torture works

a mitt romney presidency

see also:

"a rick perry presidency"
"a michelle bachmann presidency"
"a herman cain presidency"
"a newt gingrich presidency"
"a rick santorum presidency"

a rick perry presidency

see also:

"a michelle bachmann presidency"
"a herman cain presidency"
"a mitt romney presidency"
"a rick santorum presidency"
"a newt gingrich presidency"

and a meme is born

for the record

via steve benen @ the washington monthly:

IF CANTOR REALLY WANTS TO GO THERE.... house majority leader eric cantor (r-va.), shortly after president obama's remarks on [the death of] osama bin laden, issued a related statement. it included this gem:

"i commend president obama who has followed the vigilance of president bush in bringing bin laden to justice."

there's a fair amount of this rhetoric bouncing around this morning, and it's not especially surprising — republicans aren't going to credit president obama, regardless of merit, so it stands to reason they'll try to bring george w. bush into the picture.

if this is going to be a new gop talking point, we might as well set the record straight.

in march 2002, just six months after 9/11, bush said of bin laden, "i truly am not that concerned about him.... you know, i just don't spend that much time on him, to be honest with you."

in july 2006, we learned that the bush administration closed its unit that had been hunting bin laden.

in september 2006, bush told fred barnes, one of his most sycophantic media allies, that an "emphasis on bin laden doesn't fit with the administration's strategy for combating terrorism."

and don't even get me started on bush's failed strategy that allowed bin laden to escape from tora bora.

i'm happy to extend plenty of credit to all kinds of officials throughout the government, but crediting bush's "vigilance" on bin laden is deeply silly.

update: donald rumsfeld added this morning that obama "wisely" followed bush's lead. he either has a very short memory, or he's lying and hopes you have a very short memory.

meanwhile, from every birther's favorite faux-wingnut talking hairpiece:

i want to personally congratulate president obama and the men and women of the armed forces for a job well done. ... i am so proud to see americans standing shoulder to shoulder, waving the american flag in celebration of this great victory.

we should spend the next several days not debating party politics, but in remembrance of those who lost their lives on 9/11 and those currently fighting for our freedom.

god bless america!

after months of flinging racist birther-poop at obama, the donald once again demonstrates, through well-timed magnanimity, that he knows how to separate himself from the crowd.

the soon-to-be-senator from minnesota

disclaimer: those who've known me for a long time would never accuse me of developing a mancrush on anybody (not that there's anything wrong with it ...), and really, it's not, but ... there's something about the way al carries his oddball pretend-irascibility (or is it an irascible pretend-oddballity?), even while working the audience to convince us he's no carpet-bagger, a performance that somehow cleverly morphs itself into something bordering on a kind of — dare i say it — adorability?

(of course, smacking bush around does kinda help seal the deal and reminiscing about all the decider's unappreciated genius has become somewhat fashionable at the moment ...)

letterman:	ladies and gentlemen ... al franken!
	[franken walks onstage, bows, sits] always a pleasure, al.
franken:	always a pleasure for me.
letterman:	so where do they tape your microphone?
franken:	[bends to look at his crotch] well, dave ...
letterman:	heh, heh, heh ... well now, i don't wanna ... i don't wanna bore you, but you might find some of this tedious ...
franken:	yeah ...
letterman:	... but i find it fascinating, ah, a while ago, six months ago? three months ago? a year ago ... you and your wife moved ...
together:	to minneapolis ...
franken:	... that's right.
letterman:	you're originally from minnesota. how's that goin'?
franken:	... great. great! great, i do my show from there. y'know, i'm the hardest working man in show biz politics, and uh ...
schaefer:	[laughing] ... it's a new category to me! hahaha!
franken:	yeah, yeah, and, in fact this thing i'm doing tomorrow night, the reason i brought it up, is it's a big fund-raiser for my group "midwest values PAC" ...
letterman:	at the state theater ...
franken:	yeah, and we're raising money for democrats, y'know, it's called "midwest values" because i feel, i, y'know, i lived here for a long time ...
letterman:	thirty years or so in new york.
franken:	yeah, and uh, but i always felt like a midwesterner, always felt like a minnesotan. you must feel like —
letterman:	y'know, i do, and i feel like i'm at home. i love indiana and i feel that that's a great part of me.
franken:	yeah, and that's ... your values are rooted there, and uh, that's what our PAC is about, and uh, that's because i think democrats win ... on values. we stand for things, for example: ah, accountability. like, uh, bush finally, like a couple weeks ago, uh, was with tony blair, admitted that he made some mistakes ... in iraq. right. [applause] and all he said, he said "i said some things wrong. like, i shouldn't have said 'bring it on.'"
letterman:	right.
franken:	which is kinda common sense, another midwest value: don't goad the enemy to attack you. [laughter]
letterman:	right.
franken:	y'know, and it's all that swagger thing, like, at the ... remember at the republican convention he said: "some people see me, and, uh, [adopts bush drawl] they see a swagger, certain swagger. well, in texas we call that walkin'." in minnesota we call that "being a jerk." [applause] y'know. walk with, with uh ...
letterman:	... dignity ...
franken:	... some humility ...
letterman:	yes, humility, right.
franken:	... humility. ah, bush, y'know, says like he's a big jesus guy. well, jesus didn't walk with a swagger. he didn't go like, [adopts bush drawl] "see that water i turned into wine?" [points to self] "me. that was me."
letterman:	heh — not a show-off ...
franken:	[still in character] "see that blind guy over there? that uh, he's not bumpin' into things any more? [points to self] jesus." [laughter]
letterman:	wasn't a blowhard ...
franken:	[still in character] "yeah. that big boulder i rolled, y'know, in front of, i rolled that outta the entrance to that cave where i was dead and now i'm alive? eh?" [puffs out chest] "bring it on!" [applause] y'know, it's easy — that wasn't jesus. that was ... walk with some, some ... humility.
letterman:	that's right.
franken:	you can be strong, you can be courageous —
letterman:	exactly.
franken:	— it's not, that kind of bluster isn't strong. that's not strength.
letterman:	now, uh, from where you sit, what are your other observations regarding, now we're nearly halfway through the second term of the bush administration. what are your observations generally of, about things now?
franken:	he's ... he's in the toilet. actually, lorne michaels said something very funny to me. he said that jee— uh, ah, that bush ... [laughter, applause] ... i had jesus on the brain!
letterman:	we all do.
franken:	great, great prophet, jesus.
letterman:	yeah.
franken:	as my rabbi told me, he had a lot of great ideas. none of them knew. s'what my rabbi used to tell me. anyway, ah, bush. lorne michaels said to me, "looks like a, a guy whose show's just been cancelled, but he has nine more to do." [applause]
letterman:	heh, i know that feeling.
franken:	you know that feeling?
letterman:	yeah, absolutely.
franken:	like, i mean, obviously the war's just going terribly. uh, if he's going to admit those mistakes, he should have admitted a couple other things. for example, ah, when he said, y'know, that the war on terror is a crusade. that was stupid.
letterman:	poor choice of words.
franken:	it sent the wrong message to a lot of people. muslims, mainly. and, uh, y'know the only defense i can thing of for him is that, um, y'know he didn't know there had been a "crusades". [laughter]
letterman:	[unintelligible]
franken:	y'know, he wasn't a great student. he's admitted he doesn't do a lot of reading. so i think that the thing he needs to do is hold himself accountable. i think he needs to go on TV and admit the mistakes he made. that he kind of ... misled us ... into the war, didn't send enough troops, uh, disbanded the iraqi army by telling them, y'know, by telling 300,000 guys: "you're fired! we're not gonna pay you, get the hell outta here! and take your weapons with you!" [laughter] and say: "i'm sorry i tortured — we tortured people." that turned out to be a mistake, because, y'know, their families don't like it. they get angry. basically, this would be, this is the short version. it'd have to be a six-hour speech he'd have to tell, s'what i'm saying.
letterman:	[laughing] ... six hours ... now, i want to talk to you about your experience with the american military. and recently you gave the commencement at west point.
franken:	it wasn't the commencement. it was just a ...
letterman:	just a "how'ya doin'?" you just dropped in ... ?
franken:	it was, it was sort of in-between.
letterman:	OK. we'll be right back here with al franken, everybody.
	[commercial break]
letterman:	... and i said, mistakenly, you'd given the commencement at west point, and i think, uh, president bush actually gave the commencement.
franken:	yeah, they just ask him to do the commencement, i just ...
letterman:	you were not there for the commencement.
franken:	... gave the sol feinstone lecture on the meaning of freedom. this is last — i had my book out at the time, "the truth, with jokes", this was, i was at west point. it was an audience not so different than this one. [laughter] uh, except, it was all cadets.
letterman:	that's right. that would be the one small difference.
franken:	yeah and i was supposed to talk about the meaning of freedom, and my book "the truth, with jokes" was out at the time and basically, after jollying them up with some jokes, um, i got them on my side, and i told them that the president had lied us into the war, and uh, i said you can't have freedom without the truth. you can have freedom without jokes, as the dutch and the swiss have proven. [laughter] but, they um, gave me a standing ovation, and they —
letterman:	really?
franken:	yeah. i think that, i really admire them, as you said, i've gone over a number of times on USO trips and — a lotta people think that it's dangerous. it's not. i remember that — you're surrounded by the USO, by ...
letterman:	the army.
franken:	by the, yeah, by the ... you're embedded and they don't want anyone in the USO to get ... a coupla years ago i'd done my first one in iraq. i was at a party in hollywood and there was all these celebrities there and i got a little bit overwhelmed and i went to sit in the library and i was — i thought i was alone and i hear this voice: [in deep low voice] "hey, al ..." yeah, i looked around and it was sylvester stallone.
letterman:	oh ...
franken:	and i said, uh "hey ... uh ... sylvester." 'cause i didn't know ... [laughter]
letterman:	riiight ...
franken:	and he said, [in deep low voice] "i understand you went on one of them USO tours." i said "yeah it was great." he said [deep] "yah, well, i was supposed to go, but i didn't." and i said "well, why didn't you go?" he said [deep] "well, i thought it might be too dangerous." i said "well, it's not really that dangerous ..." i said exactly just what i said to you and he said [deep]"yah well lemmee ask ya this: was there ever any moment when you felt in danger for your life?" [laughter] and i said well, OK we did have one point where we took helicopters from baghdad to tikrit and then back again, and some ... had been shot down, so i thought maybe one-in-ten-thousand chance that — [deep] "yah well, that's why i didn't go." [laughter] i said to him "weren't you, weren't you friggin' rambo?" [laughter, applause]
letterman:	friggin' ... friggin' rambo ...
franken:	i didn't say "friggin'", but ...
letterman:	[unintelligible] rambo ...
franken:	he was actually very honest and said [deep] "yah, but i like my life. i got a good life." that's how i got the west point guys on my side. i told them that story.
letterman:	yeah, that's a pretty good story ...
franken:	true story.
letterman:	what's he doin' in the library, fer god sakes ... ? [laughter]
franken:	uh, i, ah ...
letterman:	honestly, that's bizarre.
franken:	he might've followed me in.
letterman:	uh, just wanna quickly, ah, because we're all interested in your political future, if you have one, perhaps running for office, and i think the interesting thing, and important to point out, is you've been married for quite a few years and that's very important. you should use that in your campaign. people like, uh, marriage solidarity. and you certainly represent that, you and your wife have been married how, how long?
franken:	um, thirty years, many of them happy. [laughter, applause]
letterman:	that's good.
franken:	thank you. thank you.
letterman:	don't be afraid to use this, for your campaign.
franken:	um, i credit fear.
letterman:	hm.
franken:	yes, i just, ah, am afraid of being alone. and uh, we have kids. that's —
letterman:	that's good, sure.
franken:	really ... i, uh, i find her incredibly annoying in a lotta ways. [laughter]
letterman:	talkin' about your wife now?
franken:	yah, um ...
letterman:	you might wanna soft-pedal this out on the campaign trail ...
franken:	yeah ... well, it's little things! it's just always little things. she does a lot of like ... she decides to say stuff to me as soon as i've walked out of the room. so i spend a lot of time saying: "i can't, i can't hear you!" [laughter] but we ... "i'm in another room!" and um ... y'know, but we, we met, uh, freshman — can i tell you the story of my, uh ... when my daughter was six years old — 'cause kira's segment was so lovely — i was at my daughter's teacher, when my daughter was six years old, asked her to write a story, asked every kid to write a story how their parents met. and, so, um, we told her: we met freshman year in college at a mixer, i said i saw your mom across the room gathering these, uh, other girls to leave. she was trying to get 'em to leave and i loved the way she like, was taking charge. in retrospect ... [waves hands dismissively] ... and anyway, um, i said — and she was beautiful! she was beautiful! y'know, beautiful, so i asked her to dance, then i, uh, bought her a, got her a ginger ale, and then i escorted her to her dorm and asked her for a date. so my daughter wrote: "my dad asked my mom to dance, bought her a drink and took her home." [applause] and ...
letterman:	hehhehheh, well ... nothin' wrong with that either! tomorrow night at the state theater in minneapolis. i'm sure it'll be an enjoyable evening.
franken:	it, um ... the website, just in case you wanted to get tickets in minneapolis, midwestvaluespac.org, and that, that is not to be confused with liveorg.org, which is where you get live organs ...
letterman:	heh heh heh. alright ...
franken:	... live human organs, which is another one of my ...
letterman:	no, you wouldn't wanna get those —
franken:	our organs are human.
letterman:	yeah, that's right. good.
franken:	midwestvaluespac.org.
letterman:	thank you very much, al. always a pleasure. nice to see you.
franken:	thanks.

(hat tip to one good move)

shoulda, woulda, coulda

s'funny how what sounded impossible a coupl'a years ago sounds like a slam-dunk today ...

nader:	what about the more serious violations of habeas corpus. you know after 9-11 bush rounded up thousands of them, americans, many of them muslim americans or arabic americans and they were thrown in jail without charges, they didn't have lawyers, some of them were pretty mistreated in new york city. you know they were all released eventually.
napolitano:	correct.
nader:	is that what you mean also about throwing people in jail without charges violating habeas corpus?
napolitano:	well that is so obviously a violation of the natural law, the natural right to be brought before a neutral arbiter within moments of the government taking your freedom away from you. and the constitution itself, as the supreme court in the boumediene case pretty much said, wherever the government goes, the constitution goes with it and wherever the constitution goes are the rights of the constitution as a guarantee and habeas corpus cannot be suspended by the president ever. it can only be suspended by the congress in times of rebellion which in read milligan says meaning rebellion of such magnitude that judges can't get into their court houses. that has not happened in american history. so what president bush did with the suspension of habeas corpus, with the whole concept of guantanamo bay, with the whole idea that he could avoid and evade federal laws, treaties, federal judges and the constitution was blatantly unconstitutional and is some cases criminal.
nader:	what's the sanction for president bush and vice president cheney?
napolitano:	there's been no sanction except what history will say about them.
nader:	what should be the sanctions?
napolitano:	they should have been indicted. they absolutely should have been indicted for torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrants. i'd like to say they should be indicted for lying but believe it or not, unless you're under oath, lying is not a crime. at least not an indictable crime. it's a moral crime.
nader:	so you think george w. bush and dick cheney should even though they've left office, they haven't escaped the criminal laws, they should be indicted and prosecuted?
napolitano:	the evidence in this book and in others, our colleague the great vincent bugliosi has amassed an incredible amount of evidence. the purpose of this book was not to amass that evidence but i do discuss it, is overwhelming when you compare it to the level of evidence required for a normal indictment that george w. bush as president and dick cheney as vice president participated in criminal conspiracies to violate the federal law and the guaranteed civil liberties of hundreds, maybe thousands of human beings.

(hat tip to crooks and liars)

signs of the recovery

a ray of light shines in the gopher state:

(hat tip to john cole)

george on my mind

stephanopoulos:	you’ve now met with president obama many times, at least fifteen meetings and phone calls —
medvedev:	sixteen times.
stephanopoulos:	sixteen, ok, i knew it was fifteen, i wasn’t sure about the sixteenth. ah, what do you make of barack obama the man?
medvedev:	he's a very comfortable partner. it’s very interesting to be with him. the most important thing that distinguishes him from many other people — i won’t name anyone by name — he’s a thinker. he thinks when he speaks.
stephanopoulos:	[laughing] you had somebody in your mind, i think!
medvedev:	obviously i do have someone on my mind, i don’t want to offend anyone.

(hat tip to think progress)

no, you can't have it back

voted for george bush?

twice?

proud of it?

then stop yer bitchin!

plus ça change

one of the more amusing aspects surrounding the change in tenancy at the oval office is the persistence of particular partisan boogeymen:

[rep. paul broun (r-ga)] also spoke of a "socialistic elite" — obama, house speaker nancy pelosi and senate majority leader harry reid — who might use a pandemic disease or natural disaster as an excuse to declare martial law. "they're trying to develop an environment where they can take over," he said. "we've seen that historically."

the triple spectres of staged calamities, military coups and detention camps are alive and well as right-wing talking points, after being so effortlessly handed off to them, like a baton, from george bush's more breathless detractors on the left:

"the directive that was signed may 14/15 is the most troubling ... it is his way of having total power in the event of a natural or man made disaster ..." "i scare myself just thinking that an administration could/would perpetrate a catastrophy on it's [sic] own people just to retain political power ..." "even if this power is nothing new, what is new is a president so untrustworthy that i'll not be surprised if a false flag attack occurs next year in october, bush declares martial law, and he suspends the national election. i expect this supreme court would support him and gonzales (should he survive his term in the doj) would bring all the police power of the federal government to maintain bush." "of course, a blatant "coup" by bush, turning the federal government into the bushchaneyrove junta has been slowly in the making for some time, or haven't you noticed? the directive 51 is just the vaseline to make slide in more easily when they decide to not just ignore, but do away with the congress ..." "can homeland security remove you from your home, or place you in one of the haliburton camps? direct which corporations or other businesses get priority on the highways? on rail transit? will the internet be coopted, in the naqme [sic] of national security to keep us from commmunicating?" [sic] "remember that halliburton contract a yr ago to build new u.s. detention camps" "he is probably preparing to take over the country after the next presidential elections. he will have one of his goons call in an attack on us and then say 'look we just got attacked and i think i am the best person to take over, new president elect and the constitution be damned.'" "george has nothing to look forward too once he leaves office, he's served his purpose and will be of no concern. but, if he can make sure that the us military is effectively stuck in iraq, and not able to offer any resistance, his private army made up of mercs from blackwater and dyncorp to name just two can establish martial law and he can keep remain the president for as long as he pleases."

it was after hurricane katrina that fema fearmongering became particularly virulent on the left, and i've spent some electrons batting down those demons both on this blog and on other venues (and believe me, bush's nonstop cocky belligerence didn't help).

yet nonetheless ... i don't quite remember any sitting democrats helping ramp up the fear and loathing. do you?

deep thought

we have to keep them in guantanamo 'cause we can't hold them legally.

how to talk about torture

and no, it has nothing to do with nancy pelosi or hillary clinton ...

hasselback:	what is your mind — i know your mind is, ah, pretty made up about waterboarding, correct? you were waterboarded part of, part of your navy seal training, correct?
ventura:	no, it wasn't part of navy seal training; it was part of what they call SERE school: survival, escape, resistance, evasion. it's, it's a school that they required you to go to prior to the combat zone in vietnam. and yes, we were all waterboarded there, and yes, it is torture.
hasselback:	what do you think about nancy pelosi in terms of what she has been claiming with the cia lying to and misleading congress ... ?
ventura:	i, i, what's worse is this: the fact that it happened. if, if we hadn't waterboarded to begin with, none of this would be a controversy, would it?
hasselback:	if we hadn't waterboarded ...
ventura:	and torture, wait — torture is torture. if you're going to be a country that follows the rule of law, which we are, torture is illegal.
hasselback:	but these were specifically approved techniques with ksm, okay ... ?
ventura:	approved by who ... ?
hasselback:	khalid sheik mohammed, the information we extracted from him before waterboarding was zip. afterward, he released the information ...
unidentifed:	no ...
ventura:	no, we got all of that before waterboarding.
unidentifed:	yes.
hasselback:	this was the case that was used three times ...
ventura:	the question is this: alright, wait a minute — if waterboarding is okay, then —
hasselback:	[to unidentified] do you want me to put you in a triple nelson?
ventura:	wait, wait, if waterboarding's okay, then why don't we let our police do it to suspects so that they can learn what they know?
	[applause]
hasselback:	i understand that question, i understand that question ...
ventura:	if waterboarding's okay, why didn't we waterboard mcveigh and nichols, the oklahoma city bombers, to find out if there were more people involved?
behar:	well, what's your answer to that? why didn't we? why didn't we?
ventura:	well, i don't know, but we only seem to waterboard muslims.
goldberg:	hmm ...
audience:	oohh ...
	[crosstalk]
ventura:	haa-ha, ha-ha! have we waterboarded anyone else? name me someone else we've waterboarded!
behar:	well, one of the things that's coming out now is that they were waterboarding them to get a connection between iraq and al qaeda. and that the reason they waterboarded was to get information out so they could justify the invasion of iraq.
hasselback:	what do you think is gonna happen now —
behar:	so how does that work into your theory of how great it is?
hasselback:	look, i'm not saying it's great. i'm not saying, okay everybody, let's all go next door and get waterboarded. i'm, i'm concerned right now about nancy pelosi, who was supposedly briefed on this thing —
goldberg:	she lied —
ventura:	okay, they want her out now, right? because she lied? well, why didn't they ask for bush, bush and cheney to go out when they lied about why we went into iraq?
	[applause]
hasselback:	senator clinton! senator clinton, hillary clinton was right there with them, as were many democrats ...
ventura:	the point is, nothing is gonna happen cause they're all involved. the dems and repubs are both involved. that's why president obama's backing off from it, and they're not gonna do it now. it's a good thing i'm not the president. i'm an independent. because i would prosecute the people who did it, i would prosecute the people who ordered it, and they would all go to jail.
	[applause]
hasselback:	well, wouldn't they prosecute president obama in the future going backwards when he ordered the killing of the somali pirates? i mean, you have to think about —
ventura:	no, because the somali pirates —
goldberg:	there's a lot of differences ...
ventura:	that's apples and oranges. you're not talking about someone in custody who is supposedly under — okay, how would we feel, look how outraged we were when waterboarding was done to our vets in vietnam. where do you think we learned that? and we created the hanoi hilton right in guantanamo. that's our hanoi hilton. people have died there, people are tortured there — i'm ashamed of my country.
hasselback:	people aren't basing all those, extremists are not basing their behaviors on us, i can guarantee that, they are —
ventura:	because — should we stoop to their level?
hasselback:	look, we have —
ventura:	no. we should be above that.
hasselback:	absolutely —
ventura:	torture is wrong.
	[applause]
hasselback:	torture is wrong, but enhanced interrogation is —
ventura:	"enhanced interrogation" is dick cheney changing a word. dick cheney comes up with a new word to cover his ass.
	[crosstalk]
goldberg:	new question! new question!
ventura:	i've said it before: you give me a waterboard, one hour and dick cheney and i'll have him confessing to the sharon tate murders.
unidentified:	yeah baby!
	[applause]

smith:

our chief fox report correspondent jonathan hunt is live with us. johnathan, republicans seemed to keep the pressure on the speaker throughout the weekend and certainly continuing into today.

hunt:

yes, absolutely, this is the political gift that keeps on giving for the republicans. instead of this debate being about national security, what is and isn’t torture, what the bush administration should and shouldn’t have allowed and whether anybody in that administration should now be prosecuted, they are, they, the republicans are now able to frame this debate as to whether nancy pelosi is fit to continue as speaker. so shep, they are not about to let their foot off the gas in any way, shape, or form right now.

for bill elder fans

the george w. bush presidential librarium.

the only thing missing is the surprise image made by folding in the center of the page.

what? don't tell me you've forgotten who bill elder is ... ?

quote of the day

gonzalo boye, spanish human rights lawyer and co-plaintiff filing torture and war crimes charges against the bush white house:

if they are innocent, they shouldn’t be afraid.

a record-breaking transition

and too long in coming ...

bush's final approval rating: 22 percent president bush will leave office as one of the most unpopular departing presidents in history, according to a new cbs news/new york times poll showing mr. bush's final approval rating at 22 percent. seventy-three percent say they disapprove of the way mr. bush has handled his job as president over the last eight years. mr. bush's final approval rating is the lowest final rating for an outgoing president since gallup began asking about presidential approval more than 70 years ago. the rating is far below the final ratings of recent two-term presidents bill clinton and ronald reagan, who both ended their terms with a 68 percent approval rating, according to cbs news polling. recent one term presidents also had higher ratings than mr. bush. his father george h.w. bush had an end-of-term rating of 54 percent, while jimmy carter's rating was 44 percent. harry truman had previously had the lowest end-of-term approval at 32 percent, as measured by gallup.

nation's hopes high for obama, poll shows obama will take office tuesday as the most popular incoming president in a generation. he also will enter the white house with a broad mandate to act that was missing when george w. bush was elected by the narrowest of margins in 2000. more than half of all americans have high hopes for his presidency, almost three-quarters of the public say obama's proposals will improve the struggling economy, and about eight in 10 have a favorable view of him — more than twice the percentage now holding positive views of bush. about seven in 10 say obama understands their problems, and a similar proportion say his victory gives him "a mandate to work for major new social and economic programs."

poll finds faith in obama, mixed with patience president-elect barack obama is riding a powerful wave of optimism into the white house, with americans confident he can turn the economy around but prepared to give him years to deal with the crush of problems he faces starting tuesday, according to the latest new york times/cbs news poll. ... as the nation prepares for a transfer of power and the inauguration of its 44th president, mr. obama’s stature with the american public stands in sharp contrast to that of president bush. mr. bush is leaving office with just 22 percent of americans offering a favorable view of how he handled the eight years of his presidency, a record low, and firmly identified with the economic crisis mr. obama is inheriting. more than 80 percent of respondents said the nation was in worse shape today than it was five years ago. by contrast, 79 percent were optimistic about the next four years under mr. obama, a level of good will for a new chief executive that exceeds that measured for any of the past five incoming presidents. and it cuts across party lines: 58 percent of the respondents who said they voted for mr. obama’s opponent in the general election, senator john mccain of arizona, said they were optimistic about the country in an obama administration. ... his favorable rating, at 60 percent, is the highest it has been since the times/cbs news poll began asking about him. overwhelming majorities say they think that mr. obama will be a good president, that he will bring real change to washington, and that he will make the right decisions on the economy, iraq, dealing with the war in the middle east and protecting the country from terrorist attacks. over 70 percent said they approved of his cabinet selections.

disappointment

bush: there have been disappointments. abu ghraib obviously was a huge disappointment during the presidency. not having weapons of mass destruction was a significant disappointment. i don't know if you want to call those mistakes or not, but they were — things didn't go according to plan, let's put it that way.

matthews: i found it interesting that the president, who admitted he was wrong about WMDs as a justification for war, called it a "disappointment." if a police officer in the line of duty in the middle of the night shoots a fellow because he thinks he's got a gun, it turns out he's got a wallet, your reaction if you're a police officer is not that you're disappointed he didn't have a gun, it's shame that even if it was a technical mistake that you've made, that you've killed a guy without reason. why does the president use the word "disappointment" when he says they didn't have the WMD to justify us going in? i think it's an odd use of the word.

walsh: and finally ... the point that you made earlier, about a cop who shoots an unarmed man, does not then regret that the guy did not have a gun. he regrets that he killed an innocent man. and he regrets that he didn't take the extra 30 seconds maybe to ascertain whether the guy was armed.

they hide in the light

from erstwhile republican now democratic convert john cole @ balloon juice:

via alicublog, i see that the cornerites are taking the time today to celebrate vince foster's birthday as an excuse to bring up his suicide. you will have to read edroso's commentary to fully appreciate the right wing ability to raise "serious questions." [snip] i don't know if i will ever be a member of "the cause" again. on the eve of obama's inauguration, it is both funny and disturbing to look back to how things were eight years ago — i was so thrilled that a republican was about to be inaugurated. i was so excited to vote for bush in 2000 that i literally could not sleep, and, as always, was at the voting booth at 6:30 — 7:00 in the morning, the only person under 60 standing in line. now, today, i am so disgusted with the republican party that i don't think i will be able to vote for a national republican for twenty years. i wouldn't say my positions have changed completely, either. i really don't feel like there has been a dramatic shift in my opinions. on several issues, i am certainly more to the "left" than i was before. for example, i was never a proponent of gay marriage, and felt that civil unions were more than an acceptable compromise. not anymore — gay marriage is the future, it is the right thing to do, and those who can't cope with that reality one day will just have to deal with it when we finally get there. what has changed, however, is that i have seen a lot of the arguments that come from the republicans for what they are — just bullshit. i have watched over the past few years and seen how nonsense bubbles up into the mainstream, and how distorted versions of events designed to distract and queer the debate turn an upside down version of events into the "conventional wisdom." you don't have to look any farther than the recent attempts to blame the entire financial crisis on democrats, fannie mae and freddie mac and poor minority borrowers. we just spent an entire election season where prominent republicans thought they really had something with bill ayers and obama's birth certificate. of course, months could be spent documenting all the bullshit that has been churned up in the past eight years. the embrace by the right-wing of the idiotic tome "liberal fascism" could itself be the subject of lengthy study. you all know by now what a dork i am, so i am not outing myself when i state that one of my favorite all-time episodes of the x-files was a show called "folie a deux", in which scully and mulder investigate a man who thinks his boss is a monster. everyone thinks the man is insane because he insists that his boss is a zombie who eats people brains, and he is driven to madness that no one else can see his boss for the monster he is. he states frequently that the monster "hides in the light." eventually, fox is able to see the monster as the show comes to a conclusion. you see where this is going, don't you? i understand now why the dirty fucking hippies were driven to near madness by the gop and the election of bush. having watched things pan out the last few years and observed how truly perverted the beltway insiders who dominate our dysfunctional discourse are, i understand bob somersby and glenn greenwald and others. i don't know how much to "the left" i have actually moved on a lot of issues, but i do know one thing. when i see this nonsense from byron york and wideload doughpants, raising their "serious questions" about vince foster's suicide, i know clearly what i am seeing — i'm just watching the monsters hiding in the light, right where they always have been. this time, though, i see.

no, it'll be a white dinosaur

uh-oh, here comes the creation museum of presidential archives:

as president george w bush eyes his legacy, his presidential library at southern methodist university in dallas, texas, threatens to be a white elephant. bush has bought a $3m (£2.05m) house in a republican enclave 10 minutes away from his proposed library and hopes to play an active role in the policy institute that will be established there. with his approval ratings at a record low of 20%, according to a cbs poll, he is keenly interested in shaping the verdict of history. "i'd like to be ... known as somebody who liberated 50m people and helped achieve peace," bush said in a recent interview. laura bush said last week that she saw the policy institute as a "great vehicle" for continuing her support for women's rights in afghanistan and the middle east. work on the $300m library will begin in january, overseen by the architect robert stern, dean of the yale school of architecture. the identity of donors has been kept secret from bush, who established a "don't ask, don't tell" policy about their names after the sunday times revealed in july that a top republican donor was touting access to senior administration officials in return for donations of up to $250,000. so far, fundraising has been "very modest", according to dan bartlett, a former senior white house aide and spokesman for the library. ... "all of them are white elephants to some degree. they are truly bizarre," said benjamin hufbauer, art history professor at the university of louisville in kentucky. "more than half of them are grave sites, like lenin's tomb, although they don't display the body." despite their propagandist function, the libraries provide valuable access to archives that show the president "warts and all", according to hufbauer. but after 9/11 bush signed an executive order granting presidents the right to withhold documents held in the libraries from the public. historians hope barack obama will overturn this. conservatives are already engaging in a fierce battle over bush's legacy. john o'sullivan, a former adviser to baroness thatcher who is based at the hudson institute in washington dc, writes in the new issue of national review, a conservative publication, that bush turned out to be "neither a conservative nor a right-wing radical". ... bruce bartlett, a former republican treasury official who was ostracised for writing a critique of bush in his book impostor in 2006, said: "bush is going to go down as one of the worst presidents in history. a lot of conservatives kept their mouths shut at the time because they didn't want to be crucified like me. "i thought bush would have to go a long way to beat richard nixon and herbert hoover but, at the last minute, he pushed the ball across the line and brought on the new great depression." presidential libraries are built with private money, but the national archive pays for the staff who maintain the papers. "personally, i think it's inappropriate for the taxpayer to run these temples of worship," said bartlett. ...

no flowers, no candy ...

... no statue, no plaza, no boulevard.

no permanent bases. no usurious resource contracts. no puppet-state.

just shoes.

still, it's less than he deserves.