With a "stroke of the pen," the right to be Mirandized disappears (if you're a domestic terrorism suspect)

the obama administration is out of control...

glenn...

Today, the Obama DOJ unveiled the latest -- and one of the most significant -- examples of its eagerness to assault the very legal values Obama vowed to protect. The Wall Street Journal reports that "new rules allow investigators to hold domestic-terror suspects longer than others without giving them a Miranda warning, significantly expanding exceptions to the instructions that have governed the handling of criminal suspects for more than four decades." The only previous exception to the 45-year-old Miranda requirement that someone in custody be apprised of their rights occurred in 1984, when the Rehnquist-led right-wing faction of the Supreme Court allowed delay "only in cases of an imminent safety threat," but these new rules promulgated by the Obama DOJ "give interrogators more latitude and flexibility to define what counts as an appropriate circumstance to waive Miranda rights."

For that reason, the WSJ is surely correct when it calls these new guidelines "one of the Obama administration's most significant revisions to rules governing the investigation of terror suspects in the U.S." Note that, in 7 years of prosecuting the War on Terror after 9/11, the Bush administration never tried to dilute Miranda guidelines (though doing so for them was irrelevant because they simply imprisoned even American citizens (such as Jose Padilla) without any charges or due process of any kind).

[...]

Although the DOJ memo is not public -- the WSJ saw a copy of it -- this presumably means that the dilution of Miranda applies to non-citizens and U.S. citizens alike, including those captured on American soil. In other words, with the sweep of a unilateral pen, Miranda simply no longer compels the government to read you your rights if you are accused of involvement in Terrorism and FBI agents unilaterally decide that it shouldn't.

every day, another pillar of our cherished constitutional rights falls...

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David Sirota makes an excellent point - it's our own "gilded liberals" who are killing health care

hard on the heels of the previous post...

david sirota in truthdig...

To review: With 22,000 Americans dying each year because they lack health insurance, Congress is considering universal health care legislation financed by a surcharge on income above $280,000—that is, a levy almost exclusively on 1-percenters. This surtax would graze just 5 percent of small businesses and would recoup only part of the $700 billion the 1-percenters received from the Bush tax cuts. In fact, it is so minuscule, those making $1 million annually would pay just $9,000 more in taxes every year—or nine-tenths of 1 percent of their 12-month haul.

Nonetheless, the 1-percenters have deployed an army to destroy the initiative before it makes progress.

The foot soldiers are the Land Rover Liberals. These Democratic lawmakers secure their lefty labels by wearing pink-ribbon lapel pins and supporting good causes like abortion rights. However, being affluent and/or from affluent districts, they routinely drive their luxury cars over middle-class economic interests. Hence, this week’s letter from Boulder, Colo., dot-com tycoon Rep. Jared Polis, D, and other Land Rover Liberals calling for the surtax’s death.

Echoing that demand are the Corrupt Cowboys—those like Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who come from the heartland’s culturally conservative and economically impoverished locales. These cavalrymen in both parties quietly build insurmountable campaign war chests as the biggest corporate fundraisers in Congress. At the same time, they publicly preen as jes’ folks, make twangy references to “voters back home,” and now promise to kill the health care surtax because they say that’s what their communities want. Cash payoffs made, re-elections purchased, the absurd story somehow goes that because blue-collar constituents in Flyover America like guns and love Jesus, they must also reflexively adore politicians who defend 1-percenters’ bounty.

That fantastical fairly tale, of course, couldn’t exist without the Millionaire Media—the elite journalists and opinion-mongers who represent corporate media conglomerates and/or are themselves extremely wealthy. Ignoring all the data about inequality, they legitimize the assertions of the 1-percenters’ first two battalions, while actually claiming America’s fat cats are unfairly persecuted.

For example, Washington Post editors deride surtax proponents for allegedly believing “the rich alone can fund government.” Likewise, Wall Street Journal correspondent Jonathan Weisman wonders why the surtax “soak(s) the rich” by unduly “lumping all of the problems of the finances of the United States on 1 percent of (its) households?” And most brazenly, NBC’s Meredith Vieira asks President Obama why the surtax is intent on “punishing the rich.”

For his part, Obama has responded with characteristic coolness—and a powerful counterstrike. “No, it’s not punishing the rich,” he said. “If I can afford to do a little bit more so that a whole bunch of families out there have a little more security, when I already have security, that’s part of being a community.”

If any volley can thwart this latest attack of the 1-percenters, it is that simple idea.

the super-rich elites ain't going down without a fight and, from my perspective, it looks like they're winning handily...

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A statistic that would gag a maggot

the triumph of capitalism...

Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the U.S., according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Social Security Administration data -- without counting billions of dollars more in pay that remains off federal radar screens that measure wages and salaries.

Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total U.S. pay in 2007, the latest figures available.

i want to know the exact number of the "highly compensated employees" that are raking in the $2.1 trillion and how many of the rest of us poor slobs are splitting the remaining $4.3 trillion...

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Oh Brother

U.S. Vessels Collide in Strait of Hormuz, Navy Says

MANAMA, Bahrain -- Two U.S. Navy vessels, a nuclear-powered submarine and an amphibious ship, collided before dawn Friday in the mouth of the Persian Gulf, one of the world's most important sea passages for oil supplies.

[...]

The New Orleans suffered a ruptured fuel tank, resulting in an oil spill of approximately 25,000 gallons (95,000 liters) of diesel fuel, Lt. Christensen said.

[...]

"The spill is closely monitored," Lt. Christensen said. "The lightweight diesel, although obviously a fairly substantial amount of gasoline, likely dissipated in the ocean."

[...]

Both ships were heading to port and were going in the same direction when the incident occurred in the narrow Hormuz, said Lt. Christensen. He said the submarine was submerged at the time but that he could give no further details as the collision is still under investigation.

I love the way they always try to explain away incidents in the Strait of Hormuz as 'how narrow it is'. Here's some facts: The Strait, at it's narrowest point is 29 miles. The shipping lane is 6 miles wide- two miles in each direction, with a two mile buffer in the center. Was there a Captain on duty on either of these vessels?

I also like the intelligence level of the Naval spokesman, calling the spill both diesel fuel and gasoline in the same sentence. It is apparent that poor education isn't proprietary to the inner cities.

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STFU about Obama and "bitter" already

look... let's get something straight here... there's a big, BIG difference between a "gaffe" and "telling the truth", but, no, the press won't let it go...

here's a selection of headlines and openers taken from one single source, my daily washington post email opinion round-up...

the wapo's chris cilizza...

"Bitter-gate": Where Do We Go Now?

Critical mass has been reached. "Bitter" and "cling" will forever be tied to Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) in the same way that "Tuzla" and "the laugh" will always evoke Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) when a political junkie thinks of the 2008 Democratic race.

The important question -- in the immortal words of W. Axl Rose (an Indiana native) -- is where do we go now? The story is everywhere -- television, talk radio, the Web -- for a fourth straight day and it seems extremely unlikely that it will go away before the two Democrats debate on Wednesday night in Philadelphia.

uh, chris... part of the reason the story is "everywhere," chris, is because weenies like you keep writing about it...

the new republic...

Woe is He

Some liberal commentators have downplayed the effect of Barack Obama's fundraising speech at a San Francisco fundraiser last week. But that's wishful thinking. Along with the revelations about Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright, his remarks in San Francisco will haunt him not only in the upcoming primaries in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia, but also in the general election against John McCain, assuming he gets the Democratic nomination

.
the wsj...

Obama's Flaws Multiply

Barack Obama's San Francisco-Democrat comment last week – about how alienated working-class voters "cling to guns or religion" – is already famous. But the fact that his aides tell reporters he is privately bewildered that anybody took offense is even more remarkable.

the wapo...

Clinton Releases Tough New Anti-Obama Ad in Pa.

Keeping up her pounding on Sen. Barack Obama for his "bitter" remark a week ago, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton finally launched an ad off the event -- and it is arguably her toughest so far in the campaign.

the wapo - AGAIN - on page 1...

McCain Echoes Clinton's Attacks

Sen. John McCain joined in the criticism of Sen. Barack Obama yesterday for Obama's comments about "bitter" victims of small-town economic distress, while Obama's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination weighed in with a tough new ad on the controversy.

and, lord help us, the wapo, YET AGAIN, this one from richard cohen... but, wait...! it's not what you think...

Guns, God and Gotchas

I distrust what Hillary Clinton said about Barack Obama and his admittedly klutzy statement about guns, church, immigrants and bitterness -- "elitist, out of touch and, frankly, patronizing," she said. Frankly, I don't believe her.

And this, frankly or not, is the trouble with Clinton. Obama clearly misspoke. But there are very few moments with him where I feel that he does not believe what he is saying -- even when, as with his lame capitulation of leadership regarding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, I can't respect it. With Clinton, on the other hand, those moments are frequent. She is forever saying things I either don't believe or believe that even she doesn't believe. She is the personification of artifice.

yeah, well, cohen IS damning obama with faint praise, but the characterization of hillary is spot-on...

p.s. screw you, wapo, and the same to you wall street journal and new republic... obama has more integrity in his little pinky that all your combined journalistic and editorial staffs have among them...

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Early Sunday a.m. WTF: HRC handing out "I'm not bitter" stickers and Iraqi boys dream of being U.S. soldiers???

for some reason, since i've arrived here in kabul, i've been getting up extra early, usually around 5:45... partly it's because the muezzin chanting prayers from the local mosque wakes me up at 4:35 a.m. and, after snoozing for another hour, i'm wide awake, but also i like to get on the 'puter and catch up on the day's goings-on on the other side of the world before i go to work...

i don't necessarily equate "catching up" with "getting pissed off," but that's been my experience this morning... after watching cnn eviscerate the small-minded and semi-hysterical attack on obama by hillary and mccain and obama's response (see previous post), reading ap's spin-enshrouded crap just grinds my ass...

A political tempest over Barack Obama's comments about bitter voters in small towns has given rival Hillary Rodham Clinton a new opening to court working class Democrats 10 days before Pennsylvanians hold a primary that she must win to keep her presidential campaign alive.

Obama tried to quell the furor Saturday, explaining his remarks while also conceding he had chosen his words poorly.

"If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that," Obama said in an interview with the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal.

But the Clinton campaign fueled the controversy in every place and every way it could, hoping charges that Obama is elitist and arrogant will resonate with the swing voters the candidates are vying for not only in Pennsylvania, but in upcoming primaries in Indiana and North Carolina as well.

Political insiders differed on whether Obama's comments, which came to light Friday, would become a full-blown political disaster that could prompt party leaders to try to steer the nomination to Clinton even though Obama has more pledged delegates. Clinton supporters were eagerly hoping so.

They handed out "I'm not bitter" stickers in North Carolina, and held a conference call of Pennsylvania mayors to denounce the Illinois senator. In Indiana, Clinton did the work herself, telling plant workers in Indianapolis that Obama's comments were "elitist and out of touch."

god-rotten-dammit... obama doesn't have ANYTHING to apologize for... "bitter" is an entirely accurate description... i don't live in pa. but i'm bitter... i'm bitter about a lot of things, not the least of which is that my government has totally abdicated its sworn obligation to defend and uphold the united states constitution... i'm bitter that my those running my country are enriching themselves and their cronies at my expense and at the expense of billions of poor saps like me around the world who are having their money, their livelihoods, and often their lives taken from them by brute force... tell me those aren't things to be bitter about...

then, to make it worse, i read the headline of this wsj opinion piece...

Let's 'Surge' Some More

followed by this jaw-dropping piece of journalistic shit...

I may well have spent more time embedded with combat units in Iraq than any other journalist alive. I have seen this war – and our part in it – at its brutal worst. And I say the transformation over the last 14 months is little short of miraculous.

The change goes far beyond the statistical decline in casualties or incidents of violence. A young Iraqi translator, wounded in battle and fearing death, asked an American commander to bury his heart in America. Iraqi special forces units took to the streets to track down terrorists who killed American soldiers. The U.S. military is the most respected institution in Iraq, and many Iraqi boys dream of becoming American soldiers. Yes, young Iraqi boys know about "GoArmy.com."

first of all, being the reporter who has been embedded with u.s. combat units in iraq the longest is absolutely NOT a claim to credibility... it is, rather, a claim to being the journalist who has been exposed to the side of the story that his handlers have decreed he should see for the longest... if there had been even the slightest mention of time spent in iraq as a NON-EMBEDDED journalist, i might be tempted to back off a little...

secondly, iraqi boys, like boys everywhere, are fascinated by action heroes... the guns, the equipment, the humvees, the swagger, the raw demonstration of power - all of that captures boys' attention like nothing else can... but seeing that and transforming it into a solid demonstration that u.s. soldiers are "winning hearts and minds" is nothing more than journalistic obscenity... (take a moment to re-visit two of my previous posts, "Just another day in Iraq," and "Scenes from an Iraki childhood," and then talk to me about "hearts and minds...") and if all that isn't obscene enough, check this next part out...

As the outrages of Abu Ghraib faded in memory – and paled in comparison to al Qaeda's brutalities – and our soldiers under the Petraeus strategy got off their big bases and out of their tanks and deeper into the neighborhoods, American values began to win the war.

Iraqis came to respect American soldiers as warriors who would protect them from terror gangs. But Iraqis also discovered that these great warriors are even happier helping rebuild a clinic, school or a neighborhood. They learned that the American soldier is not only the most dangerous enemy in the world, but one of the best friends a neighborhood can have.

the outrages of abu ghraib "FADING" in memory and "PALING" in comparison to al qaeda brutalities...? is yon saying that we should be happy that "OUR OUTRAGES" aren't as bad as "THEIR OUTRAGES"...? even worse, he conveniently and totally ignores all the recent revelations that those abu ghraib "outrages" are linked directly to the orders given by the president of the united states and his criminal accomplices... reading yon's unadulterated crap, I'M OUTRAGED...

finally, if i ever again see u.s. soldiers called "warriors," i will have to puke... my country is not sparta... we don't nurture a "warrior" caste... we don't breed people to wage endless war... we don't live to honor those who fight and kill... and, moreover, i don't want to live in or be a citizen of a country that does those things...

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When the first one falls, stand back...!

bank failures are comin'... bet on it...

from the wsj...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is taking steps to brace for an increase in failed financial institutions as the nation's housing and credit markets continue to worsen.

The FDIC is looking to bring back 25 retirees from its division of resolutions and receiverships. Many of these agency veterans likely worked for the FDIC during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when more than 1,000 financial institutions failed amid the savings-and-loan crisis.

[...]

"Regulators are bracing for well over 100 bank failures in the next 12 to 24 months, with concentrations in Rust Belt states like Michigan and Ohio, and the states that are suffering severe housing-market problems like California, Florida, and Georgia," said Jaret Seiberg, Washington policy analyst for financial-services firm Stanford Group.

(thanks to calculated risk via atrios...)

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A headline that says it all

from today's wapo roundup of the nation's op-ed pages...

Today's Hot Topic: Rebooting the War on Terror

and just in case you had any doubt about what they might mean by that, here's the paragraph that 'splains it all...

War on Terror: After the release of the new National Intelligence Estimate on terror threats this week, the WaPo argues that the most urgent decision to be made is what to do about al-Qaeda's sanctuary in Pakistan. "If Pakistani forces cannot -- or will not -- eliminate the sanctuary, President Bush must order targeted strikes or covert actions by American forces, as he has done several times in recent years," the editors write ... the LAT argues that the report should reinvigorate Americans' interest in the war on terror. "The passage of time without another terrorist outrage on American soil has inspired complacency about continuing dangers and a reluctance to address issues -- such as the proper balance between liberty and security in an age of terror -- that are certain to recur," the editors write ... the WSJ argues that the report is "a stark reminder that al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups continue to pose an urgent threat to our security, and that 9/11 was not the terrorist one-off that some liberals wish it were so they can switch the subject to global warming and after-school programs."

it's hard to believe that these major media outlets are, once again, playing willing pawns to bushco fear-mongering... just look at the verbiage...

must order targeted strikes or covert actions

well, hey...! while we're at it, let's not stop with pakistan... we've got all that military firepower just sitting around in the gulf, let's go for a two-fer and bomb iran at the same time...

and these...

• reinvigorate Americans' interest in the war on terror

• terrorist outrage on American soil

• continuing dangers ... that are certain to recur

• stark reminder

• continue to pose an urgent threat

• 9/11 not the terrorist one-off"

and what would fear-mongering be without a wsj dig at the al qaeda-loving, dirty fucking hippie liberals...

so they can switch the subject to global warming and after-school programs

after all that's been revealed, discussed and written about, to still adopt these fear-mongering positions when it's patently clear that the "war on terror" has been the biggest manipulation of average citizens in modern history, is totally baffling to me... the only thing i can possibly imagine is that we're being set up for another terrorist attack so that these fine people can then say, "well, we told you so..."

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Welcome to the BRAND NEW Wall Street Journal under Rupert Murdoch

tom toles in the wapo...

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The usual suspects weigh in with totally predictable opinions on Libby

there was a knock on my door late last evening... it was my daughter-in-law's mom coming to tell me in shocked tones that bush had commuted libby's sentence... not the most excitable of people and not, by any stretch, a news or politics junkie, she had been watching local news on a san francisco station and evidently the news announcers there were reporting bush's decision in thinly veiled outrage (not inappropriately, imho)... anyway, she was unusually agitated, which, i suspect, is a good thing... maybe it's starting to sink in to those among us who are not as news and politics-obsessed that we have a situation in this country that is seriously out of control...

from today's wapo editorialist...

The WaPo argues that President Bush's decision to commute Scooter Libby's entire prison sentence "sends the wrong message about the seriousness" of his offense. "We agree that a pardon would have been inappropriate and that the prison sentence of 30 months was excessive," the editors write. "But reducing the sentence to no prison time at all, as Mr. Bush did -- to probation and a large fine -- is not defensible" ... under the headline "Soft on Crime," the NYT argues that President Bush's decision underscores "the way this president is tough on crime when it's committed by common folk." The editors write that when the president was explaining his decision, he "did not sound like a leader making tough decisions about justice. He sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell" ... the Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, argues that the president didn't go far enough. By "failing to issue a full pardon," the editors write, "Mr. Bush is evading responsibility for the role his Administration played in letting the Plame affair build into fiasco and, ultimately, this personal tragedy" ... NYT columnist David Brooks argues that Bush's decision to commute Libby's sentence was "exactly right." "It punishes him for his perjury, but not for the phantasmagorical political farce that grew to surround him. It takes away his career, but not his family."

i'd summarize some of the more ridiculous and heavily spun verbiage for you, but you can do that for yourselves in 10-second eyeballing of the above...

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Moyers on Murdoch: "...the predator of the hour"

bill moyers is turning shrill, not that that's a bad thing...

When it comes to money and power he’s carnivorous: all appetite and no taste. He’ll eat anything in his path. Politicians become little clay pigeons to be picked off with flattering headlines, generous air time, a book contract or the old-fashioned black jack that never misses: campaign cash. He hires lobbyists the way Imelda Marcos bought shoes, and stacks them in his cavernous closet, along with his conscience...

[...]

You will not be surprised to learn that Murdoch’s company paid little or no federal income tax over the past four years. His powerful portfolio positions him to claim a big stake in Yahoo and his takeover of The Wall Street Journal, now owned by the Bancroft family, which, like Adam and Eve, the parents of us all, are tempted to sell their birthright for a wormy apple.

Murdoch and THE JOURNAL’s editorial page are made for each other. They’ve both pursued the right's corporate and political agenda of the past quarter century. Both venerate what THE JOURNAL editorials call the “animal spirits” of business. But THE JOURNAL’s newsroom is another matter – there facts are sacred and independence revered. Rupert Murdoch has told the Bancrofts he’ll not meddle with the reporting. But he’s accustomed to using journalism as a personal spittoon.

[...]

His worst offense with FOX News is not even its baldly partisan agenda. Far worse is the travesty he’s made of its journalism. FOX News huffs and puffs, pontificates and proclaims, but does little serious original reporting. His tabloids sell babes and breasts, gossip and celebrities.

[...]

His pursuit of The Wall Street Journal is the latest in a cascading series of mergers, buy-outs, and other financial legerdemain that are making a shipwreck of journalism. Public minded newspapers are being dumped by their owners for wads of cash or crippled by cost cutting while their broadcasting cousins race to the bottom. Murdoch is just the predator of the hour. [...] Instead of checking the excesses of private and public power, these 21st century barons of the First Amendment revel in them; the public be damned.

the only truth moyers neglects to mention is that people like murdoch would sell their own grandmothers for a mess of pottage...

The phrase mess of pottage means something of little value. It is associated with the exchange by Esau of his birthright for a meal of lentil stew, as described in Genesis 25:29-34 in the Bible. (A pottage is a type of soup.)

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"This White House thinks its base is stupid." Now you know what it feels like, people.

the far-right, wingnut, ultra-conservative base wakes up to find out what the liberals and progressives have been subject to the past six and one-half years... and, of all people to point this out, peggy noonan, the crazed wsj op-ed writer...

The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.

For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.

[...]

The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."

while ms. noonan may not have truly seen the light, she's at least screwed her head back on tight enough to be able to take some steps in that direction...

Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them. This will require courage, serious thinking and an ability to do what psychologists used to call letting go. This will be painful, but it's time. It's more than time.

the temptation is to indulge in schadenfreude... well, more than indulge, more like positively revel... but that would be to make light of the situation... bush and his criminal compadres have cynically wooed, used, and manipulated the conservative base, a base they have shown they don't even like or trust, and now the base is waking up, and it looks like the immigration bill is what finally tipped over the apple cart... too bad it took so long...

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A clear statement of war-lust without apology or reservation

i no doubt exceeded the "fair use" guideline for raw story and perhaps even the original source, the wall street journal, in posting this excerpt... however, such a baldface declaration of one person's belief in destruction, violence, and death as a primary solution to whatever world problems we face, a belief no doubt shared deep in the bones of his fellow neocons, deserves a fuller treatment...

[T]he plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force--any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938.

[...]

Since a ground invasion of Iran must be ruled out for many different reasons, the job would have to be done, if it is to be done at all, by a campaign of air strikes. Furthermore, because Iran's nuclear facilities are dispersed, and because some of them are underground, many sorties and bunker-busting munitions would be required. And because such a campaign is beyond the capabilities of Israel, and the will, let alone the courage, of any of our other allies, it could be carried out only by the United States. Even then, we would probably be unable to get at all the underground facilities, which means that, if Iran were still intent on going nuclear, it would not have to start over again from scratch. But a bombing campaign would without question set back its nuclear program for years to come, and might even lead to the overthrow of the mullahs.

[Bush] intends, within the next 21 months, to order air strikes against the Iranian nuclear facilities from the three U.S. aircraft carriers already sitting nearby....If this is what Mr. Bush intends to do, it goes, or should go, without saying that his overriding purpose is to ensure the security of this country in accordance with the vow he took upon becoming president, and in line with his pledge not to stand by while one of the world's most dangerous regimes threatens us with one of the world's most dangerous weapons.

It now remains to be seen whether this president, battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel. As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.

Norman Podhoretz

look at that face... he should be bouncing a grandchild on his knee or volunteering to read stories to a kindergarten class, not urging our president to bomb another country...

try as i might, i simply cannot get into this guy's head to gain an appreciation of his thinking... first of all, i am unable to relate to being an advocate for bombing ANYTHING... violence and destruction are never a solution, never have been, and never will be... moreover, in the case of iran, regardless of the rationale for bombing, there is no question in my mind that such an action would only serve to add to the growing conflagration in the middle east, and guarantee that the world war IV podhoretz believes is already underway will engulf the entire region for years to come...

Although many persist in denying it, I continue to believe that what Sept 11, 2001, did was to plunge us headlong into nothing less than another world war. I call this new war World War IV, because I also believe that what is generally known as the Cold War was actually World War III, and that this one bears a closer resemblance to that great conflict than it does to World War II.

i am at a loss to imagine how one's thinking, particularly over the course of a lifetime, where we supposedly gain the wisdom of age, can become so darkly twisted... i also fail to comprehend how such a man, a man who is passionately urging that bombs be dropped, continues to influence those in power... never mind... obviously, the ones in power HAVE their power because they think the same way... it's just us bystanders who are left scratching our heads...

p.s. describing bush as being "battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular", is so deliciously delusionary, it would be hard to top... but then, podhoretz, as a member of the council on foreign relations, one of the groups responsible for installing bush as president in the first place, would, i suppose, be naturally defensive of his choice...

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With George at 28%, the WSJ still sees a bright spot

they wouldn't say "shit" if they were up to their eyeballs in it...

Despite President Bush's low popularity, he is still getting better marks than the weakest ratings for Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, according to a new analysis from Harris Interactive.

In an April poll, Harris found that President Bush's popularity had sunk to the lowest level of his presidency, with 28% of U.S. adults giving his job performance positive ratings and 70% rating him negatively.

why is george bush still our president...? what can we do TOMORROW to get him out...?

(thanks to think progress...)

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Liberals and progressives "untroubled by debate and dissent"?

i never cease to marvel how dramatically some folks who, by virtue of their positions (in this case at a think tank, stanford's hoover institution), i thought would have their fingers much more on the pulse of the nation, don't... this hoover guy, peter berkowitz, writing in the wall street journal, seems particularly clueless...

The Conservative Mind
The American right is a cauldron of debate; the left isn't.

[...]

On a variety of issues that currently divide the nation, those to the left of center seem to be converging, their ranks increasingly untroubled by debate or dissent, except on daily tactics and long-term strategy. Meanwhile, those to the right of center are engaged in an intense intra-party struggle to balance competing principles and goods.

i don't know what he's smoking, but to say that the left isn't a cauldron of debate is flat-out wrong... the past few weeks, especially after the horror of the betrayal by the democratic leadership on the iraq war funding bill, have tossed liberals and progressives into an all-out civil war with their elected democratic leadership, and i can't see how he can write as if he's blissfully unaware of that... just listen to him blather on...

Democrats today are nearly united in the belief that the invasion has been a fiasco and that we must withdraw promptly. Indeed, rare is the Democrat (Sen. Joe Lieberman was compelled to run as an Independent) who does not sound like a traditional realist denying both America's moral obligation to remain in Iraq and its capacity to bring order to the country.

oh, well... i can only conclude that working in a conservative think tank and associating with only like-minded colleagues leaves you unprepared to confront the messy world of reality...

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DeLay on CNN...??!?!?

my god, and right after nearly needing a heimlich from the zell miller story... why, for shit's sake, are they doing this...?

Tom DeLay is becoming a commentator for CNN, according to John Fund. In today’s WSJ Political Diary, he writes: ‘Despite his antipathy toward liberals, Mr. DeLay joked that he’s happy to work with them. He told me he is about to sign on with CNN as a commentator. “I may be their only conservative on air, but someone has to do it.”

remind me to NEVER, EVER tune in to cnn when tommy boy's mug is polluting the screen...

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Clemons and Greenwald on Eliot Cohen's appointment to the State Department

glenn is alarmed...

This continues to be the most astounding, significant, and alarming trend -- as the recognition grows even in Beltway elite media circles that the people who designed and sold the Iraq war to the American public are completely untrustworthy and discredited figures, they are exactly the ones who continue to exert the most influence, by far, on the President, and their influence seems only to be growing ...

... Why should the American people continue to believe in those same people who had so many misjudgments leading up to and executing the war?" They should not, of course. And we know exactly who "those same people" are. Eliot Cohen is not just one of them, but he is one of their leaders. He has been wrong about everything. If he had his way, we would have far more wars than we have already.

steve thinks condi put cohen in there to keep cheney away from her...

I believe that Cohen's appointment is in part an effort to get someone past the Cheney foreign policy wing. Rice does not like to do direct battle with the Vice President and views personnel appointments as a way to inoculate herself and her efforts against sabotage from the Cheney team.

In other words, Cohen has joined Condi's team both to create back-channel communications with Cheney's spear-carriers but also to protect Condi from all-out assault from the Vice President.

ok, all that is well and good... but it's when glenn says this that i start to get flutters in the tummy...

"As they have done many times before, neoconservatives, with Iran in their sights, have installed one of their own at State to block any war-avoiding rapprochement," writes Glenn Greewald for Salon.

[...]

"It is not hyperbole to say that Cohen is as extremist a neoconservative and warmonger as it gets," says Greenwald, who quotes a conservative writer's point that Cohen "was an early supporter of the military intervention in Iraq" and opposed negotiations with Iran and Syria.

Greenwald argues that Cohen is even "far more extremist than just that."

In a November 2001 Wall Street Journal column, says Greenwald, "Cohen criticized the attempts up to that point to name 'The new War' -- all the names chosen were far too limited and unglorious. Rejecting all the possibilities, Cohen insisted that 'a less palatable but more accurate name is World War IV.'"

Greenwald describes Cohen as having become "one of the most militant advocates of expanded regional war in the Middle East" in the years since 9/11.

"The Cohen appointment," he says, "is clearly another instance where neoconservatives place a watchdog in potential trouble spots in the government to ensure that diplomats do not stray by trying to facilitate rapproachments between the U.S. and the countries on the neoconservative War hit list."

so, then my question is, was cohen really condi's choice or was he foisted on her by dick and the other resident forces of darkness...?

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