U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq

Administration Is Shedding 'Unreality' That Dominated Invasion, Official Says

By Robin Wright and Ellen Knickmeyer

Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 14, 2005; Page A01

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

So What *Is* a Liberal, Anyway?

For years now, since Reagan got elected, we've been hearing rants from the Right on the evilness of Liberals. Listen to Limbaugh or his ilk, and you'll get the idea that Liberals are all a mixture of Jimmy Hoffa, Jessie Jackson, Noam Chomsky, and Hubert Humphrey. You'll note that these are completely incompatible. To the Right, "Liberal" is just a "hate word" — its only real meaning is "I don't like it". Just the thing for a two-minute hate, but no good for a real discussion.

So what are we really talking about here? Well, let's see what one of the more famous American Liberals had to say about it:

What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

Avedon Carol: Onward Bushian Soldiers

Last night Atrios linked to Henry's discussion of Volokh and the call for evidence against "Western commentators who defend the Iraqi insurgents, or at least justify their actions as being a supposed campaign for self-determination, allegedly justifiable rage at Western misbehavior, and so on." Henry comes back with:

In any event, in the spirit of Eugene's appeal, I'd like to put out one of my own. I'd like instances in which commentators make egregious claims that a substantial section of those who opposed the war are, in fact, rooting for the other side.

Among the examples appearing in the comments was this one from Neil quoting Kurt Anderson:

Each of us has a Hobbesian choice concerning Iraq; either we hope for the vindication of Bush's risky, very possibly reckless policy, or we are in de facto alliance with the killers of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

Note that the alternative possibility that Bush will somehow think better of his reckless policy and do something that might work (or even that Divine Providence will intervene), isn't in this equation - you must either believe in the impossible or you support the enemy.

Most interestingly, your "good" option isn't defined as peace or even as just "the good guys win", it's defined as Bush's vindication. It's all about him, as usual.

Now, we know that Bush always talks that way, but these guys aren't Bush, and seeing them take this tack really does make me wonder how they can fail to be embarrassed to spew this crap. I think they really do imagine themselves to be some kind of intellectuals, and yet they can't seem to absorb the possibility that people just plain think the policy itself is not workable.

So they evade the serious debate over the efficacy of the policy by dragging us all into the path of a speeding train and claiming that those who warn that we need to get off the tracks are actually cheering for the train to crush us. Bush says we will defeat the train, and the only reason we might think otherwise is that we have a pathological hatred of Bush, which means we must actually hope that the train will prove him wrong - even if it kills us.

Juan Cole - August 13, 2005

US attack on Mosque?

It is so hard to tell what is really going on in Iraq now. A lot of Western reporters have left because of the poor security. So what do we make of this report in Al-Zaman (which is by no means anti-American)?--

Ahmad Hamzah, reporting from Ramadi: "6 civilians were killed and more than 30 wounded, among them 3 children, when US forces attacked a mosque on the outskirts of Ramadi. Eyewitnesses told al-Zaman yesterday that 'American tanks fired on the Ibn al-Jawzi Mosque between the cities of Khalidiyah and Ramadi during Friday prayers, killing 6 and wounding 30, who were ttansported to the hospital. The six most severely wounded of them were taken to Baghdad for treatment.' The eyewitnesses also said that 'The US forces had notbe subjected to any armed attack and no one opened fire on them, so that their action was greeted with amazement."

Al-Zaman maintains that the US had in fact been attacked.

The Daily Howler - August 13, 2005

SHRUM AND OATES! Democrats should be more like Rush Limbaugh, a famous Born Loser advised us: // link // print // previous // next //

SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 2005

VACAVILLE MEMORIES: Our favorite case of inane Sheehan-sliming occurred on Thursday’s O’Reilly Factor. Guest host John Gibson was speaking with the New York Sun’s Ira Stoll. How inane will a cable hack be? Try to believe that he said it:

GIBSON (8/11/05): I can't help but notice that Cindy Sheehan is from Vacaville, California, very close to U.C. Davis, very close to U.C. Berkeley, reasonably close to U.C. Santa Cruz, where I believe that a lot of those WTO protesters came from. What do the university anti-war protesters have to do with her?

Poor Stoll! Confronted with the world’s stupidest question from the world’s biggest fraud, he found a way to continue without taking notice. “Well, in some ways, she's a more appealing face for the anti-war movement than some eighth year PhD student in a nose-ring and pony-tail,” he told his inane host. “She's a mom. And so that's why all these groups would prefer to have her out there than their real face.”

Arthur Silber: The Cheapest Date in the World

August 13th, 2005

Iran Watch continues:

US President George W Bush refused to rule out the use of force against Iran over the Islamic republic’s resumption of nuclear activities, in an interview with Israeli television.

When asked if the use of force was an alternative to faltering diplomatic efforts, Bush said: “All options are on the table.”

“The use of force is the last option for any president. You know we have used force in the recent past to secure our country,” he said in a clear reference to Iraq.

“I have been willing to do so as a last resort in order to secure the country and provide the opportunity for people to live in free societies,” he added.

Bush was speaking from his ranch in Crawford, Texas to a reporter from Israeli public television.

Arthur Silber: Calling Bullshit--Bring It On, Cindy

August 13th, 2005

Well, I said that I didn’t want to get into the personal attacks on Cindy Sheehan. I still won’t—but I want to make a few points about the controversy that has erupted here, in response to this.

Very briefly, here is the background that a lot of people seem to be unwilling to acknowledge. For the last several years, the national discussion about Iraq has been almost entirely dominated by the administration and its supporters. Beginning almost immediately after 9/11, anyone who dared to disagree with or even question Bush’s foreign policy decisions has been labeled as being “on the other side,” as being “objectively pro-terrorist,” and the like. In short: anyone who disagreed, no matter how well-grounded his objections and no matter how completely his objections have been vindicated by events of the last two years, was called a traitor. This is not a minor matter, and this is the cultural swamp in which we now live.

Digby: The Question

I've been wondering what it is about Cindy Sheehan that's gotten under people's skin. Her loss is horrible and everyone can see that she is deeply pained.(Only the lowest, cretinous gasbags are crude enough to attack her in her grief.) She's a very articulate person and she's incredibly sincere. But she's touched a deeper nerve than just the personal one.

A couple of months ago, when the Downing Street Momos came out and the media elite pooh poohed them as nothing but old news, I wrote a post called "The Elephant":

...the Downing Street Memo gives the press the chance to ask, finally, why we really invaded Iraq.

Have any of you been at a social gathering in which this question comes up? Have you felt the palpable discomfort? Nobody really knows. Those that adhere to the "CIA fucked up" rationale can't explain Downing Street. Those who think you had to back the government in a time of war, are visibly discomfitted by the fact that we never found any WMD. Flypaper is crap...

Digby: When Will Iraq Be Free?

An e-mail from Rick Perlstein and some of the comments from others to my post below, have made me realize that there is a corollary to The Question:

George Bush said that Casey Sheehan died in a noble cause. We know that this noble cause was not to "disarm Sadam Hussein" because Saddam Hussein had already been disarmed. Perhaps some thought that he hadn't and so pushed for war, but that is not noble. That's a terrible mistake.

We know that this noble cause was not to fight terrorism. There was no terrorism in Iraq, it had no association with 9/11 and they knew it. The terrorist mastermind of 9/11 remains at large -- his number two guy just put out another video. By all accounts the invasion of Iraq has inspired terrorist recruiting. And terrorists just attacked London, the capital of our closest ally. Perhaps some thought that invading a country that had nothing to do with terrorism in order to fight terrorism was noble, but it isn't. That's a horrible delusion.

Digby: Gearing Up

Amanda Marcotte and quite a few others are upset that NARAL pulled their ad. But I think the ad did what it was intended to do. They were only running it in a couple of states, remember. It was designed to cause controversy. And it succeeded. Yesterday the story was on the front page of the NY Times.

They used the swift boat model. Oh yes, all the congoscenti are clutching their pearls and the anti-choice groups are running their own ads and everybody's in a tizzy. But just as the swift boat ads were targeting veterans and military types who were possibly lulled into complacency by Kerry's war record, NARAL is targeting pro-choice women who may not yet realize how high the stakes have suddenly become. They are trying to wake them up to the threat and sometimes it takes a firestorm to do that. The details don't matter, it's the headline and the image.

Digby: The Appearance Of Winning

This cracks me up. In a story called "No Clear Finish Line" Peter Baker examines the fact that the administration is really becoming stuck in its Iraq policy as the country turns against the war.

Failure to meet the deadline, analysts say, would be a devastating setback to Bush and could accelerate the sense at home that the process is not going well. Alarmed by falling domestic support for the war, Bush aides resolved in June to rally the public by having the president take a more visible role explaining his strategy and predicting victory. Bush flew to Fort Bragg, N.C., to deliver a prime-time address pleading for patience, part of what aides said would be a sustained campaign.

But Bush then largely dropped the subject until yesterday's meeting at the ranch, addressing the war mainly in reaction to the latest grisly events on the ground. In the ensuing vacuum, Rumsfeld and the U.S. effort in Iraq have come under increasing fire even from Bush supporters, such as Fox News talk show host Bill O'Reilly, Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol and the American Spectator magazine.

"The Bush administration has lost control of its public affairs management of this issue," said Christopher F. Gelpi, a Duke University scholar whose analyses of wartime public opinion have been studied in the White House. "They were so focused on this through 2004. . . . I don't know why they've slipped."

Now let's think about this. In 2004 what was going on? Oh that's right. A presidential election. And who was running that election? Oh that's right, Karl Rove. Hmmm --- what's happened since then that would put them so off their game?

Digby: Courage

I think we've found Kaye Grogan's day job:

President Bush is a Leader who has the courage to lead. It is political courage. It is not poll driven it is conviction driven. It is consistent and does not change because of pressure or threats of political survival. It is reconfirmed every day. It differs from combat courage in that it is thought oriented not reaction oriented. Combat courage does not necessarily translate into political courage. Combat courage is admirable and you only know if you have it when you are in combat. President Bush has demonstrated that he has political courage and this is why he was re-elected. By owning a bust of President Bush, Commander in Chief you will be making a statement and in a politically charged environment, it takes courage.

Unless your decorating style is early meth lab, it takes courage in any environment. I think the eyes move and everything.

King of Zembla: No Questions Asked

1.) In an interesting column on changing judicial interpretations of the commerce clause, John Dean discusses the so-called "Ginsburg rule," which right-wingers have recently invoked in arguing that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts should not be compelled to answer questions about specific issues. The only problem is, the Ginsburg rule has no basis in law or the code of judicial conduct. Joe Biden pulled it out of his ass:

in 1993, when Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware chaired confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Biden instructed his committee colleagues not to ask questions about "how [Judge Ginsburg] will decide any specific case that may come before her."

Judge Ginsburg - who was then on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, just as Judge Roberts is today -- refused to answer a number of questions about matters she believed would come before her as a Supreme Court Justice. She was confirmed by a vote of 93 to 3 . . . .

Senator Biden based his position on, and Judge Ginsburg found her shelter in, Canon 5 of the American Bar Association's Model Code For Judicial Conduct. Canon 5(d)(i) states: A candidate for a judicial office (a "Candidate" is defined as a person seeking selection for judicial appointment) shall not: with respect to cases, controversies, or issues that are likely to come before the court, make pledges, promises or commitments that are inconsistent with the impartial performance of the adjudicative duties of the office.

King of Zembla: How to Nail Karl Rove

If you've been visiting TomDispatch lately, you know that proprietor Tom Engelhardt has been publishing a new essay every fifteen minutes, and while they are uniformly terrific and informative, not one of them has cheered us up as much as this piece by Elizabeth de la Vega. The former federal prosecutor and Chief of the San Jose Branch of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California here departs from conventional wisdom, arguing that it really wouldn't be all that hard to build a case against a "senior administration official" under the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Then she explains exactly how to do it:

<>

<>Pundits right, left, and center have reached a rare unanimous verdict about one aspect of the grand jury investigation into the Valerie Plame leak: They've decided that no charges can be brought under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, because it imposes an impossibly high standard for proof of intent. Typically, writing for Slate on July 19th, Christopher Hitchens described the 1982 Act as a "silly law" that requires that "you knowingly wish to expose the cover of a CIA officer who you understand may be harmed as a result." Similarly, columnist Richard Cohen, in the July 14 Washington Post, said he thought Rove was a "political opportunist, not a traitor" and that he didn't think Rove "specifically intended to blow the cover of a CIA agent." Such examples could be multiplied many times over.

Shocking as it may seem, however, the pundits are wrong; and their casual summaries of the requirements of the 1982 statute betray a fundamental misunderstanding regarding proof of criminal intent.

King of Zembla: The Aviator

Courtesy of Zemblan patriots K.Z. and J.D.: That Cindy Sheehan must be one scary broad:

"She feels strongly about her position and she has every right in the world to say what she believes," Mr. Bush told a news conference. "And I thought long and hard about her position. I've heard her position from others, which is: Get out of Iraq now. And it would be a mistake for the security of this country and the ability to lay the foundations for peace in the long run if we were to do so."

Mr. Bush said he grieves for every death in Iraq. "It breaks my heart to think about a family weeping over the loss of a loved one. I understand the anguish that some feel about the death that takes place."

Yet there was no sign Mr. Bush intends to meet Ms. Sheehan. In fact, there were reports he is travelling solely by helicopter when he leaves the ranch in an effort to avoid racing past the protester in a limousine.

You cannot appreciate the full extent of Ms. Sheehan's scariness until you understand that Mr. Bush takes his life in his hands every time he steps aboard the Presidential helicopter. As it turns out, the daredevil crew of Marine One is in the unfortunate habit of playing chicken with commercial aircraft:

Two sources have confirmed there was a close call at O'Hare Airport involving President Bush and his helicopter flight party when they when they took off from O'Hare for Montgomery, Illinois earlier this week . . . .

Aircraft in the president's party are choreographed to fly under very strict rules. Wednesday morning his helicopters were all instructed to fly north of an active landing runway at O'Hare until further clearance.

But the two lead helicopters, believed to be carrying members of the press corps and presidential staff, elected to fly almost directly down the center line of that active runway.

An American Airlines MD-80 with passengers was approaching that runway in the opposite direction to land.

That's when the airline pilots saw the two helicopters at low altitude heading right toward them.

The MD-80 aborted the landing, making an abrupt left, climbing turn. The lead helicopter also turned left, avoiding a possible collision.

The Mahablog: NARAL and Double Standards

I haven't yet said anything about NARAL's infamous John Roberts "bombing" ad because I hadn't had time to check it out for myself. I knew the Right was worked up into a froth about it, but this means little. The Right works itself into a froth every time a liberal so much as clears his throat. The mere mention of the name "Hillary" sends them into violent paroxysms of indignation that are the chief cause of crop circles and may contribute to global warming. Rightie outrage is no measure of outrageousness.

But I don't give NARAL a pass, either. Although I agree with their goals, NARAL is capable of strategic blunders. For example, years ago (in the 1970s, I think, although it might have been later) I signed on as a member, and I loyally paid dues and sent an occasional donation. But southern Ohio, where I lived at the time, was swimming in anti-privacy propaganda. The Fetus People not only had taken over radio, television, and most of local print media; they'd also bought up most of the billboard space. All over the land, giant talking fetii begged their mommies not to kill them.

The Mahablog: Housekeeping

Some loose ends to tie up before I leave tomorrow ... via Altercation, you've got to see this. It's a great Traitorgate info resource provided by Think Progress.

I recommend "A US Paratrooper Is Disgusted w/ Right Smears of Sheehan" at Iddybud. Essentially, the paratrooper was shocked at some of the "gentle" comments left by righties to Iddybud's "Call off the Dogs on Cindy Sheehan" post at Blogcritics.

Speaking of righties--I catch a lot of flack on the Right because I don't permit troll posts here. But I realized at one point that I can't stand to leave troll posts unanswered, but answering them takes a lot of time and energy. So, the hell with it. They aren't interested in what I think, anyway. Many of you have said that you appreciate being able to converse with the group without the taunts and insults, and believe me, I'm with you.

Arthur Silber: The New 'Democratic' Iraq

August 12th, 2005

Story:

Quietly, in their ones and twos, the professional classes of Baghdad are slipping out of the country to avoid becoming another fatal statistic.

Iraq is losing the educated elite of doctors, lawyers, academics and businessmen who are vital to securing a stable future. There is also fear that their departure will leave a vacuum to be filled by religious extremists.

Outside the shelter of the Green Zone, home to the American and Iraqi political leadership, lawlessness has overtaken the capital.

Aruthur Silber: With Respect, Digby, You’re Wrong: We DO Know

August 12th, 2005

At the end of an entry you should read in its entirety, Digby says:

It is not an academic exercise for [Cindy Sheehan]. She lost her son—- and she’d like to know why. Nobody can explain to her—or to any of us—- why we invaded Iraq and why people are dying. They said it was to protect us—but it wasn’t a threat. Then they said it was to liberate the Iraqi people, but Saddam and his government are a memory and yet the Iraqi people are still fighting us and each other. Our invasion of iraq has inspired more terrorism, not less. Oil prices are higher than they’ve ever been. The country is swimming in debt. People are being killed and maimed with the regularity of the tides.

Arthur Silber: Oops, Hitchens Spills Some Beans

August 12th, 2005

Now, I can’t explain this. If people understand what it means, Christopher Hitchens reveals entirely too much here. I think the explanation is that Hitchens realizes that most people don’t fully understand its implications—or that people simply don’t want to believe how genuinely horrifying those implications are.

Arthur Silber: And Then He’ll Come Walking In The Door…

August 12th, 2005

Touching on some of the themes I explored the other day, here is James Moore:

I met Cindy Sheehan this time last year when she was trying to decide what to do about the loss of her son. We were strangers when we spoke on the phone but she was as honest as she was angry. Before a news conference at the National Press Club, she stood in an anteroom holding a large color poster of her smiling boy and she ran her fingertips over his mouth as though he were alive and could feel this affection. In that moment, I hated my president. And I hate having to hate anyone or anything.

Paul Krugman: Safe as Houses

I used to live next door to a Russian émigré. One day he asked me to explain something that puzzled him about his new country. "This place seems very rich," he said, "but I never see anyone making anything. How does the country earn its money?"

The answer, these days, is that we make a living by selling each other houses. Since December 2000 employment in U.S. manufacturing has fallen 17 percent, but membership in the National Association of Realtors has risen 58 percent.

The housing boom has created jobs in two ways. Many jobs have been created, directly and indirectly, by a surge in housing construction. And rising home values have fueled a simultaneous surge in consumer spending.

Let's start with home building. Between 1980 and 2000, which was before the housing boom, spending on the construction of new homes averaged 4.25 percent of G.D.P. In the most recent quarter, however, the figure was 5.98 percent. That difference is equivalent to about $200 billion a year in additional spending, generating roughly two million extra jobs.

Realtors say home prices are 'close to a peak,' with condos to fall

By Kathleen M. Howley
Bloomberg News

August 10, 2005

U.S. home sales are "close to a peak" and prices will rise next year at about half the rate of 2005, the National Association of Realtors said.

The nationwide median price of an existing home will increase 5.2 percent to $215,200 next year, the smallest gain since 2000, when prices rose 4.1 percent, according to a forecast Tuesday by the Washington-based trade group. Sales of previously owned homes will fall 3.6 percent and sales of new homes will drop 4.5 percent.

"The housing market is probably close to a peak right now in terms of sales activity, but there is tremendous momentum," said David Lereah, chief economist for the association, in a statement. "Sales are expected to coast at historically high levels into next year, but they will trend slightly downward."

Part 2: Through leaks and smears, Senate chairman protects White House to blame CIA, Democrats

08/11/2005 @ 1:40 pm

Niger forgeries and WMDS – Roberts fingers CIA

As more questions surface on the Administration's lies about WMD and forged Niger documents, Roberts becomes a staunch Bush defender, deflecting pre-war "failures" away from the White House and pinning all blame on the CIA.

On July 11, 2003 - five days after former ambassador Joseph Wilson writes an article for the New York Times challenging the White House claim of Niger uranium sales to Iraq, Roberts issues a statement:

"What now concerns me most," he remarks, "is what appears to be a campaign of press leaks by the CIA in an effort to discredit the President."

Ironically, on the same day that Roberts issues his statement, CIA chief George Tenet takes full responsibility for the uranium claim and its insertion in the State of the Union.

Senate Intelligence chairman quietly 'fixed' intelligence, and diverted blame from White House over Iraq

Larisa Alexandrovna

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush issued an order to the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, and his cabinet members that severely curtailed intelligence oversight by restricting classified information to just eight members of Congress.

"The only Members of Congress whom you or your expressly designated officers may brief regarding classified or sensitive law enforcement information," he writes, "are the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader, the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, and the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Intelligence Committees in the House and Senate."

You and Your Dumb Money

Why you picked the wrong mutual funds—again.
By Daniel Gross
Posted Thursday, Aug. 11, 2005, at 1:04 PM PT

On Wall Street, there's smart money and dumb money. You (and I) are dumb money. Smart money (big-time hedge-fund managers, private-equity honchos, leveraged buyout kings) reliably outperforms the market. Dumb money (individual investors, the sort of people who casually watch CNBC for stock tips) generally fares poorly. Individual investors—that is, we—are considered such dumb money that many professional investors regard us as contrary indicators. The lemminglike masses get excited and overly optimistic when the market's about to top, and they tend to get fearful and overly pessimistic when the market's about to bottom. So, if you could just figure out what the dumb money is doing and zig when it zags, that may be a path to easy profits.

Errors Cited in Assessing Climate Data

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Some scientists who question whether human-caused global warming poses a threat have long pointed to records that showed the atmosphere's lowest layer, the troposphere, had not warmed over the last two decades and had cooled in the tropics.

Now two independent studies have found errors in the complicated calculations used to generate the old temperature records, which involved stitching together data from thousands of weather balloons lofted around the world and a series of short-lived weather satellites.

A third study shows that when the errors are taken into account, the troposphere actually got warmer. Moreover, that warming trend largely agrees with the warmer surface temperatures that have been recorded and conforms to predictions in recent computer models.

Religious Leaders Fault Evangelical Rally

Reuters
Friday, August 12, 2005; Page A20

Some religious leaders yesterday criticized this weekend's evangelical rally on judicial issues, arguing that the event suggests an imposition of faith on matters of U.S. public life.

"Those in public office must never make religion the lens" through which constitutional matters are decided, said the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance.

Trade Deficit Up As Oil Imports Hit High

By Daniela Deane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 12, 2005; 9:48 AM

America's trade gap widened sharply in June as ever-galloping oil prices pushed petroleum imports to an all-time high.

The Commerce Department reported that the trade deficit -- the gap between what America sells abroad and what it buys -- grew more than expected in June to $58.8 billion, a jump of 6.1 percent over May. So far this year, the trade gap is running at a yearly rate of $686 billion -- 11 percent higher than last year's all-time record.

Abramoff Indicted in Casino Boat Purchase

Lobbyist, Associate Charged With Fraud

By James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 12, 2005; Page A01

MIAMI, Aug. 11 -- Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and a business partner were indicted by a federal grand jury in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday, charged with five counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy in their purchase of a fleet of Florida gambling boats from a businessman who was later killed in a gangland-style hit.

Abramoff, 46, was arrested in Los Angeles in the late afternoon and was expected to be taken before a U.S. magistrate there on Friday. He was indicted along with Adam Kidan, the former owner of the Dial-a-Mattress franchise in Washington. Kidan, 41, of New York City, will surrender to the FBI here by Friday morning, his attorney, Martin I. Jaffe, said in a written statement.

The Strategic Class

by ARI BERMAN

[from the August 29, 2005 issue]

In July 2002, at the first Senate hearing on Iraq, then-Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Joe Biden pledged his allegiance to Bush's war. Ever since, the blunt-spoken Biden has seized every opportunity to dismiss antiwar critics within his own party, vocally denouncing Bush's handling of the war while doggedly supporting the war effort itself. Biden carried this message into the Kerry campaign as the candidate's closest foreign policy confidant, and a few days after announcing his own intention to run for the presidency in 2008, he gave a major speech at the Brookings Institution in which he criticized rising calls for withdrawal as a "gigantic mistake."

The Democrats' speculative front-runner for '08, Hillary Clinton, has offered similarly hawkish rhetoric. "If we were to artificially set a deadline of some sort, that would be like a green light to the terrorists, and we can't afford to do that," Clinton told CBS in February. Instead, she recently proposed enlarging the Army by 80,000 troops "to respond to threats wherever danger lies." Clinton, a member of the Armed Services Committee, appears more comfortable accommodating the President's Iraq policy than opposing it, and her early and sustained support for the war (and frequent photo-ops with the troops) supposedly reinforces her national security credentials.

Louisiana Purchase: The Feds Recruit Culture War Cadets

by SHARON LERNER

[from the August 29, 2005 issue]

Standing at the entrance to Louisiana's state capitol building on a sunny morning in April, Dee Burbank paraphrased Jesus. "It's been said that if we know the truth, the truth will set us free," Burbank declared, pausing for effect as more than 1,000 teenagers gathered on the stone steps below her fell into a round of whooping. "But I add to that, if you follow a lie, the lie of the sexual revolution--if you follow a lie, you may die."

A small woman with glasses perched professorially on her nose, Burbank railed against sex outside of marriage in a cadence that brought skilled politicians and pastors to mind. "It's a privilege to be here with our greatest treasure, our young people--and our legislative officials, our other governmental officials, to celebrate the truth that will set us free!" she boomed. As Burbank reached a crescendo--shouting that "Ignorance, stupidity can only reign so long because the truth will emerge like the phoenix and rise and light the skies!"--one blond, ponytailed girl in the audience leaned over and marveled to her friend, "Wow, she could be a preacher!"

Junk Food Nation: Who's to Blame for Childhood Obesity?

by GARY RUSKIN & JULIET SCHOR

[from the August 29, 2005 issue]

In recent months the major food companies have been trying hard to convince Americans that they feel the pain of our expanding waistlines, especially when it comes to kids. Kraft announced it would no longer market Oreos to younger children, McDonald's promoted itself as a salad producer and Coca-Cola said it won't advertise to kids under 12. But behind the scenes it's hardball as usual, with the junk food giants pushing the Bush Administration to defend their interests. The recent conflict over what America eats, and the way the government promotes food, is a disturbing example of how in Bush's America corporate interests trump public health, public opinion and plain old common sense.

The latest salvo in the war on added sugar and fat came July 14- 15, when the Federal Trade Commission held hearings on childhood obesity and food marketing. Despite the fanfare, industry had no cause for concern; FTC chair Deborah Majoras had declared beforehand that the commission will do absolutely nothing to stop the rising flood of junk food advertising to children. In June the Department of Agriculture denied a request from our group Commercial Alert to enforce existing rules forbidding mealtime sales in school cafeterias of "foods of minimal nutritional value"--i.e., junk foods and soda pop. The department admitted that it didn't know whether schools are complying with the rules, but, frankly, it doesn't give a damn. "At this time, we do not intend to undertake the activities or measures recommended in your petition," wrote Stanley Garnett, head of the USDA's Child Nutrition Division.

Katha Pollitt: Feminists for (Fetal) Life

[from the August 29, 2005 issue]

Can you be a feminist and be against abortion? Feminists for Life claims to be both, and if you listen long enough to its voluble and likable president, Serrin Foster, you might almost think it's true. FFL is on a major publicity roll these days, because Jane Roberts, wife of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, is a pro bono legal adviser, former officer and significant donor (she gave between $1,000 and $2,499 in 2003). When I caught up with Foster at the end of a long day that included an hour on NPR's On Point, she talked a blue and quite amusing streak, and although it can be hard to follow an aria that swoops from Susan B. Anthony to telecommuting to water pollution, while never quite answering the actual question, I'm sure she means every word of it. How can you argue with FFL's contention that America does not give pregnant women and mothers the support they need? Feminists, the prochoice kind, have been saying this for years. So far as I can tell, FFL is the only "prolife" organization that talks about women's rights to work and education and the need to make both more compatible with motherhood. It has helped bring housing for mothers and children to Georgetown University and supports the Violence Against Women Act; Foster reminded me that she and I had been on the same side in the mid-1990s in opposing family caps, the denial of additional benefits to women who had more children while on welfare. Why, she wondered, couldn't we all just work together to "help pregnant women"?

Daily Howler - August 11, 2005

STOP US BEFORE WE INVADE THEIR LIVES MORE! If Hillary Clinton runs for prez, Richard Cohen knows where it will lead him: // link // print // previous // next //

THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2005

STOP US BEFORE WE INVADE THEIR LIVES MORE: Richard Cohen is making a plea—stop us before we invade their lives more! What will happen if Hillary runs? The press will of course have no choice:

COHEN (8/11/05): The same holds for the other women associated with this [New York Senate] race—even more so if Hillary Clinton eventually runs for president. In effect, she will once again invite us to dissect her marriage and why she stays in it. She is clearly up to it—but why she is up to it is something many of us will never understand. The life of a politician, ever strange, is getting stranger and stranger.

Get that? If Hillary Clinton runs for the White House, she will be “inviting” the press “to dissect her marriage and why she stays in it.” Clinton is clearly up to doing this, Cohen says, wondering about her weird conduct.

Four Amendments & a Funeral

Read it and weep--Dictynna

A month inside the house of horrors that is Congress
By MATT TAIBBI

It was a fairy-tale political season for George W. Bush, and it seemed like no one in the world noticed. Amid bombs in London, bloodshed in Iraq, a missing blonde in Aruba and a scandal curling up on the doorstep of Karl Rove, Bush's Republican Party quietly celebrated a massacre on Capitol Hill. Two of the most long-awaited legislative wet dreams of the Washington Insiders Club -- an energy bill and a much-delayed highway bill -- breezed into law. One mildly nervous evening was all it took to pass through the House the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), for years now a primary strategic focus of the battle-in-Seattle activist scene. And accompanied by scarcely a whimper from the Democratic opposition, a second version of the notorious USA Patriot Act passed triumphantly through both houses of Congress, with most of the law being made permanent this time.

Americablog: More States Demanding Paper Trail For Voting

by Michael in New York - 8/10/2005 01:49:00 PM

USA Today has a story on the growing number of states that are demanding electronic voting machines provide a paper trail voters can check themselves. (My state, New York, just passed a law, thank God. We're about to replace aging machines. Has yours?) There's a graphic showing which states have laws or are at least considering them. Among the nine states that aren't even thinking about this issue: Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. I suppose they're still reeling from letting blacks vote.

Some election experts fear that paper backup records will add a layer of complexity to an already delicate system. That could lead to even worse problems in the 2006 elections, such as jammed printers and long voting lines, they say.

"The unintended consequence of a (paper trail) mandate could diminish, rather than enhance, voter confidence," says Conny McCormack, who runs elections in the nation's largest voting jurisdiction, Los Angeles County.

FEC Finds Misreporting by DeLay Committe

By SUZANNE GAMBOA
The Associated Press
Thursday, August 11, 2005; 11:31 AM

WASHINGTON -- A federal audit of a political fundraising committee founded by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay found that it failed to report more than $300,000 in debts owed to vendors and incorrectly paid for some committee activities with money from another DeLay-connected political committee.

The Federal Election Commission's report didn't indicate whether it would pursue enforcement action against Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee.

ARMPAC's executive director, Jim Ellis, was indicted in Texas in connection with a separate DeLay-connected committee, Texans for a Republican Majority. In that case, Ellis is charged with money laundering and accepting illegal political contributions for state legislative campaigns. DeLay has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the case.

Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Qaeda in '00

By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 - More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of a cell of Al Qaeda operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress.

In the summer of 2000, the military team, known as Able Danger, prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to the military's Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the congressman, Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, and the former intelligence official said Monday.

The recommendation was rejected and the information was not shared, they said, apparently at least in part because Mr. Atta, and the others were in the United States on valid entry visas. Under American law, United States citizens and green-card holders may not be singled out in intelligence-collection operations by the military or intelligence agencies. That protection does not extend to visa holders, but Mr. Weldon and the former intelligence official said it might have reinforced a sense of discomfort common before Sept. 11 about sharing intelligence information with a law enforcement agency.

Able Was I

The intelligence failure that won't stop failing.
By Bruce Reed
Updated Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2005, at 1:22 PM PT

Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2005

Room 101: For years, the greatest philosophical difference between the two parties has been over the role of government. Democrats tend to trust government; Republicans don't—except on the question of security, where many Republicans tend to embrace government and some Democrats don't. Liberals live in fear of Big Brother; conservatives live in fear of Big Government.

Fear not: Washington has found a way to deliver both.

GOP Paying Legal Bills Of Alleged Vote Tamperer

GOP Paying Legal Bills of Bush Official

By JOHN SOLOMON
The Associated Press
Thursday, August 11, 2005; 3:08 AM

WASHINGTON -- Despite a zero-tolerance policy on tampering with voters, the Republican Party has quietly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide private defense lawyers for a former Bush campaign official charged with conspiring to keep Democrats from voting in New Hampshire.

James Tobin, the president's 2004 campaign chairman for New England, is charged in New Hampshire federal court with four felonies accusing him of conspiring with a state GOP official and a GOP consultant in Virginia to jam Democratic and labor union get-out-the-vote phone banks in November 2002.

Dollar Falls as Retail Sales in July Grew Less Than Forecast

Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar fell against the yen and euro after a government report showed U.S. retail sales in July grew less than economists predicted.

The U.S. currency has lost ground the past five weeks even as reports showed U.S. job growth quickening and the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate for a 10th straight time, expanding the U.S. rate advantage over Europe and Japan.

``The expectations for U.S. data have been very high,'' said Eric Darwell, a currency strategist in New York at Citigroup Inc., the world's biggest financial services company. ``Though we have gotten strong numbers, we haven't seen a strengthening dollar.''

Soldier's Mother Takes Protest to Bloggers

By Brian Faler

Thursday, August 11, 2005; Page A08

Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq who has been camped outside President Bush's ranch near Crawford, Tex., took her antiwar protest to the Internet yesterday, joining a conference call with bloggers around the country, along with a stray congresswoman.

Sheehan, who has been demanding an audience with the president, told the bloggers that she has felt intimidated by the Secret Service, has been awakened in the middle of the night by thunderstorms and has a sore throat. But, Sheehan said, she has no plans to end her vigil until Bush meets with her to discuss the war, he goes back to the White House or she is arrested.

Road Bill Reflects The Power Of Pork

White House Drops Effort to Rein In Hill

By Jonathan Weisman and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 11, 2005; Page A01

Three years ago, President Bush went to war against congressional pork. His official 2003 budget even featured a color photo of a wind-powered ice sled -- an example of the pet projects and alleged boondoggles he said he would no longer tolerate.

Yesterday, Bush effectively signed a cease-fire -- critics called it more like a surrender -- in his war on pork. He signed into law a $286 billion transportation measure that contains a record 6,371 pet projects inserted by members of Congress from both parties.

Early Pullout Unlikely In Iraq

Military Official Says Withdrawal At Least a Year Off

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 11, 2005; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Aug. 10 -- Iraq's leaders and military will be unable to lead the fight against insurgents until next summer at the earliest, a top U.S. military official said Wednesday, trying to temper any hopes that a full-scale American troop withdrawal was imminent as Iraq moves toward elections scheduled for December.

Maureen Dowd: Why No Tea and Sympathy?

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

W. can't get no satisfaction on Iraq.

There's an angry mother of a dead soldier camping outside his Crawford ranch, demanding to see a president who prefers his sympathy to be carefully choreographed.

A new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans now think that going to war was a mistake and that the war has made the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorism. So fighting them there means it's more likely we'll have to fight them here?

Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged yesterday that sophisticated bombs were streaming over the border from Iran to Iraq.

And the Rolling Stones have taken a rare break from sex odes to record an antiwar song called "Sweet Neo Con," chiding Condi Rice and Mr. Bush. "You call yourself a Christian; I call you a hypocrite," Mick Jagger sings.

The N.F.L. put out a press release on Monday announcing that it's teaming up with the Stones and ABC to promote "Monday Night Football." The flag-waving N.F.L. could still back out if there's pressure, but the mood seems to have shifted since Madonna chickened out of showing an antiwar music video in 2003. The White House used to be able to tamp down criticism by saying it hurt our troops, but more people are asking the White House to explain how it plans to stop our troops from getting hurt.

Herbicide-Resistant Weed Plagues Calif.

Aug 10, 9:46 AM EDT

By JULIANA BARBASSA
Associated Press Writer

PARLIER, Calif. (AP) -- Horseweed was once merely a nuisance to farmers - hard to pull out, quick to sprout back after cutting, and capable of towering over tractors.

Now, it's becoming a full-blown nightmare worthy of an agricultural horror flick: scientists in California have found clusters of the weed that are resistant to scores of herbicides, leaving farmers to fight an increasingly formidable and costly foe.

Pete Christensen said he watched his costs soar as the most popular herbicide became increasingly powerless to stop the weeds from choking the grapes on his 75-acre vineyard near Selma.

About five years ago he started noticing that Roundup wasn't withering the weed as usual. Three years later, he had tripled the concentration of the herbicide, and had doubled the applications, but the weeds were growing thicker than ever, rising over his vines and competing with them for water, nutrients and sunshine.

I-Team: Air Force officer allegedly vandalized cars with pro-Bush bumper stickers

DENVER - Denver police say a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force has admitted to vandalizing cars bearing pro-President Bush bumper stickers at Denver International Airport.

Police say he's responsible for thousands of dollars in damage on at least 12 cars. Lt. Colonel Alexis Fecteau, 42, of Colorado Springs, turned himself in to Denver police Friday.

He is director of reserve operations at the National Security Space Institute in Colorado Springs, in charge of more than 40 full-time and traditional reservists.

In the arrest affidavit, Denver police say Fecteau admitted to damaging several cars after police conducted a sting-operation to catch the anti-Bush vandal.

"It was pretty good police work," said Denver Police spokesman Sonny Jackson. He said his department took this case very seriously. "You still have a right to express yourself in this country and you shouldn't have your car vandalized because of it."

Investment firm's payments to Republican fundraiser under scrutiny

MIKE ROBINSON

Associated Press

CHICAGO - Federal prosecutors investigating corruption at a state pension fund have subpoenaed records concerning $4.5 million in fees a Washington-based investment firm is paying the new treasurer of the Republican National Committee, government sources confirmed Tuesday.

The subpoena calls for documents related to the fund, the Carlyle Group and Robert Kjellander, said sources familiar with the investigation who spoke only on condition of anonymity, saying prosecutors want details of the probe kept secret.

Harry Potter bewitches Guantanamo Bay prisoners

Strange.--Dictynna

By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent 49 minutes ago

Harry Potter has bewitched detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, where tales of the young wizard and mysteries by Agatha Christie top the list of most popular books, a prison librarian said on Tuesday.

"Harry Potter is a popular title among some of the detainee population," said the librarian, a civilian contractor identified only as "Lorie" who works at the prison camp for foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

Lorie said the popularity of the best-selling Harry Potter books, which recount the adventures of a boy wizard as he triumphs over the powers of evil, was matched only by the prisoners' passion for Agatha Christie, some of whose murder mysteries are set in the Middle East.

The Guantanamo Bay prison -- which has come under fierce attack by human rights groups for its treatment and indefinite detention of prisoners -- holds about 510 suspects from 40 countries. Most are from Afghanistan and Arab states.

Kansas Board Advances a Draft Critical of Evolution

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 10, 2005

TOPEKA, Kan., Aug. 9 (AP) - The State Board of Education has approved the latest draft of science standards that include greater criticism of evolution.

The board approved the draft on Tuesday by a vote to 6 to 4. It then voted to send it to be reviewed by outside academics. The board is expected to give its final approval in October.

The draft says the board is not advocating the teaching of "intelligent design," which contends that some features of the natural world are best explained by an intelligent creator, not evolution. But the language favored by the board does come from advocates of intelligent design.

In a debate on Tuesday, board members opposed to the draft said religion had no place in the science classroom.

Harold Meyerson: Big Brother On and Off the Job

By Harold Meyerson

Wednesday, August 10, 2005; Page A17

They'll be bowling alone at Guardsmark tonight. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) doesn't want the employees chatting it up off the job.

On June 7 the three Republican appointees on the five-member board that regulates employer-employee relations in the United States handed down a remarkable ruling that expands the rights of employers to muck around in their workers' lives when they're off the job. They upheld the legality of a regulation for uniformed employees at Guardsmark, a security guard company, that reads, "[Y]ou must NOT . . . fraternize on duty or off duty, date or become overly friendly with the client's employees or with co-employees."

Broken Law, Broken Home

By Dianne Twinam

Wednesday, August 10, 2005; Page A17

I am an American citizen married to an illegal immigrant. We have a child. We would like to have another child, but I am terrified that my husband could be deported and I would be left with no husband and our children with no father. A new study just released by the Pew Hispanic Center estimates that the illegal immigrant population now stands at almost 11 million. If a mere 1 percent of these immigrants have an American spouse or child that would mean that more than 110,000 U.S. families face the same concerns.

For Democrats, a Troubling Culture Gap

By Dan Balz

Wednesday, August 10, 2005; Page A08

Dissatisfaction over the war in Iraq, the economy and rising health care costs might spell trouble for Republicans, but a study by Democratic strategists warns that their party's failure to connect with voters on cultural issues could prevent Democratic candidates from reaping gains in upcoming national elections.

Democrats have expressed bewilderment over Republican gains among lower-income, less-educated voters, saying they are voting against their economic self-interest by supporting Republican candidates. But the new Democracy Corps study concludes that cultural issues trump economic issues by a wide margin for many of these voters -- giving the GOP a significant electoral advantage.

Judge Won't Drop Charges Against DeLay Associates

Associated Press
Wednesday, August 10, 2005; Page A08

AUSTIN, Aug. 9 -- A state district judge on Tuesday refused to dismiss charges of money laundering and accepting illegal political contributions against two associates of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).

Judge Bob Perkins denied arguments from attorneys for John Colyandro and Jim Ellis that the charges were based on an unconstitutionally vague law and that the indictments were improperly worded. Attorneys for the two said they would appeal, which could delay a trial for several months.

Talking Wounded

Terry Rodgers Came Back From Iraq a Changed Man, and Not Just Because of the Bomb

By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 10, 2005; Page C01

"So we're driving down the road and it's midnight, so it's pitch-black, and when you're driving at night, you don't use any lights," says Terry Rodgers, "but we can see fine because we've got night vision goggles."

He's sitting in the living room of his mother's townhouse in Gaithersburg, telling the story of his last night in Iraq. He's still got his Army crew cut and he's wearing a T-shirt with an American flag on the chest.

Digby: Journalistic Performance Art

Via Americablog, I read from CJR that Michael Wolff has an article in Vanity Fair that *gasp* questions the propriety of the major news organizations withholding important information from the public for their own purposes:

Michael Wolff deals with the Rove/Plame/Miller fracas in this month's Vanity Fair (the article isn't available online). Wolff manages to find a unique approach to the issue, positing the thesis that the New York Times and Time magazine are complicit in the cover-up of the fudging of intelligence in the prelude to war in Iraq -- in that they knew Rove was the source of the Plame leak intended to discredit Joe Wilson after he called the administration to account. "Not only did highly placed members of the media and the vaunted news organizations they worked for know it, not only did they sit on what will not improbably be among the biggest stories of the Bush years, they helped cover it up. You could even plausibly say that these organizations became part of a conspiracy -- they entered into an understanding that, as a quid pro quo for certain information, they would refuse to provide evidence about a crime possibly having been committed by the president's closest confidant."

King of Zembla: Civilian Management

Via our stalwart colleagues at Cursor: Whatever NORTHCOM wants, NORTHCOM gets, and what NORTHCOM has long desired most is the repeal of posse comitatus laws:

The U.S. military has devised its first-ever war plans for guarding against and responding to terrorist attacks in the United States, envisioning 15 potential crisis scenarios and anticipating several simultaneous strikes around the country, according to officers who drafted the plans.

The classified plans, developed here at Northern Command headquarters, outline a variety of possible roles for quick-reaction forces estimated at as many as 3,000 ground troops per attack, a number that could easily grow depending on the extent of the damage and the abilities of civilian response teams.

The possible scenarios range from "low end," relatively modest crowd-control missions to "high-end," full-scale disaster management after catastrophic attacks such as the release of a deadly biological agent or the explosion of a radiological device, several officers said . . . .

King of Zembla: Who Disabled Able Danger?

Conspiracy theorists, set your spines to full tingle mode. Our distinguished colleague Peter of Lone Tree at BlondeSense came across the following item at, of all places, Fox News:

U.S. law enforcement never received information on Sept. 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and his possible connections to Al Qaeda, even though that information was known more than a year before the attacks that left approximately 3,000 people dead, Rep. Curt Weldon said Tuesday.

Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican and vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said the hijackers were identified in 1999 by a classified military intelligence unit known as "Able Danger," which determined they could be members of an Al Qaeda cell. A military spokesman would not confirm or deny the unit's existence to FOX News . . . .

In September 2000, the unit recommended that its information on the hijackers be given to the FBI "so they could bring that cell in and take out the terrorists," Weldon said in an interview with the Associated Press.

However, Weldon said Pentagon lawyers rejected the recommendation because they said Atta and the others were in the country legally.

"In fact, I'll tell you how stupid it was. They put stickies on the faces of Mohamed Atta on the chart that the military intelligence unit had completed and they said you can't talk to Atta because he's here on a green card," Weldon said . . . .

Weldon told FOX that the "Able Danger" unit told its bosses that the information should be shared with the FBI.

A spokesman for U.S. Special Operations Command said there is no knowledge of Able Danger within Special Operations command headquarters right now.

Weldon said the unit is now defunct.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the Sept. 11 commission looked into the matter during its investigation into government missteps leading to the attacks and chose not to include it in the final report.

King of Zembla: Orlando Bosch Had a Prior Commitment

Think Progress reports that one of the featured speakers at "Justice Sunday II," the upcoming telecast in which James Dobson, Tony Perkins et alWilberforce Forum and head honcho of Prison Fellowship Ministries. Mr. Colson has lately been quite visible on the chat-show circuit denouncing Mark Felt, who back in the day was better known -- better unknown? -- as Deep Throat: hope to rally support for "judicial matters of importance to evangelicals," will be Charles Colson, chairman of the creationist Wilberforce Forum and head honcho of Prison Fellowship Ministries. Mr. Colson has lately been quite visible on the chat-show circuit denouncing Mark Felt, who back in the day was better known -- better unknown? -- as Deep Throat:

The principle being taught today in a relativistic environment is getting young people to believe that this is a noble act that he did. He could not have done the right thing. He broke his oath of office. He broke the law. He snuck off cloak-and-dagger style to convey privileged information.

It is of course only fair that Mr. Colson should seize the opportunity to pass judgment on Mr. Felt's moral shortcomings, because Mr. Felt's revelations of "privileged information" put Colson in the slammer. Before his prison stretch (during which he wisely opted for a change of careers, entering the fast-growing and highly lucrative field of Christianity), Mr. Colson was chief counsel in the Nixon White House, where his resume included plotting acts -- noble acts, we're sure -- of domestic terrorism against American citizens:

The Mahablog: L'état n'est pas lui

In today's Boston Globe, Joan Vennochi reveals why President Bush enjoys his August vacations in Texas.

He is currently immersed in a five-week stay away from Washington, the longest presidential retreat in at least 36 years, according to The Washington Post.

A presidential spokesman said the time in Crawford is a time for Bush to ''shed his coat and tie and meet with folks in the heartland and hear what's on their minds."

And I bet that spokesman delivered that line with a straight face. Where do the Republicans find these people?

The Mahablog: The Freak Show

I don't usually pay attention to Christopher Hitchens, because I believe him to be brain damaged. I think Slate and other media outlets continue to publish him simply for the freak factor--look, ma, it's a three-headed toad!

To be fair, Snitch is still capable of stringing words together in an entertaining manner. But so are most schizophrenics, I'm told. These days a standard Snitch column is a well structured word salad, void of intellectual cohesion.

David Neiwert: The base line

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Anti-illegal immigration activists keep insisting that there's nothing the least racist about their efforts to crack down on the problem. It's only illegal immigration they oppose. Really. It has nothing to do with race or ethnicity.

So maybe they can explain why, in Denver, anti-illegal immigration activists have mounted a protest against the city librarian because the library has (gasp!) expanded its collection by adding large numbers of Spanish-language books, including, evidently, some with racy pictures inside.

This elicited the following response from one of the protest organizers:

"You always hear they want to come and work," said Robert Copley of the Colorado Minuteman Project. "Well, they also want to come and kill, and destroy wages, and just demean our quality of life."

It's pretty clear Mr. Copley's concern is not with illegal immigration -- though we're sure he can rhapsodize at length on that subject as well -- as it is with Latino immigration. And it's kind of funny how that theme keeps cropping up a lot.

Media Matters: Tierney wrong on Arctic climate change and polar bears

New York Times columnist John Tierney made several questionable and inaccurate claims about Arctic climatic change and its effect on polar bear populations. In his August 7 Times op-ed, Tierney claimed that the Arctic was as warm in the 1930s as it is now. He also suggested that recent Arctic warming may benefit polar bears, noting that polar bear populations have increased as the Arctic has grown warmer. In fact, data show that current Arctic temperatures are higher than they were in the 1930s. Also, many scientists believe that Arctic warming, rather than benefiting polar bears, will actually destroy their habitats and reduce their food supply.

In his August 7 op-ed, Tierney claimed that "[i]n the 1930's, the Arctic was as warm as it is now." But the October 2004 Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), "Impacts of a Warming Arctic," refutes this claim. According to the ACIA report (pdf Page 29), average Arctic near-surface air temperatures today are approximately 0.5 degrees Celsius higher than in the 1930s. The ACIA is an "international project of the Arctic Council and the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) to evaluate and synthesize knowledge on climate variability, climate change, and increased ultraviolet radiation, and their consequences."

MANHANDLING THE MEDIA

A journalist confronts the Secretary of Defense about his credibility, and the Bush administration responds with a show of force

By Jeff Norman

Gold Star mom Nadia McCaffrey wound up her Southern California visit Thursday, after four U.S. Tour of Duty events, by attending Donald Rumsfeld's speech at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. The Secretary of Defense spoke before a capacity audience at a luncheon presented by the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.

Rumsfeld continued to dismiss reports that prisoner abuse by American military personnel is widespread. He praised his subordinates for "conducting investigations," and claimed the torture problem has been solved. Rumsfeld insisted recent news coverage of prior incidents only makes it seem "like it's new allegations."

PM Carpenter: NYT slips into FOXism

August 09, 2005

Sometimes you run across a newspaper “analysis” whose resemblance to a FOX news story leaves you slackjawed - a story whose omissions define it more than the content. One expects this level of print journalism in the administration’s unofficial outlets of the Washington Times and Wall Street Journal’s editorial page - but in the New York Times?

Such an analytical piece - “Where are the war heroes?” - appeared Sunday. The Times thought you might like to know why “the military, the White House and the culture at large have not publicized [heroes’] actions with the zeal that was lavished on the heroes of World War I and World War II.”

It's dangerous to blow the whistle

By Francis Volpe, August 9, 2005

Bunnatine Greenhouse. Roll that over your tongue for a moment.

No, this isn't the name of a place you go to buy flowers and shrubs. It's a woman employed at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a principal assistant responsible for contracting (PARC).

And she's in big trouble. She's already been demoted once and she's now on a three-month evaluation of a kind that could result in her being fired.

All of this is because she refuses to back down when told to turn a blind eye to the kinds of things a person in her job is supposed to prevent.

In short, she's a whistleblower. She's the kind of person who is often lionized in magazine feature stories and sometimes turned into the subjects of Oscar-winning motion pictures like "The Insider" and "Erin Brockovich."

Media Matters: Limbaugh finally admitted to his confused listeners that "Soros ads" were fake

Nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh responded to an item by "our poor old buddy, David Brock" and "his fledging little website" Media Matters for America documenting that Limbaugh aired a "commercial" parodying Democratic opposition to Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. without noting that the ad was fake. Yet Limbaugh refused to inform a confused caller that the ad was fake and later admitted that he had received emails and phone calls from listeners who "believe that these [the Roberts ad and another ad about White House senior adviser Karl Rove] are actual George Soros commercials." Limbaugh finally informed listeners that the ads were fake and opined that Media Matters "is upset" about them because they are "effective in identifying the absolute lunacy of the left in the current realm of American politics."

ATTYTOOD: Cindy, Crawford, and the Bush Smear Machine

It's truly amazing what the human spirit can accomplish. From Gandhi's Salt March to Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail, a single person can fight a corrupt establishment and win -- when truth and justice is on his or her side.

Now, in 2005, along comes Cindy Sheehan, the California woman whose altar-boy son Casey was killed in Iraq last year. As you may have heard, Sheehan and some supporters have been camping out outside the Bush ranch in Crawford, Tex., refusing to leave until she gets a meeting with the president. Already, her plight has drawn media attention and could mark a turning point in public resistance to the war in Iraq.

That's when the right-wing smear machine jumped into its swift boats and tried to pull a "Joe Wilson" on Sheehan before her plight captivates more folks out in TV Land. Today on the Drudge Report, an item appeared describing how Sheehan already did meet with Bush 14 months ago, shortly after her son died, and -- based on a forgotten article (not even online, although now it is) in a small paper in the Sheehan's hometown of Vacaville -- she had said some seemingly glowing things about George W. Bush.

Female circumcision surfaces in Iraq

A German aid group finds the first solid proof of the practice, thought to be prevalent in the Middle East.

By Nicholas Birch | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

KIRKUK, IRAQ - Set on an arid plain southeast of Kirkuk, Hasira looks like a place forsaken by time. Sheep amble past mud-brick houses and the odd sickly palm tree shades children's games. There is no electricity.

Yet along with 39 other villages in this region that Iraq's Kurds have named Germian (meaning hot place), Hasira and its people have become noted for presenting the first statistical evidence in Iraq of the existence of female circumcision, or female genital mutilation (FGM), as critics call it.

"We knew Germian was one of the areas most affected by the practice," says Thomas von der Osten-Sacken, director of a German nongovernmental organization called WADI, which has been based in Iraq for more than a decade.

Suit: Residents harassed into Bible study

August 9, 2005

BY NATASHA KORECKI Federal Courts Reporter
Advertisement


Residents of a Westmont public housing complex for seniors said in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that they were coerced and harassed by management into practicing Christianity and pressured to attend Bible study classes.

Five former and current residents of the complex, along with housing advocate Hope Fair Housing, are suing the complex and its property manager, saying they used "coercive, harassing and restrictive rules and regulations to impose their 'Christian' beliefs upon current residents."

Analysis: Iraq Statistics Tell Grim Story

by Martin Sieff, UPI Senior News Analyst
Washington DC (UPI) Aug 08, 2005

If the U.S. Army and its Iraqi allies are killing as many insurgents as reports indicate they are per month, why is the insurgency intensifying instead of collapsing?

The Bush administration has been extremely reluctant to comply with the requests of a Congress controlled by its own party and issue detailed figures, or "benchmarks" on progress in combating the insurgency. But a study of the best figures and estimates available publicly suggests that the level of attrition reported and widely believed to be inflicted on the insurgents is in reality a lot less than the figures indicate.

Report: World Land Use Is Top Environmental Issue

GreenBiz.com, 9 August 2005 - The massive conversion of the world's natural landscapes to agriculture and other human uses may soon begin to undermine the capacity of the planet's ecosystems to sustain a burgeoning human population.

Writing July 22, 2005 in the journal Science, a group of leading scientists portrays the escalating transformation of the world's forests, wetlands, savannahs, waterways and other native landscapes as the biggest potential threat to human health and global sustainability.

"Short of a collision with an asteroid, land use by humans is the most significant impact on the world's biosphere," according to Jonathan A. Foley, a UW-Madison climatologist and the lead author of the Science paper. "It may be the single most pressing environmental issue of our day."

Snow Concedes Economic Surge Is Not Benefiting People Equally

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 9, 2005; Page A03

Treasury Secretary John W. Snow acknowledged yesterday that the fruits of strong economic growth are not spreading equally to less educated Americans, as he and the rest of President Bush's economic team prepared to meet today to discuss wages and income distribution in an otherwise surging economy.

The meeting at the president's ranch near Crawford, Tex., will be convened amid evidence that the economy is gaining steam and that voters are dissatisfied with Bush's handling of the economy. Snow and other administration officials say strong consumer demand for housing, cars and other big-ticket items indicates that the negative message voters are giving pollsters on the economy is belied by their open wallets.

White House Backs New Abortion Curb

Brief Filed in N.H. Notification Case

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 9, 2005; Page A03

The Bush administration called on the Supreme Court yesterday to uphold new restrictions on abortion, backing a New Hampshire parental-notification law that has no exceptions for pregnant girls whose health is at risk.

The administration's filing adds a new element to this summer's Supreme Court confirmation proceedings of John G. Roberts Jr., because he could be the pivotal vote in the case, which is to be argued late this year and decided next year. If confirmed, Roberts will replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was co-writer of the 1992 decision requiring that states not impose an "undue burden" on exercising the right to abortion.

Digby: Who Was Neville Chamberlain's Priest?

Can somebody please explain to me why the Democrats should be blamed for every stupid utterance that emantes from some junior college instructor, while the Republicans dance free of any association with a preacher who says "God Hates Fags?" Is it just the fag word that allows them to escape? It must be because the sentiment is certainly mainstream GOP cant.

I think Pastor Fred Phelps should be tied around the necks of the right wing Christianists with a boland knot.

The Mahablog: Why We Blog

Carolyn Kay of Make Them Accountable reminds us how much President Bush enjoys his August vacations.

“[T]here's no need to learn what was in that top-secret briefing that the president received as he settled down for his monthlong vacation at his Texas ranch on Aug. 6 [2001]. Reports at the time show that Mr. Bush broke off from work early and spent most of that day fishing. [Emphasis added.] If he had received foreknowledge of an attack that morning, he would have acted upon it, and no Democratic leader has said otherwise (despite Dick Cheney's smears to the contrary).” [Frank Rich, “Thanks for the Heads-Up”, The New York Times, May 25, 2002]

Since this is Rich, I suspect the quote above was in a tongue-in-cheek context. Although we wouldn't learn for a couple of years that the memo Bush glanced at that morning was titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States," in the spring of 2002 Time and Newsweek both ran long investigative stories about how the Bush White House failed to take terrorism seriously before 9/11 in spite of copious warnings that something significant was about to happen.

The Mahablog: Then And Now

As you probably know, right now Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, is camped out a few miles from President Bush's Crawford "ranch," determined to remain until she can speak to the President. Richard Stevenson writes more about Cindy Sheehan in today's New York Times.

Ms. Sheehan has vowed to camp out on the spot until Mr. Bush agrees to meet with her, even if it means spending all of August under a broiling sun by the dusty road. Early on Sunday afternoon, 25 hours after she was turned back as she approached Mr. Bush's ranch, Prairie Chapel, Ms. Sheehan stood red-faced from the heat at the makeshift campsite that she says will be her home until the president relents or leaves to go back to Washington. A reporter from The Associated Press had just finished interviewing her. CBS was taping a segment on her. She had already appeared on CNN, and was scheduled to appear live on ABC on Monday morning. Reporters from across the country were calling her cellphone. ...

David Neiwert: Minutemen: A home for extremists

Monday, August 08, 2005


This is a recent Minutemen rally. And yes, that's a Nazi flag there, third from the right.

Well, I've been saying all along that the Minutemen's core demographic is constituted of right-wing extremists, including many outright racists.

At a recent anti-immigrant rally in Laguna Beach, the connection was made explicit.

The rally was held July 30. It apparently was a follow-up of sorts to a similar rally held in the same locale on July 16, in which a local anti-immigration activist decided to protest a local arts festival's financial support for a day labor center for undocument workers. This rally drew the participation of the Save Our State campaign (an ostensibly mainstream anti-immigration organization) and the Minutemen's Jim Gilchrist. It also drew a contingent of neo-Nazis.

Arthur Silber: Why the Ignorance of Our Hundred Million Matters

August 8th, 2005

Following up on the Fat Clemenza news of last week, here’s part of a notable Richard Dawkins article I hadn’t seen before:

“It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).” I first wrote that in a book review in the New York Times in 1989, and it has been much quoted against me ever since, as evidence of my arrogance and intolerance. Of course it sounds arrogant, but undisguised clarity is easily mistaken for arrogance. Examine the statement carefully and it turns out to be moderate, almost self-evidently true.

By far the largest of the four categories is “ignorant,” and ignorance is no crime (nor is it bliss—I forget who it was said, “If ignorance is bliss, how come there’s so much misery about?”). Anybody who thinks Joe DiMaggio was a cricketer has to be ignorant, stupid, or insane (probably ignorant), and you wouldn’t think me arrogant for saying so. It is not intolerant to remark that flat-earthers are ignorant, stupid, or (probably) insane. It’s just true. The difference is that not many people think Joe DiMaggio was a cricketer, or that the Earth is flat, so it isn’t worth calling attention to their ignorance. But, if polls are to be believed, 100 million U.S. citizens believe that humans and dinosaurs were created within the same week as each other, less than ten thousand years ago. This is more serious. People like this have the vote, and we have George W. Bush (with a little help from his friends in the Supreme Court) to prove it. They dominate school boards in some states. Their views flatly contradict the great corpus of the sciences, not just biology but physics, geology, astronomy, and many others. It is, of course, entirely legitimate to question conventional wisdom in fields that you have bothered to mug up first. That is what Einstein did, and Galileo, and Darwin. But our hundred million are another matter. They are contradicting—influentially and powerfully—vast fields of learning in which their own knowledge and reading is indistinguishable from zero. My “arrogant and intolerant” statement turns out to be nothing but simple truth.

James Wolcott: Oral Sadist Suffers Self-Inflicted Wound

Remember Rush Limbaugh's gaffe that caused him to be removed from sports broadcasting? This whole issue seems to be the same type of thing--a face-saving way to get rid of someone who is about to be indicted. Is the question of Novak not if, but when?--Dictynna

DCMediaGirl--a gal on the go, a gal in the know--posts about Robert Novak's senior moment. She wonders, as do we all, why his slimeball behavior was tolerated for so long. It wasn't as if his on-air cussword was out of character.

"The real issue, of course, is that Novak has a long history of bullying and abusing lower-level employees, whom he terrorizes with his angry outbursts over such vital areas of newsgathering as how to pop his popcorn just so, or like when he reduced a former colleague of mine to tears when he asked here how many Jews her family had transported to the death camps (this woman was of German ancestry)."

This to me is the psychological puzzler regarding Novak's personality and career--or rather, the coddling of that career by his colleagues. Amy Sullivan did an outstanding job describing in forensic detail the size and scope of Novak's bulletproof protective bubble for The Washington Monthly--how none of the laws that apply to others ever seem applied to him--but she didn't get to the "why" of it, and I can't either.

Cursor's Media Patrol - August 8, 2005

Citing a Newsweek poll where only 34 percent approve President Bush's handling of Iraq, AFP reports that "the bleeding seems especially acute in Ohio," while Newt Gingrich ditches the GOP talking points and a columnist says that 'new Democrats are being born on the front lines.'

Germany's spy chief says that terrorism is now "radiating outwards" from Iraq, and UK officials warn that new attacks in Saudi Arabia are in the "final stages of planning."

Members of the disbanded 9/11 commission say the White House has refused to turn over any of the information that they've requested as part of their unofficial investigation into whether the government is doing enough to prevent terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Earlier: 'Whitewash as public service.'

'Greta Van Susteren Cleans Up in Aruba,' and "routinely triples" the viewing audience of CNN's Aaron Brown by offering what one media critic calls "emotional pornography," and Slate's Jack Shafer on the "I don't believe it but I like it" rating.

Hope for Hungry Children, Arriving in a Foil Packet

By MICHAEL WINES
Published: August 8, 2005

MARADI, Niger, Aug. 7 - In the crowd of riotously dressed mothers clasping wailing, naked infants at a Doctors Without Borders feeding center just west of here, Taorey Asama, at 27 months, stands out for a heart-rending reason: she looks like a normal baby.

Many of the others have the skeletal frames and baggy skin of children with severe malnutrition. The good news is that a month ago, so did Taorey.

"When she came here, she was all small and curled up," said her mother, Henda, 30. "It's Plumpy'nut that's made her like this. She's immense!"

The Canaries Had Their Coal Mines

By ANTHONY DePALMA
Published: August 8, 2005

HUNTER MOUNTAIN WILD FOREST, N.Y., Aug. 3 - So far this summer, Wing Goodale and his boss, David C. Evers, have used decoys and recorded bird calls to lure about 150 thrushes, warblers and other wild songbirds into nets here and in several others parts of New York City's Catskill Mountain Watershed to determine what is happening to the drinking water.

From each tiny bird, no bigger than a cellphone, Mr. Goodale, a research biologist, gently takes blood samples with toothpick-size pipettes. Then Mr. Evers, also a biologist, stretches out a bird's wing and counts down to its 11th flight feather, which he deftly plucks and puts into a plastic storage bag for sampling.