Benedict@Large

The Search for Accountability

This seems to be the theme being taken on by those pushing for a investigation into the missing WMDs, and, quite frankly, I like it. No confusion about what is being asked for; nothing that anyone does not believe should be standard fare: If mistakes are made, own up to them and move on. Senator Byrd first brought up this theme last week, but outside of the progressive community, he was largely ignored. Then John Dean of Watergate fame published his Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?, which got some legs outside of the Progressive community when it was picked up by CNN.

This week, things are looking a bit brighter as Paul Krugman leads off the east coast effort with Who's Accountable? and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer follows through with the west coast effort with Accountability missing in Bushland. Almost simultaneously, the Sydney Morning Herald started banging the drum with The credibility search in Iraq, and of course the Brits are already having a fine time squewering Tony Blair. Credibility, accountability; easy stuff for the American public to understand.

All of this is beginning to take effect. Lots of "Where are the WMDs" stories have Bush himself suddenly trying another "bait and switch", now claiming that it wasn't the weapons themselves but rather a weapons program that we went to war against. Of course, as I pointed out in my recent editorial, it really was never possible to plant WMDs thenselves in Iraq (ours are too good) without them being detected as such, but it certainly is a lot easier to plant "evidence" of a program. A couple of papers here and there, and the sales job is on the road. Unfortunately, this one isn't flying too well, with the Baltimore Sun already calling it a "revisionist sales job" and the Los Angeles Times making careful note of the rewording attempt. Still, this is only a start. Karl Rove is a master at this sort of thing, and certainly is devoting considerable amounts of his talent at taking the legs off of this story.

But poor Tony Blair. The hot spark under his seat has already turned into a fire, so much so that both he and his communications secretary has now said that they will refuse the House of Commons request to answer questions regarding the "sexing up" of intelligence to justify the war. Yet, Simon Tisdall of the Guardian says that an inquiry by the MPs is not enough; he is calling for a royal commission to investigate. Citing Blair's own earlier reference to the Iraq War as "one of the defining moments of our century", Tisdall suggests, "Yes, Iraq was a defining moment - so let's define it". Not fun being Tony Blair these days.

Of course, it takes more than just some representatives and newspapers to force something like this to a head; it takes someone on the inside who's willing to talk, and fortunately, we have ours in the form of the CIA and DIA and Great Britain has theirs in the form of MI6. These folks are all career G-men who know how things go: Given the chance, both Bush and Blair will point a finger at them to save their own hides, and they're not having it. As Eric Margolis points out in "Bush and Blair have some 'splainin' to do", U.S. intelligence pros are already out contacting "friendly" reporters such as himself. (Note that Margolis writes from the "safety" of Canada, which my be more than a coincidence.) And once again, Blair seems to be in worse shape on this, with MI6 leaking that once they started seeing a lemon, they started "making juice" in the form of keeping secret records of the attempts to "push" the intelligence.

All of this is quite good as far as it goes, but as I've suggested above, both the Bush and Blair camps are pushing hard against these investigations. There is no reason for this if there is nothing to hide. Classified data can be kept classified, and no one has the right expect perfection given the difficulties always present in the intelligence field.

Still, we do have a right to expect that the best of our intelligence not be swapped with someone's or some group's own personal agenda. We have the right to know whether the nearly 200 dead American servicepeople died for a noble and necessary cause, or whether they died for the personal ambitions of people who never even wore a uniform. These are things we have a right to know.

But these are the very thing that we will not know unless we force them to tell us. We cannot count on the few lonely voices out there to speak for us. Those opposed to these investigations are powerful enough to silence them. We need to add our own voices to their chorus and now is the time to do that. Please write both of your Senators and your Representative and tell them that you want to know what happened to the WMDs. Here's how:

• Write Your Representative: When you get to this page, simply select your state and enter your 9-digit zip code. The next page you will see is the write-in form for your representative.
• Write Your Senators: When you get to this page, you will see a "Select your state" box at the top. Make the selection, and the next page will provide links to the write-in boxes of each of your Senators.

Keep it short. If you can register your opinion in the title box alone, even better. We need a lot of letters, but we need to make them easy to count! We can win this, but we need your help. Without it, we lose again.

   This Is Your Story
   By Bill Moyers: The Progressive Story of America. Pass It On.
   Speech to the Take Back America conference, Campaign for America’s Future

A quite lengthy speech, but well worth reading. A look at the back at the history of the Progressive Movement in the United States, a look at some of those who are fighting it today, and advice for moving forward:

As a citizen I don't like the consequences of this (Conservative) crusade, but you have to respect the conservatives for their successful strategy in gaining control of the national agenda. Their stated and open aim is to change how America is governed - to strip from government all its functions except those that reward their rich and privileged benefactors. They are quite candid about it, even acknowledging their mean spirit in accomplishing it. Their leading strategist in Washington - the same Grover Norquist – has famously said he wants to shrink the government down to the size that it could be drowned in a bathtub. More recently, in commenting on the fiscal crisis in the states and its affect on schools and poor people, Norquist said, "I hope one of them" – one of the states – "goes bankrupt." So much for compassionate conservatism. But at least Norquist says what he means and means what he says. The White House pursues the same homicidal dream without saying so. Instead of shrinking down the government, they're filling the bathtub with so much debt that it floods the house, water-logs the economy, and washes away services for decades that have lifted millions of Americans out of destitution and into the middle-class. And what happens once the public's property has been flooded? Privatize it. Sell it at a discounted rate to the corporations.

Powerful stuff. You migh also want to read John Nichols' review of this at The Nation.

Restoring Integrity, Republican-Style:

   More on Westar Enery
   From the Washing Post: Delving Into Those Donations

A bit more on Tom DeLay's little quid pro quo with Westar, and this time, much of the e-mail text is included. DeLay & Company clain that they don't link promises to donations, but these guys at Westar certailly were petty specific about what they were getting and who was going to give it to them. Meanwhile, Ashcroft is still silent as to whether there will be an investigation.

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   Whipping Up a Payoff
   From the Washington Poat: GOP Whip Quietly Tried to Aid Big Donor

Seems GOP Whip Roy Blunt had barely been appointed to his new post as third-highest Republican in the House when he was caught trying to slip some last second payola into the Homeland Security bill for Phillip Morris. Not only has Philip Morris contributed more than $150,000 to political committees affiliated with Blunt since 2001, not only does his son work for them, but he's also keeping extremely close ties with a certain female lobbyist for the company. Republican leadership squashed the provision when they found out, but also succeeded in squashing the story until now.

Starting Light:

   Boycott the French
   From Style Weekly: An Open Letter to Rush Limbaugh

Here's a novel idea: As long as we're boycotting the French, why don't we ask the 200 American companies exhibiting at the Paris Air Show this year to stay home? And what's with the FAA sending 150 employees there anyways? Can I get that job?

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   Return of the Pod People
   From the Guardian: All hail to the pods

Remember those films in which alien pods would appear for no good reason in cellars and massage parlours and the like and one unsuspecting night almost everyone goes to sleep and disappears, because the pod people have killed them, reproduced their bodies and then woken up bright and early the following morning and taken control of the world? They're back!

A Benedict@Large Editorial

I've been conspicuously absent on the issue of the missing WMDs. It's not that I think the issue is unimportant or even futile. Indeed, it is probably the most important news for those of the anti-war crowd. Call it "writer's block", if you wish. Except, it isn't.

Yes, like an onion, layer after layer slowly seems to be coming undone. For those who wish to gloat, check out Tony Blair: His intelligence folks just told him that they kept records of all of the times they were pressured into fabricating the "intelligence" he needed. The press there, always up for a scandal, is playing this one up for all it is worth.

Back in the states however, the usual spin machine is in high gear, and though they have been successful so far in isolating Bush from all of this, there are still too many people asking too many questions. The spin machine is of course hoping that this will die out, and they indeed have a good track record at making issues die. Their problem this time however is that the issue will not die here until it dies in Great Britain, and that is something they have never dealt with before. And so on it goes. Who knows where?

But back to my "writer's block". My real problem is really that nothing has come out of late that anti-war activists of six and nine monthes ago hadn't already found and documented back then. How am I to post as "new", stories that are so many months old? More than five thousand civilians are dead, and our national news services are printing six month old stories and saying, "Hey! Look what I found!" Really? Want copy for your next 14 editions? Do a Google search of anti-war blogs, and you will have your copy for free. No, it is not "writer's block"; it is simply my sense of disgust.

Below (in my "Short Takes") I feature a story about Dennis Kucinich, and about how he has maintained his liberal grounding even when there was no hope for it. He says that it is simply important to keep issues alive, even when there is no hope. We wanted to stop this war, but we didn't. But we kept an issue alive that the public was not ready for. We kept it alive, and maybe this time, it will bear fruit.

But let me tell you what I think about this mess.

As I've said, administration strategists are hoping this will simply go away. This is a no-brainer. As I mentioned earlier however, until it goes away for Tony Blair, it isn't going away here. The "cross pollenization" of Blair and Bush is too firm in the public's mind for that. Massive efforts will be made to "committee" this by the bought and sold Republican House, and this is our "Action Alert". We need to prevent this.

The second issue is why WMDs have simply not been planted in Iraq (and it is important for you to understand this). With U.S. control over the country, certainly this would be an easy task.

Except that it isn't. Remember all of the issues about "shelf life" of Iraqi WMDs? The U.S. simply doesn't have expired bio-chems lying around. In fact, ours don't really expire. So what are we to plant there? The latest and greatest? These would instantly be detected as a fraud. And then comes the shells that these must be loaded into. We precision-manufacture every weapon. How do we suddenly make crap weaponry that will stand as something the Iraqis might have done? The point is that we can't. And that is why nothing has been planted. Because we have nothing to plant.

I'm actually amazed at the fact that this crew did not anticipate this problem and make themselves ready for it. But I guess when everything comes down to egos, mistakes can be made.

All of which makes forcing this issue at this time all the more imperative. Given sufficient time and the knowledge they certainly possess, they have the capability to manufacture the frauds they need. If we allow them the time to do so, our time will have passed and we will have to start again on some new issue.

Short Takes:

If you've followed the mutterings of Donald Rumsfeld at all, them you simply must read The New Yorker's hilarious piece "Donald Rumsfeld Orders Breakfast at Denny's".

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The daughter of Leo Strauss demands equal time. In "The Real Leo Strauss", she claims that her father's reputation is being maligned by suggestions that he was the founder of the current neo-con movement. Having read perhaps a dozen articles on him since this issue surfaced, I think that perception of him has been well-corrected already. Still, if you are following this, the human face she puts on her father is a welcome addition.

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The unlikely campaign of Dennis Kucinich is featured in "Kucinich Reloaded", in which author Melinda Welsh recalls two personal meetings with him that were separated by 25 years. A personal look into what motivates the man.

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Sewer-mouthed, right-wing hate jock Michael Savage is feeling blue these days. Seems his sponsors are dumping him when the find out about the trash coming out of his mouth. So is he cleaning up his act? Nope. He's suing the little people who complained to his sponsors. Hey, Mike! I though you wingnuts hated lawyers?

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Sociologist Steven Sherman offers an interesting rebuttal to Tom Friedman's "Theory of Everything" in "A Different Theory of Everything". Rather than seeing the growing international distain of U.S. policies as a reaction against the "New American Century" policies of the administration, he instead sees them as a clear sign that these policies are simply a last desparate and futile attempt at an unachievable U.S. hegemony.

[Note: If you are interested in greater depth on Steve's rationale for this, download his "The Attacks of September 11 in Three Temporalities" [30 pages, 346K PDF]. Definitely college-level reading, but he expands not only on this idea, but also presents several more that may well interest you.]

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A bit more on the Westar Energy scandal: "Behind the Lobbying Curtain" from the Washington Post. (This is the one where House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) pocketed for himself a cool $25K for allowing a regulated utility a chance to lobby for some "screw the customer" legislation.) It's amazing how they try to rewrite history on this crap:

We have no control over any fantasies they might have
about what they might get for a campaign contribution.

Really? Then why do internal company documents leave no doubt of a quid pro quo? Your much-admired capitalists just made all of this up?

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More on the Democratic Leadership Council: "Past Tense: While the DLC fights yesterday's battles, liberals are focusing on what's next".

What the DLC duo misses above all is the degree to which the radicalism of the current administration has concentrated the liberal mind on the need to unseating Bush in next year's election. Greens are even talking about lining up behind the Democrat. If From and Reed weren't so bent on fighting yesterday's wars, they would understand that the party's Democratic wing and its electable wing are really one and the same.

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Evangelicals in the US believe there is a biblical basis for opposing the Middle East road map. From The Guardian: "Apocalypse soon":

Just as new life is being breathed into the peace process, religious groups throughout the US are whipping up hostility to the road map. The aim of the Christian-Jewish "interfaith Zionist leadership summit" held in Washington last month was "to oppose rewarding murderous Palestinian terrorism with statehood". Attending the conference were some of the most influential figures of the Christian right; behind them a whole infrastructure of churches, radio stations and bible college courses teaching "middle-east history".

Heck! Thank God for small favors. The Guardian only credits these folks with 45 million members, 25 million less than our own 60 Minutes. But as I pointed out yesterday, the real number is somewhat less than 10 million. At least I'm making progress!

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Three very startling statistics:

• Counting only conflicts involving more than 1,000 deaths from violence, one in eight countries worldwide has a civil war.
• On average, these conflicts last eight years, twice the length of wars before 1980.
• 50% of all countries that achieve peace fall back into civil war within a decade.

Col. Dan Smith (Ret.) refers to this as "Recycling Wars":

Tell it to the troops on the ground, not to mention the indigenous population. They know that war can go on even after it has "ended."

*  60 Minutes: Their lead article tonight addressed the current Fundamentalist love of all things Israel. All in all, a reasonable article, but with one exception. They began it with this quote: "... Fundamentalist Christian Evangelicals who make up the largest religious congregation in the United States." They quote 70 million members as their "proof: of this claim. This is bullshit.

First of all, this is a full one-quarter of our population. To that I would ask you: Do one out of four people you run into on a daily basis ever get around to selling you on Jesus and a literal interpretation of the Bible? Because this is what Fundamentalist Christian Evangelicals are sworn to do by their beliefs. Unless you are perhaps one of them, the one of four number clearly is not even close to your actual experience.

Now, I have heard such claims before, so I went out and did some research on this. I consulted the esteamed Pew studies as well as many others. Under the broadest of measures of "Fundamentalist" and "Evangelical" (they are two separate, though sometimes overlapping, things) that I could possibly concoct, the number was less than half of that amount. The broadest, mine you.

But by simply adding the Fundamentalist and Evangelical catagories together (ignoring the overlap), I came up with a mere 10 million, and likely (due to the overlap) less than is your actual experience.

The bottom line? Evangelical Fundamentalism is a radical fringe group in this country, and not at all of the size that 60 Minutes suggested. They always have been and continue to be so. They are little more than the Osama bin Ladens of America.

*  Take One: Test cars crashing into walls. Test dummies bouncing into windshields. [Producer's Note: Use stock footage.] Queue voice:

In a roadside study, more than one in three drivers
tested positive for marajuana.

It's more harmful than you thought.

That is it. Welcome to a FOX commercial. The suggestion is quite clear: That the study was of people who were involved in accidents. That suggestion is also bullshit. Never mind that they provided zero as to which study or of the conditions of that study:

• Read your local newspapers. Do they tell you that one of three "intoxicated" arrests were for drugs? No. Almost every report says "alcohol".
• Access your local sheriff's "bookings" webpage. Does that tell you that one of three "intoxicated" arrests were for drug intoxication? No.

Let me tell you the real facts. If you drive in a "diminished state", you are wrong. But the FOX implication that one in three accidents are caused by marajuana is simply moronic.

And, no, I do not smoke marajuana. I simply object to this campaign to get us all afraid of whatever is supposed to be the new "Bogey Man".

   Does he think we don't notice?
   From the National Press Club: Statement of Senator Jeffords,
            Second Anniversary of Decision to Leave the GOP

On the second anniversary of Jim Jeffords' defection from the Republican Party, he finds himself even further convinced that he made the right decision. A stinging rebuck of the growing divide between what Bush promises and what he actually delivers. If only a few more of Bush's "loyal opposition" would find the courage to "call a spade a spade".

   Oh, my God!
   From Newsday.com: Too Much Faith in Faith

While all the Fundies screem about their "constitutional right" to have the word "God" in the Pledge of Allegience, none of them seem to have noticed that the word "God" never appeared in the Constitution itself. Bush, never to diligent student himself, seems to have missed this fact also.

Susan Jacoby takes a look at public opinion and Bush's "faith based" initiatives. While "we the people" don't seem to mind a bit of blur between Church and State, few have any comfort with the President's ideas on the subject.

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   Throwing the baby out with the bathwater
   From the Toronto Star: Washington is breaching what it's preaching

As John Ashcroft runs to Congress begging for more power, he's busy using the one's he just got to detain and deport immigrants just because they are. A look at some of his finer moments.

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   Debunking Conspiracy Theorists:
   From the UN Observer and Gerard Holmgren:
   Paranoid Fantasies About 9/11 Detract From Real Issues

As the Bush administrations continues to say that we can know everything about 9/11 except what it knew ("national security", you know) and the 9/11 Commission has disappeared front the front pages as surely as the Twin Towers have disappeared from the New York skyline, it might be a good time to take another stab at debunking one of the most popular conspiracy theories surrounding the events of that day.

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   Charlie Reese
   What Is Patriotism?

Charley is a self-described Libertarian, and so I find many disagreements with things he says. Still, Charley's the type of person that sometimes makes me wonder whether Libertarianism is to the left or right of me.

Take for example when he suggests that patriotism is about a lot more than just supporting the troops. Sometimes, he says, it is as simple as simply supporting you fellow citizens:

Love and concern for our land and our people is the patriotic duty of every American. How about supporting all of the American people for a change instead of just those in uniform? Let us not throw away the very things so many Americans died to protect for some cockamamie scheme to run the whole world.

I don't often fly off in the face of liberal advocacy groups when I disagree with them. The fight is tough enough, and my negatives have likely been covered well enough by their actual opponents.

Rarer still is whan I fly off at a group that I support. But such is the case today with "Justice Dept. Bans Event by Gay Staff". It seems that there are 150 or so gays working in John Ashcroft's DOJ, and they are all in a tizzy about not being allowed to have their annual Gay Pride celebration in the office. Well, let me pull out my hanky.

Listen, you stupid assholes, you all know quite well who you work for. You know that if he had his druthers, he would lynch every one of you. But you continue to work for him? Well, you say, you have a "right" to have your job. Really? You have a right to your $50-$150K/year job? Your boss doesn't think so.

Grow the fuck up! You have no rights if you will not personally fight for them! What? You want me to fight for you? No! You want me to fight for your cushy $100K government job? The hell I will!

If you want your cushy $100K job so damned bad, then quit it! Stop filing cases for that homophobe and get out here with the rest of us and start filing cases against him!

Until then, please lick your wounds in private. You will find no advocate in me until you learn what it is to advocate for yourself.

What I'm Reading Now:

There are some sites, some topics, and some writers that consistently produce outstanding articles. Articles that go beyond mere relevence to become part of one's own body of knowledge and the very prisms through which all other articles are viewed. In "What I'm Reading Now", I'll be attempting from time to time to point out some of these to you.

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   Media Manipulation
   From David Edwards at Media Lens: Mass Deception

We need a Dave Edwards and a Media Lens in this country. Dave takes on the British (unfortunately, for us) press, recalling the when, where, and how of every previous statement made by their "best" writers, exposing their vascilations and contradictions. And while he doesn't make a lot of money doing it, he ruffles enough feathers to usually at least get a response.

In this "Mass Deception" article, Dave once again points out the patronizing aspect of the British media in the run-up to the war. No one is off off his detailed list of squewering, not even the anti-war Daily Mirror, as he provides example after example of their failures to provide balanced news coverage. If you haven't read Dave before, he's a damned pit bull on this stuff, and a quite fun read.

You can get more articles by Dave Edwards here. I personally hook up with him through the British Znet site which issues 4-6 articles a day, most of which are well worth scanning at least. But there is one article from them that is a Must Read: "Propaganda in the Free Press". No single article on media manipulation has ever more profoundly influenced my thinking on the subject. What many of us view as some sort of grand conspiracy is not that at all. This is a short interview on how ordinary people in an extraordiinary industry get swept up by "the machine".

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   The Future of U.S. Policy Opposition
   From Foreign Policy in Focus: Terminating the Bush Juggernaut

This is a long "discussion paper" by Jeremy Brecher that addresses just about every player in the run-up to the Iraq War, what sort of role they played in that run-up, and how those who were opposed or simply weakly-commited might work together in the future.

This is no glossy-eyed paper spouting instant solutions to anything. But we on the left are ruing the lack of an effective "think tank" mechanism, and this is just the sort of work you would want to come out of that something like that. While I disagreed with some of the author's (only somewhat detectible) political views, he openly submits this as simply ideas for discussion and refinement. I can't say that I came out of this with any specifics on what to do, but I was certainly given a lot to think about. Quite worthwhile if you can spare the time.

If you want, simply download the PDF (24 pages, 162KB) and read it as you have time.

An excerpt from Statement From Martha's Attorney:

The indictment reveals that the predicate for the entire investigation - the accusation that Martha Stewart sold her ImClone shares based on inside information - has proven to be false. It is most ironic that Ms. Stewart faces criminal charges for obstructing an investigation which established her innocence. This turn of events can only be characterized as bizarre and raises questions about the motivation for such peculiar charges.

Bizarre, indeed. While Ms. Stewart's attorney goes on to suggest several improper motivations for the DOJ action, they are far kinder than I am on this.

As I reported earlier, Ms. Stewart is a significant and long-term contributor to the Democratic Party, and she contributes only to the Democratic Party. Additionally, she is also a major fund-raiser for them. These charges, as incredibly bizarre as they are, must be viewed in that light. There may very well have been criminal activity here, but if so, not on the part of Martha Stewart. Misuse of federal departments and funds is indeed a most serious criminal charge.

Lest anyone accuse me of some special affection for Ms. Stewart, quite the opposite is true. But at least I know the difference between not liking someone and criminally indicting them. DOJ apparently does not.

If you would like to send Ms. Stewart a letter of support, simply visit the website she has set up to follow this issue.

From the Mailbag:

From an e-mail exchange in which I was highlighting the differences between how the British and American presses were handling the "missing WMDs":

ME: The Brit's, you see, are not such the lap dogs that you are. They have dead soldiers, and they want to know why.

THEM: Because they were standing in the wrong place, or they were not as quick as the other guy?

Guess who?

The main criminal charge filed against Martha Stewart yesterday is that of attempting to manipulate the price of the stock in her own company. According to the filing, she did this when, immediately after the probe began on her for insider trading, she gave a public speech declaring her innocence. It is quite interesting to note that among the criminal charges not filed against Ms. Stewart is the original charge of insider trading.

Meanwhile, "Kenny Boy" Lay is still walking around with half a billion dollars he stole from his now bankrupt retirees. The price of entry may be quite steep for the "Republican immunes", but you have to admit that the benefits are worth it.

I'm sorry, but WMDs are not home right now.   Could I take a message in the meantime?

   Dying for a lie:
   From the Boston Globe: Bush's deceptions on Iraq intelligence

With about 180 American soldiers sacrificed and thousands of Iraqi soldiers and citizens killed, the unprecedented war is unraveling into a scandal that dwarfs President Clinton's Thong-gate and threatens to surpass the violation of national trust symbolized by Watergate. Bill and Monica was about lying about sex. Watergate was about President Nixon lying about a break-in.

Iraq is about Bush sending Americans to die
for what may have been a lie.

   Iran must not be the next iraq
   From Robin Cook, who recently resigned his position
   in the cabinet of Tony Blair in protest of the war:

Shoulder to Shoulder and Stabbed in the Back

So why did Rumsfeld build a case for war on a false claim of Hussein's capability? Enter stage right (far right) his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, a man of such ferociously reactionary opinion that he has at least the advantage to his department of making Rumsfeld appear reasonable. Wolfowitz has now disclosed: "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on weapons of mass destruction because it was the one issue everyone could agree on.''

Decoded, what his remarks mean is that the Pentagon went along with allegations of weapons of mass destruction as the price of getting U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and the British government on board for war. But the Pentagon probably did not believe in the case then, and it certainly cannot prove it now.

   Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction:
   From the John W. Dean at FindLaw:
   Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense?

"President Lyndon Johnson's distortions of the truth about Vietnam forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon's false statements about Watergate forced his resignation." John Dean would know especially about the latter: He served federal time for his role in it. And so it stands to reason that when he speaks of impeachment, he is not to be dismissed lightly:

President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical actions any nation can undertake - acts of war against another nation.

Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false. ...

... and ...

... But the war in Iraq is all Bush's doing, and it is appropriate that he be held accountable.

To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."

Absolutely, a "Must Read" article.
John Dean, if you didn't know, is a Republican.

Pigs at the Trough:

*  From the Associated Press: Utility's Papers Outline Donations to GOP

When financially strapped Westar Energy was seeking "a seat at the table" of a House-Senate conference committee on the Bush administration's energy plan last year, they were given quite explicit instructions on how to get one: Make campaign contributions to Republicans unknown to them who were in difficult races. Westar, of course, did, as an internal Westar investigation is beginning to reveal. Internal e-mails from that company do indeed document and confirm this fleecing.

What Westar wanted out of all of this was to be able to break it's regulated activities and unregulated activities into two separate corporations, and then transfer its dept to the regulated company. This in turn would have allowed them to ask for significantly-higher rate increases for their regulated products, and would have allowed poor people the priviledge of paying for Westar's own business mistakes.

Among the beneficiaries were a Tom DeLay fund-raising committee that got $25,000; Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., who got $1,000 from a Westar executive; and Tom Young, whose unsuccessful run for Congress attracted at least $7,200 in Westar executives' donations on May 31, 2002, just 11 days after one e-mail was written.

Head-Pig DeLay of course has dutifully denied knowledge of any of this.

*  From the Associated Press: Environmental Groups Seek Special Counsel

J. Steven Griles, the No. 2 official at the Interior Department, is being paid more than $1 million by his former employer, NES, a lobbying firm that represents an array of oil, gas, coal and other energy industry interests. The Interior Department has withheld 352 pages of records about Griles on this very subject, and various citizen advocacy gruops (Friends of the Earth, Defenders of Wildlife and the Endangered Species Coalition, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Public Campaign, Sierra Club and U.S. Public Interest Research Group) have filed a lawsuit to have these papers released and also for the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate why Griles said he knew of no financial interest that could constitute a conflict at his Senate confirmation hearing, but did not qualify his answer by describing the nature of his agreement with NES that pays him $284,000 a year.

Interior Department spokesman Mark Pfeifle said, "These are baseless charges from partisan special interest fund-raising groups ...'' Well, no shit, Mark. Who did you expect to file the charges? The Christian Coalition?

A spokeman for Head-Pig Ashcroft said his department "has not made a determination'' regarding the special counsel, DoubleSpeak for "We'll make a determination after this gets out of the headlines."

*  From The Guardian: Wolfowitz: 'Iraq War Was About Oil'

"Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between
North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice
in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."

~ Paul Wolfowitz, 6/4/2003

As chief architect of the war, I think we should trust Head-Pig Wolfowitz's opinion on this. It really was that simple all along: We went to war to steal Iraq's oil.

Administration appologists however will be quick to say that this statement was taken out of context, and indeed Wolfie himself is now trying to backpedal on this statement, but there is another small item that also came out late last week that quite distinctly says otherwise:

*  From the Financial Times [fee required]:
    Halliburton and Bechtel Push to Use Future Iraq Oil Cash for Rebuilding

OK, since you probably can't get this article, here's what it says: The title is perhaps a bit misleading. What Halliburton and Bechtel are actually trying to do is secure some quite large construction loans to finance their operations with regard to the rebuilding of Iraq. This is not only an accepted business practice, it is imperative in any venture of this size. To secure these loans, both must put up collateral, essentially offering the lender(s) something of equal value should the loans not be repaid. Fine, so far.

The catch to this however is what Head-Pigs Halliburton and Bechtel want to use as collateral: Iraqi oil. Pardon me, but you can't put up something as collateral unless you actually own it or unless that item's owner allows you to do so. Lacking any authorization from the Iraqi people to allow these two companies to use Iraqi oil as collateral for these loans, these two companies are effectively claiming ownership of that same oil. And as it stands, the Iraqi people are powerless to stop them.

   Piglets NOT at the Trough
   From CBSNEWS.com: Jobless Rate Hits 9-Year High

Nearly 9 million people were unemployed in May, a figure that only represents those "actively seeking" employment. And what does "actively seeking" mean? It means people who have not yet run out of unemployment benefits. While a person is receiving unemployment benefits, they are of course required to demonstrate on a weekly basis that they are seeking re-employment, and since this is the only measure the government has for those it defines as "actively seeking", this is the number that is being reported. Excluded from this number are both those whose unemployment benefits have expired and anyone who newly entered the job market. Included in this latter group is the recent crop of college and high school graduates.

   The Return of Class War
   From Michael Kinsley (Slate): Bush and the new tyranny of the rich.

Separation of the spheres [of democracy and capitalism] also depends on an unspoken deal, a nonaggression pact, between democracy's political majority and capitalism's affluent minority. The majority acknowledge that capitalism benefits all of us, even if some benefit a lot more than others. The majority also take comfort in the belief that everyone has at least a shot at scoring big. The affluent minority, meanwhile, acknowledge that their good fortune is at least in part the luck of the draw. They recognize that domestic tranquility, protection from foreign enemies, and other government functions are worth more to people with more at stake. And they retain a tiny yet prudent fear of what beast might be awakened if the fortunate folks get too greedy about protecting and enlarging their good fortune.

That was the deal. Under George W. Bush, though, the deal is breaking down. ...

   A Byrd keeps chirping:
   Remarks in the Senate by U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd, June 5, 2003
   The Preception of Deception: Where Are the Iraqi Weapons?

What amazes me is that the President himself is not clamoring for an investigation. It is his integrity that is on the line. It is his truthfulness that is being questioned. It is his leadership that has come under scrutiny. And yet he has raised no question, expressed no curiosity about the strange turn of events in Iraq, expressed no anger at the possibility that he might have been misled. How is it that the President, who was so adamant about the dangers of WMD, has expressed no concern over the where-abouts of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

   Support Our Troops
   From The Onion: Bush Visits U.S.S. Truman For Dramatic
                                  Veterans'-Benefit-Cutting Ceremony

   The DLC snares a "brother"
   From the Black CoMMentator: In Search of the Real Barack Obama:
Can a Black Senate candidate resist the DLC?

It wasn't an hour after I published my article on the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) ("Liberals Need Not Apply", just below) when this article came across my desk. If you haven't yet read that earlier article, you might want to read that first just for background.

By all accounts, Barack Obama is a rising superstar of the Democratic Party. Mr. Obama is a young black man with all of the right qualities: highly-educated, strongly-opinionated, and with a flare for both speaking and writing with eloquence.

So why then was an impassioned anti-war speech on his web site suddenly replaced with a wishy-washy page supporting the war? Because the DLC got to him and turned him Oreo.

Fortunately for us, the Black CoMMentator has providered us with the text of Mr. Obama's original speech. Still, the question remains: Will the real Barack Obama please stand up?

   750,000 People Can't Be Wrong
   From the Boston Phoenix: Ignoring dissent
   Congress must do what the FCC refuses to: Regulate media conglomeration

Three quarters of a million people wrote the government on this issue, and almost every single one of the them said "NO!" to more media consolidation. And this was a "full spectrum" response. Groups as far apart as National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and the homophobic Family Research Council marched in lock-step on this. This should be a no-brainer issue for any politician. Vote down the FCC ruling, and 99% of the people will love you for it.

But we have to make sure that it is a no-brainer, and that's why, even if you wrote before the FCC vote, WRITE AGAIN! It's easy, and probably won't even take you 15 minutes to write both of your Senators and your Representative. Here's how:

• Write Your Representative: When you get to this page, simply select your state and enter your 9-digit zip code. The next page you will see is the write-in form for your representative.
• Write Your Senators: When you get to this page, you will see a "Select your state" box at the top. Make the selection, and the next page will provide links to the write-in boxes of each of your Senators.

Keep it short. If you can register your opinion in the title box alone, even better. We want these folks to get another 750,000 letters, but we need to make them easy to count! We can win this, but we need your help.

   It worked last time, didn't it?
   From NewsMax.com: Administration to Announce 'Rollback' Strategy for WMD

  * Must Read! *   John Bolton (Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security) is speaking today to the House Committee on International Relations regarding the administration's new Rollback Doctrine. This doctrine is essentially a the bogus "Iraq has WMDs" argument rewritten to say that everyone's got them, so we're just going to have to kick everyone's ass.

Bolton will start his speech by remaking the Iraq WMD case as if it were now a proven fact! From there, he will move on the Iran, claiming indispuitable evidence of their nuclear, biological, and chemical capabilities (i.e., they're next). Then it is on the North Korea, where we obviously intend to continue Bush's failed hard line policy towards them.

So much for the "Axis of Evil", huh? Well, not quite. Seems Bolton will also be formally inducting it's four newest members: Libya, Syria, Cuba, and Sudan.

Welcome to All War; All of the Time.

NOTE: In case you do not know who John Bolton is, he is the spy the Neocons planted in the State Department to keep an eye on Colon Powell. Look for him to actually replace Colon if Bush gets Round 2.

Liberals Need Not Apply

Welcome to the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), a quite influential group in the national democratic party. They raise lots of money for the party, and so it is quite easy to understand why the party listens when they speak.

About a week ago, I mentioned that presidential hopeful Howard Dean had been taking crap from the DNC (the actual party leadership) and was distancing himself from them, but it seems that I misreported and that it was actually the DLC calling Dean out for his appeal to Democratic liberal activists:

The old argument got a good run last month when Al From and Bruce Reed, leaders of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, issued a scalding memo offering a contrast between "real Democrats who champion mainstream values" and "activists and interest groups with narrow agendas."

The message from the DLC to Dean?

What activists like Dean call the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party is an aberration: the McGovern-Mondale wing, defined principally by weakness abroad and elitist, interest-group liberalism at home. That's the wing that lost 49 states in two elections, and transformed Democrats from a strong national party into a much weaker regional one.

Of course, Dean is not alone in meriting the scorn of the DLC. Accordeing to them, Dennis Kucinich has marginalized himself as a "single-issue" candidate for his "invest in America" approach ...

For example, presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich's economic plan revolves around one [my emphasis] thrust: a "massive public works [program] to rebuild our cities, our water systems, our public transportation systems, our schools, our parks."

... And even Dick Gephardt, one of the DLC's earliest supporters, is slandered for his healthcare proposal:

Every primary season unleashes the pander virus. Dick Gephardt's $2.5-trillion health care plan is the latest case in point. While Gephardt is right to base his candidacy on "big ideas," his health plan only underscores the folly of appealing to Democratic activists instead of the Democratic rank-and-file.

So what great sin have Dean, Kucinich, and Gephardt committed according to the DLC? The great sin of appealing to liberals! [Forget for a moment that Dean's record is hardly "liberal". The DLC thinks he is simply because liberals like him.] Mind you, these are "official" publications of the DLC and its twin sister, the Progressive Policy Institute.

And so who does the DLC like? John Kerry, John Edwards, and (note especially this last one) Joe Lieberman, all of whom are "members" of the DLC itself. They want "centrists" only, and liberals need not apply. "The Real Soul of the Democratic Party", the DLC insists, does not lie with "grass roots" liberalism, and if these same grass roots liberals like Dean, then he must clearly be dispensed with.

This is why Dean quite early on has sought to distance himself from the DLC, and why he has chosen to give exclusive interviews with "grass roots" websites like LiberalOasis and  t r u t h o u t . Though he knows that he stands falsely accused of being a liberal, he undersands that his his very candidacy may now depend on his ability to capitalize on the early grass roots enthusiasm towards him.

So the DLC is trying to blame the liberals ("the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party") for the recent election disasters. For this, they like to point out (among other things) the successful "centrist" candidacies of Bill Clinton (the first and only successful DLC candidate), but this is revisionist history. While Clinton was a centrist most of the time, when campaign season started, he moved distinctly leftward with such issues as national health insurance and gay rights. In other words, Clinton understood quite well that to win the Presidency, support from the left was essential.

And of course, the DLC forgets to mention its second candidate:

Fast forward to Al Gore, the next DLC candidate. It was the DLC, not so much Al Gore, that kept Clinton on the sidelines in 2000. And as Gore held tightly to the DLC doctrine up until the Democratic convention, he suffered set back after set back against an easily beatable George W. Bush. When Gore began to re-explore his Democratic roots in his acceptance speech, and through the remainder of the national campaign, he retook a lead over Bush and never relinquished it, only to lose improperly in the face of a 5–4 Supreme Court vote.

In fact, the DLC memo attacking the liberals (second link above) even goes so far as to directly refute itself when at one point, they accuse the delegates at Democratic conventions of being largely a group of elitist liberals, while at another point, they applaude the fact that centrist candidates usually prevail at those same conventions.

So who is the DLC anyways, and why are they so intent on pulling the Democratic Party rightward and away from the liberal activists? Perhaps the answer to that can be found by looking at who gives them all of their money:

Those corporate contributors--whose names fill the lists of givers to the DLC and a closely linked political arm, the New Democrat Network--include Bank One, Citigroup, Dow Chemical, DuPont, General Electric, the Health Insurance Corporation of America, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, Occidental Petroleum, Raytheon, and much of the rest of the Fortune 500.

But wait, you say. Aren't those the same folks that are bankrolling the Republicans? Sure they are. And what does that make the DLC? Paste a gold star on your forehead if you just came up with this answer: Having successfully purchased the Republican Party already, corporate America is now trying to purchase the Democratic Party too. If they can successfully do this, then elctions themselves will not matter anymore. We will simply be offered a steady choice between Bush and Bush-lite.

Or as James Higdon observes in "The DLC lures the Democratic Party gently into that goodnight":

The DLC is on the verge of making the Democratic Party completely and utterly irrelevant other than as a money collecting machine. Because of the DLC, the Democratic Party is not only in danger of becoming the decaffeinated Republican Party, but ultimately, the fat free Fascist Party.

And so it seems that Martha Stewart is finally going to fry on insider trading charges related to her sale of nearly 4,000 shares of ImClone shares a day before the stock began to plummet. With all her money, a stupid $228,000 transaction. Well, I guess that will send a strong message to "corporate evil doers" like Ken Lay!

Perhaps not however. Seems that Martha made one other mistake: She donated hundreds of tousands of dollars to the Democrats. Heck, she even donated to Michael Dukakis back in 1988 when he ran against Poppy Bush! Silly Girl!

   Black is white and up is down
   From Paul Krugman: Standard Operating procedure

Is it possible that the answer is so bad that we are afraid to answer the question?

It's no answer to say that Saddam was a murderous tyrant. ... (T)he important point is that this isn't about Saddam: it's about us. The public was told that Saddam posed an imminent threat. If that claim was fraudulent, the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in American political history — worse than Watergate, worse than Iran-contra. Indeed, the idea that we were deceived into war makes many commentators so uncomfortable that they refuse to admit the possibility.

But here's the thought that should make those commentators really uncomfortable. Suppose that this administration did con us into war. And suppose that it is not held accountable for its deceptions, ... In that case, our political system has become utterly, and perhaps irrevocably, corrupted.

And that, friends, is the $1 million question.

Stories That Don't Go Together:
Iraqi Troops, Tribes to U.S.: Leave or Face War Reuters, Mon Jun 2, 12:44 PM ET Thousands of sacked Iraqi soldiers swarmed angrily around U.S. headquarters in Baghdad on Monday, as squabbling tribal leaders told the Americans they could face war if they did not leave soon.	Ex-U.S. Army Chief: U.S. in Iraq for Long Stay Reuters, Tues Jun 3, 2:30 AM ET Former Army Secretary Thomas White said in an interview that it was time for the Pentagon to admit the U.S. military was in for a long stay in Iraq that will require a major commitment of troops.

The Free Press Under Attack

By now, you no doubt have heard that the FCC has voted against the will of the American people and proposed broad ownership deregulations for the media. FCC Chairman Michael Powell has claimed that the advent of cable-only channels and the internet has largely removed any concerns the we should have over this, but he claimed this without ever bothering to listen to any of these concerns.

To be honest, though I featured this issue on many occasions, I never truly felt that he would do otherwise. If there is one time when a member of the Bush team is telling the truth, it is when he is telling you in advance that he is planning to screw you.

On a brighter note, there seems to be some fairly substantial bi-partisan interest in Congress for blocking this move. Unfortunately, John McCain does not appear to be one of them, in spite of some fairly intensive questioning that he did during hearing on the subject. Anyways, I'll be looking for some god e-mail addresses to target on the pertinent committees, and will feed them out as I find them. Until then, feel free to target your own Senators and Representatives. Whatever comes out of these committees will eventual require their votes.

Latest Google News: FCC Deregulation.

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Unfortunately, this is hardly the only "Freedom of the Press" issue we are facing. A little-noticed CIA reprort entitled "The Consequences of Permissive Neglect" (link to full report) is now suggesting new laws that will cause journalists to be prosecuted whenever they knowingly publish classified materials. [Also: "Jailing the messenger" (MSNBC summary)]

Seems little more than a "national security" issue, but a closer look at this report reveals some interesting problems:

• We have laws already, but their enforcement is almost non-existent. The report's author is quite fuzzy on providing rationale for this, but clearly there is some sort of innate bureaucratic hostility against going after the leakers themselves. In other words, they don't want to go after their own.
• The government doesn't want to ever have to actually demonstrate harm from a leak, claiming that demonstrating harm would itself compromise national security. In other words, they don't want to have to prove that the document was properly classified in the first place.

The author's solution? Toss a few journalists in jail, so that their own leakers have no one to leak to.

But, warns the author, the press will likely fight enactment of these new laws with the claim that the government over-classifies, and that is simply not the case. Really? According to the May, 1977 testimony of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, over 400,000 new documents were given "Top Secret" status in 1996 alone (at a cost to the taxpayer of over $5 billion), and to earn that status, the disclosure of any single one these documents would have to cause "exceptionally grave damage to the national security." And remember, this number of documents does not include documents classified at lower status levels.

So far, however, this is just a report. But this is the way many laws start off, so watch for this coming down the legislative pick in the near future. One good thing however. You can bet your ass that the press will come crawling to us for help on this one.

Who Leaked the Waldorf Transcripts?   A "warning shot across the bow"

The Guardian (UK) reports today that transcripts of a private conversation between Jack Straw and Colin Powell are being circulated among a number of NATO governments. Called the "Waldorf transcripts" after the hotel where the conversation allegedly took place, these transcripts reportly documents the two of these men "expressing serious doubts about the reliability of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons" just before Powell's February 5th UN presentation. At least one NATO official has described the transcripts as "extremely useful" towards an apparent effort by some NATO allies to "rein in some of the less acceptable policies of the Bush administration". Jack Straw of course has denied that this conversation took place.

None of this is terribly surprising. The amount of evidence fragments around suggesting that much of Powell's evidence had been cooked was certainly ample, and Straw and Powell must certainly have been aware of at least some of this. Hence, a conversation such as this would not have been out of order between the two of them. That a transcript would be produced is likely simply a matter of routine.

But several questions arise: Who released this, and why now? And why so close to the release of Yahoo news story relating Powell's severe displeasure with Cheney's cooked intelligence. It might be tempting to suggest these to be an act by a "Good Samaritan", but this hardly seems satisfactory. Its release at this time certainly can be of quite little benefit to the Iraqi people, and so the benefit must lie elsewhere. Perhaps a personal grudge or a political maneuver by an opponent. But maybe not.

Allow me to speculate: About the same time this report from the Guardian crossed my desktop, a second article from nine days ago by the American Free Press also appeared purporting to document the discussions at the recently-concluded Bilderberg meeting in Versailles. What struck me about this report was how closely that group's reported dissatisfaction with the WMD arguement mirrors the reported discussion between Straw and Powell (and Powell and Ceney). Of course, that group would likely care little about cooked WMD intelligence unless they were actually being impacted financially by it in some fashion, and as this article points out a bit later, the Bilderberg's indeed seem to be concerned that all of the Iraqi financial benefits seem to be going to Bechtel and Brown & Root. In other words, why aren't they (the Bilderbergs) getting any of the "action"?

And what a good way to get some! The "Waldorf transcripts" would not be an effort to "get" Straw or Powell (or even Cheney) in this case. They would be a "warning shot across the bow" of Bush and Blair from Bilderberg: Either you toss some of the action our way, or we will make sure the whole story comes out. And Bilderberg can do it.

Latest Google News: Waldorf transcripts, Bilderberg Group.

   Tom Friedman wants your ideas:
   From the New York Times: A Theory of Everything

Tom has a problem. It seems that he is concerned that the "they" in "Why do they hate us?" has change since shortly after 9/11 from "our attackers" to everyoneone else in the world. His "Theory of Everything" suggests that this is because the world wants some input on when we do and do not employ our military power. I oversimplify his theory, of course, which is not too bad, though I think he himself oversimplifies things with it.

But he also concludes with a question. He wants to know if any of us have any thoughts about managing this difference of opinions in a stable (in other words, productive) manner, and even includes his e-mail address for replies. Unable as I am to resist such an invitation from a person so clearly in need of assistance, I penned the following reply:

I first became a follower of your writing when I heard you on Oprah a while back. What struck me back then was not my learning that you hawk on this war (I already knew that then), but that a hawk would ask the question, "Is Bush the right man for this job?" I found this to be a most intriguing question coming from a hawk.

In your article from last week (Passion for Peace), you stated: "... the question I always have about members of the Bush team is, How good are they at translating principles into practice? " Time transposed of course, this was the exact same question that you had asked at that earlier time, and your phrasing indeed suggests that you seem to be aware of this. But my question is this: Is this not also the exact same question that you have asked today? "Finding a stable way", in others words, is just a rephrasing of "Is Bush the right man for this job?" In a word: No. And asking this question over and over hoping for a different answer cannot change that answer.

Consider this: Mr. Bush may quite possibly be a well-intentioned man trying to do his best as the unlikely president. But what cannot be ignored is that he was an uninterested student, a partier who "got religion", a failure at every business enterprise he ran, and a "weak governor". I suspect that it is at least in part your own knowledge of these very things that brought you to ask your very question in the first place.

In spite of all of this, he suddenly finds himself surrounded by quite influential people telling him that he should run for president. And not only these people, but $75 million from obviously successful people who "like him". A most powerful aphrodisiac, indeed. Quite possibly powerful enough to make him forget to ask the most important question: Why me?

And so this quite unremarkable man suddenly finds himself as president, but when he gets there, he is surrounded by men who have made careers out of advancing quite strong personal ideas in the highly competitive world of national politics. Some of these men have tasted this level of power before and are used to it, others have merely dreamed of it and are now intoxicated for having achieved it. Bush through his own experiences has no concept of how to manage (much less lead) men like this, and the rest is history: Israel under siege, two governments removed and not replaced, and at least three more wars (Iran, Syria, and North Korea) on our doorstep.

What has happened in fact is that Bush, lacking an ability to manage such powerful egos, has chosen instead to treat them as his "infallible experts". While he is certainly not the first President to have chosen this, never before has a President chosen to do this with men who display such distain for history.

The history I am referring to of course is the separation of the powers and duties of the Defense and State Departments. Perhaps oversimplified but sufficient for my argument: the former is the destroyer, while the latter is the builder. And what of course has happened is that Defense has co-opted the powers of State without also assuming its duties. Hence, we are destroying without regard for rebuilding.

It is insufficient, by the way, to simply suggest that Donald Rumsfeld is a more skilled politician than Colon Powell, for Powell is hardly new to any of this. A third operator with free access to the President's ear must also be able to act as the tie-breaker, and that person is Vice President (and former Defense Secretary) Dick Cheney. (Some may wish to suggest that Rove and Rice may be in in this also, but, as talented as Rove is, he is not policy, and Rice simply lacks the experience to do anything more than blow with the wind, something she obviously has done quite well.)

Which gets me at last to answering your question: What is the stable way to manage this situation? First of all, Cheney has to go. He needs to be replaced with someone who is capable of viewing policy in a far broader context than that of which he is capable. Second, considering that Rumsfeld probably not ever be returned to his "box", he (and chief architect Paul Wolfowitz) must also go. It is only through these two actions that State can be returned to it rightful place as an equal to Defense.

Neither of these changes has an ice cube's chance in Hell however without removing Bush himself. Either of them would require a man of far more vision and self-confidence that we find in George Bush. Which of course gets me back to that first question I ever heard from you: Is George Bush the right man for this job? The answer unfortunately is no.

Too many people to fire? Too little time? Just use E-mail!

But don't be suprised when the bastards wreck the office!

Lies, Truth, & Patriotism:

Being a six-part article of seemingly dissociated facts that form a coherent whole.

   The Truth About Lying

Last week was an amazing week; perhaps at least in a political sense, the most amazing I have ever witnessed in my 52 years. Earlier on, we found out that Social Security and Medicare no longer exist, at least in their ability to pay the benefits which you and I need to believe that they will pay. We found out that the Bush administration deliberately supressed information (that we taxpayers paid to get) that would have portrayed that tax cut as not only downright stupid, but disasterous for all of the general populace. But we were not told.

But then, the real shit hit the fan. Paul Wolfowitz goes completely off of his rocker and actually admits that this WMD scare was the only way they could get the American people to support a war that they wanted for other reasons. Oh, no, they haven't said that it wasn't about WMDs in any way, just simply that WMDs were either (take your choice) the onlt thing they could agree upon or the only thing they all agreed could be used to sell the public on a war they simply had to have.

But this is not enough out of Wolfie' mouth: Look at that other great benefit. Now we can take our troops out of Saudi Arabia! It baffles the mind that the man can even say this with a straight face. Saudi Arabia wanted our troops out, so that justifies kicking their neighbor's ass so we can have a place to put them? If that is an example of our new foreign policy, then, pardon me, we have no foreign policy.

This was then followed by the real story about Colon Powell's WMD speeches before the UN. Seems with at least one of them, Dick Cheneys office was actually the author. Apparently, there was some stuff in it that Colon was not too fond of (some bogus story about Saddam purcasing software to help him plan an attack on the U.S.) In fact, Powell lost his temper, throwing several pages in the air and declaring, "I'm not reading this! This is bullshit!" In retropspect, this was probably the only argument he won back then however.

The CIA did not get off easy either, with the absence of any WMDs in Iraq having them under increasing pressure. This is an almost impossible situation for them. While they know quite well exactly what happened (and who did it), to come out and actually say it and take the pressure off of themselves would place that same pressure right on Bush himself. But this is simply not something that is done by a career government employee in Washington, and considering that most of the information needed to make this case is classified, it is doubtful that the case could even be made in public without violating national security laws.

None of this would of course be complete without a scan of the Sunday morning pundits who were making their usual futile attempts at pretending that they were providing insight on all of this. While a passing note was made by but a single one of them on the "politicization" of intelligence, even that reference was confined in context to CIA intelligence. Not a single mention was made of the new Defense Intelligence Agency, even though Wolfowitz has already flat out stated that this agency was the one that provided the war-justifying "Intelligence". (Curiously enough, a member of this very agency was quoted last week as saying, "The American people were manipulated," though this may very well have been said in an attempt to deflect criticism from themselves.)

One might be tempted to simply chalk this up as a blundering week for the White House, except that this White House does not have "blundering" weeks. Everything they do is too closely orchestrated for this, and in at least some way, this surely was also. In fact, the last time they had a week even close to this, the President was also out of the country. And that time, it also started out with a statement by Wolfowitz. Humm?

My guess? Mr. Wolfowitz fashions himself as some budding young Hitler type ("essentially ... running a shadow administration out of his Pentagon office"), but there is some kind of internal dynamic to the White House when Bush is there that it lacks when he is not. I couldn't even begin to guess whether this is a deliberate dynamic on the President's part, but it is there in either case. Whatever this dynamic is, it tends to keep Wolfie under wraps during that time. But the far more important question is who is wolfie gunning for and why. Whoever that person is, it's the person standing between him and a war with Iran.

So, there is certainly trouble in the House That Bush Built, but as usual, the lapdog press has no nose for it.

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   What "Loyal Opposition"?
   From the San Franscisco Chronicle: Pelosi declares Bush 'fair game' for criticism

Neither does House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who was running around last week aiming at the unfunded Homeland Security mandates. Sure, she has a point, what with the fact that we lowered the threat level to  yellow  yesterday because we could not afford to keep it at  orange , but on the political Richter scale, that is lucky if it ever registers a tremor.

Don't you get it yet, Nancy? You are trying to generate an issue-based attack, while you are failing to regognize that there is but one issue: ETHICS! Bush and his people lie to the American people each and every time he wants to advance a policy decision that the American people would not otherwise support:

• He conceals a financial report that was paid for by the American people that suggests that the recent Bush tax cut was not only ill-advised, but totally destructive of every American's foundation for retirement.
• He scares the American people into supporting a war by manufacturing a false belief of threat from a dictator who is virually powerless outside of his own country.

Necessary lies in the eyes of the Bush administration, but only necessary because they lack the ability to persuade the American people in an open and honest debate of them.

Nancy! This is not trivial stuff. This is a clear, active, and on-going campiagn disenfranchise the opinion of the American voter through disinformation. This is not some stain on an intern's dress. This is a systemic lying campaign in the Bush administration. This is "high crimes and misdemeanors" and is impeachable!

So much for a "loyal opposition".

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   The Truth About International Law
   From CounterPunch: Let Us Count the Violations

Add to these "high crimes and midemeanors" the list of violations of international law by the Bush administration. My critics will quickly claim that international law holds no sway over sovereign nations, and in the case of many mations, it indeed does not. Unfortunately for my critics, it does indeed "hold sway" in this nation as our Constitution specifies quite clearly that signed treaties hold an equal force to the Constitution itself. While we need not sign any treaty that is to our disadvantage, once signed it is the binding law of the land.

Treaties can become inconvenient as world events unfold, but we have a formal method under our Constitution to remove our obligations to them. We have the exact same method to remove as law a treaty as we had to engage that treaty: Consent by the Senate and the signature of the Executive.

What we do not have in our Constitution is any ability for the Executive to act unilaterally to suspend provisions of any treaty. The Executive is sworn by oath to uphold the Constitution, and until a treaty is formally renounced by a combined act of both the Legislature and the Executive, it is the daily obligation of the Executive to uphold it.

All of which gets me to unfortunately the secondary provisions of an impeachment resolution: While Bush is fully empowered to not sign a new treaty, he cannot simply wave a wand and make old ones disappear. That he has done so clearly is undeniable evidence of his violation of his oath of office. He is therefore clearly impeachable for "high crimes" alone.

All of which brings me to this article, a quite exact list for the provisions of United States law that this administration has failed to uphold.

We have a President who not only does not uphold the laws of the land that he swore he would, but blatantly disregards them. We have a President (in other words) who considers himself to be above the law itself. We need to explain to him that he is not. If impeachment is all he will listen to, then it is time to impeach.

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   The Truth About Lying (Revisited)
   From Tom Paine.com: Conservative Journalists' Dirty Little Secret

Matt Labash is by all accounts a promising young writer. With a senior editor job already in hand at the neoconservative Weekly Standard, we are sure to be hearing more from him in the future. Which makes his current comments all the more depressing

Conservative news organizations are popular, he admitted, "because they feed the rage. We bring the pain to the liberal media. I say that mockingly, but it's true somewhat.... While these hand-wringing Freedom Forum types talk about objectivity, the conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being objective. We've created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective.... It's a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket."

Or to put it more plainly, lying is not only acceptable, it is now fashionable and quite in demand. From the mouths of babes ...

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   From Where I Stand
   From the National Catholic Reporter: Is there anything left that matters?

This is what I don't understand: All of a sudden nothing seems to matter.

First, they said they wanted Bin Laden "dead or alive." But they didn't get him. So now they tell us that it doesn't matter. Our mission is greater than one man.

Then they said they wanted Saddam Hussein, "dead or alive." He's apparently alive but we haven't got him yet, either. However, President Bush told reporters recently, "It doesn't matter. Our mission is greater than one man."

Finally, they told us that we were invading Iraq to destroy their weapons of mass destruction. Now they say those weapons probably don't exist. Maybe never existed. Apparently that doesn't matter either.

From Sister Joan Chittister, and inspirational article on why truth, both spoken and unspoken, matters.

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   What is Patriotism?
   From Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr: Embracing the true nature of patriotism

Three questions:

• Do a democratic people have a moral obligation to cease debate and dissent in times of war?
• Did our ancestors abstain from debate and dissent when their government took them to war?
• What is the true nature of patriotism anyway?

A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, social critic, and doctorate of human letters scans American history to find the differences between how we as a nation have answered these questions in the past and how we are being asked to answer them today. And to the President's proscription, "You are either with us or against us", and John Ashcroft's admonition against "giving aid and comfort to the terrorists" through simple diagreement, Dr. Schlesinger offers this quote from or history:

Our country, right or wrong.
When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right.