2007 in the News...

Just for kicks, I've been thinking the past few days about what I thought have been some of the biggest news stories of 2007. Here is a list that I thought of - by no means in order of importance or chronology. Just some headline grabbers:

1. The Surge/Petreas Report/Iraq

Although this has fallen from the headlines of late, I think this was probably the biggest story of the year to me. The President's decision to increase troop levels in order to provide stability to generate a political settlement; the unquestioned success of the military in acheving that increased stability/decreased violence; Gen. Petraus and Ambassador Crocker testifying solely to the security side of the equasion; and finally, the Bush Administration, politicians, and the mainstream media completely ignoring the fact that, again, our military's steller success is being squandered by politicians who are unable to find settlement.

2. The '08 Presidential Nomination Campaigns

It's been a fun race with a surprising number of contenders for the nomination in both party's keeping the race wide open.

3. Iran

Both the increasing leverage and threat Iran poses as a legitimate regional hedgmon, and the intelligence community's surprising uprising against the Bush Administrations drum-beat to war on a third front.

4. Upheaval in Pakistan/Bhutto Assination

Pakisatan was already devolving, led by a military dictator ditinguishable from Sadaam Hussein only in degrees. The assination of Bhutto was tragic to a new middle class seeking legitimate democracy. The Bush Administration once again demonstrates its utter incompetence and lack of wisdom by un-hedged support of an anti-democratic dictator.

5. Resurgance of the Taliban in Afghanistan

Fueled by drug profits that the Bush Administration (in an all too familiar refrain) does not have the competence or intelligence to curtail, the Taliban and Al Queada is finding renewed strength in Afghanistan, where the US troops are stretched thin by the Surge in Iraq.

6. Mortgage madness/Sub-prime lending mess

I'm not convinced this will end up being as bad for the average American as the "If it Bleeds it Leads" media's bold-typed headlines would indicate, but there is no question that financial mismanagement and over-reaching has taken its toll on some of Wall Streets biggest firms.

7. The VT Shootings

Just a tragedy that defies explanation.

8. Oil Prices

With all the volitility in the world, this should not come as a surpise, but it flat out does come with upside. The higher oil prices reach, the more cost-efficient research into alternative fuels and alternative transportation becomes.

9. The Final Chapter of Harry Potter

It was somewhat sad, to me, to read the conclusion of this wonderful series. I've enjoyed every moment of it, and will probably continue to do so long into the future through re-readings.

10. Baseball's Steroid Scandal/Bonds' homerun record

Just ugly. The Mitchell report was damning, but it feels more like the closing chapter on a nasty era than the beginning of anything. And Bonds got his HR record, but received as little media attention (for the record) as could possibly be imagined.

11. AG/AG - The Improbable rise, and Cataclysmic Fall of Alberto Gonzalez

Just a mess of an Attorney General, Bush's fiercest Yes-Man could not withstand the cascading pressure of scandal after scandal after scandal after scandal.

12. Houston Dynamo Repeat as MLS Champions

Okay, this is much more local, and just a personal favorite, but to me, the improbale journey of this team from mediocre, at best, to repeast MLS Champs was really amazing. I've never supported a champion in any sport - and now I get two back-to-back. It's great, and it's all the better to support an organization that builds its team as a team, and players who really do define hard-working, team-first attitude. Good on you Dynamo - let's get another next year!

You don't introduce a new product in August...

What an absolute disaster the Bush administration is. After the big "report" on all the improvement that is going on in Iraq we were sold a month ago, and how this is buying time for reconcilliation - now we get this: Top Iraqis pull back from key U.S. goal

For much of this year, the U.S. military strategy in Iraq has sought to reduce violence so that politicians could bring about national reconciliation, but several top Iraqi leaders say they have lost faith in this broad goal.

Iraqi leaders argue that sectarian animosity is entrenched in the structure of their government. Instead of reconciliation, they now stress alternative and perhaps more attainable goals: streamlining the government bureaucracy, placing experienced technocrats in positions of authority and improving the dismal record of providing basic services.

"I don't think there is something called reconciliation, and there will be no reconciliation as such," said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurd. "To me, it is a very inaccurate term. This is a struggle about power."

This is what Bush and the Republicans have sent more of our soldiers over to Iraq in the "surge" for - the "struggle about power." One in which the US is caught in the cross-fire.

The so-called "surge" - which really did nothing except push US troop levels in Iraq back to 2005 numbers - is not and will not be a failure because our military has been in any way ineffective. On the contrary, the military side of operation is generally successful - as is almost any US military operation, because we have the absolute best military in the world. Rather, this POLICY has been an unmitigated disaster because Bush and his advisors are fundamentally wrong on Iraq. We won the war - and we should have come home. Instead, he is attempting to advance American Empire around the world - and that foreign policy choice is a disasterous failure.

Iraq is a calamity. It has been an exercise in historically poor judgment. And it is telling that we are not learning from our failures. Look at this quote from the article:

"I, as deputy prime minister responsible for the portfolio of security and services, until now, have never been consulted on any security operation taking place in Iraq," said Salam Z. al-Zobaee, Iraq's second-highest Sunni official. "The Sunnis, even if they've been participating in the government, are still marginalized in decision-making." ...

Th[e] imperfect balance of power, deemed the "national unity government," entrenches these sectarian divisions and prioritizes a politician's ethnic or sect background above experience or ability, Iraqi officials say. The system makes selecting Iraqi ambassadors or cabinet ministers an exercise in horse-trading subject to bitter disputes.

For some reason, our President is asking the US military to arbitrate this conflict. It is not in the interest of our nation as we have existed for over 200 years. It is only in the interest of American Empire. Without political reconcilliation, the President's "surge" will be just as much a folly as the President's occupation of Iraq. This Administration simply does not learn from its mistakes - to all of our detriment.

Op-eds...

There have been some good opinion colums the past couple of days from the NYTimes that I thought were notable:

8-Oct: Same Old Party

There have been a number of articles recently that portray President Bush as someone who strayed from the path of true conservatism. Republicans, these articles say, need to return to their roots.

Well, I don’t know what true conservatism is, but while doing research for my forthcoming book I spent a lot of time studying the history of the American political movement that calls itself conservatism — and Mr. Bush hasn’t strayed from the path at all. On the contrary, he’s the very model of a modern movement conservative.
...
Now, as they survey the wreckage of their cause, conservatives may ask themselves: “Well, how did we get here?” They may tell themselves: “This is not my beautiful Right.” They may ask themselves: “My God, what have we done?”

But their movement is the same as it ever was. And Mr. Bush is movement conservatism’s true, loyal heir.

7-Oct: Why Democracy?

[D]emocracy is the only form of government that, at least theoretically, contemplates its own demise with equanimity. Democratic elections do not guarantee that the victors will be democratically inclined, and it is always possible that those who gain control of the legislative process will pass laws that erode or even repeal the rights – of property, free expression and free movement – that distinguish democracies from theocracies and monarchies. (Some would say that this is exactly what has been happening in the past six years.) Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes captured the fragility of a form of government that can alter itself beyond the point of recognition when he said that if his fellow citizens want to go to hell in a handbasket, it was his job to help them, even if he deplored the consequences. Democracy, then, can be said to be its own biggest threat.

Terrorism presents a parallel threat from the outside. The danger is not so much that terrorists will defeat democracies by force as it is that, in resisting terrorists, democracies will forgo the procedural safeguards (against warrantless detention, censorship and secret surveillance) that make a democracy what it is. (Again, some would say that is already happening today.) If terrorists can maneuver democracies into employing tactics indistinguishable from theirs, it could be argued that they have won no matter what the outcome on the battlefield.

7-Oct: Charge It to My Kids

Every so often a quote comes out of the Bush administration that leaves you asking: Am I crazy or are they? I had one of those moments last week when Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, was asked about a proposal by some Congressional Democrats to levy a surtax to pay for the Iraq war, and she responded, “We’ve always known that Democrats seem to revert to type, and they are willing to raise taxes on just about anything.”

Yes, those silly Democrats. They’ll raise taxes for anything, even — get this — to pay for a war!
...
Previous American generations connected with our troops by making sacrifices at home — we’ve never passed on the entire cost of a war to the next generation, said Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, who has written a history — “The Price of Liberty” — about how America has paid for its wars since 1776.

“In every major war we have fought in the 19th and 20th centuries,” said Mr. Hormats, “Americans have been asked to pay higher taxes — and nonessential programs have been cut — to support the military effort. Yet during this Iraq war, taxes have been lowered and domestic spending has climbed. In contrast to World War I, World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam, for most Americans this conflict has entailed no economic sacrifice. The only people really sacrificing for this war are the troops and their families.”

In his celebrated Farewell Address, Mr. Hormats noted, George Washington warned against “ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burdens we ourselves ought to bear.”

The Bush Legacy...

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

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

From the new book Dead Certain by Robert Draper, as excerpted here in the New York Times.

I don't think any more need be added by me - it says enough on its own.

Watch an interview with the author on MSNBC's Harball with Chris Matthews.

Poor timing...

Bush admits administration leaked CIA name

President Bush on Thursday acknowledged publicly for the first time that someone in his administration likely leaked the name of a CIA operative...

"I'm aware of the fact that perhaps somebody in the administration did disclose the name of that person," Bush said. "I've often thought about what would have happened if that person had come forth and said, 'I did it.' Would we have had this endless hours of investigation and a lot of money being spent on this matter? ..."

Now - this is a perfect example of a conservative "taking responsibility" for something: too little, far too late, and focus on the money rather than the truth...

Sigh...I wish this was Surprising...

Former surgeon general says he was muzzled

The first U.S. surgeon general appointed by President George W. Bush accused the administration on Tuesday of political interference and muzzling him on key issues like embryonic stem cell research.

"Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried," Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as the nation's top doctor from 2002 until 2006, told a House of Representatives committee.

"The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds. ..."

Systematic corruption. Nothing you wouldn't expect from this President.

Historically Pathetic...

George W. Bush is a terrible President - one of the worst (if not the worst) in our nation's history. But his action today sinks this Presidency to an even lower level.

Bush spares Libby from 2 1/2-year prison term

Not only did the President lie to the American people about firing anyone associated with the leaking of the name of a CIA agent, it appears to me that he has now made himself complicit in that crime, by commuting the prison sentence of the high-level White House official convicted as a part of those events, which were intended to strong-arm and discredit a vocal opponent of the Administration.

The behavior of this President is dispicable and will be a part of his legacy. This is a sad day in our nation's history, when a President wants again puts power and control above the good of our nation - probably more so than our nation has ever seen (yes, including Nixon and Watergate). When you add into Bush's tragic legacy the fact that his administration condoned and advocated torture, condoned and advocated the holding of prisoners without charges, and the fact that he is now asserting executive privilege in regard to White House involvement in the political firings of US Attorney's - this is the most corrupt Presidential Administration since Warren Harding - if it has not already eclipsed Harding's pervasive levels of corruption.

The disasterous entagling intervention, invasion, and occupation in Iraq is tragic. The utter lack of planning for the occupation, and no clue as to how to extract our military will be pointed to by future generations as a lesson in how not to use and abuse our military. The monied interests dictating legislation (energy policy, medicare drup policy, bankruptcy reform, etc.) to a compliant White House has surpassed all that our government has ever experienced. And corruption spread so wide, and so deep it simply DEFINES this President has his Administration.

This - all this mire and muck - will be the legacy of George W. Bush.

No Sen. Reid, We Won...

...but our soldiers should be coming home.

I don't think I have to specifically say it - but I entirely disagree with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Ried when he said the other day that the war in Iraq "is lost."* I think that I have been unequivocally clear on this blog in stating that I think that we have already won this war. (Four Years...; Motivations...)

Sen. Reid was simply wrong in making such a statement, and David Broder has an appropriately frank column today saying so - Democrats have their own embarrassment in Reid:

Here's a Washington political riddle where you fill in the blanks: "As Alberto Gonzales is to the Republicans, Blank Blank is to the Democrats — a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance."

If you answered Harry Reid, give yourself an A. and join the long list of senators of both parties who are ready for these two springtime exhibitions of ineptitude to come to an end.

President Bush's highly developed tolerance for egregious incompetence in his administration may have met its supreme test in Attorney General Gonzales, who at various times has taken complete responsibility for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys and also professed complete ignorance of the reasons for their dismissal. This demonstration of serial obfuscation so impressed the president that he rushed out to declare that Gonzales had "increased my confidence in his ability to do the job."

... Given the way the Constitution divides the war-making power between the president as commander in chief and Congress as the sole source of funds to support the armed services, it is essential that at some point Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi be able to negotiate with the White House to determine the course America will follow from now until a new president takes office.

To say that Reid has sent conflicting signals of his readiness for such discussions is an understatement. It has been impossible for his own members, let alone the White House, to sort out what ground Reid is prepared to defend — for more than 24 hours at a time.

Instead of reinforcing the important proposition — defined by the Iraq Study Group — that a military strategy for Iraq is necessary but not sufficient to solve the myriad political problems of that country, Reid has mistakenly argued that the military effort is lost but a diplomatic-political strategy can still succeed.

The Democrats deserve better and the country needs more than Harry Reid has offered as Senate majority leader.

Well said. But saying that does NOT mean that the President should not be putting plans in place to bring our soldiers home. I'm not convinced the current bill that the Senate passed today (and the President promises to veto) is the best way to go about this. (As an aside, this ridiculous political pandering of the right-wing accusing the Democrats of delaying bullets and supplies to our troops, or putting our soldiers in danger by delaying this funding is beyond the pale. Such funding does no such thing - and additionally, the REPUBLICAN congress took almost TWICE as long to approve a similar supplemental spending bill last year. Such vitriolic ravings are merely straw-men being created by the Right.) My general thoughts are that we need to vote to fund the troops, and vote or simply pressure the President to change his failed policies separately. That negotiation process was commented on by a Houston Chronicle editorial today - War Powers:

Constitutional scholars teach that the Founders intended Congress and the president to tussle over the power to wage war. The president is commander in chief of the armed forces, yet Congress has the authority to declare war and the absolute power of the purse.

... Ronald Cass, dean emeritus of the Boston University Law School, usefully spoke on this subject Tuesday at a gathering of the Houston lawyers chapter of the Federalist Society. He noted Congress could cut off war-fighting funds on a date certain, but was unlikely to use this blunt club.

As for Congress' power to order redeployment of U.S. forces, Cass said that authority rested with the commander in chief. He compared the tactics of Democratic leaders to a young Catholic woman who confesses that she frequently looks at herself in the mirror and thinks herself pretty.

"Is this a sin, Father?" she asks.

"No," the priest replies. "It is only a mistake."

Is Congress wrong to try to hasten the end of U.S. military involvement in Iraq? No. Congress naturally wishes to affect the course of the war for the better, in this case cutting U.S. losses. Only its tactic of directing the disposition of U.S. forces is mistaken.

... Cass predicted Congress and the president eventually would negotiate the terms and amounts of continued appropriations for fighting the war. Given the Constitution's division of military powers and the troops' need for training, pay and equipment, a settlement is not only desirable, but essential.

Exactly. It's not wrong to try to end our involvement in Iraq - but this tactic does not seem be wise. We can all only hope that Congress finds the right way to negotiate with this administration - with the support of the American people as heavy pressure - to get our soldiers out of Iraq and back home. And they should come home as conquering heroes - because we've already won this war.

Because I believe that we have already won in Iraq, and it's time to bring our military home, I was opposed to Bush's Surge, and wrote so early this year. But once Bush decided to send more troops, I certainly was hoping that the Surge would work - so we could then bring our soldiers home. Initial reports from the administration seemed to be very positive about the impact of the Surge...which was encouraging. But recently, there has been a "counter-surge" in violent attacks in Iraq - and Tuesday, the administration made a disappointing disclosure - U.S. excludes bombs in touting drop in Iraq violence:

U.S. officials who say there has been a dramatic drop in sectarian violence in Iraq since President Bush began sending more American troops into Baghdad aren't counting one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians.

Car bombs and other explosive devices have killed thousands of Iraqis in the past three years, but the administration doesn't include them in the casualty counts it has been citing as evidence that the surge of additional U.S. forces is beginning to defuse tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

President Bush explained why in a television interview on Tuesday. "If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings, we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory," he told TV interviewer Charlie Rose.

Others, however, say that not counting bombing victims skews the evidence of how well the Baghdad security plan is protecting the civilian population — one of the surge's main goals.

"Since the administration keeps saying that failure is not an option, they are redefining success in a way that suits them," said James Denselow, an Iraq specialist at London-based Chatham House, a foreign policy think tank.

...U.S. officials have said that they don't expect the security plan to stop bombings.

"I don't think you're ever going to get rid of all the car bombs," Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said this week. "Iraq is going to have to learn as did, say, Northern Ireland, to live with some degree of sensational attacks."

Some think that approach could backfire, with Iraqis eventually blaming the U.S. for failing to stop bombings.

"To win, the insurgents just have to prove they are not losing," said Denselow, of London's Chatham House.

If we've already won, we don't need a surge. So what is its point? Is Bush attempting to clutch the threads of a legacy he see's slipping away? The lives of our soldiers are too important to spend them securing a legacy.

We have won this war - let's bring our soldiers home.

* - I do feel the need to note that in the same Broder piece linked above, the colunmnist points out that Sen. Chuck Schumer attempted to explain Reid's 'this war is lost' statement like this:

"What Harry Reid is saying is this war is lost — in other words, a war where we mainly spend our time policing a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis. We are not going to solve that problem. ... The war is not lost. And Harry Reid believes this — we Democrats believe it. ... So the bottom line is if the war continues on this path, if we continue to try to police and settle a civil war that's been going on for hundreds of years in Iraq, we can't win. But on the other hand, if we change the mission and have that mission focus on the more narrow goal of counterterrorism, we sure can win."

With the limited point that Schumer is making, I probably wouldn't disagree (although I'd want to see the context). But, in my opinion, that narrow point is more likely a valiant attempt to justify what Sen. Reid said, and it less likely what Sen. Reid actually meant.

AG AG...

My wife and I had a discussion this morning about one of the more recent scandals involving the Bush administration - the involvement, and involvement in the cover-up, of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (AG AG) in the firing of 8 US Attorneys.

We were discussing two primary issues:
1. The misrepresentations by the Mainstream Media that "Clinton did the same thing"
2. Was there a crime involved

I thought I would touch on my thoughts about this here.

First, Clinton did NOT do the same thing. Comparing the Clinton and Bush involvement with the US Attorneys is comparing apples and oranges.

Bill Clinton, upon entering office in 1992, fired 93 US Attorneys to replace them with his own appointments. As did Ronald Reagan in 1980. I don't think anyone attempts to argue that the President does not have the authority to fire and replace US Attorneys. That is not what Bush - through AG AG - did.

As it happens, midterm firings of US Attorneys are fairly rare - Midterm U.S. Attorney Firings Rare. As the Guardian article states:

Before the Bush administration, the Congressional Research Service found just five instances over 25 years in which U.S. attorneys were fired or resigned in the middle of a presidential term and before their four-year tenures were up following reports of questionable conduct.

A Reagan-era prosecutor was fired and later convicted in federal court in connection with charges that he leaked confidential information. A Clinton appointee resigned over allegations he bit a topless dancer on the arm during a visit to an adult club following a loss in a big drug case. Another Clinton-appointed U.S. attorney resigned after being videotaped assaulting a TV reporter who was questioning him about recent decisions by his office.

There have been no allegations of such misconduct by any of the eight prosecutors forced out by Bush. Democrats charge that they were fired for political reasons.

There is evidence that Bush's team was considering disloyalty to the president as a criterion for replacements. As he planned the ousters, Gonzales' aide noted that the vast majority of federal prosecutors were ``loyal Bushies.''

What Clinton and Reagan did is simply not of in the same category as what Bush did - which leads me to the second point - firing these attorneys was likely not a crime.

I don't know that anyone I have read has suggested that the actual firings were a crime. Rather, it is simply an(other) example of the perfidious, incompetent, and quasi-ethical nature of this Presidential administration. It's not a simple matter of firing the attorneys - it's firing them for political purposes, then lying about that and attempting a cover up. As a Letter to the Editor (by Rick Schell) in the Houston Chronicle put it today:

IF anyone doubts that the Bush administration has turned the Justice Department into a branch of the Republican National Committee, all one needs to focus on are his comments about Alberto Gonzales' hearings.

After responding to more than 70 questions with some variation on the words, "I don't recall," he demonstrated he is either a gross incompetent, a party hack or a liar. The president (although he didn't see any of the proceedings) has proclaimed that Gonzales' testimony has "increased my confidence in his ability to do the job." Obviously, the president was not referring to administering justice, but his purging of U.S. attorneys who were not "loyal Bushies." At that, he was an expert.

So, no, the actual firings were likely not illegal. But the injection of petty politics into the Justice Department was ugly and tainted.

Yet, despite the ickiness of the firings, and the apparent cover-up in the aftermath, and AG AG's utterly embarrassing performance in front of the Senate Judiciary committee last week - Bush continues to back incompetence. I think everything else that needs to be said about this issue can be summed up by the Republicans themselves. Robert Novack (right-wing icon) excoriated the Bush administration's inconceivable backing of Gonzales in a blistering editorial today - So it's Bush behind the barricades with Al Gonzales:

Bush going out of his way to praise his beleaguered friend from Texas only confirmed signals sent this week. The president's improbable praise for Gonzales' pathetic performance as a witness before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week was no mere gesture. The authoritative word from the White House was that Bush was adamant about retaining Gonzales as attorney general despite Republican demands that the president cut his losses with a new face at Justice.

... Bush, never entranced by life in Washington, detests dealing with a Democratic Congress. Reflecting annoyance and fatigue, he is unwilling to withstand incessant attacks from the likes of Reid and is ready to fight it out for the more than a year and a half remaining in his term. Retaining Gonzales means Bush has slipped behind the barricades.

All the Republicans in Congress who I have contacted view this posture by Bush to be pure folly. For the long term, they predict their president's intent to wage constant warfare against the majority Democrats will cast a pall on Republican chances of retaining the presidency in 2008. For the shorter term, they foresee nothing but trouble from Gonzales continuing in power. "I cannot imagine," said a House GOP leader, who would not be quoted by name, "how Bush thinks Gonzales can function effectively with no Republican support."

... While the current cliche is that Bush never should have named Gonzales as attorney general in the first place, the consensus in the administration was that he also was at sea in his first post as White House counsel.

Colin Powell, Bush's first-term secretary of state, was so appalled by Gonzales that he shunted contact with him off to Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage, who in turn handed him down to lower levels along the State Department chain of command.

Such derision of Gonzales is viewed by Bush as the arrogance of Washington, and he seems determined not to appease that mindset. ...

Never would I have thought I would say this, but...I encourage you to go read the entire Novak column.

Ugh - that feels dirty; I'm going to go take a shower...

Good Timing...

Last September, I posted Environmental law and timing..., in which I discussed a Supreme Court case involving the regulation of greenhouse gases by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The Plaintiffs - including a number of environmental groups, 18 states, and two of the biggest power generators in the United States (Entergy and Calpine) - argue that the EPA should be regulating greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. (Entergy and Calpine are arguing FOR regulation for both environmental (secondary) and market certainty (primary) reasons. They're in the process of building the next generation of power plants, and are seeking to have certainty in the regulatory environment.) The Bush administration EPA disagrees, and argues that lawmakers did not intend the Clean Air Act to include regulation of greenhouse gasses.

The question of my original post was whether the merits of the case would be more impacted by timing, rather than the actual plain language of the Clean Air Act:

My question about this case is relatively simple - is the future of the EPA's regulation of greenhouse gases contingent upon the timing of this lawsuit? What I mean by that is it appears to me that the current configuration of the Supreme Court is not going to be very friendly to the Plaintiffs here. The Court (driven by Justice Scalia) has tended to limit the EPA's regulation of areas (specifically waterways) that the EPA WANTED to regulate - why would they be open to forcing to the EPA to regulate in an area it (at least this current political configuration of the EPA) doesn't want to?

As it turns out, as is all to common, I was wrong.

Warming ruling squeezes Bush from both sides

Justices Say E.P.A. Has Power to Act on Harmful Gases

The Supreme Court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday to explain why it has refused to regulate greenhouse gas pollution from cars, putting the Bush administration under pressure from an unusual coalition of environmental groups and leaders of the auto industry to move quickly on global warming.

In a 5-to-4 decision, the court rejected the administration’s argument that it had no legal authority to limit carbon dioxide released from new cars. In a ruling described as a landmark victory for environmental activists, it decided that the EPA does have such authority and that it must give better reasons for not using it than the “laundry list” of “impermissible considerations” it has offered until now.

The court ruled that the plain language of the Clean Air Act allows the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant greenhouse gas.

In essence, the court handed the administration power it insisted it did not have and did not want. And the administration came under immediate pressure to use that power from an unlikely source as the nation’s biggest automakers joined the chorus of environmental groups and climate scientists calling for the EPA to get moving on greenhouse gases.

For the automakers [represented by an industry trade group representing General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler AG, Toyota Motor Corp. and five others], the ruling means a shift in tactics. With the Bush administration having lost the argument that it could not regulate carbon dioxide emissions, automakers now hope that the EPA will enact an industrywide standard before the states enact a patchwork of differing regulations or before the Democratic-controlled Congress can revise the Clean Air Act to include even stronger restrictions.
...
The Bush administration had argued all along that Congress never gave it the power to decide whether carbon dioxide was a pollutant as defined in the federal Clean Air Act, but in an opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the court said it did have such authority.

More important, Stevens sided in unusually strong language with scientists who say that U.S. car emissions do contribute to greenhouse gases, leading to global warming. In doing so, he rebutted the contention of some energy industry officials and Republicans in the administration and Congress that there is no proof of global warming.

Interesting - the timing was much better than I thought...

Prior post: Environmental law and timing...

Four Years...

[Sigh...]

Four years of this incompetent Iraq mess Bush created...and all we get is "patience." Patience? With the way things currently stand in Iraq? That doesn't seem reasonable:

Jobs gone and schools closed. Marriages delayed and children mourned. Markets bombed and clean water in short supply. Speaking freely now a dangerous act.

And hope lost.

Four years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Iraqis describe daily lives that have been torn apart by spiraling violence and a faltering economy.

We WON THIS WAR already - bring our soldiers home now.

From CNN.com:
There have been 3,220 American soldier deaths (3,478 coalition deaths) in the war in Iraq as of March 19, 2007. At least 24,042 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon.

Heavy lifting...

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the fact that there are times when America doesn't seem willing to do the heavy lifting when it comes to national security concerns. Specifically, last night I was thinking about the fact that we seem unable to accept what may end up being either higher prices, or higher taxes, in order to support certain industries (example: steel) in order to secure our defense and security.

What do I mean? While I'm a true believer in a market-based economy, I think that in order to secure a common defense, we need to have a strong steel industry in America. What happens if the entire US steel industry closes shop because steel is able to be acquired in a more efficient and less costly manner overseas? But then what happens when we're at war and need to build aircraft carriers, tanks, and armored jeeps? Or bring it closer to home - our troops have suffered in Iraq due to lack of body armor and lack of armor on troop carrier and humvee-type vehicles. One of the justifications for these failures is the lack of supply. So, why haven't we REQUIRED it? Why hasn't this government been willing to force our industry to make sacrifices in order to provide such equipment to our troops? Or us, as citizens, why didn't they ask us to pay $5 or $10 each to be used to support some company to get this equipment to our troops?

Well, with that on my mind, I read Thomas L. Friedman's column today (I read it in the print edition of the Houston Chronicle, but it is published originally in the New York Times - paid subscription required to read online). His column reflects much of my recent thinking - although in a bit of a different perspective. The title of the piece is "Who's supporting the out of sight, out of mind troops?"

Leadership is about enabling and inspiring people to contribute in time of war so the enemy has to fight all of us -- not insulating the public so the enemy has to fight only a few of us.

If you want to compare President Bush in this regard with Presidents Roosevelt or Wilson, pick up a copy of Robert Hormats's soon-to-be-published book: ''The Price of Liberty: Paying for America's Wars.''

''In every major war that we have fought, with the exception of Vietnam, there was an effort prior to the war or just after the inception to re-evaluate tax and spending policies and to shift resources from less vital national pursuits to the strategic objective of fighting and winning the war,'' said Mr. Hormats, a vice chairman of Goldman Sachs (International).

He quotes Roosevelt's 1942 State of the Union address, when F.D.R. looked Americans in the eye and said: ''War costs money. That means taxes and bonds and bonds and taxes. It means cutting luxuries and other nonessentials. In a word, it means an 'all-out' war by individual effort and family effort in a united country.''

Ever heard Mr. Bush talk that way?

Something that is not said directly in that column, but lurks in the background, is that leadership often means calling for people to work collectively toward solving problems - not merely championing individual success. Roosevelt never minced words with the American people. He never told us that we could contribute to the war effort by going shopping, or on vacation. He told us it would be expensive, hard, long - and that we were all responsible for working together to make is successful. That would seem natural at a time of war, but all you have to do is look at the current Presidential Administration to realize that it is not.

It takes leadership to call for collective action - and call for the heavy lifting to be done by all of us. But can't we do that? I think that American's are more than willing to do it. I think that if we were asked to, we would be willing to pay more for products that use US steel. I think that, as Friedman suggests, if we were asked, we'd be willing to pay a "Patriot Tax" of 50 cents and invest the money to diminish our dependence on oil. I think that - if we'd only been asked - we would have done whatever it took to get our soldiers body and vehicle armor.

I believe America is ready and willing to do the heavy lifting - if only we had leaders that would ask.

Apoplectic...

We have a bit of a saying in our house. It has become so routine that when every I ask the question, my son gets quiet, usually slumps his shoulders, and gives me the standard answer. Whenever my boy is pouting or crying in an attempt to get his way, his mom or I look right at him, and ask him -

Question - What do you get in this family when you whine and cry and complain?

Answer - Nothing.

Nothing. In our family, whining, crying, and complaining gets you nothing. If Noah wants something that at any other time I would gladly do for him, or get him, or provide him - if he goes about trying to get it with pouting or whining - the answer is an automatic no. Very simply, crying gets you nothing in our family.

I think that conservatives and republicans need to learn that lesson today. I don't care how much they whine and cry and complain about the Libby verdict, and why it was unfair, and how they want the American people to believe that it really says nothing about Bush, or Cheney or Iraq - they are not going to get their way.

This verdict says a lot about this Administration. It says a lot about how Dick Cheney runs (ran) the White House. It says a lot about how scared the Administration was about their fabrications and cherry-picking of the evidence about Iraq becoming public. And, today, it says a LOT about conservatives and republicans who like to talk tough about the moral majority, and family values - but ignore it when their own are those committing such violations.

Listen to the wingers going absolutely apoplectic about this verdict, and defending the actions of this administration would be comical if not sad. Limbaugh almost had a stroke today when two callers in a row suggested that although they don't think the Administration did anything wrong - conservatives should not defend lying to a grand jury or law enforcement at any time - that this was just like Clinton, and they should have the intellectual honesty to call out Libby the same as they had Clinton. Limbaugh absolutely lost it on both callers - saying instead that regardless of the lies, the issue is the liberal media, or the Democrats, or the Clintons. No responsibility.

I think that the effects of this conviction will be lasting. I think Bill Clinton was a good President. But - regardless of that view of his Presidency - he made horrendously poor decisions, he lied when he shouldn't have, and his legacy will be forever tainted because of it. The story is similar here with Bush. Regardless of the ultimate outcome in Iraq, Bush's legacy will be forever tainted by how his Administration managed the public relations campaign in the run up to war, and how they covered up their actions afterward.

Although there were only four charges Libby was convicted of, this trial was indeed much bigger, and its impact will last much longer than the time Libby spends in jail.

For Cheney, Political Toll May Follow Libby Verdict
Libby Guilty of Lying in C.I.A. Leak Case
Libby's Lies

Motivations...

A few thoughts that I have been having lately...

Bush's escalation plan for Iraq is very instructive as to the true motivations of Bush and the neocons who ordered the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Let me explain what I mean...

Let's think back to the justifications for the invasion four and five years ago. Obviously, there were a series of differnt justifications offered by the Bush Administration, but they essentially came down to these four:

~Link between Iraq and Al Qaeda and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11
~Weapons of Mass Destruction
~Sadaam Hussein was a really bad dictator
~Bring democracy to Iraq

Each of these justification broke down and forced Bush to scramble to the next one, but these were the basic ideas of why we had to invade.

Now, I have always opposed the invasion. Having said that - look at what happened after we did invade:

~We swept to a quick and decisive military victory over Iraq
~We toppled the government of Sadaam Hussein
~We confirmed there were no WMDs
~We killed, arrested, and/or convicted the leadership of Hussein's government
~We oversaw democratic peaceful elections in Iraq

In short - we won. Look at the (admittedly trumped up) justifications for the invasion that the neocons listed above. Are there ANY of those reasons/goals/justifications that were not met? Clearly not. We won.

But we're still there - now in the midst of a civil war that was easily foreseen, but completely unplanned for. Not only are we still there, but Bush and his neocons are actually escalating our presence there. Why?

Because the justifications that Bush and his administration spouted were never the reasons why we invaded Iraq. If ANY of those were genuine, we would be out by now. No - those were never the motivations for the invasion. So, what is the real motivation?

Well, to answer that, let's look at why we still have our military there, and why we are escalating our involvement in a tribal civil war...

The only answer is empire.

The neocons wanted Iraq as a foothold - as an extenstion of American Empire into the middle east. They wanted a puppet government to use. They wanted expansive military bases to use. They wanted access to Iraqi oil assets. They wanted to use these "assets" in any future instability/conflict in the middle east. In short - they wanted Empire. That is why we are still in Iraq. That is why we are esclating our involvement.

There was no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. There were no WMDs. Sadaam is gone. Democracy - at least a primative form of it - has been established. And yet we are still building military bases, we're still sending more troops over.

Bush and the neocons who have supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq have never been truthful about their real designs for Iraq - and they are not being truthful now.

SOTU...

I was unable to post yesterday about the State of the Union speech on Tuesday evening. I was able to watch the speech, along with the Democratic response, and have a few observations.

(Disclaimer: when I say "watch the speech" that means watching while making my son dinner, convincing him that "no, we're not going to watch Higglytown Heros tonight," and trying to explain what a "President" is.)

Let's start with Bush's SOTU speech. Credit where credit is due: I felt his acknowledgement of Nancy Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the House, was genuine and appropriate. Kudos to Bush for having the class to make such an appropriate gesture. On the other hand, I was really surprised with how long he went. I remember back in the 90's, Clinton would give these massive, long-winded SOTU speeches - but that was when there was a laundry list of initiatives that were helping to improve our nation, and Clinton would work through all those positives. But, that's not the case with Bush... he had very little positive to talk about. So I was expecting a relatively short speech, centered on domestic issues, and get him out of there. That wasn't the case. Also, on more general observations, it has now been six years of soaring rhetoric - with little actual results, save a botched occupation of Iraq - yet this Administration still insists on such speeches. At what point has the American people had enough of broad words, and narrow actions? That point probably came last fall - but Bush and his speech writers haven't figured it out yet.

In addition to the length, there are four other more specific observations I had about Bush's speech:

1. Aesthetics - Bush seems old, depressed, and beaten down - I had this same observation about his "big" Iraq speech a couple of weeks ago. He looks like the weight of what he has done to the country is finally starting to sink into him. I have yet to get a feeling about whether this is good or bad overall. But he no longer exudes optimism, confidence, the image of "the Decider," which he so inaptly nick-named himself. It is a striking difference from the "bring 'em on" Bush.

2. Insurance - For the six years of the Bush Presidency, health care has remained a daunting yet fundamental political issue. Nothing has been done. Tuesday, Bush proposed an interesting, yet complicated, plan to expand healthcare coverage. The plan - in very basic form - is this: company provided insurance tax benefits become taxable, but people with insurance are given a "standard" tax deduction on their first $15,000 of income ($7,500 for individuals).

First, I propose a standard tax deduction for health insurance that will be like the standard tax deduction for dependents. Families with health insurance will pay no income or payroll taxes on $15,000 of their income. Single Americans with health insurance will pay no income or payroll taxes on $7,500 of their income. With this reform, more than 100 million men, women, and children who are now covered by employer-provided insurance will benefit from lower tax bills. At the same time, this reform will level the playing field for those who do not get health insurance through their job. For Americans who now purchase health insurance on their own, my proposal would mean a substantial tax savings — $4,500 for a family of four making $60,000 a year. And for the millions of other Americans who have no health insurance at all, this deduction would help put a basic private health insurance plan within their reach. Changing the tax code is a vital and necessary step to making healthcare affordable for more Americans.

The plan is still somewhat sketchy to me - and Bush did not mention the increase in taxable wages in the speech - but it sounds like a start. The big, immediate problem with such a plan, is that it actually increases taxes on families that currently have better health care plans, and would seem to encourage people to choose the cheapest possible insurance plans. I want to read/hear more about Bush's Insurance plan, but on it's face, it doesn't not seem to fully address the two most fundamental challenges of our current health care situation: get every child under 18 health insurance, and provide every employed adult with access to affordable health care. To many, any serious health care initiative must address these two issues.

3. Energy - For the sixth straight SOTU address, Bush discussed our nations energy problems, our reliance on imported oil, and our needs for comprehensive changes in energy policy. And for six years, Bush and the Republicans have done nothing save give tax breaks to Big Oil. Once again, Bush spoke in nicely written words - but no policy to back them up.

Extending hope and opportunity depends on a stable supply of energy that keeps America's economy running and America's environment clean. For too long, our nation has been dependent on foreign oil. ... It is in our vital interest to diversify America's energy supply, and the way forward is through technology. We must continue changing the way America generates electric power by even greater use of clean coal technology ... solar and wind energy ... and clean, safe nuclear power. We need to press on with battery research for plug-in and hybrid vehicles, and expand the use of clean diesel vehicles and biodiesel fuel. We must continue investing in new methods of producing ethanol — using everything from wood chips, to grasses to agricultural wastes. ... Tonight, I ask Congress to join me in pursuing a great goal .... reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next 10 years — thereby cutting our total imports by the equivalent of three-quarters of all the oil we now import from the Middle East. ... America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil. These technologies will help us become better stewards of the environment — and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change.

Almost the entire energy portion of the speech sounded great - but the past six years of inaction beg significant questions about whether this Administration is serious.

4. Economy/Spending/Earmarks - What I want to say about this is simple: Bush and the Republican Congress have spend the past six years destroying our budget, ballooning deficits, and cramming earmarks into bills. They have transformed a health surplus into an unfathomable deficit in record time. Now, Bush and the Republicans are basically saying to the Democrats: hee, hee, hee - see if you can clean up our mess, and when you can't - we'll blame you!!!

A future of hope and opportunity begins with a growing economy, and that is what we have. We are now in the 41st month of uninterrupted job growth — in a recovery that has created 7.2 million new jobs ... so far. Unemployment is low, inflation is low and wages are rising. ... First, we must balance the federal budget. We can do so without raising taxes. What we need to do is impose spending discipline in Washington, D.C. ... In the coming weeks, I will submit a budget that eliminates the federal deficit within the next five years. ... Next, there is the matter of earmarks. These special interest items are often slipped into bills at the last hour — when not even C-SPAN is watching. In 2005 alone, the number of earmarks grew to over 13,000 and totaled nearly $18 billion. Even worse, over 90 percent of earmarks never make it to the floor of the House and Senate; they are dropped into committee reports that are not even part of the bill that arrives on my desk. You did not vote them into law. I did not sign them into law. Yet they are treated as if they have the force of law. The time has come to end this practice. So let us work together to reform the budget process ... expose every earmark to the light of day and to a vote in Congress … and cut the number and cost of earmarks at least in half by the end of this session.

Couple of points - Bush says he has created 7.2MM jobs. But that is not a net number, that is a recovery number. In the six years of the Bush administration, a total of just over 3MM jobs have been created -about 4MM were lost in his first four years and have been recovered. By contrast, in his sixth year as President, Clinton had created over 18MM new jobs. 3MM is nothing to crow about.

Secondly - there is no responsibility. By now, I shouldn't expect it...but there is no acknowledgement that Bush himself, and the budget-busting Republican congress caused the current spending problems. Now, they are laying that responsibility on someone else to fix. (Sounds like Iraq...speaking of...)

5. Foreign policy - I thought one of the most interesting/startling thing about his speech (which I've seen little coverage of) is his continuing threats toward Iran and Syria. (" ") I thought they were as pronounced, if not more, than his Iraq speech two weeks ago. It is baffling why he keeps rattling sabers at these countries while we are bogged down in Iraq. The Bush Doctrine of foreign policy is an unmitigated disaster - yet the neo-cons in the administration refuse to change course. I think that the "surge" is clearly a terrible policy - but it is simply a symptom of the more broad neo-con, Bush Doctrine foreign policy - imperial, interventionist, and aggressive. No diplomacy. Speak brashly, and carry a light, lean stick. It has proven not to work, yet they keep insisting on it.

Al Qaeda and its followers are Sunni extremists, possessed by hatred and commanded by a harsh and narrow ideology. ... The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat. But whatever slogans they chant, when they slaughter the innocent, they have the same wicked purposes. They want to kill Americans ... kill democracy in the Middle East ... and gain the weapons to kill on an even more horrific scale. ... It is a decisive ideological struggle, and the security of our nation is in the balance. ... And Hezbollah terrorists, with support from Syria and Iran, sowed conflict in the region and are seeking to undermine Lebanon's legitimately elected government. In Afghanistan, Taliban and al Qaeda fighters tried to regain power by regrouping and engaging Afghan and NATO forces. In Iraq, al Qaeda and other Sunni extremists blew up one of the most sacred places in Shia Islam — the Golden Mosque of Samarra. This atrocity, directed at a Muslim house of prayer, was designed to provoke retaliation from Iraqi Shia — and it succeeded. Radical Shia elements, some of whom receive support from Iran, formed death squads. The result was a tragic escalation of sectarian rage and reprisal that continues to this day. This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we are in.

Bush's equating Al Qaeda with these other groups, and Iran and Syria, seems uncalculated - what part of the Muslim world is he not offending with such language? Who wouldn't read this as a confirmation of a modern Crusade? It is more well-crafted, yet un-reasoned, rhetoric. Just like most of the rest of the speech.

Bush's speech of a whole lot of nothing was dramatically by the Democratic Response delivered by Senator Jim Webb.

I think that the two things in Webb's speech that stood out to me were:

1. Results - The array of accomplishments already achieved by the new Democratic Congress (standing in start contrast to the inaction/bungling of the past six years):

In the early days of our republic, President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy - that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base. Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street. We must recapture that spirit today.
And under the leadership of the new Democratic Congress, we are on our way to doing so. The House just passed a minimum wage increase, the first in ten years, and the Senate will soon follow. We've introduced a broad legislative package designed to regain the trust of the American people. We've established a tone of cooperation and consensus that extends beyond party lines. We're working to get the right things done, for the right people and for the right reasons.

It looks as if things are actually getting done/going to get done. Exciting. Unfortunately, yesterday Republicans in the Senate filibustered the minimum wage law. Business as usual for them.

2. Leadership - Webb provided the image of the New Direction provided by the Democratic party - leadership in action.

The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable - and predicted - disarray that has followed. ...
The war's costs to our nation have been staggering. Financially. The damage to our reputation around the world. The lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism. And especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve. ...
I am reminded of the situation President Theodore Roosevelt faced in the early days of the 20th century. America was then, as now, drifting apart along class lines. The so-called robber barons were unapologetically raking in a huge percentage of the national wealth. The dispossessed workers at the bottom were threatening revolt.
Roosevelt spoke strongly against these divisions.
He told his fellow Republicans that they must set themselves "as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other." And he did something about it. As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. "When comes the end?" asked the General who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War Two. And as soon as he became President, he brought the Korean War to an end.
These Presidents took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.

If he does, we will join him - if he does not, we will be showing him the way. That is leadership.

The speeches on Tuesday were a reminder of basic American politics - the Republicans are good at winning elections, and disasters at governing. For the first time in years and years, the Democratic party are presenting a viable and formidable alternative.

It's about time.

The depth of the morass...

I was almost dumbstruck reading this article: Iraqis cheer Rumsfeld departure, look for changes in U.S. approach from this morning's Houston Chronicle.

This demonstrates just how tragically incompetent and disconnected from the reality of Iraq that the Bush administration is/has been.

Iraqis today cheered the resignation of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, blaming him for policy failures and scandals they say helped spawn the daily sectarian carnage wracking their nation.

"Rumsfeld's resignation shows the scale of the mess the U.S. has made in Iraq," said Ibrahim Ali, 44, who works at the Oil Ministry. "The efforts by American politicians to hide their failure are no longer working." ...

"I think that there will a shift in the U.S. policy in Iraq after his resignation," said Osama Ahmed, 50, a civil servant. ...

Whatever suggestions are put forward, however, Iraqis said Rumsfeld's departure was a positive move.

"Rumsfeld's resignation is a good step because he failed to keep security in Iraq," said Saad Jawad, 45, a former army officer who also works at the Oil Ministry.

Many Iraqis blamed Rumsfeld for spurring the emergence of Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias by disbanding the former Iraqi army following the April 2003 toppling of the former government of Saddam Hussein.

Although that order was actually issued by former top U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, such sentiments show how widely Rumsfeld is identified with failed policies in Iraq.
"I am happy with Rumsfeld's resignation because he played a major role in disbanding the former Iraqi army. He participated in building the new army on a sectarian basis," said Louai Abdel-Hussein, 48, a Shiite who owns a small grocery in Baghdad.

Ahmed, the civil servant, said Rumsfeld should also be held responsible for crimes by American forces in Iraq, particularly the abuse of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison that became known in 2004. "Rumsfeld's resignation is not enough," Ahmed said. "He should be put under investigation for his responsibility in the crimes committed in Abu Ghraib and the killings and rapes carried out by U.S. soldiers against Iraqi citizens, he said.

These are the opinions of the people we "liberated." I do not mean to suggest that the opinions of non-Americans need to drive our appointment of government officials. What I am suggesting is that if this is reflective of the opinions of the peoples whose nation we are occupying - it is evidence of the complete state of denial that Bush and his administration are mired in.

The real question, the difficult question, going forwad will be is George Bush ready to accept reality, admit tragic and monumental mistakes, and actually try to fix the mess he made in Iraq?

My guess is no. I think that starting yesterday, Bush has written Iraq off, and will proceed to concentrate on d0mestic issues for the next two years, in hopes of leaving office with some modicum of positive feeling from the populice. I don't think he's got it in him to take responsibility, admit mistakes, and do the hard work of making corrections.

That will be left for the next administration.

Ding, Dong - the Witch is Dead...

And I didn't think today could get much better.

CNN.com is reporting that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is "stepping down." (No full story yet.)

Today truly does begin the New Direction for America!

"A shabby piece of work"...

That's how the White House referred to our military.

Okay - not exactly - I was just trying out an experiment in Republican-style rhetoric.

But, that actually is a quote from the White House - "a shabby piece of work" - in referring to an editorial in the Military Times publications (the Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times, and Marine Corps Times) urging President Bush to fire Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. The editorial cited a loss of support from military leaders over the Iraq war.

Of course, coming from the an organization providing news to the military, the Bush Administration took this legitimate criticism to heart and decided to review it's current leadership, and attempt to forge a coherent Iraq policy going foward.

HA!!! Just kidding. This is the Bush Administration after all. They just ignore it - the White House press secretary Tony Snow dismissed the editorial as a "shabby piece of work."

I think the American people are realizing what is indeed a shabby piece of work:

George Bush, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld think you’re stupid. Yes, they do.

They think they can take a mangled quip about President Bush and Iraq by John Kerry — a man who is not even running for office but who, unlike Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, never ran away from combat service — and get you to vote against all Democrats in this election.

Every time you hear Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney lash out against Mr. Kerry, I hope you will say to yourself, “They must think I’m stupid.” Because they surely do.

They think that they can get you to overlook all of the Bush team’s real and deadly insults to the U.S. military over the past six years by hyping and exaggerating Mr. Kerry’s mangled gibe at the president.

...

Everyone says that Karl Rove is a genius. Yeah, right. So are cigarette companies. They get you to buy cigarettes even though we know they cause cancer. That is the kind of genius Karl Rove is. He is not a man who has designed a strategy to reunite our country around an agenda of renewal for the 21st century — to bring out the best in us. His “genius” is taking some irrelevant aside by John Kerry and twisting it to bring out the worst in us, so you will ignore the mess that the Bush team has visited on this country.

And Karl Rove has succeeded at that in the past because he was sure that he could sell just enough Bush cigarettes, even though people knew they caused cancer. Please, please, for our country’s health, prove him wrong this time.

...

Go read the rest of that great editorial by Thomas Friedman.

Why they'll hold...

Two interesting articles recently about the GOP's unequaled Get Out The Vote (GOTV) machine.

First, from today's Houston Chronicle - Republicans oil their successful turnout machine.

Despite the gloom, Republican campaign operatives sound confident. They have been fine-tuning their data-mining, micro-targeting and other methods that served them well in past elections. Some Democrats are beginning to sound worried.

Republicans, led by White House political guru Karl Rove, sought in 2002 to reverse a decades-long Democratic edge in voter turnout that was fueled in large part by well-organized labor unions.

The GOP developed a program that started three days before the election. It was aimed at identifying Republicans and likely Republican voters and getting them to the polls. The tactic was fine-tuned in 2004 and will be even more effective this year, Republicans said.

"We are putting forward the most unprecedented grass-roots effort in the history of midterm elections," said Danny Diaz, spokesman for the Republican National Committee. "We outraised the Democrats, we've made more voter contacts, and our (get-out-the-vote) operation is more robust — we are extremely confident we have built a foundation to maintain our majorities."

The Republican Party has raised $199.4 million since the 2004 elections, almost double the $108.4 million raised by the Democrats.

In 2004, the Republican Party used marketing-style data-mining — for example, calculating whether a certain voter in a particular district owned a snowmobile and was therefore a likely Republican voter, then targeting the prospect with a narrow political message.

This is precisely why I'm still skeptical that the Democrats will be able to win either the House or Senate. The margins in so many of the individual campaigns are razor thin - and it is the Republican's GOTV effort that will get them over the top.

On a similar note, the Washington Post had a great analysis of the most basic of Republican election year tactics - The GOP Leans on A Proven Strategy.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney have given multiple interviews to conservative journalists, senior adviser Karl Rove has telephoned religious and social activists, and the White House has staged signing ceremonies for legislation cracking down on terrorism and illegal immigration. Two weeks before Election Day, Bush aides invited dozens of radio talk show hosts for a marathon broadcast from the White House yesterday to reach conservative listeners.

The message that Bush and others are sending to alienated supporters is that, no matter how upset they have been about various policies or political missteps over the past couple of years, life would be far worse under the Democrats. They name liberal lawmakers who would take charge of key committees and warn conservatives that taxes would go up and protection against terrorists would go down.

The White House courtship of the right paid enormous dividends in the past, but this year it is complicated by a far more skeptical audience than in 2002 and 2004. Conservatives who were key to those victories have grown frustrated with the Bush policies on federal spending, immigration, Iraq and foreign affairs, and uncertain of his commitment to issues such as preventing legalized same-sex marriage. The Mark Foley page scandal did not help reassure "values voters," as strategists call them, nor did the publication of a book by former White House official David Kuo saying that Bush aides dismissed Christian conservatives as "nuts."

Manipulate the Christian right...even though Bush, Cheney, and Rove have stated that they are simply "nuts" who sole purpose is to be manipulated.

The Republicans are failures at governing our nation - but they are experts at elections. They'll show it again this year.

Related prior post:
This sums it up...

1984...

How unintelligent does the Bush administration believe the American public is? The constant misunderestimation of us - the American people - is stunning.

Or maybe we really are as unintelligent as they think.

Bush and his cronies now believe they can simply pretend what they've said - over and over again - in the past never happened - and what they are saying now, is what they've always said. Does that remind you of anything? Say, George Orwell's 1984? In 1984, the totalitarian government would change their slogan, change who they were at war with, change who was a patriot and who was a villian - and simply deny and erase the evidence of their former statements - and the loyal public would buy it.

Bush’s new tack steers clear of ‘stay the course’
Phrase became liability for GOP in election year

After three solid years of the Bush administration holding firm on the line of "Stay the Course" - now they are trying to say that was never the policy. What?

President Bush and his aides are annoyed that people keep misinterpreting his Iraq policy as "stay the course." A complete distortion, they say. "That is not a stay-the-course policy," White House press secretary Tony Snow declared yesterday.

Where would anyone have gotten that idea? Well, maybe from Bush.

"We will stay the course. We will help this young Iraqi democracy succeed," he said in Salt Lake City in August.

We will win in Iraq so long as we stay the course," he said in Milwaukee in July.

"I saw people wondering whether the United States would have the nerve to stay the course and help them succeed," he said after returning from Baghdad in June.

But the White House is cutting and running from "stay the course."

Look at this terrific link from Thing Progress: Bartlett: ‘It’s Never Been A Stay The Course Strategy’

BUSH: We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq. [8/4/05]
SNOW: The second thing you do is you stay the course. [7/10/06]
SNOW: But on the other hand, you also cannot be a President in a wartime and not realize that you’ve got to stay the course. [8/17/06]
BUSH: We will stay the course. [8/30/06]
BUSH: We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve. And the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We’re just going to stay the course. [12/15/03]
BUSH: And my message today to those in Iraq is: We’ll stay the course. [4/13/04]
SNOW: People are going to want more of it, and that’s why the President is etermined to stay the course. April. [8/16/06]
BUSH: And that’s why we’re going to stay the course in Iraq. And that’s why when we say something in Iraq, we’re going to do it. [4/16/04]
BUSH: And so we’ve got tough action in Iraq. But we will stay the course. [4/5/04]

Arrogance.

Also - take a look at this link from the same blog: REPORT: Bush Officials Were ‘Rooting’ For North Korea to Test Nuclear Weapon

Before North Korea announced it had detonated a nuclear device, some senior officials even said they were quietly rooting for a test, believing that would finally clarify the debate within the administration.

Until now, no U.S. official in any administration has ever advocated the testing of nuclear weapons by another country, even by allies such as the United Kingdom and France.

One of these officials may have been Rice herself, Kessler hints. Rice, he reports, “has come close to saying the test was a net plus for the United States.” Rice has been trying to counter the prevailing view that the test was a failure of the Bush administration’s policy.

This is Orwell in action...