no halli-prisons, either

i'm starting to think that the white house, now that it's entering lame duck mode, is leaking executive orders for no other reason than to savor the sheer sadistic joy of scaring the bejeezus out of left blogistan every few days. and left blogistan never fails to deliver on the shrieks.

my previous post covered the latest presidential "finding" on iran and gave my reasons, once again, why we aren't going to be nuking iran tomorrow. it's probably no coincidence that washington and teheran thawed a 27-year diplomatic freeze in the same week this "finding" was leaked. "don't worry," seems to be the message to their fellow neocon war-mongers, "we're just putting on a show for the cameras ... we're still planning to screw these guys" — wink, wink.

now "national security presidential directive 51/homeland security presidential directive 20" has hit the internets and once again the old ladies are fanning their breasts because bush is apparently stealthily grabbing dictatorial emergency powers for himself. considering that the directives are posted on the white house web site, it's not much of a stealth move.

in fact, enough of a to-do was raised that the ordinarily agnostic investigative blogger josh marshall decided to invite a small panel of experts in law, government and civil rights to vet the directives. how scary were bush's orders? not so much:

the consensus amongst experts seems to be that the directive, aimed at establishing "continuity of government" after a major disaster, is not new nor does the policy seem to expand executive power. in fact, mike german, the policy counsel to the aclu’s washington office told me that an executive continuity plan actually might “not be that bad of an idea.” executive power expert, nyu law professor david golove, also sent me an email saying the directive didn’t appear to be a power grab. ... german called the release a positive sign, but said he urges the release of all previous directives so we can get a real sense of what has changed. the concept of continuity of government applies to all branches of government. christopher kelleye, a presidency expert and political science professor at miami university ohio told me in an email that he didn’t see any new powers listed in the directive, but wondered why congress hasn’t done the same thing.

granted, marshall's panel is an informal poll, but the great majority of his commenters were hardly reassured:

"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?" "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."

hmmm ... now let's all take a deep breath.

look people, a lot of you guys — too many — sound like the same chicken littles who were endlessly predicting false flag attacks and martial law all of last year in the run-up to the midterms, and all of 2004 in the run-up to the presidential elections ...

while it makes exciting and breathless blog chatter, i still don't see it, folks. it's not like bushco™ hasn't already had ample opportunities to set these paranoid fantasies into motion.

because i don't recall congress being abolished nor any martial law decrees being issued nor any halliburton death camps being filled after 9-11.

nor any after katrina.

nor before the 2002 midterms. nor the 2004 elections. nor the 2006 midterms.

so tell me, just what are our neocon overlords waiting for?

no more slam dunks

this week's news leak that bush has secretly signed

a "nonlethal presidential finding" [?!? 1] that puts into motion a cia plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of iran’s currency and international financial transactions.

... has the blogoshpere once again atwitter (as leaks about iran typically incite every few weeks) that all-out war with iran is just around the corner. even as the same article cautions that while

"vice president cheney helped to lead the side favoring a military strike," said former cia official riedel, "but i think they have come to the conclusion that a military strike has more downsides than upsides."

... many still see this as one more step down the road to armageddon:

"i think everybody in the region knows that there is a proxy war already afoot with the united states supporting anti-iranian elements in the region as well as opposition groups within iran," said vali nasr, adjunct senior fellow for mideast studies at the council on foreign relations. "and this covert action is now being escalated by the new u.s. directive, and that can very quickly lead to iranian retaliation and a cycle of escalation can follow," nasr said.

i've already touched on some of the reasons why war with iran will not be forthcoming, such as an increasingly hostile (to the neocons) political climate:

"... the trash talk in a street altercation escalates in proportion to the expanding distance between the two protagonists.... it's when the fist fight has been avoided (or tabled) and they're putting distance between each other that the taunting becomes louder and more florid.... ... they're waging rhetorical escalation because de-escalation is the unacknowledged order of the day, and there's nothing they can do about it." — james wolcott, 9/2/06

an increasingly recalcitrant military:

"with the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership, i offer a challenge to those still in uniform: a leader's responsibility is to give voice to those who can't — or don't have the opportunity to — speak. enlisted members of the armed forces swear their oath to those appointed over them; an officer swears an oath not to a person but to the constitution. the distinction is important ..." — marine lieutenant general greg newbold, retired, 4/9/06

[admiral william] fallon’s refusal to support a further naval buildup in the gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it. a source who met privately with fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted fallon as saying that an attack on iran "will not happen on my watch". asked how he could be sure, the source says, fallon replied, "you know what choices i have. i’m a professional." fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, "there are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."

and a more robust opponent:

... unlike iraq, iran boasts the capability of striking back at its attacker, both with and without warning. its long shadow across the straits of hormuz and its purported international network of sleeper cells have been thoroughly dissected in other publications, so suffice it here to say that most americans would prefer that iran's boasts remain untested.

but there is an overarching dimension to this ongoing melodrama that i haven't yet made crystal clear.

war with iran won't be a "slam dunk".

remember, when the white house and its neocon enablers first seduced america into abetting its invasion of iraq, the primary pitch they made that john q. public found so enticing was that "regime change" would be easy:

"i believe demolishing hussein's military power and liberating iraq would be a cakewalk. let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) it was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps." — reagan arms control director ken adelman, 2/13/02 "five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that." — defense secretary donald rumsfeld, 11/15/02 "a slam-dunk case." — cia director george tenet, 12/12/02 "we will win this conflict. we will win it easily." — sen. john mccain, 1/22/03 "i think it will go relatively quickly, ... [in] weeks rather than months." — vice president dick cheney, 3/16/03 "major combat operations in iraq have ended." — president george bush, 5/1/03

and cheap:

"iraq, unlike afghanistan, is a rather wealthy country. iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the iraqi people. and so there are a variety of means that iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction." — white house spokesman ari fleischer, 2/18/03 "the oil revenues of iraq could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years ... we're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." — deputy defense secretary paul wolfowitz, 3/27/03 "in terms of the american taxpayers contribution, [$1.7 billion] is it for the us. the rest of the rebuilding of iraq will be done by other countries and iraqi oil revenues ... the american part of this will be 1.7 billion. we have no plans for any further-on funding for this." — usaid director andrew natsios, 4/23/03

and we'd all be heroes:

"if we just let our own vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to be clever and piece together clever diplomatic solutions to this thing, but just wage a total war against these tyrants, i think we will do very well and our children will sing great songs about us years from now." — michael leeden, american enterprise institute, 10/29/01 "i think that the people of iraq would welcome the u.s. force as liberators; they would not see us as oppressors, by any means." — vice president dick cheney, 9/9/02 "think of the faces in afghanistan when the people were liberated, when they moved out in the streets and they started singing and flying kites and women went to school and people were able to function and other countries were able to start interacting with them. that's what would happen in iraq." — defense secretary donald rumsfeld, 9/13/02 "the iraqi people understand what this crisis is about. like the people of france in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator. they know that america will not come as a conqueror." — deputy defense secretary paul wolfowitz, 3/11/03 "as i told the president on january 10th, i think they will be greeted with sweets and flowers in the first months and simply have very, very little doubts that that is the case. this is a remarkable situation in which the population of a country that's about to have a war waged over its head positively wants the war while all kinds of other countries don't for one reason or another. that should tell us a lot about this war and about the future [inaudible] which i think is desufficiently emphasized." — iraqi exile kanan makiya, 3/17/03 "i think when the people of basra no longer feel the threat of that regime, you are going to see an explosion of joy and relief." — deputy defense secretary paul wolfowitz, 3/24/03

explosions, paul? most certainly, and to this very day. joy and relief? well .. not so much.

the collapse of the occupation and the clearly-forseen civil war unleashed amid the criminal lack of contingency planning for the invasion's aftermath painfully dramatized the dangers of huffing one's own propaganda, particularly propaganda laced with dubious intel cherry-picked and stove-piped from neocon hustlers and iraqi beat artists.

while it's tempting to believe (as many do) that a group of people so horribly misguided must be certifiably insane (and therefore capable of any utter lunacy the most ill-informed paranoiac can dream up), the iraq debacle only proves them to be self-deluding, greedy and morally bankrupt, even evil — but not insane.

because only an insane person launches a war that they don't believe they can easily win, and it was as true for adolf hitler before he invaded poland as it is for george bush before he invaded iraq.

and iran will be no cakewalk.

because thanks to an imploding middle east, a newly-combative congress, a collapsing military and increasingly resistant commanders, a disgusted electorate, a bursting budget, a resurgent taliban and a hezbollah-chastized israel, the war-mongers in washington — and the too-willing public — got a cruelly-needed splash of cold and bitter reality, and right in the kisser.

and while pride childishly demands that they continue rattling their tin swords, in the maddeningly elusive hope that they'll sucker iran into a "gotcha" moment and get them to finally cry "uncle" to prove once and for all america's total pwnage before they slink off into the pages of infamy, the war-mongers know too well that their cynical dream of *cough* "spreading peace and democracy" *cough* across the middle east has just gone up in smoke:

"we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." — george orwell, 1946

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¹ wtf ... ?!? is this supposed to be bush-speak for "no drive-bys"? are presidential "findings" ordinarily "lethal"? and just how many of these "findings" have left bush's desk anyway? there just isn't any end to this crew's thuggery ...

um, who's irrelevant ... ?

in a biting rebuke, the white house on sunday dismissed former president jimmy carter as "increasingly irrelevant" after his harsh criticism of president bush. carter was quoted saturday as saying "i think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history." the georgia democrat said bush had overseen an "overt reversal of america's basic values" as expressed by previous administrations, including that of his own farther [sic], former president george h.w. bush. "i think it's sad that president carter's reckless personal criticism is out there," white house spokesman tony fratto responded sunday from crawford, where bush spent the weekend. "i think it's unfortunate," fratto said. "and i think he is proving to be increasingly irrelevant with these kinds of comments."

jimmy carter, that boorish failure, who can point to little more than a nobel peace prize to his credit, is obviously jealous of the commander-guy.

because yes, even 18 months before george w. bush's triumphal exit from the world stage, his stalwart colleagues have already seated him among the fabled champions of conservative republicanism and are weaving epic paeans to his matchless accompishments and his everlasting fame:

(video courtesy of real time with bill maher)

or ... maybe not.

goodbye tony blair

the skies are charcoal grey it's a dreary downtown day but at the end of my 40 foot leash is my little friend quiche quiche la poodle is her name and having a good time on a crummy day is our game. quiche quiche lorraine quiche quiche lorraine everyday i take her out. yeah! she runs around, she shouts out and barks. yeah! cause she's a good doggie she's a sweet, sweet, sweet puppy! arf arf and i know she'll stick by me, yeah! arf arf oh no! here comes a great dane drivin' down the lane quiche, quiche, quiche come back here don't leave me i'll go insane. i'll go insane. how do you like that? has anybody seen a dog dyed dark green about two inches tall, with a strawberry blond fall; sunglasses and a bonnet and designer jeans with appliques on it? the dog that brought me so much joy left me wallowing in pain quiche lorraine i'll show her! do you see the key in my hand? i'm gonna throw it in the lake yes, you've been so rotten to me, you take the cake. i'm just gonna lock the door to your kennel and just you try and come back to me yeah, you'll see. quiche quiche lorraine you mangy mutt. quiche quiche lorraine i'm talking about quiche! quiche quiche lorraine quiche lorraine! — the b-52s, "quiche lorraine"

hello gordon brown.

bait

noun:

1. food used to entice fish or other animals as prey.

   related terms: sitting duck. decoy. cannon fodder. chum.

2. our fighting men and women in iraq, thoughtfully served up on a platter for the bloodlust of our insatiable enemy.

   ... according to disgraced-clintonite-turned-pundit dick morris, who extolled the virtues of the occupation from the comfort and convenience of his studio desk at fox news:

i think that withdrawal from iraq, it obviously gives al qaeda a huge victory — huge victory. on the other hand, if we stay in iraq, it gives them the opportunity to kill more americans, which they really like. one of the things, though, that i think that the anti-war crowd has not considered, is that if we're putting the americans right within their [the terrorists’] arms’ reach, they don’t have to come to wall street to kill americans. they don’t have to knock down the trade center. they can do it around the corner, and convenience is a big factor when you’re a terrorist.

(btw dick, you may not have been told, but i heard that something may have already happened to the trade center ...)

you'll of course remember dick morris from his last appearance on this blog, when in the wake of hurricane katrina he boldly predicted that president bush's ratings "are gonna soar!"

if by "soar" he meant sore or sour, he's been vindicated.

but it may be that time of day when, like that proverbial stopped watch, dick might actually be onto something, since his bff in iraq, nominal al qaeda deputy ayman al-zawahiri, admitted that he knows too well where his care packages are coming from:

in a new video posted today on the internet, al qaeda's no. 2 man, ayman al zawahri, mocks the bill passed by congress setting a timetable for the pullout of u.s. troops in iraq. "this bill will deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the american forces which we have caught in a historic trap," zawahri says in answer to a question posed to him an interviewer. continuing in the same tone, zawahri says, "we ask allah that they only get out of it after losing 200,000 to 300,000 killed, in order that we give the spillers of blood in washington and europe an unforgettable lesson."

and who says al qaeda aren't grateful?

2 am feeding

(image by aarrgghh)

only 626 days (that's one year, 8 months and two weeks) more of the tantrums and the whining — that is, if junior isn't retroactively aborted — then the brat's finally off their hands ... i know speaker of the house nancy pelosi (d-ca) and senate majority leader harry reid (d-nv) will be very relieved.

thirsty?

this one's on the house, you republican gasbags!

bob cesca has a long-overdue message for all those oh-so-deserving and soon-to-be-irrelevant professional pundits, politicians, prognosticators, proselytizers, preachers, peddlers and outright propagandists who've been proven so horrifically wrong for the past six years:

last week, i described a nightmare scenario in which the republicans won the midterm prompting the president, high on mandate juice, to form the department of shut the f*** up, headed by a sock puppet named secretary fiddlesticks. now that the democrats have taken back the congress and 51+ percent of america finally has a voice in government again, i think it's time to seriously let fly. so at the risk of sounding contentious in this all-too-genuine era (several days) of bipartisanship, here now is a roll call of people who must officially shut the f*** up. republican trolls who wrap up their anonymous and incomprehensible criticisms of progressives with the phrase, "and that's why your party never wins," need to shut the f*** up. the cowards who so easily disregard our liberties by shrugging off the president's illegal wiretapping; the cowards who shrug off the military commissions act and the death of habeas corpus; and the cowards who shrug off torture with the phrases, "i'm not doing anything wrong, so i have nothing to worry about," or, "you can't [blank] if you're dead," ought to shut the f*** up. [yes, we're calling you out pat, jeff and john, you buncha li'l skairdy k-k-kats!] anyone who still believes that global warming is a myth? shut the f*** up. rush limbaugh must shut the f*** up. on second thought, strike that. the more we see violet beauregard flapping his arms and mocking parkinson's patients, the better off the rest of the nation will be. in ann coulter's latest column, he wondered when the democrats would be fitting senator-elect jon tester with a "leotard." speaking of tards, mr. coulter needs to shut the f*** up. and this order stands for anyone who claims senator-elect tester is a "conservative democrat." he could very well be the face of the new progressive democrat and one of the most genuine lawmakers elected tuesday. prediction: if he isn't already, tester will quickly become a rock star in this party. i think it was bill maher who mentioned this but it stands repeating here: neocons who have made multiple rosy predictions about iraq need to shut the f*** up and are forthwith banned from making any more predictions. sean hannity, bill o'reilly and other homophobes who use the "san francisco liberal" label for speaker-elect pelosi must... you know. we all understand that it's right-wing code language meaning "homo-values." if that's what you mean, just say it. that is, unless you're not man enough. if you still believe that karl rove is a genius, wizard, architect or anything short of overrated, you must shut the f*** up. one popular vote loss, one win, one near loss to a disorganized opponent and one outright loss means one thing and one thing only: mediocrity. racking up this kind of record by means of dirty tricks, race-baiting and questioning the patriotism of decorated war veterans makes rove a mediocre hack at best. [hmm ... i believe said something along those lines over a year ago.] ed gillespie, the man who's just a neck with a mouth, is officially ordered for the last time to shut the f*** up. the devilish wordsmiths who think it's strategic and clever to refer to the democratic party as the "democrat party" need to stop it. shut the f*** up. the official name of the party is the democratic party, with the "ic" at the end. yeah, i know. newt gingrich and frank luntz invented the idea of saying "democrat party" or "the democrat leadership" or "the democrat voters" in order to emphasize the "rat" syllable, leaving a rat-like subliminal hint in the minds of listeners. president bush, in his so-called "conciliatory" press conference wednesday, used this incorrect pronunciation several times. "and while the ballots are still being counted in the senate, it is clear the democrat party had a good night last night, and i congratulate them on their victories." "this morning i spoke with republican and democrat leadership in the house and senate." "... we'll begin consultations with the democrat leadership starting thursday and friday." "... and now work with democrat leaders in the congress because they control the committees and they control the flow of bills." "we got some tax cuts passed with democrat votes." and finally ... mr. president. saying that you're going to work with congress and compromise for the sake of the nation doesn't mean shoving your unconstitutional terrorist surveillance act and your bellicose anti-u.n. u.n. ambassador through a lame duck session. so if you don't really intend to be bipartisan, then shut the f*** up. you pride yourself on letting people know exactly where you stand and, despite the fact that you routinely stand on dangerous principles, there's at least some cold comfort in knowing what you're up to. but it's clear that that president bush is long gone — replaced by a man who can't even be honest with his own base about things like the iraq war, subsequently leaving his allies alone, confused and scrambling to assuage the anger of an increasingly hostile constituency. this last part? keep it up, thank you. and that's the roll call. i've spent the last several days not only breathing in the sweet aroma of real-life governmental checks and balances, but i've also been evaluating where we go from here. clearly speaker-elect pelosi and the democratic leadership have the daunting task of working with the white house to not only push through vital pieces of legislation, but they also must do so in a way that doesn't raze their chances for further pickups in 2008. it goes without saying that any misstep in the face of this republican party (and its media lapdogs) could spell disaster. so they have to play nice in some ways, but you and i are best served by remaining on the attack and never hesitating to tell those who deserve it to shut the f*** up. update: i've been told that joe mccarthy was the first to use the "democrat [sic] party" misnomer. however, its use became much more pervasive when gingrich and luntz practically made it mandatory in the ranks of the gop.

dominoes

it's been an eventful week ...

(photo-edit by dave hill)

deputy secretary of state randall tobias resigns ... one day after confirming to abc news that he had been a customer of a washington, d.c. escort service whose owner has been charged by federal prosecutors with running a prostitution operation. the married tobias had used his diplomatic perch as a vocal international proponent of abstinence and monogamy as well as anti-prostitution over condoms ... deputy chief of staff robert coughlin of the justice department's criminal division resigns ... after coming under scrutiny in the department’s expanding investigation of convicted super-lobbyist jack abramoff. former justice department director of public affairs monica goodling subpoenaed ... by the house judiciary committee and offered immunity for her testimony into the u.s. attorney scandal. according to dismissed new mexico u.s. attorney david iglesias, goodling holds, as the doj liaison to the white house (see: rove, karl), "the keys to the kingdom." rep. john doolittle (r-ca) resigns from the house appropriations committee ... after fbi agents raided his house as part of a congressional influence-peddling investigation (see: cunningham, duke et abramoff, jack). just three days earlier former doolittle aide kevin ring resigned from his lobbying firm. "ring seems poised to follow the path of other aides who've pled guilty in the abramoff scandal — pleading guilty to lesser charges in return for delivering their former bosses to investigators."

subpoena powers: activate!

the wonder twins are in the house — and the senate!

(image by aarrgghh)

one month ago today the senate and house judiciary committees, chaired by sen. patrick leahy (d-vt) and rep. john conyers (d-mi) respectively, authorized subpoenas for harriet miers, karl rove and aides in the justice dept. to provide documents and testimony in the ongoing u.s. attorney scandal. a week earlier subpoenas for doj aides and former u.s. attorneys were approved by the senate committee.

this coming wednesday the house oversight and government reform committee, chaired by rep. henry waxman (d-ca), will vote on subpoenas for former bush chief of staff andy card and secretary of state condi rice, for their valuable insight on the outing of former spook valerie plame and the peddling of the discredited iraq-niger yellowcake bid, respectively.

and before the republicans deafen us with screeches of "witchhunt!" let's share a teensy bit of perspective: the "worst congress in the history" (you know who you are!) issued more than 1,000 subpoenas to bill clinton — and absolutely zero to george bush.

i do believe someone's projecting ... a miasma of rank hypocrisy.

catch me if you can

so y'all have probably heard there's a new posse in town.

but will the honorable sen. leahy and his faithful deputy rep. waxman ever catch up to that insufferable li'l varmit and the pet chihuahua he rode in on?

from the looks of where alberto's headed today, they may not have to ...

(image by aarrgghh)

a crazy li'l thing called credibility

as greg sargent @ talkingpointsmemo.com demonstrates, once it's gone — it's gone, baby:

as you can see, over the past four months the percentage of respondents who think the us "must win" in iraq for the sake of the broader "war on terror" dropped eight points. meanwhile, the percentage who think victory is not necessary to it has gone up a surprising ten points. this is striking — because in that four months or so since dems took power in january the overriding message that the white house, the gop and all of their lackeys and shills in the media have been blaring at the electorate in every conceivable forum is that (a) victory is absolutely essential in iraq and failure is not an option lest america become less secure; and (b) leaving iraq would constitute a catastrophic defeat in the broader war on terror. in other words, not only is the central white house/gop message failing to persuade, but fewer people buy it now since the propaganda campaign geared up in earnest, and significantly more people hold the opposite view. the white house and gop are losing the argument, if they haven't completely lost it already — suggesting that on iraq, their once-daunting ability to persuade, something that was jealously eyed by dems after the 2004 losses and has been hailed by the media for far too long since, has been reduced at this point to little more than smoldering wreckage.

some perspective

from juan cole:

i keep hearing from us politicians and the us mass media that the "situation is improving" in iraq. the profound sorrow and alarm produced in the american public by the horrific shootings at virginia tech should give us a baseline for what the iraqis are actually living through. they have two virginia tech-style attacks every single day. virginia tech will be gone from the headlines and the air waves by next week this time in the us, though the families of the victims will grieve for a lifetime. but next tuesday i will come out here and report to you that 64 iraqis have been killed in political violence. and those will mainly be the ones killed by bombs and mortars. they are only 13% of the total; most iraqis killed violently, perhaps 500 a day throughout the country if you count criminal and tribal violence, are just shot down. shot down, like the college students and professors at blacksburg. we americans can so easily, with a shudder, imagine the college student trying to barricade himself behind a door against the armed madman without. but can we put ourselves in the place of iraqi students?

ozymandias

just a friendly public reminder of how all dynasties end ...

i met a traveller from an antique land who said: "two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. near them on the sand, half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, the hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed. and on the pedestal these words appear:"

(december 19, 2000)

"my name is ozymandias, king of kings: look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

(from "bush at war" by bob woodward)

nothing beside remains: round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away. — percy bysshe shelley (1818)

(may 5, 2006)

it's not nice to fool madam justice

(image by aarrgghh)

remember that margarine commercial from the '70s starring none other than mother nature herself? of course you do. she didn't take kindly to being pranked and from the noise coming out of congress in the wake of the u.s. attorney mess it doesn't sound like her sister madam justice is any kinder.

now that congress is back in the business of asking questions, the answers (and endless "clarifications") coming out of the justice department — and just about every other department of the most pervasively corrupt (and, not surprisingly, pervasively amnesiatic) administration in the nation's history — make it pretty clear that bush's cronies — having for the first time in six years to publicly account for themselves — couldn't fool a blind person.

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update: emptywheel @ firedoglake.com has posted a schedule of the coming attractions:

march 23: deadline for condi to turn over (condi apparently ignored this deadline — see her upcoming date with waxman below) march 30 (today!): house and senate [correction — doj wanted joint interviews, but it appears only the house judiciary is involved at this point] judiciary committees begin to interview [in private interviews — so don't look for it on cspan] 7 current and former doj employees on the usa purge; interviewees include: paul mcnulty william moschella michael elston william mercer david margolis monica "five for freedom" goodling michael battle march 30 (today!): deadline for state department to turn over information on problems with the dyncorp contract to train iraqi police april 5: [house oversight] deadline for fred fielding to turn over information on the gwb43 and other non-governmental email practices (with interviews to occur the week of april 2) april 5: [house oversight] susan ralston scheduled to give deposition on the white house role in the jack abramoff scandal; this will include questions on the gwb43 email server april 6: [house oversight] deadline for josh bolten to turn over all paperwork on mzm's contract to install furniture sanitize the mail in ovp april 7: [house oversight] deadline for information related to doj interference in tobacco settlement april 10: [closed ssci hearing] cia detention april 12: [closed ssci hearing] national security letters april 13: [house oversight] deadline for karl rove to answer questions regarding the powerpoint targeting democrats and potential hatch act violations april 17: soon to be former ag alberto gonzales testifies before senate judiciary committee april 17: [closed ssci hearing] telecom liability act april 18: [house oversight] condi visits (ha!) waxman's committee to answer questions on the niger intelligence and all the other things condi ignored from 16 letters waxman wrote her before he got his gavel april 19: [closed ssci hearing] fisa modernization legislation may 17: hearing on the wilson's lawsuit june 5: libby's sentencing hearing

time bomb

perhaps it's just because i'm descended from a crude and simple folk, but am i the only one to get the impression that cheney's smirk conveys embarrassment and that the "cloud" hanging above him could be methane?

no wonder bush loves having him around. after all, who would be the "butt" of all dubya's — and time's — fart jokes?

he loves to cuss, gets a jolly when a mountain biker wipes out trying to keep up with him, and now we're learning that the first frat boy loves flatulence jokes. a top insider let that slip when explaining why president bush is paranoid around women, always worried about his behavior. but he's still a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. he's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides, but forget about getting people to gas about that.

they make quite a pair, dick and dubya. stinking up the white house — in every sense of the term.

document dump

the white house staff seems on the verge of being completely swept away in the ongoing deluge of internal department of justice emails — regarding last year's ouster of eight u.s. attorneys — delivered to the house judiciary committee ...

(art by aarrgghh)

for bush, his last days in office may prove to be very, very lonely.

bring me the head of alberto gonzales

... and the ass of karl rove.

during the next two years, our nation must address critical questions affecting the investigation, pursuit, and prosecution of terrorism at home and abroad. in this effort, we must have a strong, credible attorney general who holds the confidence of congress and the american people. i do not believe alberto gonzales can fill that role. the president should fire the attorney general and replace him as soon as possible with someone who can provide strong, aggressive leadership prosecuting the war on terrorism, running the department of justice, and working with the president and congress on important homeland security matters. senator john sununu (r-nh)

for the justice department to be effective before the u.s. senate, it would be helpful [if gonzales resigned]. senator gordon smith (r-or)

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cafferty: ... and it's not enough that the attorney general of the united states is a glorified water boy for the white house. the bush administration also is admitting now that its number one political hack, karl rove, passed along complaints from republican lawmakers about u.s. attorneys to the justice department and to the white house counsel's office — a political adviser playing a role in the hiring and firing of u.s. attorneys. it's disgraceful. here's the question: should u.s. attorney general alberto gonzalez resign? e-mail your thoughts to caffertyfile@cnn.com or go to cnn.com/caffertyfile. if you look up the word weasel in the dictionary, wolf, you'll see alberto gonzales' picture there. blitzer: you don't like him? cafferty: that's correct. i don't. [snip] cafferty: don writes from florida: "jack, a better question is: how soon should alberto gonzales resign? and what should be the punishment for his crimes?" ralph writes: "nah. they would just replace him with somebody more dangerous, someone who knows how to run a police state without getting caught." john in philadelphia: "actually, he should have been fired. we all know how long that takes, though. remember rumsfeld? this worm is exactly the type of hatchet man that bush likes. don't ever do the people's work. just do my dirty work." larisa in seattle: "alberto gonzales should have resigned yesterday or last year or two years ago. look at the guy's legacy: torture memos, spying on americans, and now substituting gop cronies for lawyers who are supposed to be defending the public good and upholding the constitution." robert writes from ohio: "resign? he ought to be perp-walked." j. writes: "jack, of course he ought to resign, but we both know he won't. his role right now is to cover the backside of the most corrupt administration in history, which is a tall order for such a little man." jody in tennessee: "yes, he ought to, but that won't happen. he's a bush buddy. every time i see him on tv, he looks like he's laughing at us." and jenny in new york: "from this administration? no way. he's doing a heck of a job." we got no letters suggesting that alberto gonzales was doing a great job, and that we were out of line by quoting some of the people, like chuck schumer in the senate, who are calling for the man's resignation. nobody wrote and said, "this guy is doing a good job." blitzer: out of how many? about hundreds did we get, thousands? cafferty: i don't know. yes, it was 800, 900 e-mails. i didn't read eight or nine hundred of them, but i — i spun through probably a couple of hundred. there were none — none. nobody wrote to say, "alberto gonzales is doing a good job as the attorney general of the united states." i mean, that alone says something, doesn't it? blitzer: it certainly does. jack, thank you very much.

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blitzer: let's check in with jack cafferty. he's got the cafferty file — jack: cafferty: i want to see patrick leahy interview karl rove under oath in front of the senate judiciary committee. i don't care who wins. i don't care who comes out of it unscathed. i just want to watch it. it would be — it would be like watching ali-frazier iv. it would just be terrific theater. blitzer: sort of like a pay-per-view moment. cafferty: the same idea, yeah, you know, like geraldo getting hit in the face with a chair.

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leahy: ... in some cases i have not gotten answers that appear even to be honest. blitzer: well, do you think someone... leahy: i want to have those. blitzer: do you think someone committed perjury? leahy: well, we'll find that out. that's not always the easiest thing to prove. but we can certainly prove that we have not gotten complete answers. it's a lot more. i think the american public deserves to have answers on this, instead of every day a little bit more dribbling out. let's get all of the facts. but let's have it under oath. it's interesting, sometimes, when people are sworn in. it focuses their attention a little bit more. blitzer: the white house counsel, fred fielding, was up on the hill today. i don't know if you had a chance to meet with him. but he's not necessarily ruling out allowing some white house staffers, maybe even karl rove, to come and testify. do you want karl rove to testify before your panel? leahy: i've never met mr. fielding. i don't — frankly, i don't care whether he says he's going to allow people or not. we'll subpoena the people we want. if they want to defy the subpoena, then you get into a stonewall situation i suspect they don't want to have. blitzer: well, will you subpoena ... leahy: i have ... blitzer: will you subpoena karl rove? leahy: yes. he can appear voluntarily if he wants. if he doesn't, i will subpoena him. and we had — the attorney general said well, there are some staff people or lower level people i'm not sure whether i want to allow them to testify or not. i said, frankly, mr. attorney general, it's not your decision. it's mine and the committee's. we will have subpoenas. i would hope that they will not try to stonewall subpoenas. blitzer: the white house, the president, the attorney general, they insist there was no politics involved in these decisions to get rid of these eight u.s. prosecutors. but you've seen some of the e-mail, the traffic, the paper trail, where there do appear to be some political decisions involved. what's going on? leahy: i'm surprised that they're saying that there's no politics involved and we're still two-and-a-half weeks away from april fool's day. there was obviously politics. i mean this is something both republicans and democrats know. you go in the cloak rooms, you hear both republicans and democrats saying it. everybody knows there's politics involved. everybody knows — in one instance — arkansas, you had a very highly rated u.s. attorney. they were told they had to get rid of him because karl rove had an acolyte of his that had to be put in his place. how can they possibly stand there with a straight face and say that's not politics. of course it's politics. blitzer: but is there anything illegal in putting one of karl rove's associates in and making him the u.s. attorney in arkansas? leahy: there's nothing illegal in a president firing, by itself, firing a u.s. attorney. what it does say, however, to law enforcement, you either play by our political rules — by our political rules, not by law enforcement rules, but by our political rules — or you're out of a job. what i am saying is that that hurts law enforcement, that hurts fighting against crime. and if it is done to stop an ongoing investigation — and this is something we don't know — if it is done to stop an ongoing investigation, then you do get into the criminal area. blitzer: and so that's the focus of your investigation, whether or not somebody committed a crime? leahy: the first thing i want in my investigation is to find out exactly what happened, sort of the old just the facts. i want to find out what the facts are. but i don't want to have somebody come up in a briefing and say well, no, here's really what we think happened. no. i want them in public. i want both democrats and republicans able to ask the questions. but those answers are going to be under oath or they're not acceptable to me.

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the new e-mails show conclusively that karl rove was in the middle of this mess from the beginning. it is now imperative that he testify before congress and give all the details of his involvement both in the proposal to fire the 93 u.s. attorneys at the beginning of george bush's second term and his involvement in the firings of the individual eight u.s. attorneys who were fired throughout 2006. the bottom line is: if the white house prevents karl rove from testifying, it will be thumbing its nose at the american people and at the rule of law. and the reason it's so imperative that people testify under oath is that every time new information comes out, it proves that the white house was not telling the truth in their previous statements. white house presss secretary tony snow told people on tuesday that miers had suggested the 93 — firing the 93 — and quote: "it was her idea only." now it's clear that karl rove is involved. so statements from the white house press office and others involved proved to be false, false, false, time after time after time. the only way that we can get to the truth and clear up this sorry mess is when the white house and the justice department release all the documents involved in the firing of the u.s. attorneys and when the parties who were involved testify under oath before congress.

the queen of denial

fox news' alan colmes interviews corporal matt sanchez, the latest in a never-ending line of fallen conservative heros, who was toppled from his poignantly brief pedestal after being outed as a former porn film actor and male prostitute:

alan: ... as a great american, and embraced by conservatives because you were taking on those anti-war protestors — matt: i dunno about that. i would say i was just doing, i spoke out against something that — alan: you spoke out and they embraced you and invited you to the conservative political action conference over the weekend and you — matt: had me on fox news, several people did. alan: that's right, and thank you for coming here tonight. matt: my pleasure to be here. alan: and then it just comes out over the weekend that you, uh, you were outed as, uh, having done gay porn ... ? matt: outing is one thing ... i wouldn't call it that ... uh ... yeah, it came out — alan: it's not an outing? matt: i was very straightforward — well, how can you out something that's already out there. there's nothing more [ public? ] than that. alan: right, but i mean they, in general, but the people who were embracing you, and calling you, telling everyone how great you were because you were doing all these wonderful things for the troops didn't know about your past.

... because matt, and i'm just guessing here, maybe if they did know, they wouldn't have put you up on stage with them ...

matt: that's true, i've never walked around with a "scarlet p" on my forehead. alan: right, but — go ahead. matt: in no way did i try to hide it, so when it did come out — and it came out rather viciously — i felt i had to defend myself right away, and that's what i did. alan: well, you defended yourself and you acquited yourself well in that you were honest about it. you didn't duck it — matt: absolutely. alan: — you didn't deny it, you didn't say it never happened — matt: sure. alan: — you didn't say those pictures on the internet are not me — matt: absolutely not! alan: — as some people have done.

... because lying is not an option when you're so totally, totally busted that pants have been known to burst into flame ...

matt: look, i wrote an op-ed piece for salon.com and a couple of other people have picked up on it as well. the conservatives that i've met, really, have been the most warm people and i mean they haven't walked away from me at all. it really has been the liberal people that have been really the harshest with me. alan: how are they harsh with you? matt: harsh with everything. i've been called everything today and the past few days i gotten over 3,000 emails from people with this, just invective that you wouldn't believe. alan: well, uh — matt: you get that stuff ... alan: i do get it, and i get it from both sides, but — matt: [ laughs ] alan: but tell us what happened? first of all a number of years ago, and how many years ago was it you did gay porn? matt: it was 15 years ago, and it just wasn't gay porn, by the way, uh, but it was 15 years ago. alan: what else did it ... what else was it? matt: it was more than that, it was, but it was more than porn. alan: did you work as a male prostitute? matt: that as well, yeah. alan: a male prostitute. matt: this was one of the worst periods in my life. alan: now when you say "15 years ago" — matt: 15-plus years ago. alan: "-plus years ago," and i did a little web — matt: sure. alan: i had to go to gay porn sites to do my homework for the show! matt: yeah, those are some of the worst sites, they've been really harsh on me. alan: but it turns out that you had an adver — you advertised in the advocate here in new york city for your massage services as recently as three years ago. matt: no ... there's no such thing as an advocate here in new york city.

... cap'n, evasive maneuver number one!

alan: yeah. there's a, there's a magazine called the advocate, your phone number's on it ... your picture ... matt: the number you contacted me on?

... evasive maneuver number two!

alan: yes. matt: no. alan: and it says that you're available for, uh, massage. matt: massage, yeah. yeah, no, sorry — alan: and it was in november of, ah, 2003. matt: no — yeah, i hear you, uh, no. alan: well, i can show you the link — matt: sure. alan: — it's there. matt: give it to me. send it over, that's — that's fine. i mean, anything, i'll admit, i'll own up to it. that's not what the issue at hand is.

ow, a hit! um, let's try evasive maneuver number three ... retreat!

alan: but i understand. i, i — matt: but those movies were — alan: you've been — you've been very candid so far — matt: yes, yes, i want to be as candid as possible. alan: you've been saying that it's been "15-plus years ago," and it seems it was a lot less than that. matt: 1990 up through — throughout the mid-90s, 1993-94. alan: so that's how long ago it was? matt: yeah — well, we're talking about the films. alan: what about gay, y'know, out — massage stuff. matt: anything else, gay, massage stuff — i am a licensed massage therapist.

... evasive maneuver number four ...

alan: and you cater to gay men. matt: no — not exclusively. alan: are you gay? matt: no. absolutely not. alan: you're not gay? matt: and i'll be very candid about that.

... because, y'know, someone less candid and upstanding would actually lie about being heterosexual ...

matt: but again, this is a, this is a losing, it's a losing argument. and i say one thing and the other side says another — alan: well, i'm not arguing — matt: fine. alan: — i'm just trying to establish, y'know, a, i mean why would you — now i don't care whether you're gay or not — i mean, i pro- gay rights — matt: i, i agree, i don't care who's gay either by the way — alan: — and, and i'm just trying to get to the truth — matt: absolutely. alan: you were ... marketing yourself as a masseur for gay men and doing gay films and you said you were a prostitute for gay men, so, i mean ... how, why would you — matt: yeah, there's a different word for that today, but i ...

... because "gay" after all is just another label ...

alan: hustler, whatever ...

... um, that wasn't the label i had in mind ...

matt: i own up to all that stuff. alan: why would you do that if you're not gay? matt: i think if you ... people listening probably don't realize it, but those who are in the know, know that this isn't as cut and dry as black and white. there are lots of shades in between, and lots — especially a lot of the clients — alan: right. matt: — weren't, wouldn't have considered themselves gay. i dunno if this conversation is what you wanna have but — alan: yeah — no, no, i definitely want to have this conversation.

... no, dammit! you're not supposed to want this conversation!

matt: oh great. well, in that case, the majority of the clients weren't openly gay. a lot of them were married and had, i mean, really wasn't, it really wasn't as cut and dry as, people who came to me at that time really wouldn't have considered themselves as gay. alan: right, but you were not servicing women, you were servicing men. matt: um, there were those as well ...

... hmmm, did that last answer not come out strong enough ... ?

matt: uh, absolutely! i mean there were definitely tons of women!

... ok, much, much better ... whew, that was close!

alan: and you took ads in gay publications — matt: as well as, as well as — alan: — in order to appeal to gay men. matt: — as well as other publications. alan: right. but you've never been gay, you never personally — matt: yeah, it's not something, it's not how i would describe myself, frankly, and i understand that some people have a problem with that. alan: i don't have a problem, i, i have a problem — matt: no, not you — alan: — i'm, i'm just trying to establish the truth — matt: — members of the audience. alan: well, i'm sure that there are — look, here's what, one of the things i think you've been criticized for is that, uh — in fact i'm trying to go there right now, something called — matt: one of those blogs? alan: no, i'm trying to see, there's this ad, there's something called "masseur-finder" with your picture on it ... matt: yeah, i've seen that. i've seen that. i've been getting calls in the past couple of weeks on that and i am not running that ad.

... because someone less upstanding would deny that that was their picture ...

alan: right. and there's an ad in the advocate and i'm trying to come up with a date for that which is a new york publication ... matt: great. alan: i'm sorry, it's the new york blade, forgive me. matt: the new york blade. alan: the new york blade. matt: another one ... alan: and that ad was from november 19th, 2004. matt: sure. lemme tell — alan: an ad for you. matt: lemme tell you something really interesting — alan: not the — let me correct myself, it was the new york blade, which is the gay publication, but not the advocate. matt: ok, the new york blade. great. fair enough. alan: all right. matt: um, i've seen, i was in australia one time, and i saw someone advertising ... using my picture. alan: right. matt: anyone who knows that whole — alan: but it's got your phone number on it, too.

... retreat! retreat! retreat!

matt: any, uh, that's which — alan: your current phone number. matt: that's not my current phone number. alan: ok, well, i'll show it to you — matt: i mean i've had, i've had my current phone number for about, a year. alan: ok, well, i'll, i'll show you — matt: ok, no problem. look, i own up to all that stuff. i just want to make that straight. i've been, for the past week i've had, i've had people calling me about this, and apparently someone has placed an ad, just recently. alan: alright. well, this was three years ago. well, i'll show you the link when, during the commercial — matt: i'm talking about just yesterday.

... oh please, god: tell me he hasn't checked up on that one, too ...

alan: really. matt: yeah, just yesterday. i mean, this isn't, this isn't, there's something going on —

... now ain't that the truth?

nevada debate preview

so, will fox viewers be watching this:

or, at long last, this?

(with apologies to charles schulz)

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update: well, it looks like democrats have decided to go for what's behind door number two:

senate majority leader harry reid and the nevada democratic party announced today that they are backing out of a fox news-sponsored presidential debate in august following fox president roger ailes's recent remarks comparing democratic senator barack obama to al qaeda terrorist osama bin laden. fox news did not answer calls seeking reaction to the decision. democratic presidential candidate john edwards had already announced that he would not participate in the fox debate. his party followed suit today, under pressure from the more than 265,000 people who signed a petition calling fox "a mouthpiece for the republican party, not a legitimate news channel" and urging nevada officials to cancel. danny coyle, a moveon.org member who serves on the executive board of the carson city democratic central committee, yesterday offered a resolution calling on the state party to drop fox, and it passed overwhelmingly among the grassroots democrats in attendance. "i am glad and relieved that the nevada democratic leadership has come to its senses," coyle said. "any kind of relationship with fox is bad for the party." at first, senator reid defended the decision to work with fox, reasoning that it might help democratic candidates reach out to right-leaning fox viewers. but party activists argued from the start that any connection with fox was a mistake. robert greenwald, director of the movie outfoxed, called the final decision a "victory for truth and journalism." some 280,000 people have viewed greenwald's new youtube film "fox attacks: obama" — located with the petition at www.foxattacks.com. "by standing up to fox's right-wing smears," greenwald said, "the patriotic grassroots, netroots, senator reid, senator edwards, and the nevada democrats have all worked together to protect one of the most important elements of a free society — the press." and eli pariser, executive director of moveon.org civic action, said he hoped the decision would "set a precedent within the party that fox should be treated as a right-wing mis-information network, not legitimized as a neutral source of news."