still on the hook

in light of karl rove's apparent public relations victory this month, for the sake of all the depressives on the "karl rove indictment watch", it's very important to clarify one important truth. in fact it is the only truth we know for certain. everything else is simply speculation, spin and rumor.

karl rove is not off the hook. if karl rove were off the hook, the man dangling rove at the end of his line, special prosecutor patrick fitzgerald, would have said so himself. to this day he has not.

despite all the noise of the past month, only one rove-related development concerning the plame cia leak investigation actually occurred in that time: the june 13 announcement, by karl rove's attorney robert luskin, that fitzgerald "formally notified" him that "absent any unexpected developments, he does not anticipate seeking any criminal charges against rove".

that's it.

luskin did not announce "my client will not be charged" or "my client is in the clear" or "my client is no longer being investigated". he announced that his client does not anticipate any criminal charges. big difference. especially when you're a lawyer.

regarding that announcement, there was no public statement from the prosecutor's office. no confirmation. no denial. nada. zero. zilch.

so luskin's statement to this day dangles without corroboration from the only person who could definitively confirm it.

as rove's attorney, luskin is of course in business to present his client in the best light possible. if fitzgerald had let rove "off the hook", luskin would have unequivocably said so. and probably with greater fanfare, if that were possible. but in fact, to this date, luskin has not offered any documentary evidence or any transcript of any communication from fitzgerald that his client is "off the hook".

so all this talk of karl rove being "off the hook" and "in the clear" is still wholly premature, until fitzgerald himself says so. the rest is just spin.

as i had earlier posted in "still waiting", what we're all waiting for is an announcement from patrick fitzgerald himself. his is the only statement worth anything. and as i had posted in "the waiting game", it was an uncorroborated statement by rove's attorney, that "they expect that a decision will come sometime in the next two weeks", that originally set the waiting game in motion.

so what, if anything, may have happened to precipitate this latest spin from the rove team? clearly fitzgerald wants something from rove. fitzgerald already has libby. it appears fitzgerald has rove, otherwise, he'd have nothing to pressure him with, and more importantly, he'd simply let rove off the hook. so, in a pattern already established with his prosecutions in chicago, fitzgerald's looking up the food chain for much bigger fish.

that of course would be rove's boss, george bush, and/or libby's boss, dick cheney.

i think fitzgerald got what he wanted from rove. especially after turdblossom's five trips to the grand jury.

but fitzgerald will not cut him loose until rove's testimony pans out, which might not be determined until the end of the libby trial sometime in 2007.

so rove's still on that hook.

and he'll wriggle there, like the worm that he is, until fitzgerald himself says so.

liar

yes, i know — politicians lie, fib, equivocate, prevaricate, fabricate, dissemble, misinform and mislead like fish breathe water — not exactly breaking news.

but senate intelligence committee chair arlen specter seems to have told us a desperate ass-saving whopper that needs to be called out.

you'll recall my post "the not ready for prime time players", which highlights specter's cowardly proposal to grant amnesty to administration officials who may have broken federal law by engaging in the widespread warrantless wiretapping of american citizens. if blanket amnesty for the bush administration weren't craven enough, specter's proposal, if granted, would also make that amnesty retroactive to 1978, the year congress enacted the fisa statute, which created the fisa court, the only judicial body charged with reviewing federal warrant applications on matters of national security.

which means that every illegal espionage act for the past thirty years would be summarily disregarded with only a signature. so much for the party of accountability.

you'll also recall in the update to that post, that news of specter's call for amnesty seems to have been the result of a gross misreading of the proposed legislation by the washington post. it seemed that specter's bill wasn't quite as servile and loathsome as we've come to expect from the rubberstamping politburo we used to call congress. specter's immediate, vociferous and unequivocal prime-time denials seemed so genuine — or was it our desperate wish to believe that congress would not so eagerly castrate itself for a president whose approval ratings rival nixon's that made us so gullible?

glenn greenwald: i have now obtained (with the help of the aclu) a copy of specter's marked-up proposed legislation, which makes quite clear that specter simply was not telling the truth when he denied proposing amnesty to the administration. the bill in question was one which specter substituted last week in the judiciary committee for the prior legislation he proposed back in march (the reason the new version was not available online was because — according to the aclu — he introduced it only in the committee, but not yet on the senate floor). in sum, specter's legislation amends the provision of fisa which provides for criminal penalties, and then, astonishingly, makes those revisions retroactive all the way back to 1978 (when fisa was enacted). the effect and almost certainly the intent of those revisions is to immunize the president and anyone acting under his authority from criminal liability for violating fisa — just as the post and the aclu correctly reported, and just as specter falsely denied. ... currently, section 109(a) of fisa provides that "a person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally - (1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute ..." that means that anyone who eavesdropping on americans without complying with the warrant requirements of the statute (fisa) is committing a felony. to amend this provision to include the phrase "or under the constitutional authority of the executive" after "authorized by statute," makes it legal to eavesdrop not only in compliance with fisa (i.e., by obtaining a warrant), but also under the "constitutional authority" of the president to engage in warrantless eavesdropping even if that warrantless eavesdropping is prohibited by fisa (which it is). ... section 801 of specter's proposed bill specifically provides that "nothing in this act shall be construed to limit the constitutional authority of the president to gather foreign intelligence information or monitor the activities or communications of any person reasonably believed to be associated with a foreign enemy of the united states." that language tracks precisely the language used to define the parameters of the warrantless eavesdropping program, and it makes crystal clear that its intent is to declare legal the nsa program. and that provision is one of the provisions that has retroactive application back to 1978, which means the specter bill goes back in time — 28 years — and transforms fisa from a statute which has always regulated the president's eavesdropping power into one which places no limits on that eavesdropping power of any kind. ... what is extremely noteworthy — and worth emphasizing — is that arlen specter amended his legislation to include the most extremist provision imaginable (retroactive amnesty for criminal behavior), all in order to please the president's allies on the judiciary committee (led by sen. kyl) — who, as always, are marching to the dictates of the white house, which obviously is willing to accept new fisa legislation only if it provides them with immunity from criminal prosecution for their lawbreaking. but even more notable still is the fact that after engaging in this behavior, specter went on national television and dishonestly denied that he was doing that.... specter was so embarrassed by his amnesty provision once the post revealed it that he simply denied that his legislation contained it even though it so plainly does. specter's dishonesty aside, these shenanigans reveal what the white house is really after. their senatorial minions are going to support nsa legislation only if it contains full amnesty for the lawbreakers in the administration. the white house will then "reluctantly" agree to a newly revised fisa, and will have full immunity from criminal prosecution. specter will be the primary sponsor of this, and the media will drool over his "maverick" status and suggest that it's unreasonable to argue that specter is acting as the obedient white house shill that he always, in the end, becomes. if even the independent, rule-of-law-loving specter advocates amensty, then doesn't that show that it's reasonable? the white house insists that it has clear legal authority for warrantless eavesdropping, so why are retroactive amendments to fisa's criminal provisions necessary at all? and if we stand by and allow the republicans in congress to legislatively exonerate the president and his aides from breaking the law, it is hard to imagine what we won't stand by and tolerate. if the president can break the law and then use his party's control over the congress to grant him legislative immunity from the consequences of his criminal behavior, no hyperbole is required to say that the rule of law exists only as an illusion.

the joke is on us

from the daily papers juan cole brings us a taste of mideast humor. who knew the iranians were so damn funny?

[an official inside president mahmoud ahmadinejad's circle] joked that there was not [sic] need for the us to invade iran. he said that the us had invaded afghanistan and established an islamic republic there. then it had done the same thing in iraq. since iran has had an islamic republic for 27 years, he said, there really isn't a point in a us invasion.

the not ready for prime time players

it's saturday night, so let's tune into the not-ready-for-prime-time players. but it's not the cast of nbc's saturday night live we'll be watching, though this season's replacements from washington d.c. — that tragicomic capital of calumny and calamity — should prove as entertaining as the originals, if nothing else. we should by now be used to nothing else.

as i forewarned in my post "elegy", the constitutional crisis facing the country can only be resolved by congress' resumption of its responsibilities to both its constituents and itself as a concrete bulwark against any encroachment on its powers and duties by either of the other two branches of government — in these circumstances, the encroachments of the bush administration against the nation's time-tested system of checks and balances.

as glenn greenwald argues with his characteristic clarity — and frustration — in his post "a new low — the senate seeks to 'pardon' the president for past lawbreaking", from which i excerpt liberally, the 109th congress, especially as represented by senate intelligence committee chair arlen specter, is not quite ready for prime time:

observing and commenting on the behavior of arlen specter is one of the most unpleasant obligations a person can have, but for anyone following the nsa eavesdropping scandal specifically, and the bush administration's abuses of executive power generally, it is a necessary evil. the principal reason that the bush administration has been able to impose its radical theories of lawbreaking on the country is because congress, with an unseemly eagerness, has permitted itself to be humiliated over and over by an administration which does not hide its contempt for the notion that congress has any role to play in limiting and checking the executive branch. and few people have more vividly illustrated that institutional debasement than arlen specter, who, along with pat roberts, has done more than anyone else to ensure that congress completely relinquishes its constitutional powers to the president. congressional abdication is so uniquely damaging because the founders assumed that congress would naturally and instinctively resist encroachments by the executive, and the resulting institutional tension — the inevitable struggle for power between the branches — is what would preserve governmental balance and prevent true abuses of power. but for the last five years, congress has done the opposite of what the founders envisioned. they have meekly submitted to the almost total elimination of their role in our government and have quietly accepted consolidation of their powers in the president. if the congress is unmoved by their constitutional responsibilities, then at least basic human dignity ought to compel them to object to the administration's contempt for the laws they pass. after all, the laws which the administration claims it can ignore and has been breaking are their laws. the senate passed fisa by a vote of 95-1, and the mccain torture ban by a vote of 90-9, and it is those laws which the president is proclaiming he will simply ignore. and yet not only have they not objected, they have endorsed and even celebrated the president's claimed power to ignore the laws passed by congress. and that failure, more than anything else, is what has brought us to the real constitutional crisis we face as a result of having a president who claims the power to operate outside of, and above, the law. a bill proposed yesterday by arlen specter to resolve the nsa scandal — literally his fifth or sixth proposed bill on this subject in the last few months — would drag the congress to a new low of debasement. according to the washington post, specter has introduced a bill "that would give president bush the option of seeking a warrant from a special court for an electronic surveillance program such as the one being conducted by the national security agency." this proposal is the very opposite of everything specter has saying for the last several months: specter's approach modifies his earlier position that the nsa eavesdropping program, which targets international telephone calls and e-mails in which one party is suspected of links to terrorists, must be subject to supervision by the secret court set up under the foreign intelligence surveillance act (fisa). a law which makes it "an option" — rather than a requirement — for the government to obtain a warrant before eavesdropping is about as meaningless of a law as can be imagined. but that complete change of heart by specter is not even nearly the most corrupt part of his proposed bill. for pure corruption and constitutional abdication, nothing could match this: another part of the specter bill would grant blanket amnesty to anyone who authorized warrantless surveillance under presidential authority, a provision that seems to ensure that no one would be held criminally liable if the current program is found illegal under present law. the idea that the president's allies in congress would enact legislation which expressly shields government officials, including the president, from criminal liability for past lawbreaking is so reprehensible that it is difficult to describe. ... what makes this proposed amnesty so particularly indefensible is that specter himself has spent the last two months loudly complaining about the fact that he — along with the rest of the country — has been denied any information about how this illegal, secret eavesdropping has been conducted. has that power been abused? has it been exercised for political, rather than national security, reasons? before one even considers shielding those responsible for this lawbreaking from liability, wouldn't one have to at least know the answer to those questions? ... specter receives substantial criticism because of the flamboyant way in which he engages in what can only be described as sado-masochistic rituals with the administration. he pretends to exercise independence only to get beaten into extreme submission, and then returns eagerly for more. it is as unpleasant to watch as it is damaging to our country. but specter's unique psychological dramas should not obscure the fact that it is the entire congress which has failed in its responsibilities to take a stand against this president's lawbreaking and abuses, and there is plenty of blame to go around in both parties. the reason the president has been allowed to exert precisely the type of unrestrained power which the founders sought, first and foremost, to avoid, is because the congress has allowed him to.

update:

to glenn's further consternation, it looks like the post may have only imagined the heinous amnesty proposal in specter's bill:

before i wrote the post, i searched for the actual text of specter's bill in order to read it myself, but could not find it (specter's website is one of the worst sites for any senator, as it is usually a month or more behind). as a result, my post ... was based upon the post's reporting about specter's bill, rather than my own reading of it. i have now had a chance to review the actual text of specter's bill and cannot find any basis for the post's claim that it contains an amensty [sic] provision for past violations of the law. ... there is simply nothing in it which supports the post's report.

glenn had good cause to be cautious — this wasn't the first time that the post bungled the reading of the ever-multiplying proposals spawning from the senate intelligence committee:

before i wrote the post on friday, i was very reluctant to post anything about specter's bill in reliance on the report of the washington post. that's because the post previously published a front-page article about another fisa-related bill, this one proposed by sen. michael dewine, which was completely inaccurate about what the bill actually provided — not with regard to minor details of the bill, but with regard to its fundamental provisions. this is what happened. on march 17, the post published a front-page article by charles babington regarding the proposed legislation introduced by dewine (co-sponsored by sens. snowe, hagel, and graham), which was offered by those senators as the "compromise" solution when the republicans on the senate intelligence committee refused to hold hearings to investigate the nsa warrantless eavesdropping program. the post article falsely depicted this gop bill as vesting oversight power in the congress to stop warrantless eavesdropping, even though the bill provided nothing of the kind. specifically, the post article claimed — erroneously — that the bill would allow the administration to engage in warrantless eavesdropping only if a newly formed senate intelligence subcommittee approves of the program's renewal every 45 days. in fact, the legislation provided nothing of the sort. it gave no power whatsoever to any senate committee to approve or disapprove of warrantless eavesdropping. contrary to the post's front-page claim, that legislation would have vested no power whatsoever in the congress (or the courts) to stop the warrantless eavesdropping. it merely required that the administration "brief" the subcommittee, but the subcommittee (along with everyone else) would be completely powerless under that bill to stop the administration from engaging in warrantless eavesdropping. on that day, i first read the post article about this proposed legislation, but then found the legislation itself and read it. it was very clear that the post was simply wrong in what it told its readers on its front page about this significant legislation — wrong about the legislation's fundamentals.

what if they had a war and nobody came?

it looks like recruitment woes are plaguing even plum keyboard commando deployments such as the catered and festooned tour-of-duty billed as "the battle for american values" — even with tough-as-nails front-line desk veteran bill o'reilly leading the charge:

the thomas more law center's "the battle for american values" cruise with bill o'reilly has been canceled. an automated message at corporate travel service, inc. didn't try to hide the fact that there was little interest in spending eight nights on boat with fox news channel's top personality: "hello and thank you for your interest in the thomas more law center cruise with bill o'reilly. unfortunately, the cruise did not have the participation that all parties anticipated. although the guest appearance by mr. o'reilly and the other speakers have been canceled, the ship will still sail ..." corporate travel service told sweet jesus, i hate bill o'reilly, intl. that the goal was to get 800 people onboard for a caribbean fantasy week with o'reilly. even though the cruise was promoted heavily on the o'reilly factor television program, the radio factor, and o'reilly's web site, they sold only a fraction of the tickets available. according to the thomas more law center, the response was surprisingly poor. the organization ultimately renegotiated with holland america cruise line in an attempt to pare down the expected guest list but maintain the event as scheduled. sales continued to trickle in and finally, after two more negotiations with holland america to reduce the group size, the event was finally scrapped. sadly, "the battle for american values" will be hard for mr. o'reilly to win if he can't manage to launch a single ship.

(report courtesy of sweet jesus, i hate bill o'reilly, international)

dead lines

uh-oh, looks like tom friedman's finally had enough:

... a national unity government can only be the product of iraq's leaders deciding whether they love their kids more than they hate each other. that is the most important question iraqis must answer. it can't be avoided any longer. that being the case, it is time for america to starting talking "deadlines." too many iraqi factions think they can just keep wrestling each other for small advantage while the country burns, but the u.s. army provides a floor of security that prevents total chaos. the iraqi parties need to know that we are not going to be played this way forever....

now you're talking, tom! nothing like a good old-fashioned deadline to whip some badly needed discipline and drive into the stubborn laggards! so — how does six months sound to you? perfect! i thought you'd agree.

on second thought, why wait when we can just send in presidential hopeful john mccain?

in a small, mirror-paneled room guarded by a secret service agent and packed with some of the city’s wealthiest and most influential political donors, mr. mccain got right to the point. "one of the things i would do if i were president would be to sit the shiites and the sunnis down and say, 'stop the bullshit,'" said mr. mccain, according to shirley cloyes dioguardi, an invitee, and two other guests.

can we get this guy on a plane out there tonight?

sacrifice

for a country at war is there any more heart-rending ceremony than memorial day?

because as we pause to honor the fallen, as we acknowledge the sacrifices they've made on our behalf, we must also consider the sacrifices we have or haven't made for them.

sacrifice, or the paucity of it, is perhaps at the heart of the failure of the iraq adventure. it is a failed cakewalk, a failed war-on-the-cheap. it was supposed to have been not a war but a police action and it was supposed to have been finished in may 2003 — that’s all that had been planned for. it is an occupation attempted with the minimum resources, run by shirkers and dodgers, manned by backdoor conscripts and mercenaries. it is deficit-funded during a time of tax cuts, asking no real demand from the citizenry but their applause, and lacking that, their silence.

so the question we face is what are we willing to sacrifice in support of the occupation? what are we willing to sacrifice in opposition to it? personally, i have never supported the war, am not in the military, nor have family in the military, but i can’t think of anything that i’ve had to sacrifice in opposing the occupation except the time i’ve spent writing against it.

on another blog (i can’t remember which), someone asked that if this war is so vitally important, why no draft, no full mobilization of our resources? perhaps the unspoken (and unspeakable) answer is now that this “slam-dunk” investment has become a money pit, the architects want to hold onto whatever diminishing profit remains — and i’m referring here more to those mega-bases than exxon and halliburton profits — at least until they can “ponzi” the war off onto the next administration.

the time is drawing near, if it is not in fact already upon us, when people are going to have to make a decision. some believe that the occupation is necessary, if only to responsibly fix what we broke. others like myself believe that withdrawal is necessary, to make way for those who actually can fix it. it's time for those supporting the occupation to make the sacrifices necessary to make it work or those opposing the occupation to make the sacrifices necessary to stop this war and remove the officials running it. but what those sacrifices may be i don't have an answer to yet.

club fed: not what it used to be

don't rat. don't cut in line. don't ask. don't touch. pay your debts. flush often. don't whine. — david novak, downtime: a guide to federal incarceration

while basking in the communal schadenfreude that's descended on the internet in the wake of the convictions of enron's ken lay and jeffrey skilling, i've noticed a lot of commenters tempering their glee with the expectations that lay and skilling, however much they deserve it, won't exactly be breaking rocks at leavenworth, but instead sinking putts in a minimum-security "country-club" federal prison.

so what kind of a vacation experience are kenny-boy and jeff looking at? i ran a short search on federal prisons and quickly discovered an archived thread on prisontalk.com that addresses the concerns of those looking for advice on the way in.

the thread is particularly noteworthy since it reproduces in full an august 11, 2002 new york times article about federal prisons, "white-collar criminal? pack lightly for prison", published in the wake of the indictment of sam waksal, former ceo of imclone systems, whose stock got his pal martha stewart in so much trouble:

assume you are a major corporate executive accused of a securities fraud that has caused hundreds of millions of dollars in investor losses. maybe you'll be acquitted. but what if you're convicted? how long will your sentence last? where will you serve the time? and will there be tennis?

although the article doesn't closely examine the stories of country-club living in federal prisons in the past, prisons conditions and sentencing since 1987 have become significantly harsher for everyone, and especially for white-collar criminals:

... nonviolent criminals convicted of financial felonies can face years or even decades in prison, especially since november 2001, when the u.s. sentencing commission drastically increased sentences for white-collar crime, with special emphasis on frauds involving many millions of dollars. under old sentencing guidelines, a first-time, nonviolent offender who committed a fraud that caused 50 or more people to lose $100 million or more faced a prison sentence of five to 6½ years in a federal institution. now, under the formula used by the sentencing commission in the 2001 guidelines, the same individual faces a minimum of 19½ years and a maximum of 24½ years. ... ten years is a critical threshold; convicts sentenced to more than 10 years are placed in a prison behind fences and razor wire. less than 10, and you've got a good chance of residing at a prison camp, often fenceless, for inmates with low risk for escape or violence.

prison for convicts of all stripes has become a more sterile experience:

almost no personal property is allowed, not even contact lenses. inmates are allowed only one religious text, one pair of eyeglasses, dentures and dental bridge, one solid wedding ring with no stones, $20 in change for vending machines, and cash or money orders for an inmate account. an inmate can put unlimited funds in the account but is allowed to spend only $175 a month. inmates can buy from a small selection of shoes, toiletries and snacks in the commissary, but most money is consumed on telephone calls, which are monitored. all prisoners are required to work in jobs that pay 11 cents an hour — tax free. living conditions are tight. at most camps, bunk beds are crammed into small cubicles that hold two to six inmates. think of the office cubicles occupied by the minions at your company, and imagine sharing one as living quarters with another person you might or might not like for the next several years. ... those serving time for white-collar crimes number only about 1,000 of the federal system's 160,000 inmates. so you'll likely find yourself surrounded by drug dealers, robbers and check kiters.

oh dear, not exactly the polo set.

meanwhile, options for whiling away the time have become fewer and fewer, though if you're lucky, there just may be tennis after all:

the most productive way to serve your time, former inmates say, is self-improvement. several camps at former military bases do have tennis courts, now called multiuse surfaces, that accommodate volleyball and basketball. many inmates end up in better physical shape than their office careers ever allowed. education in the federal prison system is widely considered a joke by inmates, but most camps have a library and there is plenty of time for reading and writing. inmates can receive books by mail, although storage space is limited. they can subscribe to magazines, except those deemed pornographic.

but, as related by commenters in the thread, the weightpiles made classic by many a prison drama are being allowed to die of decrepitude:

greyghost: just for the record — on the weight lifting equipment — that was not what the bop [bureau of prisons] wanted. that is what congress wanted. the bop liked the idea that inmates had the opportunity to excerise, work out, release their stress and frustrations out lifting weights. congress just thought that the bop, by allowing weight lifting, was doing nothing more than helpding [sic] to churn out bigger and stronger predators out on the street. wileycoyote: ... as for the weights, you are correct. they don't have to remove the old ones unless they become damaged or broken and they will not be replaced. the problem lies with the fact that there really are very few of the older prisons that still do have weights and every time a new warden or new captain comes on the yard the first thing they usually say is "if there is even one fight on the weightpile, those weights are out of here." eventually there will be a fight. even if no weights are used in the fight, if it happens within shouting distance of the weightpile they are gone. i've seen this happen at least 3 times.

and of course internet access is understandably verboten:

fed-x: no computers hooked to the internet what-so-ever, unfortunately.. the bop is afraid of computers.. you will be lucky to get access to them at all.. some institutions have small computer classes but not all of them.. they are definitely on a physically isolated network with no outside connections.

ultimately it seems that the worst punishment awaiting lay and skilling is the enormity of time they now have to do absolutely nothing but contemplate their reversals of fortune. i would imagine, at least in the minds of these two high-fliers, having lived in the lap of every luxury imaginable, with every possible entertainment available to them at their beck and call, that to be reduced to staring for years at a steel toilet and grey walls, must be the cruelest punishment of all.

pkduc: from my experience in federal prison, the biggest obstacle i faced was boredom. i was at pekin (female camp) in il. there was absolutely nothing to do. there were no programs except for drug offenders and the library contained nothing but outdated law books and old paperback romance novels. the boredom was mind numbing.

shortly before the new york times piece, new york magazine covered "club fed" in a 5-page feature, "you've got jail". its focus on the personal experiences of several inmates makes it a pretty entertaining read:

when charles surrendered four years ago, he had, remarkably, even less luck than freddy. convicted of defrauding the government, he was supposed to serve his sixteen-month sentence at allenwood camp. but when he arrived, he was told, without explanation, that he'd been reassigned to allenwood's low-security facility up the road. only two weeks after his arrival, one of the guards found a hypodermic needle and steroids under the mattress of one of his two roommates. the three men were immediately strip-searched and inspected for needle marks. then they were thrown in separate holes. the lights were off when charles arrived. men in the neighboring cells were howling and pounding their fists against the walls, which they would continue to do all night. thinking it was a light switch, charles hit a small plastic button next to a mirror. "don't touch that!" charles whipped around. "that's the panic button, you son of a bitch!" tyrone had been sitting in the hole for four months, because he refused to work. when charles first saw him, he had all the thoughts that a soft, pasty white guy would be expected to have when confronted with a hulking black cellmate: "this is a cliché." it didn't take long, though, before he discovered that clichés were useless in prison life. "tyrone," says charles, "was one of the most interesting people at allenwood." to pass the time and calm his nerves, charles asked lots of questions. too many. three days later, when the warden came by, tyrone gave her a very different response when she asked if he was ready to work. "yeah, i'm ready," he barked. "this fuckin' white guy won't stop talking."

we really mean it this time

we really, really do.

[u.s. ambassador to iraq zalmay khalilzad] added that any turnaround "really depends on the performance of this government" and whether it succeeds in curbing the violence. asked whether the united states would have to admit failure and pull out if there was no improvement in the next six months or a year, he said: "we will have to wait and see." ... "the next six months will be truly critical for iraq," khalilzad said.

so is tom friedman earning any royalties on this tune ... ?

he should.

still waiting

david shuster, having caught his breath after his last big report on karl rove's pending indictment, decides to play it safe on tonight's msnbc hardball with chris matthews:

shuster: it's now been 26 days since rove testified to the grand jury for the fifth time. defense lawyers say prosecutors remain focused on rove's claim of a bad memory, regarding a conversation with time magazine reporter matt cooper. rove's legal team and former prosecutors tracking the investigation expect special patrick fitzgerald to announce a decision at any time.

yes, i expect he will, at that.

the waiting game

things seem to be getting out of hand.

still no rove indictment. one journalist's already checkered career may be irreparably damaged. his sponsor's reputation sways in the wind. prosecutor fitzgerald remains silent. has something gone horribly wrong in the plame investigation?

one would certainly thinks so from the ballooning body of speculation overtaking the blogosphere. could all this be msnbc reporter david shuster's fault?

the ball got rolling with shuster's breathless but compelling argument made on msnbc countdown with keith olbermann on may 8:

olbermann: what are you gathering on these two main points? is the decision by mr. fitzgerald coming soon? would it be an indictment? shuster: well, karl rove's legal team has told me that they expect that a decision will come sometime in the next two weeks. and i am convinced that karl rove will, in fact, be indicted. and there are a couple of reasons why. first of all, you don't put somebody in front of a grand jury at the end of an investigation, or for the fifth time, as karl rove testified a couple — a week and a half ago, unless you feel that's your only chance of avoiding indictment. so, in other words, the burden starts with karl rove to stop the charges. secondly, it's now been 13 days since rove testified. after testifying for three and a half hours, prosecutors refused to give him any indication that he was clear. he has not gotten any indication since then, and the lawyers that i've spoken with outside of this case say that if rove had gotten himself out of the jam, he would have heard something by now. and then the third issue is one we've talked about before, and that is, in the scooter libby indictment, karl rove was identified as official a. it's the term that prosecutors use when they try to get around restrictions on naming somebody in an indictment. we've looked through the records of patrick fitzgerald from when he was prosecuting cases in new york, and from when he's been u.s. attorney in chicago. and in every single investigation, whenever fitzgerald has identified somebody as official a, that person eventually gets indicted themselves, in every single investigation. will karl rove defy history in this particular case? i suppose anything is possible when you're dealing with a white house official. but the lawyers that i've been speaking with, who know this stuff, say, don't bet on karl rove getting out of this.

that report gave an outside deadline of two weeks (may 22) for an indictment to appear. leopold's explosive story, coming just four days after shuster's report, became irresistible to many because it fit the schedule.

but once the deadline passed, speculation took off faster than exxon's profits — something's gone horribly wrong, right?

strangely, no one's really questioned the integrity of the two week deadline itself. the only person who could have lent credibility to the deadline was fitzgerald. but it was never put forth or confirmed by fitzgerald. the two week deadline put forth by schuster came from rove's team:

well, karl rove's legal team has told me that they expect that a decision will come sometime in the next two weeks.

rove may have floated the deadline for his own purposes, in order to sow the speculation, confusion and disappointment that's now descended on everyone following the case.

if so, it is ultimately just a delaying tactic, since any indictment that's finally handed down will be national front page news, and any confusion will be then dispelled. in the meantime, fitzgerald may in fact be working right on schedule all along — his schedule — which, like everything else he's handling in this case, he obviously prefers to keep to himself.

time to shit

as reported in my post "has it been six months yet?", tom friedman has a problem with deadlines. but matthew yglesias, who's currently playing guest host in josh marshall's stead at talking points memo, reports that he's not the only one dithering:

yglesias: beyond poking fun at people, there's a serious issue here. voters are upset about how things are going in iraq. so democrats want to criticize the bush iraq policy. this means they must agree that things are going very badly in iraq. but the consultant class along with various others has determined that calling for withdrawal is a losing strategy. consequently, democrats find themselves arguing that iraq is perpetually on the brink of total disaster as a result of bush's policies, but never, ever, ever actually goes over the tipping point of becoming the sort of lost cause where the main american goal has to be cutting our losses.

i think an important distinction needs to be made between those like friedman who insist that we're always six months away from the crucial deciding factor for staying or withdrawing from iraq, and those insisting that iraq is always on the brink of disaster. while it's certainly possible that a situation can teeter precariously for an indefinite period, it's certainly not practical to allow a period for making a crucial decision to remain open indefinitely. the first concerns conditions that may be outside one's control, but the second is about conditions when one actually takes control.

so those who continue to claim that iraq is at the tipping point could still be right (although i personally don't believe so; i believe civil war began last year); but friedman proved himself wrong years ago. either iraq has hit his magic milestone, obligating us to stay, or iraq hasn't, obliging us to leave, but to continue to move the goalposts and insist that it's not yet time to make a decision is to indulge in a most disingenuous and deadly game of procrastination.

friedman's six months has expired five times already. so, to paraphrase nixon, it's time for everyone to shit or get off the pot.

the song remains the same

ok, sure, so there's a few minor security openings still available, but what the hey, i feel like another chorus of "turn, turn, turn". how about you? all together, now ...

president bush: the formation of a unity government in iraq is a new day for the millions of iraqis who want to live in freedom. and the formation of the unity government in iraq begins a new chapter in our relationship with iraq.

has it been six months yet?

not quite, according to new york times columnist tom friedman:

the next six months in iraq — which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there — are the most important six months in u.s. foreign policy in a long, long time. — new york times, "the chant not heard", november 30, 2003

what i absolutely don't understand is just at the moment when we finally have a un-approved iraqi-caretaker government made up of — i know a lot of these guys — reasonably decent people and more than reasonably decent people, everyone wants to declare it's over. i don't get it. it might be over in a week, it might be over in a month, it might be over in six months, but what's the rush? can we let this play out, please? — npr fresh air, june 3, 2004

what we're gonna find out, bob, in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war. — cbs face the nation, october 3, 2004

improv time is over. this is crunch time. iraq will be won or lost in the next few months. but it won't be won with high rhetoric. it will be won on the ground in a war over the last mile. — new york times, "the last mile", november 28, 2004

i think we're in the end game now. ... i think we're in a six-month window here where it's going to become very clear and this is all going to pre-empt i think the next congressional election—that's my own feeling— let alone the presidential one. — nbc meet the press, september 25, 2005

maybe the cynical europeans were right. maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. that will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the sunnis in iraq intend to be. if they come around, a decent outcome in iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. if they won't, then we are wasting our time. — new york times, "the endgame in iraq", september 28, 2005

we've teed up this situation for iraqis, and i think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or whether it's going to come together. — cbs face the nation, december 18, 2005

we're at the beginning of, i think, the decisive, i would say, six months in iraq, ok, because i feel like this election — you know, i felt from the beginning iraq was going to be ultimately, charlie, what iraqis make of it. — pbs charlie rose show, december 20, 2005

the only thing i am certain of is that in the wake of this election, iraq will be what iraqis make of it — and the next six months will tell us a lot. i remain guardedly hopeful. — new york times, "the measure of success", december 21, 2005

i think that we're going to know after six to nine months whether this project has any chance of succeeding. in which case, i think the american people as a whole will want to play it out or whether it really is a fool's errand. — oprah winfrey show, january 23, 2006

i think we're in the end game there, in the next three to six months, bob. we've got for the first time an iraqi government elected on the basis of an iraqi constitution. either they're going to produce the kind of inclusive consensual government that we aspire to in the near term, in which case america will stick with it, or they're not, in which case i think the bottom's going to fall out. — cbs, january 31, 2006

i think we are in the end game. the next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in iraq. — msnbc today show, march 2, 2006

can iraqis get this government together? if they do, i think the american public will continue to want to support the effort there to try to produce a decent, stable iraq. but if they don't, then i think the bottom is going to fall out of public support here for the whole iraq endeavor. so one way or another, i think we're in the end game in the sense it's going to be decided in the next weeks or months whether there's an iraq there worth investing in. and that is something only iraqis can tell us. — cnn late edition with wolf blitzer, april 23, 2006

well, i think that we're going to find out, chris, in the next year to six months — probably sooner — whether a decent outcome is possible there, and i think we're going to have to just let this play out. — msnbc hardball with chris matthews, may 11, 2006

yes, folks, you've heard tom's song before. it's sung to the tune of "turn, turn, turn".

(hat tip to the media researchniks at f.a.i.r.)

gangsta rapture

i've always been a sucker for a good character study, and to my delight, in the last week of april, a thing of sheer unintended comedic beauty, dating back to 1997, was rescued from the 24/7 public-access sideshow of cable tv. given some of the truly borderline personalities already in fierce, no-holds-barred competition for our attention on free cable, you can imagine what it takes to stand out with any distinction. but i think we have a winner.

anyone who remembers the 90s prime-time tv sketch comedy in living color will recognize damon wayans' surly homey the clown, but this particular homey has traded his stuffed sock for a bible. if you haven't yet had the pleasure, meet ray ray, host of call-in ministry spirit of truth: one man show, who's come in the name of jesus by the power of the holy spirit to spread the word, and if you don't like it, you can kiss his muthafuckin ass, you stupid bee-yotch!

for those not reflexively repulsed by free-flung obscenity, especially obscenity freely flung in the name of the almighty, spirit of truth is genuinely hilarious, precisely because of all the wanton blasphemy.

ray ray:	next caller! mimi!
mimi:	y'know what, you are a real ...
ray ray:	i don't give a fuck whatchu think, bitch!!!
mimi:	... about ...
ray ray:	your thoughts — your thoughts —
mimi:	... you don't know ...
ray ray:	— your thoughts ain't my thoughts!
mimi:	... you need to go take that ...
ray ray:	bitch, i'm flowin' straight from the survivor scroll!!
mimi:	[ inaudible ]
ray ray:	cut that bitch off!!! next caller!

but ray ray's show delivers much more than cuss-soaked brimstone. our prophet's abusive persona, his bizarre hairstyle (a mullet on steroids? an inverse bowl-cut?), his missing tooth, his dubious-looking oversized bible and his pimp cane, topped off by the pyschedelic, unanchored, roller-coaster camerawork are just the most obvious accents punctuating his production. i've yet to tire of it. there's something mesmerizing about his diatribe, a je ne sais quois that probably feeds the same urge that compels us to take just one more peek at the scene of the wreck.

one of the less obvious aspects of my fascination with ray ray is cultural, so forgive me for indulging in a bit of armchair sociology. i don't think i'd be too far out on a limb to presume that ray ray is a product of penal institutions. it's a presumption that hasn't escaped at least one of his callers:

voice #1:	lemmee ask you a question: how come when you readin' you act like you have a hard time readin'?
voice #2:	he musta been in jail!!
ray ray:	cause i'm god, bitch!

ray ray probably didn't get too far in school before he graduated to prison. and in prison all psychosocial development comes to an abrupt halt, at least any development not immediately related to basic survival skills. so when ray ray was finally let free, he was still the same raw schoolkid that had been locked away, only now he was more brutish, and perhaps psychotic as well. such is the crucible that is our prison system.

so where does the evangelizing come in? one might wonder just what ray ray hopes to accomplish by browbeating his prospective converts. he seems thoroughly oblivious to the irony that his abusive sermonizing inspires, to a person, only reciprocal abuse from his callers. not a soul misses his opportunity to mock the prophet of the lord jesus by the power of the holy spirit:

caller:	... love whatcha doin ... i love all your cussin' an' carryin' on ...
ray ray:	you the devil ... ? aha-hah!! you the devil!! you a satanist, huh?
caller:	... we gonna have a ...
ray ray:	you — 'ey, 'ey, then you wrote a book, too, then right? you got a book with blood on it, huh? you satan, huh? who created yo ass, satan?
caller:	[ inaudible ]
ray ray:	who created your ass? i come in the name of jesus by the power of the holy spirit!
caller:	... i want you to ...
ray ray:	i come in the name of jesus by the power of the holy spirit!
caller:	... i'm the devil, an' i'm'a fuck yo ass up ...
ray ray:	the devil is a motherfuckin' liar! so you know i ain't worried! bee-yotch!!! stupid bitch!
caller:	... bitch ...

i suspect the prophet was himself a prison convert; that the god ray ray discovered behind bars was a particularly wrathful one might explain the complete absence of any ability to engage people in any manner other than a domineering vindictive contempt. his attitude no doubt helped him survive lockup, but, as far as we can tell, it isn't very helpful in winning a devoted flock — his "144,000 strong" — much less in getting anyone who isn't already his prag to listen to anything he has to say. to complete the picture, a psychotic break from reality probably inhibits any ability to objectively evaluate his own interactions with others.

ray ray's hold on sanity seems tenuous at best: he insists that he is god and writes his own rap-flavored scriptures (scraptures?) to the power of his own holy spirit. but evidently he proved stable enough to have put together a preoccupying outlet for his psychoses, this cable program for spreading his gospel. i would imagine that, in a pre-cable era, he would have been relegated, like vast majority of nameless prophets before him, to a street corner, where his relentless abuse and unrestrained arrogance most likely would have quickly led to a violent confrontation and back to prison. in this sense we might consider him, for the time that his program was being broadcast, uniquely blessed.

man, i come in the name of jesus by the power of the holy spirit. it don' matter how you come with me. is you — is you down doin' what i'm talkin about doin': lawyers an' get this book open. trained in these words to get the poor, the fatherless an' the widows up outta them penitentiaries. are you down wit that? you ain't down wit that, shut yo goddamn ass up!!!

the limits of failure, pt. iii

hmmm. that didn't take long.

a new cnn poll, comparing attitudes towards president bush's job performance with that of his predecessor bill clinton, seems to have put josh marshall off our running wager:

speaks for itself. and i suspect americans attitudes toward president bush will own [sic] grow more grim over time.

clinton outperformed bush in every measure: economy, foreign policy, national security, disaster management, promoting unity, meeting people's needs and honesty.

looks like buyer's remorse has officially set in.

poll pall

virtually overnight the washington post has generated a poll showing twice as many supporters than objectors to bush's illegal nsa spying program, which only yesterday was revealed to have been accumulating records on "tens of millions of americans", contrary to the administration's repeated assurances. bush supporters are of course ecstatic at any news that can be wrung into kool-aid while bush critics seem to be reflexively retreating into their ready disenchantment with the apathetic hordes.

i was planning to post my own analysis of the poll, whose construction raises serious questions regarding the framing of issues, and which completely ignored the central issue of warrants, court orders and oversight, but glenn greenwald's "polling hysteria and the nsa program" nimbly beat me to the punch:

... when the nsa eavesdropping scandal was first disclosed, rasmussen reports quickly issued a blatantly flawed poll purporting to show that "sixty-four percent (64%) of americans believe the national security agency (nsa) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the united states." the question mentioned nothing about warrants. it mentioned nothing about fisa. and it specified that the government would be eavesdropping only on conversations "between terrorism suspects." the only surprise with the results was that only 64% favored that. One would think that virtually everyone would favor eavesdropping on terrorism suspects. nonetheless, since that was the first poll, it was held up by bush followers as proof that the nsa scandal was political suicide for democrats ... as the debate over the nsa scandal became more informed and more americans understood the issues at stake, virtually every poll thereafter showed that a majority or plurality of americans oppose warrantless eavesdropping and/or believe the president broke the law, and some even show that a plurality favors the censure resolution. opinions change when people stand up and explain why what the government is doing is wrong and dangerous, and americans respect politicians who are willing to do that even when — especially when — they are not guaranteed by the consulting class ahead of time that they will win. all other issues aside, there is nothing for bush opponents to lose here by pursuing this issue. nobody who has abandoned george bush is going to again become a supporter of his because he is keeping track of the telephone calls of every single american.... ... meanwhile, in the real world, ever since the nsa scandal was revealed, the president's approval rating has done nothing but plummet. that, of course, does not demonstrate a causal relationship, but it certainly proves that scandals of this type do not remotely help the president in any way. all of those frightened beltway democrats who were anonymously screeching that russ feingold's censure resolution played right into karl rove's omnipotent hands, that it destroyed the grand democratic plan, that it would allow the president to recover by forcing the debate back onto his turf — how wrong were they, as always?

i encourage you to read the entire post.

meanwhile, for a no-nonsense takedown of the poll's questions themselves, be sure to also check out former telephone pollster krazypuppy's "worst poll ever: americans do care" at daily kos.

the limits of failure, pt. ii

josh marshall pauses to reconsider our little wager?

hmmm. that didn't take long. bush at 29%. harris interactive's new poll, just out.

two days may be too early to be certain, but, as i previously argued, there appears to be no need for bush to commit any further acts of malfeasance (though further acts are most definitely still to come), as josh had proposed, in order to sustain his slide in the polls; time itself will take care of his remaining support. i'd say he's officially in free fall.

some advice for senate democrats

there is a bully in the schoolyard.

this bully is not interested in playing by the rules. he thinks that the rules are for sissies. he is counting on their yielding to rules that he refuses to follow.

the sissies need to stop cowering. they need to stop worrying about looking like sissies. the bully has already proven that.

the sissies need to realize that no matter how much they try to accommodate the bully, the bully has no interest in making life easier for the sissies. the bully only wants to make life easier for himself.

the sissies need to put aside whatever idiosyncratic dysfunctions that prevent them from cooperating. because without cooperation they are simply prey for the bully.

the sissies need to confront the bully. outside, where everyone can see, so everyone will know. everyone has to know. it is of utmost importance that everyone knows.

the sissies need to bloody his nose.

the limits of failure

josh marshall makes a bet and posits a diminishing probability that bush's poll numbers will continue their tortured drift into hitherto uncharted depths of presidential ignominy:

mind you, i'm not saying that the president's popularity will continue to fall into the 20s. the continuing descent is something like a mathematical limit. each point lower digs deeper into the base of truly committed partisans and unquestioning hacks. so knocking off each new point on the way down requires ever greater displays of incompetence, failure and general infamy. and even for president bush that's a challenge.

i think josh misses the important role of genuine good news in supporting morale. it's not necessary for "ever greater displays of incompetence, failure and general infamy", as he puts it, to sustain the downward pressure on bush's approval rating. i would argue that the lack of good news all by itself is just as corrosive. even fervent supporters need regular helpings of good news in their diet; fans cannot live on the absence of disaster alone. people need tangible evidence that things are improving or moving forward; without that evidence, their patience eventually runs out, at which point they will abandon a losing or stagnating cause.

treading water is tiresome. so until bush can toss his dwindling supporters a real lifeline, a positive reason to keep paddling — something more than a slogan and a photo op — i predict that his numbers will continue to fall, especially when it doesn't get any better than this.

it's also worth mentioning another dynamic that i believe may be contributing to the erosion of bush's base: the effect of watching like-minded folk abandon the cause increases the pressure on the remaining faithful. there's nothing earth-shattering in that observation, but instead of taking it for granted, i want to elaborate a bit on how it appears to work. (disclaimer: i'm no polling professional so i have no studies or statistics to back my claims here, so yes, i'm pulling this hypothesis straight out of my ass!) the pressure to leave is greatest on those on the threshold exposed by the most recently departed.

dubya's followers are obviously not monolithic in many ways, including with regard to the intensity of their attachment to him. the least committed left first, and with each successive wave of defections, a new vulnerable front is exposed. dubya apparently has just lost the 32%ers, leaving the front in the hands of the 31%ers. unless reinforcements arrive, in the form of good news, the 31%ers will eventually join suit.

what i find fascinating about this dynamic is that i believe that the front is far more important to dubya's support than it first appears. i believe that the front serves as an insulator which allows those behind the front — in this case, those at 30% and below — to hold onto the dream. those on the front line are the heavy lifters, supporting the faith of everyone behind them. as long as the 31%ers hold fast, those below will feel safe and justified in their continued mule-headed commitment. as long as those in line ahead of them remain loyal, their loyalty will never budge, because, as any loyal keyboard commando knows, actually having to serve on the front line is no picnic, whether in iraq or in the polls.

so right now, it's up to the 31%ers. exactly what it will take to shake their faith, exactly when that moment will happen, or, most importantly, exactly how to identify and manipulate them, i have no idea, but ultimately it may take nothing but time. and so, like dominoes, they will fall.