been guilty of "wishful thinking" on Iraq. When he was promoting his surge policy at the beginning of this year, we said Iraq's political leadership was unlikely to accept compromises any time soon. It was predictable, therefore, that Mr. Bush's benchmarks would not be met and that within a few months the policy he put forward without popular or congressional support would become even more difficult to sustain.

But his wishful thinking can't excuse, even if it helps explain, the wishful thinking on the other side. Advocates of withdrawal would like to believe that Afghanistan is now a central front in the war on terror but that Iraq is not; believing that doesn't make it so. They would like to minimize the chances of disaster following a U.S. withdrawal: of full-blown civil war, conflicts spreading beyond Iraq's borders, or genocide. They would have us believe that someone or something will ride to the rescue: the United Nations, an Islamic peacekeeping force, an invigorated diplomatic process. They like to say that by withdrawing U.S. troops, they will "end the war."

Conditions in Iraq today are terrible, but they could become "way, way worse," as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, a career Foreign Service officer, recently told the New York Times. If American men and women were dying in July in a clearly futile cause, it would indeed be immoral to wait until September to order their retreat. But given the risks of withdrawal, the calculus cannot be so simple. The generals who have devised a new strategy believe they are making fitful progress in calming Baghdad, training the Iraqi army and encouraging anti-al-Qaeda coalitions. Before Congress begins managing rotation schedules and ordering withdrawals, it should at least give those generals the months they asked for to see whether their strategy can offer some new hope.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 11:20 AM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070710/ap_on_go_co/democrats_cheney_2


The American Institute could cover Cheney, let alone Hllaiburton.

__________________________________

Santorum warns US http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/july2007/070707changeview.htm

_________________________________
Harriet Miers ordered to ignore subpeona by W

list of ignored supeona's by Bush http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/july2007/070707changeview.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 11:58 AM

"At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001]," Milligan told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, "And the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country," he concluded.

Yearning for new mass casualty terror attacks for political gain is a GOP strategy - Milligan is merely parroting what was written in a leaked confidential memo that was circulated among senior Republican leaders in late 2005.

"A confidential memo circulating among senior Republican leaders suggests that a new attack by terrorists on U.S. soil could reverse the sagging fortunes of President George W. Bush as well as the GOP and "restore his image as a leader of the American people," reported Capitol Hill Blue on November 12, 2005.

From here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 11:41 PM

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator


"We are in a debate in this United States Senate between talk and action. It's very easy to talk… and call press conferences and say 'we need a change. It's time for a change.' But let's see how people vote. Will they vote for a Sense of the Senate that has absolutely no force of law—that says it is the Sense of the Senate that we should change course? Or will they vote to start redeploying our troops out of the middle of a civil war, out of chaos?

"It's one thing to have an argument with someone and have pride and say you know, I'm not going to admit I made a mistake. It's another thing when people are dying because of your mistake every day.

"Now in November 2006, the American people voted against the Iraq war. They elected Democrats. They want this war to end… they don't want our troops in the middle of a civil war.

"How many more explosive devices are going to blow up in the faces of our troops before we start bringing them home? How many more Iraqis are going to die, women and children? How many more faces are we going to look at on the front page before we get the guts to do the right thing?   

"The President doesn't listen. He didn't listen after the election…he said he had a new strategy. What was it? The surge. The surge is not a new strategy; it's a military tactic, and it isn't working.

"Today the Associated Press reports 'Iraq fails to meet all reform goals.' Not even one goal was met. Our people are dying, and they can't meet one goal. The violence continues unabated. Since the President made his speech on January 10, after the election, when he said there was going to be a new strategy, 590 U.S. servicemen and women have been killed, 107 of whom did not live to see their 21st birthday. What kind of change is it that this President brought?   

"The Administration is failing on the security front, they're failing on the political front. They don't listen to Senator Biden, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee; they don't listen to Senator Lugar, the Ranking Member, who are all saying you have to have a political solution. And the Administration is failing on the reconstruction front. Iraqis living in Baghdad still receive an average of 5.6 hours of electricity a day. The President can't even keep the lights on, let alone succeed in this surge.

"I would say to the President: tell the truth to the American people. Lay out what you expected and then lay out the reality and start getting the troops home. We have not seen these improvements, and now our military's at the breaking point."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 12:20 AM

The Independent(U.K)

Leading article: Mr Bush pays the price for this fatally ill-judged war
Published: 13 July 2007
White House spin-doctors did their utmost to put a positive gloss on it, and President Bush added his own two-penn'orth worth in an unusual morning press conference. But there was little any of them could do to relieve the pervasive sense of gloom. The security situation in Iraq clearly remains extremely bleak - and threatens to become bleaker still. In the words of the report released yesterday, the situation is "complex and extremely challenging" - diplomatic language for as bad as it gets.

This was an interim report, compiled by the White House after consultation with the commander on the ground, General David Patraeus, and the US ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker. The final version, which is required by the US Congress in mid-September, will be the make-or-break document. As President Bush stressed yesterday, it will be crucial in determining what Washington does next.

Yet the release of the interim report had a significance of its own. That these provisional conclusions saw the light of day at all is testimony to the pressure Mr Bush now finds himself under, not only from the Democrat-controlled Congress, but from American public opinion. Opinion polls show Mr Bush to be as unpopular as Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal, and seven out of 10 Americans surveyed this week favoured a US withdrawal from Iraq by next April. The conjunction of these two forces could speed Mr Bush towards withdrawal, whether he would choose it or not.

Under the US Constitution, of course, a US President cannot be forced from office other than by impeachment. He can, however, be rendered effectively impotent, if Congress withholds money and his party forsakes him. This is the humiliation confronting Mr Bush a full 18 months before he is due to leave office.

At his press conference yesterday, Mr Bush said that on the 18 benchmarks set by Congress, Iraq had been graded "satisfactory" on eight, "unsatisfactory" on eight, and "mixed" on the remaining two. In theory, that made the score neutral. The trouble is that in practical terms the failures vastly outweigh the successes. The successes - stumping up the requisite cash for training Iraqi troops and police, for instance - tick the boxes, but mean little if those troops and police are unable to combat the insurgency. The failures - no progress on local elections and no law on dividing up oil revenue - remain just that, failures.

Mr Bush offered two points in mitigation. First, he said, it was only last month that the final contingent of US troop reinforcements had arrived to complete the so-called "surge", so it was too early to write that effort off. And second, the failures were by and large on the political side, while the successes were concentrated on the security side. Progress in security, he argued, was a precondition for political progress, therefore the indicators could be described as positive.

These arguments are at very least questionable. There was a time, after all, when political advances - national elections and the rest - were lauded as a necessary prelude to improved security. The "surge", meanwhile, has had less impact on the violence than had been hoped, while upping the US casualty rate to a level that is passing the limits of the American public's tolerance. All that Mr Bush could realistically offer yesterday, citing the report, was that things were likely to get worse before they got better, with the likelihood of an increase in al-Qa'ida-inspired attacks through the summer.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 10:17 AM

BAGHDAD, July 12 — In rebuffing calls to bring troops home from Iraq, President Bush on Thursday employed a stark and ominous defense. "The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq," he said, "were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that's why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home."

Skip to next paragraph
The Reach of War
Go to Complete Coverage » It is an argument Mr. Bush has been making with frequency in the past few months, as the challenges to the continuation of the war have grown. On Thursday alone, he referred at least 30 times to Al Qaeda or its presence in Iraq.

But his references to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the Qaeda leadership.

There is no question that the group is one of the most dangerous in Iraq. But Mr. Bush's critics argue that he has overstated the Qaeda connection in an attempt to exploit the same kinds of post-Sept. 11 emotions that helped him win support for the invasion in the first place.

Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia did not exist before the Sept. 11 attacks. The Sunni group thrived as a magnet for recruiting and a force for violence largely because of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, which brought an American occupying force of more than 100,000 troops to the heart of the Middle East, and led to a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

The American military and American intelligence agencies characterize Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as a ruthless, mostly foreign-led group that is responsible for a disproportionately large share of the suicide car bomb attacks that have stoked sectarian violence. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior American commander in Iraq, said in an interview that he considered the group to be "the principal short-term threat to Iraq."

But while American intelligence agencies have pointed to links between leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the top leadership of the broader Qaeda group, the militant group is in many respects an Iraqi phenomenon. They believe the membership of the group is overwhelmingly Iraqi. Its financing is derived largely indigenously from kidnappings and other criminal activities. And many of its most ardent foes are close at home, namely the Shiite militias and the Iranians who are deemed to support them.

"The president wants to play on Al Qaeda because he thinks Americans understand the threat Al Qaeda poses," said Bruce Riedel, an expert at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and a former C.I.A. official. "But I don't think he demonstrates that fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq precludes Al Qaeda from attacking America here tomorrow. Al Qaeda, both in Iraq and globally, thrives on the American occupation."

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who became the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, came to Iraq in 2002 when Saddam Hussein was still in power, but there is no evidence that Mr. Hussein's government provided support for Mr. Zarqawi and his followers. Mr. Zarqawi did have support from senior Qaeda leaders, American intelligence agencies believe, and his organization grew in the chaos of post-Hussein Iraq.

"There has been an intimate relationship between them from the beginning," Mr. Riedel said of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the senior leaders of the broader Qaeda group.

But the precise relationship between the Al Qaeda of Osama bin Laden and other groups that claim inspiration or affiliation with it is murky and opaque. While the groups share a common ideology, the Iraq-based group has enjoyed considerable autonomy. Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's top deputy, questioned Mr. Zarqawi's strategy of organizing attacks against Shiites, according to captured materials. But Mr. Zarqawi clung to his strategy of mounting sectarian attacks in an effort to foment a civil war and make the American occupation untenable.

The precise size of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is not known. Estimates are that it may have from a few thousand to 5,000 fighters and perhaps twice as many supporters. While the membership of the group is mostly Iraqi, the role that foreigners play is crucial.

Abu Ayyub al-Masri is an Egyptian militant who emerged as the successor of Mr. Zarqawi, who was killed near Baquba in an American airstrike last year. American military officials say that 60 to 80 foreign fighters come to Iraq each month to fight for the group, and that 80 to 90 percent of suicide attacks in Iraq have been conducted by foreign-born operatives of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

At first, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia received financing from the broader Qaeda organization, American intelligence agencies have concluded. Now, however, the Iraq-based group sustains itself through kidnapping, smuggling and criminal activities and some foreign contributions.

With the Shiite militias having taken a lower profile since the troop increase began, and with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia embarking on its own sort of countersurge, a main focus of the American military operation is to deprive the group of its strongholds in the areas surrounding Baghdad — and thus curtail its ability to carry out spectacular casualty-inducing attacks in the Iraqi capital.

The heated debate over Iraq has spilled over to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as well. Mr. Bush has played up the group, talking about it as if it is on a par with the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks. War critics have often played down the significance of the group despite its gruesome record of suicide attacks and its widely suspected role in destroying a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006 that set Iraq on the road to civil war.

Just last week, Mr. Zawahri called on Muslims to travel to Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia to carry out their fight against the Americans and appealed for Muslims to support the Islamic State in Iraq, an umbrella group that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia has established to attract broader Sunni support.

The broader issue is whether Iraq is a central front in the war against Al Qaeda, as Mr. Bush maintains, or a distraction that has diverted the United States from focusing on the Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan while providing Qaeda leaders with a cause for rallying support.

Military intelligence officials said that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia's leaders wanted to expand their attacks to other countries. They noted that Mr. Zarqawi claimed a role in a 2005 terrorist attack in Jordan. But Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, said that if American forces were to withdraw from Iraq, the vast majority of the group's members would likely be more focused on battling Shiite militias in the struggle for dominance in Iraq than on trying to follow the Americans home.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jul 07 - 10:22 AM

No Progress Report
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Published: July 13, 2007
With the American public in despair over the Iraq war and key members of his own party deserting him, President Bush is still trying to twist reality to claim that his failed effort is worth sticking with. Yesterday, the White House issued a report card claiming that Iraq's government had made limited progress on some political and security goals. And Mr. Bush insisted that not only was it not the time to talk about withdrawing American troops, but that he still believes that "the fight can be won."

That's been the spin for months. But Bob Woodward reported yesterday in The Washington Post that Mr. Bush's director of Central Intelligence, Gen. Michael Hayden, warned the bipartisan Iraq Study Group last fall that the "the inability" of the Iraqi government to govern "seems irreversible" and he could not point to "any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around."

A closer look at Mr. Bush's hyped report card leads to that same grim conclusion. Eight months after General Hayden issued his warning, the United States still has no effective Iraqi government partner committed to an effective program of national reconciliation and no effective Iraqi military capable of acting independently in the absence of American troops.

Officially, the White House credited the Iraqi government with satisfactory performance on 8 of the 18 listed benchmarks, not considered a passing grade in most tests. And most of the claimed successes were partial, or minor. Even the easy graders at the White House had to conclude that there has not been satisfactory progress toward ensuring that Iraqi forces evenhandedly uphold the law, nor progress toward eliminating militia control of local security, nor progress toward equitable distribution of oil revenues nor toward reforming discriminatory anti-Baathist legislation.

The original point of these benchmarks was to spur recalcitrant Iraqi leaders into taking the steps necessary to rescue their country, and Mr. Bush's Iraq policy, from the gathering flames of civil war. That is why Congress wanted to link these report cards to a clear threat of scaled-back American support if the Iraqi authorities failed to measure up. Mr. Bush's veto removed that useful threat, diminishing any real incentive for Iraqis to take the hard steps required. They haven't, and now America needs to act on its own.

Mr. Bush still refuses to talk about what almost everyone else now understands is essential: the need to develop an orderly plan to extricate American troops from a lost cause and reposition them in ways that can genuinely protect our national interests. A new classified study by the intelligence community offers one more reminder why continued delay and delusion is so dangerous. It says that six years after the Sept. 11 attacks Al Qaeda has rebuilt itself and has settled into safe havens in Pakistan.
...

(From The New York Times.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jul 07 - 02:38 PM

MIAMI — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger brought his star power and California's vanguard environmental policies Friday to a climate conference, at which Florida joined the ranks of U.S. states and cities committed to fighting global warming.

The two-day meeting here, hosted by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, reinforced a growing public and corporate determination to confront the climate change that threatens Florida's 1,200-mile coastline and $7-billion-a-year outdoor recreation industry.

Crist signed executive orders requiring Florida to adopt the same tough pollution controls California has. The aim is to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2025, require 20% of state power to come from renewable sources, and compel civil servants to use fuel-efficient vehicles and "green" offices.

But it was Schwarzenegger who stole the limelight Friday, taking swipes at what he called the Bush administration's neglect of environmental issues and at Detroit automakers for fighting tougher fuel-efficiency standards.

"I'm very proud to see another governor joining California and the growing number of states not looking to Washington for leadership anymore," Schwarzenegger told the gathering of 950 corporate, environmental and community leaders, to thunderous applause.

With 34 states and 600 cities now on board with his plan to halt global warming, Schwarzenegger said, the United States was approaching the "tipping point" — when the federal government and industries would recognize the folly of ignoring this century's greatest challenge.

"We cannot expect rapidly growing countries like China and India to protect the environment when the United States is not showing leadership," he said.

Environment ministers from Germany and Britain, who took part in the conference, praised Crist and Schwarzenegger for helping Americans recognize their global responsibilities. Since the Bush administration rejected the Kyoto Protocols of the U.N. Convention on Climate Change in 2001, relations with European allies on environment issues have been strained.

Schwarzenegger said his anti-pollution actions, the toughest in the nation, were proof that Republicans could be responsible stewards of the environment. But he insisted there was no partisan divide on the climate issue.

"There is no Democratic planet Earth. There is no Republican planet Earth. There's just a planet Earth, and we all have a responsibility to take care of it," he said.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jul 07 - 12:42 PM

Sharp Debate, and a Defection
By Shailagh Murray and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 15, 2007; Page A06


Sen. Olympia J. Snowe could wait no longer. On Thursday, the Maine Republican publicly broke with the White House on the Iraq war, which she had long since come to oppose. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a fervent war opponent, believes that there are plenty of other Republicans prepared to jump at the next dose of bad news. "I just see the growing fear in their eyes on this," she said.

Snowe's move -- long anticipated, much agonized-over -- came during a week of intense congressional debate over the war, when President Bush issued a mixed report on military and political progress in Iraq and his advisers worried that the political pressure to change course now, rather than after a full report due this fall, would prove inexorable. But Bush voiced his opposition to what he called a "precipitous" departure as Democratic leaders promised a series of votes -- and weeks of agonized debate -- until there is a change of course. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jul 07 - 01:07 PM

Contempt for Congress
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Published: July 14, 2007
The Bush administration's disregard for the rule of law hit another low this week when Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, defied a Congressional subpoena. Ms. Miers, who was called to testify about the United States attorneys scandal, refused even to show up at the Capitol. A second former official, Sara Taylor, did testify, but she inappropriately invoked executive privilege to dodge key questions. Congress should take firm action to compel Ms. Miers and Ms. Taylor to provide the testimony it is entitled to hear.

Congress has been conducting a much-needed investigation of last year's dismissal of nine top prosecutors. The evidence so far strongly suggests that the firings were done for improper political reasons, to help Republicans win elections, and that Ms. Miers and Ms. Taylor were involved. As part of its supervisory authority, Congress is entitled to question the two women.

Nevertheless, Ms. Miers refused to appear before the House Judiciary Committee after President Bush — claiming executive privilege — took the extraordinary step of ordering her not to testify. If Congress is seeking any privileged information, Ms. Miers can decline to answer those specific questions. But executive privilege did not negate her legal duty to appear when Congress subpoenaed her.

Ms. Taylor came when summoned by the Senate Judiciary Committee. But she then episodically invoked executive privilege. She refused to answer such basic questions as who decided which prosecutors to fire and why they were fired. But she did tell the committee that she hadn't attended any meetings with the president where the firings were discussed. Since executive privilege protects a president's communications with his advisers, that answer seriously undercuts her basis for invoking it.

The House should vote to hold Ms. Miers in contempt. The Senate Judiciary Committee should review Ms. Taylor's testimony and demand answers to the legitimate questions she refused to answer. If she continues her recalcitrance she, too, should face contempt.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jul 07 - 10:21 AM

Being without health insurance is no big deal. Just ask President Bush. "I mean, people have access to health care in America," he said last week. "After all, you just go to an emergency room."


This is what you might call callousness with consequences. The White House has announced that Mr. Bush will veto a bipartisan plan that would extend health insurance, and with it such essentials as regular checkups and preventive medical care, to an estimated 4.1 million currently uninsured children. After all, it's not as if those kids really need insurance — they can just go to emergency rooms, right?

O.K., it's not news that Mr. Bush has no empathy for people less fortunate than himself. But his willful ignorance here is part of a larger picture: by and large, opponents of universal health care paint a glowing portrait of the American system that bears as little resemblance to reality as the scare stories they tell about health care in France, Britain, and Canada.

The claim that the uninsured can get all the care they need in emergency rooms is just the beginning. Beyond that is the myth that Americans who are lucky enough to have insurance never face long waits for medical care.

Actually, the persistence of that myth puzzles me. I can understand how people like Mr. Bush or Fred Thompson, who declared recently that "the poorest Americans are getting far better service" than Canadians or the British, can wave away the desperation of uninsured Americans, who are often poor and voiceless. But how can they get away with pretending that insured Americans always get prompt care, when most of us can testify otherwise?

A recent article in Business Week put it bluntly: "In reality, both data and anecdotes show that the American people are already waiting as long or longer than patients living with universal health-care systems."

A cross-national survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund found that America ranks near the bottom among advanced countries in terms of how hard it is to get medical attention on short notice (although Canada was slightly worse), and that America is the worst place in the advanced world if you need care after hours or on a weekend.

We look better when it comes to seeing a specialist or receiving elective surgery. But Germany outperforms us even on those measures — and I suspect that France, which wasn't included in the study, matches Germany's performance.

Besides, not all medical delays are created equal. In Canada and Britain, delays are caused by doctors trying to devote limited medical resources to the most urgent cases. In the United States, they're often caused by insurance companies trying to save money. ...

(Krugman in the Times, Jul 16, 2007)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jul 07 - 11:11 AM

MAureen Dowd of the NY Times offered some interesting thoughts recently:

...Someone might tell Condi — who said in one of her golf interviews that her zest for sports is so all-encompassing that "I love anything with a score at the end" — that she'd better get to work or America's score in Iraq will be zero.

The Iraq war she helped sell has turned into Grendel, devouring everything in sight and making it uninhabitable. It has ravaged Iraq, Bush's presidency, the federal budget, the Republican majority, American invincibility and integrity, and now, John McCain's chance to be president.

And there's no Beowulf in sight. Just a bunch of spectacularly wrong hawks stubbornly continuing to be spectacularly wrong at what an alarmed Republican Senator John Warner calls "a time in our history unlike any I have ever witnessed before."

Watching the warring tribes in Iraq grow more violent has caused the beginning of a reconciliation among the warring tribes in Washington, as they realize they have to get the car keys away from the careening president who has crashed into the globe.

With Republicans in revolt over the surge and losing patience, and Bushies worried, as one put it to The Washington Post, that "July has become the new September," the president decided to do a p.r. surge to sound as if he's acquainted with reality.

But in a speech in Cleveland yesterday, the president was still repeating his deranged generalities. Making a tiny concession, he said we would be able to pull back troops "in a while," whatever that means, but asked Congress to wait for Gen. David Petraeus to debrief on the surge in September — rather than focus on the report due this week that says the ineffectual Iraq government has failed to meet benchmarks set by America.

It was ironic that his strongest supporter to the bitter end was the Republican who was once his bitter rival. There was speculation that Mr. McCain would come back from his visit to Iraq and revise his bullish support of the war to save his imploding campaign. But the opposite happened.

As his top advisers were purged, Mr. McCain went to the floor of the Senate to reassert his warped view that "there appears to be overall movement in the right direction."

Like W., Senator McCain values the advice of Henry Kissinger and said, "We can find wisdom in several suggestions put forward recently by Henry Kissinger."

Why they continue to seek counsel from the man who kept the Vietnam War going for years just to protect Richard Nixon's electoral chances is beyond mystifying. But Mr. Kissinger holds their attention with all his warnings of "American impotence" emboldening radical Islam and Iran. Can't W. and Mr. McCain see that American muscularity, stupidly thrown around, has already emboldened radical Islam and Iran?

The president mentioned in his speech yesterday that he was reading history, and he has been summoning historians and theologians to the White House for discussions on the fate of Iraq and the nature of good and evil.

W. thinks history will be his alibi. When presidents have screwed up and want to console themselves, they think history will give them a second chance. It's the historical equivalent of a presidential pardon.

But there are other things — morality, strategy and security — that are more pressing than history. History is just the fanciest way possible of wanting to deny or distract attention from what's happening now.

---

What a redhead!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jul 07 - 12:58 PM

From the Washington Post:

The House Votes Down an Earmark

By Robert D. Novak
Monday, July 16, 2007; Page A15

As bipartisan majorities overwhelmed all attempts to eliminate pork-barrel earmarks during a recent House session, one effort actually succeeded -- comfortably, though unnoticed by the public. The reason House members voted to deprive a colleague of pork for his district is the identity of that colleague: Rep. Patrick McHenry, a second-term Republican from Cherryville, in the western Piedmont of North Carolina, who at 31 is the youngest member of the House.

McHenry's $129,000 earmark would have promoted tourism in economically distressed Mitchell County. The new Democratic majority's leadership, which routinely supports earmarks, cracked the whip against this one, apparently in the spirit of political revenge. A conservative firebrand, McHenry had immobilized the House and humiliated the Democrats by leading GOP parliamentary maneuvers to force transparency regarding earmarks, previously hidden by both parties.

But the House showed in the last week of June that the celebrated transparency is a sham. Each newly transparent earmark brought to a floor vote survived by a huge margin. In traditional congressional logrolling, one earmarker protects another. There is no political risk because such votes are publicly ignored. Members insisting on their pork reflect bipartisan congressional nonchalance about ballooning spending. Demonstrating the cynicism of their pretensions toward earmark reform, Democrats also got even with the bumptious McHenry.

While considering the interior appropriations bill, the House kept 11 egregious earmarks alive. Rep. John Murtha, king of Democratic earmarkers, kept $1.2 million for the Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission in Hollidaysburg (by a 343 to 86 vote), and $150,000 for W.A. Young & Sons Foundry in Greene County (328 to 104). The House voted 323 to 104 to retain $140,000 for the Wetzel County, W.Va., courthouse sponsored by Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan, whose earmarks have provoked an FBI investigation.

Moving on to financial services appropriations, the House voted 335 to 87 to continue Murtha's raid on the Treasury: $231,000 for the Grace Johnstown (Pa.) Area Regional Industries Incubator. By 325 to 101, the members refused to remove a $231,000 Mollohan earmark for West Virginia University Research Corp. to renovate a "small business incubator." As usual, dauntless Republican Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona led the way in targeting colleagues' earmarks. He did not exempt Republicans -- including 15-term California Rep. Jerry Lewis, ranking minority member of the Appropriations Committee, whose past earmarking has raised ethical questions.

Flake opposed Lewis's $500,000 earmark for the Barracks Row Main Street project in Southeast Washington. Flake noted on the House floor that millions in federal funds have flowed into that neighborhood since 1999, including a $750,000 earmark last year. "I certainly hope," said Flake, "that we are not approving a redevelopment earmark today to redevelop last year's redevelopment earmark." Last year, such comments led Republican leaders to purge Flake from the Judiciary Committee. A smiling, sarcastic Lewis asked Flake: "Have you ever attended the Silent March that takes place on Friday evenings at the Marine barracks [on Barracks Row]?" "I have not," Flake replied. "You have not. I would suggest to the gentleman that probably one of the most important things that a member of Congress should do is to go to the Marine barracks." Lewis's earmark was retained, 361 to 60.

That day, I asked Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, Flake's fellow Republican reformer, whether he was discouraged. "Oh, no," he said. "There are three of us now [including second-term Republican Rep. John Campbell of California], and now we only get beat 3-to-1." Little did Hensarling know that the House was about to eliminate one earmark.

Flake's earmark list included McHenry's development grant, which he said "is simply not a good use of federal dollars." Flake had privately reassured McHenry that his earmark was certain to be saved by the pork-hungry House. "Don't be too sure," McHenry replied. Indeed, with Democratic leaders eager to punish him, McHenry's earmark was eliminated, 249 to 174.

An embarrassed McHenry told me that this might well be his last earmark. That does signal a little progress, unintentionally resulting from hypocritical pretensions of reform by the new Democratic majority.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Jul 07 - 01:06 PM

From the Washington Post:

What Clinton (Almost) Doesn't Say

By Fred Hiatt
Monday, July 16, 2007; Page A15

IOWA, July 10 -- Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton traveled to this crucial caucus state today to assure voters that she would keep U.S. troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future because "we cannot lose sight of our very real strategic national interests in this region."

You missed that news story? Me, too. It's not the message Clinton wanted to convey, and it's not the message that reporters took away from her speech.

But it would have been an accurate, if incomplete, rendition of her long address on Iraq policy. That she wanted to go on the record with such a view, but didn't want voters to really hear it, says much about the current Washington bind on Iraq policy.

Here's what she wanted voters to take away from the speech, judging by the top of the campaign's press release about it: "Today in Iowa, Hillary Clinton announced her plan to end the war in Iraq and urged President Bush to act immediately." Most of the address indeed focused on her plan to withdraw combat troops, which she said she would accompany with increased aid and diplomacy. She peppered the speech with criticism of Bush's war leadership and with phrases such as "as we are leaving Iraq."

But toward the end, Clinton noted that it would be "a great worry for our country" if Iraq "becomes a breeding ground for exporting terrorists, as it appears it already is." So she would "order specialized units to engage in narrow and targeted operations against al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations in the region." U.S. troops would also train and equip Iraqi forces "to keep order and promote stability in the country, but only to the extent we believe such training is actually working." And she might deploy other forces to protect the Kurdish region in the north, she said, "to protect the fragile but real democracy and relative peace and security that has developed there."

In other words, Clinton ascribed to what might be called the consensus, Baker-Hamilton view: Pull out of the most intense combat but remain militarily engaged by going after terrorists, training and advising Iraqi troops, and safeguarding at least some regions or borders. It's the position set forth in the proposal of Democratic Sens. Carl Levin and Jack Reed and in the compromise proposal of Republican Sens. John Warner and Richard Lugar. Last week President Bush said it's "a position I'd like to see us in."

If everyone agrees, what's the problem? Bush and the Democrats have very different ideas of the conditions needed to move to Baker-Hamilton. (So, by the way, did Republican Jim Baker and Democrat Lee Hamilton when they co-wrote the report.) Bush thinks U.S. troops can pull back only after they have established, with their new counterinsurgency strategy, sufficient peace to allow Iraqi factions to begin making political compromises.

Democrats say such compromises aren't likely anytime soon. As Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, one of Iraq's more sober-minded leaders, told the New York Times this month, "I am optimistic in the medium and long term . . . [but] it needs five or six or seven or 10 years." During that time, Democrats (and increasing numbers of Republicans) do not want U.S. troops in "the crossfire of sectarian violence," as Clinton said last week.

But, respond supporters of the surge, Baker-Hamilton can't work without security. Training the Iraqi army will be futile if all around is chaos; embedding as advisers will be even more dangerous than patrolling Baghdad now; and how successful could Clinton's "narrow and targeted operations" against terrorists be from a distance? NATO's inability to counter al-Qaeda across the Afghan border in Pakistan, and Israel's frustrations with Hamas in Gaza or Hezbollah in Lebanon, are not encouraging.

Bush, in other words, views Baker-Hamilton as a prize to be won by means of successful combat. According to advisers, he sees himself playing for time, maneuvering so that his successor -- Hillary Clinton, maybe -- will have Baker-Hamilton as an option when he or she moves into the Oval Office in January 2009. Democrats, on the other hand, see it as the least bad response to irrevocable defeat.

There's another problem, too: Democratic primary voters do not want to hear of adjustments, redeployments, reductions. They want all troops out, now. That is why Clinton will devote one paragraph to the military defense "of our very real strategic national interests in this region" and more than 10 pages to troop withdrawal.

That suggests that by the time Bush is ready for or forced into compromise, compromise may no longer be possible in Congress. Which in turn means that, bleak as all the options appear now, the choices that a President Clinton would face in 18 months might look far worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jul 07 - 04:42 PM

Hillary is one piece of work, all right!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jul 07 - 08:44 AM

Senator David Vitter of Louisiana has been caught frequenting prostitutes. His behavior stands in stark contrast to the conservative "family values" and harsh sex-negative positions he relentlessly championed in the Senate and state legislature.

Vitter says he has "received forgiveness from God" for his "sins." Thus conveniently cleansed, he now accuses "political enemies" of undermining his future work. Yesterday his wife criticized the news media for "following us every day last week," as if Vitter had merely been caught with an overdue library book.

That's the problem with conceptualizing one's free choices as "sin"—you can simply admit you're not perfect, claim that God forgives you, and take absolutely no responsibility for yourself. This is particularly repulsive in political figures like Newt Gingrich, Ted Haggard, and now Vitter—who make a living blasting tens of millions of American adults following their own vision of sexual morality, when Vitter and colleagues can't follow their own. Or can't admit what their own sexual code really is. ...

(From the Ontario News)

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: beardedbruce
Date: 17 Jul 07 - 11:38 AM

From the Washington Post:

No Magic Bullets For Iraq

By Anne Applebaum
Tuesday, July 17, 2007; Page A19

Leave Washington in the winter, return in midsummer. First you'll be surprised by the heat, then by the humidity. Then you'll be surprised by the certainty.

Out in the world, there are shades of gray. Here inside the Beltway, there are black-and-white solutions. And everybody who is anybody has a plan for Iraq.

Hillary Clinton has a three-point plan; Barack Obama has a "move the soldiers from Iraq to Afghanistan" plan. House Democrats have a plan to take most troops out by next March; Senate Democrats have a plan to take them out by April. Some Senate Republicans want the president to shrink the size of the U.S. military in Iraq; other Senate Republicans want to let the surge run its course. Search the Web, listen to the radio and watch the news, and you can hear people arguing that if only we had more troops, fewer troops or no troops at all, everything would be okay again.

What is missing from this conversation is a dose of humility. More to the point, what is missing is the recognition that every single one of these plans contains the seeds of potential disaster, even catastrophe.

More troops? I hardly need to elaborate on what's wrong with that plan, since so many in Congress do so every day. But for the record, I'll repeat the obvious: More troops means more American casualties, maybe many more casualties. Worse, the very presence of American soldiers creates strife in some parts of Iraq -- angering Iraqis, motivating al-Qaeda, sparking violence. Besides, we've tried the surge, and the surge hasn't brought the results we wanted. And, anyway, the surge simply can't be maintained, let alone expanded: There aren't that many more troops to send, even if we wanted to send them.

Fewer troops? This plan sounds like a reasonable compromise: neither surge nor cut-and-run, just leaving a few guys on the ground to train the Iraqis, guard the border and fight the terrorists. It also sounds a touch naive: So, in the midst of a vast civil war, small groups of Americans will withdraw to some neutral outposts and announce that they would no longer like to be shot at, please? Both "guarding the border" and "fighting terrorism" are hard to do effectively without involving ourselves in wider political and ethnic struggles.

There is also trouble with the "train the Iraqis" part of the plan, as Stephen Biddle spelled out in The Post last week, since "training Iraqis" invariably puts us in the middle of military conflict. Besides, fewer Americans could mean more Iraqi violence; more Iraqi violence could mean more American casualties -- not to mention more Iraqi casualties -- which defeats the purpose of the plan altogether.

No troops? Though deeply appealing to the "we told you so" crowd, this plan is clothed in the greatest degree of hypocrisy. How many of the people who clamor for intervention in Darfur will also be clamoring to rush back into Iraq when full-scale ethnic cleansing starts taking place? How many will take responsibility for the victims of genocide? I'm not saying there will be such a catastrophe, but there could be: Mass ethnic murders have certainly been carried out in Iraq before. Other possibilities include the creation of an Iranian puppet state or an al-Qaeda outlaw state; or there might merely be a regional war involving, say, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, just for starters, and maybe Israel and the Gaza Strip as well. Perhaps these things would never have happened if we hadn't gone there in the first place -- but if we leave, we'll be morally responsible.

Of course, I don't want to exaggerate. There are people who know that there is no perfect solution for Iraq. However, they tend not to be people who are running for the presidency or any other public office. Last weekend, I met a Marine about to depart for his second tour in Iraq. He wasn't exactly enthusiastic about going, nor was he particularly optimistic about what could be achieved. But he wasn't demanding to stay home, either. If nothing else, he felt obliged to stick by the many Iraqis who had helped the Marines and who might well be murdered if the Marines left for good.

He had, in other words, perceived the only truth of which we can really be certain: that there are no obvious solutions in Iraq, only policy changes that could make some things better and some things worse. Maybe much worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jul 07 - 02:27 PM

A good post on Iraq, BB. Thoughtful and well-spoken.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jul 07 - 11:21 AM

"...So let's get this straight: Iraqi parliamentarians, at least those not already boycotting the Parliament, will be on vacation in August so they can be cool, while young American men and women, and Iraqi Army soldiers, will be fighting in the heat in order to create a proper security environment in which Iraqi politicians can come back in September and continue squabbling while their country burns.

Here is what I think of that: I think it's a travesty — and for the Bush White House to excuse it with a Baghdad weather report shows just how much it has become a hostage to Iraq.

The administration constantly says the surge is necessary, but not sufficient. That's right. There has to be a political deal. And the latest report card on Iraq showed that a deal is nowhere near completion. So where is the diplomatic surge? What are we waiting for? A cool day in December?

When you read stories in the newspapers every day about Americans who are going to Iraq for their third or even fourth tours and you think that this administration has never sent its best diplomats for even one tour yet — never made one, not one, single serious, big-time, big-tent diplomatic push to resolve this conflict, but instead has put everything on the military, it makes you sick.

Yes, yes, I know, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is going to make one of her quick-in-and-out trips to the Middle East next month to try to enlist support for an Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in the fall. I'm all for Arab-Israeli negotiations, but the place that really needs a peace conference right now is Iraq, and it won't happen with drive-by diplomacy.

President Bush baffles me. If your whole legacy was riding on Iraq, what would you do? I'd draft the country's best negotiators — Henry Kissinger, Jim Baker, George Shultz, George Mitchell, Dennis Ross or Richard Holbrooke — and ask one or all of them to go to Baghdad, under a U.N. mandate, with the following orders:

"I want you to move to the Green Zone, meet with the Iraqi factions and do not come home until you've reached one of three conclusions: 1) You have resolved the power- and oil-sharing issues holding up political reconciliation; 2) you have concluded that those obstacles are insurmountable and have sold the Iraqis on a partition plan that could be presented to the U.N. and supervised by an international force; 3) you have concluded that Iraqis are incapable of agreeing on either political reconciliation or a partition plan and told them that, as a result, the U.S. has no choice but to re-deploy its troops to the border and let Iraqis sort this out on their own."

The last point is crucial. Any lawyer will tell you, if you're negotiating a contract and the other side thinks you'll never walk away, you've got no leverage. And in Iraq, we've never had any leverage. The Iraqis believe that Mr. Bush will never walk away, so they have no incentive to make painful compromises.

That's why the Iraqi Parliament is on vacation in August and our soldiers are fighting in the heat. Something is wrong with this picture. First, Mr. Bush spends three years denying the reality that we need a surge of more troops to establish security and then, with Iraq spinning totally out of control and militias taking root everywhere, he announces a surge and criticizes others for being impatient.

At the same time, Mr. Bush announces a peace conference for Israelis and Palestinians — but not for Iraqis. He's like a man trapped in a burning house who calls 911 to put out the brush fire down the street. Hello?

Quitting Iraq would be morally and strategically devastating. But to just drag out the surge, with no road map for a political endgame, with Iraqi lawmakers going on vacation, with no consequences for dithering, would be just as morally and strategically irresponsible.

We owe Iraqis our best military — and diplomatic effort — to avoid the disaster of walking away. But if they won't take advantage of that, we owe our soldiers a ticket home. "

Paul Krugman in the N.Y. Times, 07-18-2007

Subject: RE: BS: Popular views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jul 07 - 11:24 AM

And Maureen Dowd observes:

"...The administration's most thorough intelligence assessment since 9/11 is stark and dark. Two pages add up to one message: The Bushies blew it. Al Qaeda has exploded into a worldwide state of mind. Because of what's going on with Iraq and Iran, Hezbollah may now "be more likely to consider" attacking us. Al Qaeda will try to "put operatives here" — (some news reports say a cell from Pakistan already is en route or has arrived) — and "acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear material in attacks."

(Democrats on cots are ineffectual, but Al Qaeda in caves gets the job done?)

After 9/11, W. stopped mentioning Osama's name, calling him "just a person who's now been marginalized," and adding "I just don't spend that much time on him."

This week, as counterterrorism officials gathered at the White House to frantically brainstorm on covert and overt plans to capture Osama, the president may have regretted his perverse attempt to demote America's most determined enemy.

W. began to mention Osama and Al Qaeda more recently, but only to assert: "The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th." His conflation is contradicted by the fact that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, as the Sunni terrorist group in Iraq is known, did not exist before 9/11.

Fran Townsend, the president's homeland security adviser, did her best to put a gloss on the dross but failed. She had to admit that the hands-off approach used by Mr. Musharraf with the tribal leaders in North Waziristan, which always looked like a nutty way to give Al Qaeda room to regroup, was a nutty way to give Al Qaeda room to regroup.

"It hasn't worked for Pakistan," she conceded. "It hasn't worked for the United States."

Just as we outsourced capturing Osama at Tora Bora to Afghans who had no motive to do it, we outsourced capturing Osama in Pakistan to Mr. Musharraf, who had no motive to do it.

Pressed by reporters on why we haven't captured Osama, especially if he's climbing around with a dialysis machine, Ms. Townsend sniffed that she wished "it were that easy." It's not easy to launch a trumped-up war to reshape the Middle East into a utopian string of democracies, but that didn't stop W. from making that audacious gambit.

The Bushies, who once mocked Bill Clinton for doing only "pinprick" bombings on Al Qaeda, now say they can do nothing about Osama because they can't "pinpoint" him, as Ms. Townsend put it. She assured reporters that they were "harassing" Al Qaeda, making it sound more like a tugging-on-pigtails strategy than a take-no-prisoners strategy.

We've had it up the wazir with Waziristan. Surely there are Army Rangers and Navy Seals who can make the trek, even if it's a no-man's land. If it were a movie, we'd trace the saline in Osama's dialysis machine, target it with a laser and blow up the mountain.

W. swaggers about with his cowboy boots and gunslinger stance. But when talking about Waziristan last February, he explained that it was hard to round up the Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders there because: "This is wild country; this is wilder than the Wild West."

Yes, they shoot with real bullets up there, and they fly into buildings with real planes.

If W. were a real cowboy, instead of somebody who just plays one on TV, he would have cleaned up Dodge by now. "