Bush's speechwriter does not understand terrorism

Sigh...

According to this guy, Chief Speechwriter for George W. Bush, the decision of who will be the next President is in the hands of terrorists.

It is true, there has been no terrorist attack in the US since Sept. 11 (let's conveniently ignore the Anthrax attacks for the time being). The article assumes, with no proof, that the only explanation for this is the Bush Administration's policies.

However, do we have any idea how much of this is due to (a) sheer luck? or (b) Al-Qaeda deciding they don't need to have one yet? Or, (c), the terrorists' planning and execution time being longer than 7 years?

This, to mention just a few possible reasons that have nothing to do with anything that the Bush Administration has done, or could possibly do. He just assumes that illegal wiretapping and torture are guaranteed to foil all terrorist plots, from now on in perpetuity.

Update: for more on the matter, see this post at the Washington Monthly.

Here comes the rabid irrational opposition

A hilarious article by Dick Morris, detailing Obama's socialism.

Tax rebate checks from Obama are now called "welfare". Did he use the same term to describe Bush's rebates?

Primadonnas

So yesterday I'm watching CNN with Anderson Cooper, not normally the worst offenders in the insanity (or inanity) that is media in the US, when they start talking about Barack Obama's do-over oath.

Cooper and the correspondent complained that there were no cameras at the event, and make it look like it was some mysterious thing that they uncovered by overhearing a conversation at the White House.

They remarked that the lack of video cameras was "ironic" given the promises of transparency from the new Administration.

Some remarks:

• There is no clash with the transparency promises! There was a press pool at the event, everyone knows what happened at the event, and there was nothing to hide at the event. Just because CNN did not get 1 minute of video to play over and over does not make it some secret conspiracy of some sort.
• Did CNN complain this loudly when the Bush White House denied to release *information* of actual importance? (Examples too numerous to mention here, but let's just start with the atendees to Cheney's Energy Policy meetings.)

Double take

From the New York Times' article on Fox News and the new administration:

The media world will watch carefully to see whether Fox receives the same treatment from an Obama White House that it received from Mr. Bush’s.

Uh? Would they expect to get the same treatment? Why?

It would make more sense the other way around: We should watch carefully and see if the Obama White House receives the same treatment from Fox that the Bush White House received.

Somehow I doubt this will be the case.

Quote of the day

From The New Yorker Online, Todd Snider:

Just from interviews and stuff I see on Radiohead, I get the impression that these guys aren’t in this for the chicks, and that just seems dumb to me.

What can she be thinking? How is she thinking?

I wonder about Sarah Palin's though processes... Never mind the Couric interview (as telling as that might be); there's more pre-meditated problems:

There's her strange choice of quotation in her Republican Convention speech.

And there is her mis-quote of Madeleine Albright's "There's a place in hell reserved for women who don't help other women", from a Starbucks cup. Not only did it not occur to her that the quote was not applicable to the question of voting for a woman, but she did not seem to have the self-awareness to reflect that, perhaps, the quote was referring to women such as herself.

But why?

Can someone please ask Sarah Palin the follow-up question, of why it is "reckless" for Barak Obama to point out the problem of civilian casualties in Afghanistan?

Update: For more on this, see this post.

New update: The McCain-Palin campaign releases an ad on this: the accusation is based on a dishonest interpretation of Obama's comments. Kinda like the "lipstick on a pig."

Here is factcheck.org's debunking.

A little disturbing...

Consider this line from McCain's remarks, Sept. 30:

So, that's how we see this election: Country First or Obama First, and I have a feeling I know which side you're all on

This seems like dishonest rhetoric from the get-go. It would seem that a choice of "McCain First or Obama First" would be more fair and balanced.

Banana Republic update: The Economy

Krugman summarizes nicely.

Lies and the Lying Liars

If this is how they campaing, how would they govern?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/opinion/12krugman.html

Krugman left out one more outrage: the shameless mis-use of factcheck.org's fact checking.

It's as if McCain has decided that only a dishonorable campaign can win.

So now McCain says that Obama is the candidate that Hamas favors?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/05/08/obama-mccain-is-losing-his-bearings/

But wait a minute: Surely Hamas would know that whichever candidate they said they favored, would have *less* of a chance of winning. So, if indeed they "endorsed" Obama, wouldn't this mean that they really want McCain to win?

Not that farfetched a theory, I would say. But the real conclusion to be drawn is, that it is completely absurad and infantile to make statements such as McCain's, and let the U.S. Presidential Race be controlled by the ramblings of psychopaths half a world away. As with Osama bin Laden and the Bush-Kerry contest in 2004.

These guys sure knew how to run a war

General Ricardo Sanchez's account, including Rumsfeld's attempt to buy him off to rewrite history. Now it seems that no-one made the decision to draw down forces after the invasion; just like the decision to disband the Iraqui military. Sanchez concludes:

In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty.

Now imagine the reaction if a General were saying the same thing about a Democratic administration.

Shape of the Earth: Views Differ

Paul Krugan has remarked that this would be the headline in the "Liberal media" if George W. Bush came out and said that the earth was flat.

We now have a perfect example of how the Washington Post takes part in this kind of reporting, this time giving airtime to the "Obama is a muslim" lies, without ever saying that they are, in fact, lies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/28/AR2007112802757.html

Greenwald has a good analysis at Salon.

Kudos

A good, succinct editorial from Alabama, concerning the going-ons at the DOJ and the very suspicious prosecution of the former Governor, found via Scott Horton.

Sample quote:

Something smells bad here. It smells bad even when one discounts the shenanigans involving the firings of U.S. attorneys across the nation and the hiring of DOJ personnel based on their ideological beliefs.

It smells even worse when one considers that a man may sit in prison today because his political enemies may have arranged his prosecution for political reasons.

It is a sobering thought to consider, the kind of thing often associated with third-world dictatorial regimes and not with a free, democratic nation.

How the Bush adminisration thinks

A good summary on how the Bush administration operates, by someone who was very close to the action. See also the review of the book at the NYT.

Bush's Former Surgeon General

Not very surprising:

"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. The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party," Carmona added.

Probably explains why they want to replace him with someone with, um, rather odd ideas...

Another bogus "Clinton did it too" defense

President George W. Bush commuting Scooter Libby's sentence is not comparable to Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich, however reprehsible that might have been. The main reason: Rich was not found guilty of obstructing justice in a case that might possibly invove the President who pardoned/commuted his sentence.

Libby was convicted of precisely this: perjury, to obstruct justice, in a case that should have led to Cheney and, possibly, Bush himself. And unlike Rich, who was safely enjoying his money in Switzerland, Libby was facing an imminent prison term either, one that might encourage him to talk.

As some have pointed out, Bush's action would have been more comparable to Clinton commuting Susan McDougal's sentence in the Whitewhater affair before she went to jail - something he never did. (He did pardon her at the end of his term.)

Finally, there's the discrepancy between this commutation, and Bush's previous record of denying such mercy, going back to his Texas days.

US justice?

More serious causes for concern, in the continuing Third-World-ization of US Justice.

Reported by Scoott Horton, federal prosecutorial abuse. And from the NYT editorial page, how the Supreme Court now prefers technicalities to basic fairness.

Not to say anything about Seymour Hersh's The New Yorker's article on General Taguba and his investigation of Abu Ghraib.

They used to call it a "filibuster"

That Liberal bias in the media. From Scott Horton's blog:

Today 53 members of the United States Senate, including seven Republicans, expressed their vote of no confidence in the service of Alberto Gonzales. The vote was procedural, as the Republicans used filibuster rules to block the actual vote–a step they have now invoked repeatedly to hamstring action by the majority in the Senate.

Isn’t this surprising when, only two years ago, when an effort was made to invoke the filibuster to block nominations, Mitch McConnell, Trent Lott and company thought it presented a threat to the Constitutional order of Government? Whereas now they trot it out themselves even on procedural and symbolic votes? To abet them in this remarkable act of hypocrisy, the media now routinely refer to the filibuster merely as a “procedural vote.” When the Democrats use it to block a judicial nomination, it’s called a “filibuster,” but if it’s ever invoked by the Republicans it’s just “procedure.” This is just more evidence of how the Republicans and Democrats interact–like velociraptors and bunny rabbits caged together–and the media lean whichever way the Republicans would have them lean in their characterizations.

I would just add that the front page story in today's New York Times did not mention the F-word either.

Thinking like a Third-World Dictator

From the horse's mouth:

As Army officers on duty in the war on terror, you will now face enemies who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and character, and every belief you consider worth fighting for and living for. Capture one of these killers, and he'll be quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States. Yet when they wage attacks or take captives, their delicate sensibilities seem to fall away.

This is Dick Cheney, at the West Point graduation ceremony.

How many times must it be said? Just because the enemy is inhuman, and abhorrent, does not mean that we should act in the same way.

Commentary at TPM.

Also see Andrew Sullivan's take.

p.s. It has struck me that this would actually be a powerful piece of oratory *if* (1) the US was actually granting these protections to all of its captives, which it is not, thanks to folks like Cheney, and (2) the snarky phrase, "delicate sensibilities," was cut...