Deconstructing the veto message

The President said that he vetoed the Emergency War Spending Bill because it “mandated a rigid, and artificial deadline for American troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq.” Moreover, he claimed that the bill imposed “impossible conditions on our commanders in combat.”

Here’s what he is really saying: He wants to wage the same old war, which doesn’t have the support of the American people. He fails to understand that the people have spoken and that elections have consequences. Congress was elected to end the war, and it is completely appropriate to set a timeline for doing so.

The bill ends the war and describes a new and different mission. The bill would require that by the autumn of 2008 however many U.S. troops remain in Iraq may only be used for diplomatic protection, counterterrorism operations, and training of Iraqi Security Forces. Unless certain benchmarks are met, this re-deployment may be required to start earlier.

I suppose you could call that imposing impossible conditions on the commanders in combat. Congress wants to make it impossible to persist on the same course of conduct that isn’t working and which has lost the confidence of the American people.

Just so that we are clear: The President says that we need to stay in Iraq to fight terrorism. The bill that he vetoed allows him to keep troops in Iraq indefinitely for counterterrorism operations.

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For as long as I can remember, all presidential speeches have ended with some version of “May God bless America.” A favorite formulation of this president has been “May God continue to bless America.” Tonight, in announcing that he was flouting the will of the American people, he concluded with a new twist: “May God bless our troops.” He may as well have said, “May God help our troops.” President Bush surely won’t.

The president vetoed a bill that prohibits the deployment of troops who are not “fully mission capable” as defined by the Department of Defense – in other words, troops who are fully trained, equipped and protected. The bill that he vetoed provided funding for the Veterans Administration. And the bill refocused the mission of our military on a job for which it is well suited: defeating al Quaeda and terrorists in Afghanistan. Once again, we see that it is the Democrats in Congress who care about the troops.

The president thinks that he has support for the current ill-defined mission in Iraq, and that support extends to stubborn perseveration into the fall of 2008. He’s wrong. As if to prove the point, he vetoed a bill to protect troops and care for veterans.

“... and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

Welcome back, Tony Snow.

On this morning’s edition of Good Morning America we all were delighted to see that you are back, and apparently you haven’t lost any of your game. [fn.]

I especially liked the part where you said,

The President made it clear before the State of the Union in 2002 that there was no link between Saddam Hussein and September 11th. So, I am afraid that what is happening there is that George Tenet may be have been referring to something that has been misreported or at least twisted by people who may have political motives in recent years, but there has been no attempt to try to link Saddam to September 11th. So, uh, yeah.

Whoa, Tony! We get the point! Anyone who would suggest that the administration linked Saddam to 9-11 is a worthless liar.

Consider this letter from King George the Incompetent to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, available on the White House website.

March 18, 2003

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Sincerely,
GEORGE W. BUSH

I am glad we have Tony Snow back to clear that up.

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[fn.]View the video: QT WMV Courtesy of Media Matters.)

The case against George Tenet is an easy lay-up.

George Tenet says that he deeply resents the fact that his “slam dunk” remark has been taken out of context.

We have seen the Vice President on Meet the Press saying that the administration was convinced that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It is Cheny who quotes the CIA chief as saying that the evidence is conclusive, using the slam-dunk metaphor of Georgetown basketball-loving Tenet.

According to others, notably Bob Woodward, the comment came when King George the Incompetent listened to the evidence and questioned its sufficiency. My sense of it is that Dubya is a guy who likes a one-page memo, and likes a one-line summary even more. It is hard to imagine him saying that he needs more texture in his intelligence reportage.

For his part, Tenet says that he didn’t mean that the evidence was a slam-dunk case against Iraq. His story is that Dubya heard the evidence, and accepted it for decision-making purposes. The problem for Dubya was that he felt that the American people would demand a more persuasive case. “This is the best we’ve got?” one George asked the other.

Tenet, if he is to be taken at his word, understood this to mean, “Could you punch it up a little bit for Joe Public?” The other George told the president that would be no problem. “Slam dunk,” he said.

This is breathtaking, but we’ve seen this kind of excuse offered before by the Party of Bush.

When Cheney tried to excuse himself for not anticipating the level of violence in Iraq, I pointed out in Cheney admits guilt that this is not an excuse – it is an indictment of his lack of foresight. Remember when King George the Incompetent explained that he didn’t want to let the voting public know that he was about to shit-can Donald Rumsfeld because “didn’t want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign?” So, he lied. As I said at Truth and Consequences,

Only one with total disdain for the electoral process would not be ashamed to admit that he had tried to mislead the public on this crucial matter. Someone with disdain for the electoral process like King George the Incompetent.

Again, the excuse offered is an admission of a greater offense.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the job of the Director of Central Intelligence is not to sell policy to Joe Public. That’s a slam dunk.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

The scoop on Don Young

On April 23, I wrote a note about Don Young in which I said, “The Jack Abramoff/Tom Delay scandal relating to the Northern Mariana Islands, has Don Young’s fingerprints all over it,” and then I went to sleep.

The next morning, I woke to learn that “one of Young’s aides will be pleading guilty to Abramoff related corruption charges,” and I duly reported it in a note called Who knew? giving credit to the Anchorage Daily News.

Today, the Anchorage Daily News took up the challenge of linking Young to the Abramoff/Saipan scandal. Hats off to their reporter, a guy named Richard Mauer, pictured, who recently returned from Baghdad.

There’s another story here, one which is percolating up on Bill Moyers Journal. Why are we reading this kind of story in McClatchy papers but not in the the New York Times and the Washington Post?

In a nutshell, the New York Times and the Washington Post are hugely influential newspapers because every decision maker in the nation’s capital reads these papers. But this influence has a price. All of the Washington bureau reporters for these papers know that their subjects will read what they write. The cost of pissing off these insiders might be paid in restricted access. And so, the nation goes to war based on the uncritical reporting of folks like Judith Miller.

But McClatchy (f/k/a Knight-Ridder) doesn’t have to play that game. John Walcott, a skeptical reporter of the run-up to the war explains it this way on Bill Moyer’s Journal:

Our readers aren’t here in Washington. They aren’t up in New York. They aren’t the people who send other people’s kids to war. They’re the people who get sent to war.

And so, they can afford to dig deeper and question the official line.

Or it could just be that the McClatchy chain has reporters with shoe leather and balls. Guys like this Rich Mauer. Go get ’em Rich!

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

How to help ‘our candidates’

Back on April 23rd, I wrote a little piece about Don Young. I stated at the time:

The thing that made me think of Don Young recently is that over on TPM Muckraker they are reporting that 25 senators have demanded that the administration give some answers about GSA chief, Lurita Doan. Seems she has been trying to find a way to use the considerable buying power of the federal government to “help our [Republican] candidates.” In this effort, she employed a PowerPoint presentation which you can see here. (pdf)

I thought about it a little more since then, and here’s the question that I keep coming back to: How can the GSA help Republican candidates?

There are a couple of possibilities. One is by steering business into districts where the party has determined to make a stand because their incumbent candidate is vulnerable. By doing so, they can enable their candidate to point to his or her ability to bring home the bacon. As I pointed out in my Don Young piece, bringing home the bacon will win you votes. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it can be overdone. Witness the “Bridge to Nowhere.”

A more subtle variation on this text is that by spending money in a particular district, the GSA can improve economic circumstances there. Improved economic circumstances translate to increased satisfaction with the status quo, which in turn inures to the benefit of the incumbents. The problem here is that it is too subtle, too slow-working and too unreliable. This sort of program doesn’t get done at the management level that Ms. Doan was addressing with her PowerPoint presentation.

Here’s the real deal: If you want to engage in pork barrel politics, the way to do it is to get an earmark in some Christmas tree bill, and then show up at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. That’s the way to improve a local economy. But more importantly, that’s one way to make people feel good about their local incumbent. Notice that this does not involve the GSA.

So, how then can the administrator of the GSA help “our candidates?”

Let’s say you are a manufacturer of ballpoint pens in one of those districts that the Republicans need to defend. A contract for $20 million dollars worth of ballpoints can have a pronounced effect on your bottom line. So much so, that you might be grateful to the congressman or woman who steered the contract your way. It may even be enough to encourage you to make a big donation to that Congress member’s re-election campaign.

You know, a big donation would enable a candidate to pay for a media campaign. That’s another way to make people feel good about their local incumbent. Come to think of it, this technique works even if the candidate is a challenger.

So why is this a scandal? The answer is that if you are steering business to a company in order to get contributions to your Republican campaign committee, or even to the candidate’s campaign, and there is an explicit quid pro quo, then it starts to look a lot like you are shaking down local businesses for bribes.

And there’s a law against that.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

Another brilliant philippic from Keith Olbermann

  Crooks and Liars had the following links to Keith Olbermann’s scathing Special Comment last night about the rank partisan fearmongering speech Rudy Giuliani gave before a New Hampshire Republican meeting Tuesday (CSPAN stream).

 Download | Play  Download  | Play

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Who knew?

Who knew when I posted about Don Young last night that I would wake up to find the Anchorage Daily News reporting that one of Young’s aides will be pleading guilty to Abramoff related corruption charges. Of course, the article states that Young is not implicated. I wonder if it would be more accurate to state “Congressman Young is not implicated yet.”

Anyway, here’s the lede:

A former aide to a committee chaired by Alaska Rep. Don Young is expected to plead guilty today to a federal conspiracy charge in connection with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Mark Zachares, who was part of Young’s Transportation Committee staff between 2002 and 2004, was named in charging documents Monday alleging a pattern of rewards and favors that he and Abramoff termed their “two year plan.”

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Don Young

When the next congressional elections occur, Don Young will have been a member of the House of Representatives for 35 years, representing Alaska, a state where the average age of residents is below 34. He, himself, will be 75.

In 2008, he received 57% of the vote, down somewhat from his previous performances, but hardly anything to make him worry, or even campaign. Diane Benson, his Democratic opponent, ran a good campaign, which some regarded as the first significant challenge to the man who calls himself the “Congressman for all Alaskans.” The activist playwright, actress and poet received roughly 40% of the vote.

Big Mitch feels that she didn’t hit hard enough. The Jack Abramoff/Tom Delay scandal relating to the Northern Mariana Islands, has Don Young’s fingerprints all over it. In 2000, the Senate unanimously passed Sen. Frank Murkowski’s (R-AK) Northern Mariana Islands worker rights reform bill. Basically the bill was intended to address the slave-like working conditions in Saipan, where garment manufacturers produce clothing labeled “Made in America.” Don Young blocked the bill and so it was never considered in the House of Representatives. Given the working conditions there – which included forced abortions for women pressed into prostitution – this could have been a good issue.

Lately, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that records show that Young’s campaign paid a $25,000 retainer to a law firm because the feds are looking into new truck-hauling rules that Young helped push through in 2005 as part of a major transportation spending bill. Dennis Troha, a Wisconsin businessman who personally benefited from the measure gave the Young $20,000 and he, too, has lawyered up.

All of which would make you think that Young is vulnerable in 2008. But you would be overlooking the fact that he brings home the bacon, and that counts for a lot in Alaska. After all, we are talking about a guy who in 1995, during the controversy relating to the homoerotic art of Robert Mapplethorpe, told an assembly of high school students that he opposed federal funding for any art that portrayed people doing “offensive things.” Pressed for an example by an inquisitive student, Young quickly answered, “Butt-fucking.” It’s pretty hard to defend his choice of words, but he gave it the old college try: He said that his answer would have lacked impact if he had used milder words.

The thing that made me think of Don Young recently is that over on TPM Muckraker they are reporting that 25 senators have demanded that the administration give some answers about GSA chief, Lurita Doan. Seems she has been trying to find a way to use the considerable buying power of the federal government to “help our [Republican] candidates.” In this effort, she employed a PowerPoint presentation which you can see here. (pdf)

Interestingly, said PowerPoint presentation indicates that Don Young may be vulnerable, and more importantly, that he may decline to run. It’s time for a Democrat to start gearing up to run for Congress.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

Everyone knows…

Everyone knows that the Congress is going to cave in to the President and send him an emergency spending bill without a deadline for withdrawing from Iraq. That’s because the Congress doesn’t have the spine to stand up to him, even though Big Mitch gave them a roadmap about how to do it.

By now, everyone knows that Harry Reid said, “I believe myself that the secretary of state, the secretary of defense — and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows — that this war is lost, and that the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday.”

Everyone knows that Harry Reid is correct. Even William F. Buckley is saying the war has failed. The generals who say that are promptly fired, but everyone knows King George the Incompetent is not sending in 20,000 more troops because things are going so well. Everyone knows that our military is stretched beyond its limit. And deep within our hearts, everyone knows that this won’t be the last surge that Dubya proposes.

Want to know what the GI's in Iraq think? Look here:
Everyone knows that el Generalissimo Gonzales embarrassed himself last week. His testimony was incredible, incomplete, and internally inconsistent. His defense was that he takes responsibility for mistakes that were made, but no mistakes were made. He says he was in charge, but he didn’t know where the plan to fire 8 U. S. Attorneys came from. He says he thought it was a bad idea, but his chief of staff went forward with it anyway.

CORRECTION: Not everyone knows. Incredibly, the man Bill Maher calls “President Shit-for-brains” took the time today to tell us that Gonzo “is an honest, honorable man, in whom I have confidence.” He went on to say that Gonzales’ testimony “increased my confidence” in his ability to lead the Justice Department. He also said that he hadn't heard the testimony: he's relying on staff reports.

Congress’s power is in the power of the purse. If they are to stop this war, that is how it must be done. Congress can’t de-fund Alberto Gonzales, and impeachment is too disruptive. But everyone knows that he must go.

Someone in Congress needs to stand up and say that if King George the Incompetent has complete confidence in el Generalissimo Gonzo, then he can’t be trusted to run the war without some restraint imposed by Congress.

Memo to POTUS: You want an emergency spending bill to fund your war? Show Gonzales the door.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

Blame the Victim

Keith Olbermann has been handing out Worst Person in the World awards to right-wing pundits like John Derbyshire of the National Review On-line. Derbyshire blamed the victims who, he says, did not resist the well-armed psychotic murderer in Blacksburg, Va:

Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn't anyone rush the guy? It’s not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness’ sake—one of them reportedly a .22.

Another Olbermann honoree, Nathaniel Blake, seconds the emotion in Where were the men?:

College classrooms have scads of young men who are at their physical peak, and none of them seems to have done anything beyond ducking, running, and holding doors shut.

Well, of course they are beneath contempt for their ersatz macho.

Nobody knows what was going on in the room where Seung-hui Cho did his murderous deeds. Moreover, nobody knows what he or she would have done in those circumstances. And, as the story does come out, we learn about incredible acts of heroism.

Then there are the regular right-wing nut cases, like Rush Limbaugh, who said,

Now, if this Virginia Tech shooter had an ideology, what do you think it was? This guy had to be a liberal. You start railing against the rich, and all these other things? This guy is a liberal. He was turned into a liberal somewhere along the line. So it’s a liberal that committed this act.

Let’s take a moment to talk about the victims. Since I know nothing about the individuals who were killed or maimed, I will not debase myself by talking about them. But in a sense all of America was victimized by this crime.

The right wing political dialogue is characterized by bullying and intimidation. Anyone who has tuned into Bill O’Reilly knows this. Indeed, O’Reilly revels it. Take for an example his defense of airing the Cho videotape originally mailed to NBC:

Evil must be exposed and Cho was evil. You can see it in his face, hear it in his voice. All of us who saw the tape will never forget it. And it made me and millions of others angry. Once evil is acknowledged, steps can be taken to contain it. And once anger is in the air, policy can change.

Do you get it? In O’Reilly’s weltanschauung, there’s good and there’s evil in the world, and the only way to confront evil, is with anger. And lest we forget, we have recently seen the firing of Don Imus for his bullyboy attack on the student athletes at Rutgers, followed in short order, by Tom DeLay trying to throw his weight around to punish Rosie O’Donnell.

Am I out of line to say that on the right side of the political spectrum there is a culture of bullying? Hell, I’ve called those bastards fascists, so this is nothing new. In his 1989 book, Our Contempt for Weakness: Nazi Norms and Values — and Our Own, Norwegian scholar Harald Ofstad argues that the bully mindset is at the core of the fascist personality, and it especially reveals itself in misogyny.

Today we read in the National Post (Canada) that Barbara Coloroso, an author and expert on bullying opines that Cho was a “bullied bully.” As a special-education teacher who was living in Columbine during the 1999 high school massacre, Ms. Coloroso believes most school killers are victims of extensive bullying. Of the 23 high school massacres she has studied, 18 of the gunmen had been bullied. Certainly, we see in Cho’s history of stalking and his later statements, his disdain for women.

I won’t blame the victims of this horrible crime. But it is right for us to look to the greater society and ask ourselves what could have caused this young man’s mental illness to manifest with such tragic consequences? Could it be the culture of bullying that is part and parcel of the right-wing zeitgeist?

I am just asking.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

E-prime, or “To be or not to be.”

In 1965, D. David Bourland, Jr. proposed E-Prime in an essay entitled A Linguistic Note: Writing in E-Prime. The term refers to a modified English vocabulary, which excises all forms of the verb “to be.” The passive voice does not exist in E-Prime. More directly to the point, the proponents of E-Prime say that it forces the speaker to think differently. Consider the difference between the English sentence, “The movie was good,” and “I liked the movie.” The latter acknowledges the subjective nature of the speaker’s experience of the movie. Thus, E-Prime promotes clarity of thought.

E-Prime does tend to eliminate tautological arguments. My mind turned to E-Prime today, as I listened to a local radio show discussing the recent decision of the Supreme Court upholding the law outlawing a particular abortion procedure. A caller framed the question thus: “Whether or not the fetus is a human being.”

Calling a fetus a human being may lead to one answer, and doing the opposite may result in a different answer. As Shakespeare said, “What’s in a name?” If the decision to call a fetus a human being dictates the outcome, then the desired outcome dictates the decision. When someone says, “a fetus is a human,” he or she intends to say, “I recognize a fetus as something with rights I wish to protect, even if doing so comes at the expense of an innocent woman, as in the case of rape or incest.”

Big Mitch comes to the opposite conclusion. I value the right of a woman to control her own body more than any rights that a fetus may or may not possess, whether or not we define a fetus as a human being. Furthermore, I don’t accept the proposition that calling a fetus a human being inexorably leads to the conclusion that the mother’s reproductive rights must be restricted.

Consider this case: A virtuoso violinist with a rare blood type becomes ill and needs a transfusion. His devotees determine that only you can serve as a donor. You are assured that blood donation poses no risks to you. Do you have a right to refuse? If you do refuse, does anyone have the right to compel you over your objection? Do you reach a different conclusion if instead of a violinist we hypothesized a cancer researcher whose students argue that his future work may greatly reduce human suffering? Do you have a right to refuse if a street person needs blood that only you can donate?

Note that in each of these cases, nobody can question that a “person’s” life depends on the your willingness to donate blood. Still, we place a high enough value on the autonomy of the individual that we respect the right of people to withhold consent to the taking of their blood.

Also note that in the above hypothetical, we stipulated that blood donation poses no risks to the donor. The case of pregnancy always presents risks, and until yesterday, sufficiently severe risks to the health of a woman constituted good cause for an abortion.

Over on Alternet Amy Goodman put it this way:

The Supreme Court's decision to uphold a ban on late-term abortion without an exception for the health of the mother sends a signal that, in many respects, the court thinks legislators, not doctors, are the ones best positioned to make health decisions.

In other words, the decision of the Supreme Court means that in the future the decision of a woman either to get or not to get an abortion may include Shakespeare’s existential question: “To be, or not to be?”

I wonder how one would say that in E-Prime.

“… and tell ’em big Mitch sent ya!”

Thirty-three

Thirty-three tragic deaths occurred this week on the campus of Virginia Tech. The event is justifiably called a massacre. I judge the suicide death of Seung-Hui Cho to be a tragedy no less than the others, since it is an obvious case of mental illness gone untreated with lethal results.

Some, notably Keith Olbermann, Larry Johnson and Thom. Hartman, have had the guts to point out that a similar number of young Americans are killed in Iraq every ten days or so. Why, these worthies ask, are they not grieved for in the same way? It is a question that deserves an answer.

The answer is that the students didn’t sign up to put their lives on the line. As I wrote here,

When brave Americans sign up for military service, they say in effect that they are willing to lay down their lives for our country. Such love cannot be abused. We must be sure of our purposes and our prospects for success, if we are to ask these valiant men and women to risk, and in some cases, to sacrifice their lives.

Of course, we weren’t sure of our purposes and our prospects for success when America sent troops into Iraq.

The civil war in Iraq takes 30 or more innocent lives every week, out of a country less than 1/10th the size of the United States. For the families and loved ones of these Iraqi casualties, their death is as senseless and achingly unfair as the loss of those innocent Hokies is to the Virginia Tech community.

The murderer in Blacksburg is being described as mentally ill. The killing in Iraq is equally senseless. It’s just plain crazy.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

Vox populi, Vox Dei

It bothers me a great deal that the right wing gets to use the media to re-publish the most outrageous lies of the Party of Bush, and rarely gets called on it. It seems to me that the right wing, exemplified by the Fox network, routinely engages in what can fairly be called hate speech. Every so often, Bill O’Reilley goes off the deep end, and he may be ridiculed on the Daily Show or Olbermann, but by and large his rants go unchallenged. Ann Coulter can say the most hateful things imaginable, but tell me what consequences have befallen her for calling John Edwards a faggot, or saying that 9/11 widows were reveling in their husbands death? None.

It is for this reason that from time to time, I have toyed with the idea of calling for a boycott of companies that advertise on the Fox network.

The problem is that if you are committed to ideals of free speech, you must realize that such an activity raises grave concerns. The idea of boycotting a media outlet to influence the content, smacks of fascism. It is this nagging fear that has caused me to hold off on advocating such an action.

But if you are not committed to ideals of democracy, then why not call for a boycott of companies who sponsors those you disagree with? Consider the case of Tom DeLay, the indicted and disgraced former congressman who demands that Rosie O’Donnell be fired as retribution for what happened to Don Imus. You can read his despicable call to direct action here.

What is it about Rosie that irritates right wing-nuts in the way that calling a high-achieving student athlete a “nappy headed ho” disgusts all right-thinking people?

In "DeLay v. O’Donnell, Round 1," Jim David puts forth a convincing argument that it’s because “she's a liberal, loudmouthed lesbian who has opinions, and conservatives just can't stand it.”

Right-wingers will tell you that their popularity means that they are speaking the truth to power. It’s crazy talk. As it has been said, “Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, vox populi, Vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.” (Neither are those who are apt to say ‘the voice of the masses is the Voice of God’ worth listening to, since the tumult of the rabble is always close to insanity.)

The real lesson may just be that fascists like Tom DeLay will use any excuse to stifle opposing opinions. People who believe in the value of free speech are more circumspect.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

REQUISCAT IN PACE ...

Kurt Vonnegut
(1922-2007)

Imus in the morning, afternoon and evening.

It’s a slow newsday. Chris Matthews took the day off and Hardball was moderated by David Gregory. The entire show devoted to Don Imus. Tucker was essentially pre-empted by a very moving press conference by the Rutgers’ women’s basketball team. You could not have watched it and not been moved by the story of this Cinderella team nor impressed by the maturity and poise of these young women athletes.

Big Mitch would be remiss if he did not weigh in on the subject.

Don Imus may be a good guy, but if he called one my daughters a “ho,” losing his radio show would be the least of his problems. Any questions?

Don Imus tried to defend himself by saying that he was only doing comedy. Mr. Imus, do you want to share a laugh? Your wife is a whore. Get it?

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

The President won’t support the troops.

The President promises to veto the so-called “emergency” spending bill that will fund the continuing operations in Iraq. Four years into this war, how is it that we have an emergency lack of funds for the troops in harm’s way? Big Mitch remembers seeing a sign in a judge's chambers that said, “Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency.” But I digress.

King George has two gripes about the funding bill that is headed his way. First, there’s the pork that was added in to the bill to obtain passage. It is too easy for the mouthpieces of the Party of Bush to complain about subsidies for peanut farmers in a bill ostensibly to fund the war. They should remember that we have elected as many peanut farmers to the presidency as we have members of Congress in the last 30 years.

More directly to the point, the administration’s request for $100 billion contained only $50 billion for military operations. But I digress.

What people must realize is that without a little logrolling the bill to fund the war would not have passed. It is a reasonable interpretation of the last election – not to mention the polls – that people want the war to end, and that means now. In the face of that sentiment, which is fairly overwhelming in some blue districts, voting in favor of funds to perpetuate the war is a repudiation of what members were elected to do. Please pass the pork: a little lard greases the skids.

Vetoing the bill is a stupid thing to do and therefore, we should expect Dumb Dubya to do it. It’s time to ask the question that we should have asked before we toppled Saddam, viz, “What next?”

This Congress was elected to end the war, and the way to do it is to exercise the power of the purse. But King George and his loyal scriveners have a pretty good talking point in that the funds are necessary for the troops. Well, do you support the troops or don’t you?

It’s a phony argument, not that we are surprised to hear it from King George the Incompetent. It is he who is vetoing funding for the troops. In point of fact, the bill passed in the House of Representatives contains 53 billion for military operations, including Iraq, and the Senate bill contains $49 billion. The administration’s request was only for 50 billion for military operations, out of a total request of $100 billion.

All right, then. Let’s talk about how the cow ate the cabbage. [fn. 1]

Sadly, a lot of the troops are coming home with head injuries. What are we going to do about that? Traumatic brain injuries [TBI] are some of the most horrific non-fatal injuries of the war. They are intractable in the current state of medical knowledge and they rob the victims of their dignity and in some cases, their personality. There is no prosthesis for the brain.

At present, the best hope for finding a medical cure for TBI is in stem cell research. Let’s see a bill to fund the war, with a timeline, and instead of the pork that so offends the Chimp-in-Chief, let’s have funding for stem-cell research. Well, Dubya, do you support the troops, or don’t you?

When the president of the United States says that we must support the troops, it may be time to ask another famous question, which was first posed by Tonto, the Lone Ranger’s faithful companion when they found themselves surrounded by hostile Indians. The Lone Ranger looked at Tonto and said, “It looks like we are done for, old friend.” To which the noble Tonto replied, “What you mean ‘we,’ White Man?”

Who is the “we” that must support the troops? Is it the richest Americans who saw their share of the tax burden go down during this war? Why not send a bill to the President repealing some of the tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and use the funds to support the troops? Well, do they support the troops, or don’t they?

As Finley Peter Dunne observed, “Politics ain’t beanbag.” The Democrats have a tough row to hoe if they want to stop the war. But that’s why they were elected, and that’s why they get to pass out the big bucks. If they want to fulfill their responsibility, they have to be able to stand up to the phony attack that they don’t support the troops, and knock it down. If the President wants to keep vetoing bills to support the troops, send him some more of them.

Americans support the troops, and want them to come home on a timeline. Dubya doesn’t agree, and that’s why his approval rating is less than Sanjaya Malakar’s. That’s also why there’s a Congress led by the Democratic Party. It is their duty to let the public know that His Royal Codpiece is standing in the way of funding the troops because he doesn't want to bring them home.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

[fn. 1] “An expression to indicate the speaker is laying it on the line, telling it like it is, getting down to brass tacks - with the connotation of telling someone what he or she needs to know but probably doesn't want to hear. The expression has its roots in a story about an elephant that escaped from the zoo and wandered into a woman’s cabbage patch. The woman observed the elephant pulling up her cabbages with its trunk and eating them. She called the police to report that there was a cow in her cabbage patch pulling up cabbages with its tail. When the surprised police officer inquired as to what the cow was doing with the cabbages, the woman replied, ‘You wouldn't believe me if I told you!’” Source.

What’s a 100 million dollars between friends?

It is Saturday, my people’s Sabbath, and so you might think I would take a break from publicizing Republican scandals. No can do. They keep coming, and if I take time off, I just fall too far behind.

So here’s your Shabbat parsha … *

As we all know, the Republicans snuck an unnoticed provision into the USA Patriot Act that enabled them to appoint U.S. Attorneys without Senate confirmation. One of the beneficiaries of that act was a certain Rove protégé named Tim Griffin. His previous claim to fame was that he engaged in what appears to be a felonious plot to suppress the African-American vote in Arkansas. See, Had your fill of Republican scandals? Here’s another for you..

Well here’s yet another.

U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor was appointed directly by Attorney General Gonzales without Senate confirmation when D.C.’s U.S. Attorney, Kenneth Wainstein, was promoted to assistant attorney general for national security. Prior to that Taylor worked as counsel to Attorney Generals Aschcroft and Gonzales for four years. And before that he worked as an aide to Senator Orrin Hatch.

Last Wednesday a judge ruled that in the largest tax prosecution ever, the treasury can’t recoup at least $100 million in restitution. Why not? According to U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman the binding plea agreement listed the wrong statute and failed to include any discussion of probation as is routine in such deals.

This is being described as a blunder. The Judge said, “I’ve come to the conclusion, very reluctantly, that I have no authority to order restitution. . . . This is a very poorly drafted agreement.”

Am I the first person to wonder aloud if maybe this “mistake” was not completely an innocent one? I am just wondering. It wasn’t poorly drafted from Walter Anderson’s point of view, was it?

This same Jeffrey A. Taylor may have a huge role in the upcoming confrontation with Ms. Monica Goodling. She is expected to take the fifth, as she has promised to do in letters to the Senate leadership, and more recently to the House leadership, too. For reasons that I described here, her claim of privilege is bullshit. If a congressional committee decides that she ought to be prosecuted for contempt of congress, responsibility for that would rest on Mr. Taylor.

For that reason, Congress may want to consider alternative means of coercing her testimony. As we all know, there is the immunity route.

There’s also another route. Congress can direct the Sergeant at Arms to arrest her, and let her fight her way out of jail in court. They may not have covered that at Regent Law School.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

* Shabbat parsha literally means, Sabbath portion. It usually refers to the weekly portion of the 5 Books of Moses that is read during Sabbath services.

Don't resign, Fredo! Stay on for the sake of the children!

On March 22nd El generalissimo Gonzales told a crowd in St. Louis Mo. that he's happy to be out of Washington - if just for a day. “I'm not going to resign. I'm going to stay focused on protecting our kids” Since then he has been traveling the country with Ernie Allen, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to promote a program called “Project Safe Childhood.”

Samuel Johnson said that “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” My experience teaches me that the real low-lifes will hide behind the need to protect children. Could this be el Generalissimo Gonzales’s game?

For two years a scandal has been swept under the rug in Texas. Hundreds of complaints of sexual abuse of children in the Texas juvenile justice system went unheeded. Texas Ranger Brian Burzynski made numerous attempts, beginning in early 2005, to get local, state and federal prosecutors to investigate allegations that teachers, administrators and guards had sex with minor male inmates.

Burzynski testified on March 8th to the Texas legislature’s Joint Committee on Operation and Management of the TYC. He complained that his investigation was stonewalled by everyone up the line, up to and including Alberto Gonzales. All refused to prosecute, he claimed, despite being presented evidence of sexual abuse at the Pyote school. At the conclusion of his testimony, Burzynski received a standing ovation from the joint committee and audience in the room. You can read more here. Fair warning: the reading about the abuse of children in the Texas Youth Commission is not for the faint of heart.

This can’t be good for el Generalissimo “Fredo” Gonzales.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

Is this being tape recorded?

Today, the Boston Globe reports on Senator Ted Kennedy’s accusations regarding the firing of 8 U.S. Attorneys:

At least two of the eight US attorneys fired by the administration refused to investigate spurious claims of voter fraud that were initiated by Republicans, Kennedy said. Two of the new US attorneys, meanwhile, had documented records of pursuing GOP goals, one as a Justice Department official and the other as a top aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove, he said.

Then there was U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton of Arizona. Just before he was fired, he opened an investigation of bribery and vote-selling involving Congressman Richard Renzi. Of course, this couldn’t have anything to do with his firing. We are told he was sacked because of a policy difference with the administration. But what was that policy difference?

William Moschella, Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, told the House Judiciary Committee on March 6th that the Department of Justice has a policy against G-men tape recording the confessions of their suspects. Charlton disagreed.

One must wonder why this policy exists when it is becoming widely understood by police departments and others that taping and videotaping interrogations protects the officers from baseless accusations of unfair interrogation techniques, and protects suspects from being misquoted. It should not be overlooked that the practice also helps to uncover actual instances of unfair interrogation techniques.

For 22 years, it has been the law here in Alaska that the recording of a suspect’s interrogations in a place of detention is a reasonable and necessary safeguard, essential to adequate protection of accused’s right to counsel, right against self-incrimination and ultimately his or her right to a fair trial. State v. Stephan, 711 P.2d 1156 (Alaska 1985).

I suppose this helps explain why the White House is so adamant about there being no transcripts or recordings of Karl Rove and Harriet Miers’ testimony.

"... and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!"

Had your fill of Republican scandals? Here's another for you.

On Chris Matthews tonight, I heard a typical Republican mouthpiece (in this case, Katie O’Bierne) push the Party of Bush’s talking point: there was no crime committed in the firing of the eight U.S. Attorneys. As I have argued elsewhere, it is a crime to sack a U.S. Attorney in order to obstruct an investigation into corruption. But tonight, we find new evidence of an even more egregious crime.

First, the background. As you may recall, one of the stated purposes of firing some of the U.S. Attorneys was that they were not coming down hard enough on voter fraud. Problem is, as the New York Times pointed out, there is no voter fraud in the United States. Well, that is if you ignore Ann Coulter, and who wouldn’t want to do that?

Voter fraud is a code, understood by the Party of Bush loyalists, and it means voter suppression. And it is the next scandal.

One of the fired U.S. Attorneys is H.E. “Bud” Cummins of the Eastern District of Arkansas. He was sacked to make way for Rove protégé Tim Griffin. Tim Griffin’s main experience is reported to have been as an opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee. It turns out that there’s more.

On March 9, GregPalast.com reported that Tim Griffin was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election, according to BBC Television. How did he accomplish this anti-democratic treachery?

It’s called “caging” and it works like this. The RNC sent first-class letters to new voters in minority precincts marked, “Do not forward.” Lists of vulnerable voters were discovered, and they had many sheets. Several of these sheets contained nothing but soldiers, other sheets, homeless shelters. Targets included the Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida and that city’s State Street Rescue Mission. Another target, Edward Waters College, a school for African-Americans.

If these voters were not currently at their home voting address, they were tagged as “suspect” and their registration wiped out or their ballot challenged and not counted. Of course, these ‘cages’ captured thousands of students, the homeless and those in the military though they are legitimate voters.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 makes it a felony to challenge voters en masse where race is an element in the targeting. Why am I not surprised that a Rove protégé is a criminal operative?

My favorite part of the story, by the way, is how it came to light. BBC Television reports “Griffin made a wee mistake. Instead of sending the emails — potential evidence of a crime — to email addresses ending with the domain name “@GeorgeWBush.com” he sent them to “@GeorgeWBush.ORG.” A website run by prankster John Wooden who owns “GeorgeWBush.org.” When Wooden got the treasure trove of Rove-ian ravings, he sent them to us.”

The White House picked a felon to be a U.S. Attorney, and a he’s bumbler, too. Is it any wonder that he doesn’t want to have to stand for confirmation in the Senate?

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

Support the Troops. It's not just a good idea. It's the law.

We read on the Huffington Post that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi urged the President to “Calm down with the threats, there’s a new Congress in town.” She went on to say, “We respect your constitutional role, we want you to respect ours.”

Nice, as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. It’s time for the House Democrats to start issuing some threats of their own. Try this one on for size. If Dumb Dubya vetoes the emergency funding bill, Congress will not pass another.

Don’t feel threatened yet, Dubya? Ponder this: Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States confers on Congress the following powers, inter alia,

To raise and support Armies …

To provide and maintain a Navy

When Congress passes legislation to raise and support Armies and to maintain a Navy, it is a bit of a dereliction of duty to not actually support the Army or maintain the Navy.

What to do with a President who is derelict in his duties? Coincidentally, the Constitution of the United States has something to say on that subject, too. See, Article II, Section 4:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

So, Dubya – do you think the Dems are bluffing? Well, that’s another coincidence, because Big Mitch thinks you are bluffing, too.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

Jack Abramoff is this generation's Alexander Butterfield.

Remember July 16, 1973 when Alexander Butterfield revealed to the Senate Watergate committee that there was a secret taping system in the White House? It was the beginning of the end of a tyrannical Republican imperial presidency. What made me think of that?

Skip forward to today. Across the pond, The Financial Times of London is reporting that the congressional investigation into the firing of eight US attorneys has revealed an e-mail exchange in which J. Scott Jennings, the special assistant to the president and deputy director of public affairs, used an RNC e-mail account to communicate with Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who is due to testify about the firing on Thursday.

It turns out that the Abramoff investigation revealed a pattern of using Republican National Committee email accounts to avoid getting evidence on the White House server.

Now that they have been busted, Henry Waxman has notified the RNC not to destroy any evidence or face the possibility of an obstruction of justice investigation.

This is going to get interesting.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

It is my privilege to announce …

The Huffington Post is reporting,

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ liaison with the White House will refuse to answer questions at upcoming Senate hearings about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, citing her Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, her lawyer says.

The top aide is Ms. Monica Goodling, counsel to el Generalissimo Gonzo. Asserting the fifth amendment privilege is not an admission of guilt. No inference of guilt should arise from the assertion of the privilege. Yeah, sure.

Here’s what we know so far: her attorneys have spoken her. What they said is, of course, confidential. "I have decided to follow by lawyer's advice and respectfully invoke my constitutional right," she said in a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Wait a second! Did she just waive her confidentiality by revealing the substance of her conversation with her attorney? I am just asking.

Anyway, we do know that at the conclusion of that conversation, the attorneys had a well-founded fear of prosecution. This is a prerequisite to the assertion of the privilege. When you take the fifth, you are saying something much more than, “No thanks, I would rather not testify.” You are saying that if you get on the stand, take an oath, and tell the truth, you might just get your tit in a wringer.

Her lawyer invoked the case of Scooter Libby in support of the argument that even innocent people can get caught up in a prosecution for perjury. This strange assertion was re-iterated on Hardball by John Yoo, a former Deputy Asst. Attorney General, who apparently is now paying the mortgage by shilling for the Party of Bush.

What these worthies seem to have forgotten is that Scooter Libby had a dream team defense and still managed to get convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice beyond a reasonable doubt. Strange, to say the least, that Ms. Goodling would like to be lumped with that convicted felon.

Of course, what she would seem to be trying to suggest is that if she tells the truth, the politically motivated powers that be might still prosecute her. Interestingly, this argument was explicitly rejected in the case of United States v. Susan McDougal. Yes, that Susan McDougal, who refused to testify at a Ken Starr chamber proceeding in relation to the Whitewater non-scandal.

In holding that Ms. McDougal had no fifth amendment privilege, the court noted that the order compelling her to testify provided:

That no testimony or other information compelled under this order (or any information directly or indirectly derived from such testimony or other information) may be used against SUSAN H. McDOUGAL in any criminal case, except a prosecution for perjury, giving a false statement, or otherwise failing to comply with this order.

Hey, let’s give Ms. Goodling use immunity for her testimony! That would take away her privilege against self-incrimination.

Of course, before we do that, we might want to know what is it for which she has a well-founded fear of prosecution. Since Ms. Goodling has decided to talk about the advice her attorney gave her, I wonder if she would answer just a few questions about that advice.

As I explained in The Pleasure of the President there are two different categories of crimes that might have been committed. First, there’s the whole misleading Congress thing. It’s serious, and it’s not something that Congress likes to overlook. But it is also a little tenuous. Let’s not forget that Goodling didn’t testify in Congress. Sure, as I pointed out, Kyle Sampson may be on the hook because his failure to prevent Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty from misleading Congress. But I am not feeling Ms. Goodling had a role to play in McNulty’s testimony before Congress. Tell me if I am wrong.

The other category of crime that might have been committed in connection with the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys has to do with anyone who corruptly “obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,” including U.S. attorney investigations. Obstruction of Justice is a crime under 18 U.S.C. § 1512 (c).

You know, the funny thing is that if Ms. Goodling’s attorneys have a well-founded fear of prosecution for obstruction of justice, then you just got to think someone else ought to be equally fearful. This crime, if it was committed, wasn’t committed by Ms. Goodling acting alone.

So, Ms. Goodling, tell us. What are you afraid of?

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

I told you so.

(What follows is an essay I wrote on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. Sad to say, much of what I predicted has come to pass.)

It’s War.
By Mitchel J. Schapira

War is Hell. America is poised at the brink of waging a huge war. There are over a quarter million troops in what almost certainly will be the Iraqi theater of operations. Though we are assured that the military will take every care to avoid civilian casualties, it is inconceivable that this war, if it comes, will not kill thousands of innocent civilians. It is reasonable to think that 100,000 Iraqi civilians will perish, and given the demographics of Iraq half can be expected to be under the age of 16 years old.

The war aims being what they are, the war will surely involve urban warfare. That means that Americans must be prepared to take casualties. It is no figure of speech to say that the decision to wage war is a life and death decision, and on a large scale, too.

Having said all that, I am not a pacifist. War is hell, to be sure, but it is not something which I oppose in all circumstances. The horrors of war, being almost incomprehensible, impose upon us a duty to seek peace whenever we can. I believe in a loving God Who calls upon us to love all of His children. This is my perspective as a citizen of the world.

But I am not just a citizen of the world. I am an American. My loyalty to America, my love of country, and if I may say it without sounding sappy, my patriotism inform all of my decisions. The problem is that it is hard to say what is in America’s interests.

When brave Americans sign up for military service, they say in effect that they are willing to lay down their lives for our country. Such love cannot be abused. We must be sure of our purposes and our prospects for success, if we are to ask these valiant men and women to risk, and in some cases, to sacrifice their lives.

One need not catalogue the horrors of war to make the case against it. But it should be observed that it is not just loss of life and limb that we wish to avoid. The costs of this war will be stupendous and estimates that factor in the reconstruction reach $200 Billion. That’s real money but my bet is that the $2x10 to the 11th is a gross underestimate. So in addition to the direct human costs, we must figure in the suffering that this money could have alleviated at home and elsewhere.

Fifty million people around the world are going to die from AIDS in a matter of days or months or at the most a few years unless they are treated immediately with the life-saving drugs that are now available. $200,000,000,000 buys a lot of medicine, or to put it more concretely, a lot of lives.

War. What Is It Good For? Let’s examine the purposes of this war. First, the war is sold to us as a necessary component of the war on terror. This is an easy sell on the American people because the events of 9/11 have left us angry and scared. But fundamentally, the argument, as presented, is fallacious.

Notwithstanding the fact that a shockingly high 40% of Americans think otherwise, there were no Iraqis among the 9/11 terrorists, and there is no evidence linking Saddam and Osama Bin Ladin. Indeed, Saddam’s secular (though totalitarian) state is anathema to Bin Ladin.

Like so many aspects of this situation, the reality is more complex than the sound bites used to promote policy. It is undoubtedly true that Saddam Hussein gives money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. And Saddam’s closest ally in the Arab world is Syria, state sponsor of terrorist organizations such as Hizbollah and Hamas. So, though the arguments offered against Saddam relating to September 11th are false, the links between Saddam and terrorism are real.

Let us assume there is a link between Saddam and terror besides the Israel connection. One question that needs to be answered is, “Will the war make us safer?” Intelligence services are widely reported to have warned that the war will make terrorist attacks more likely, increasing our risk rather than our safety.

Is it the task of America to fight terrorism wherever and however it rears its ugly head? This goes to the big question of what is to be America’s role in the world. Should America be the policeman of the world? I don’t have much trouble answering that one in the negative. But America does have a special relationship to Israel, and support for Palestinian suicide/murder bombers is not just terrorism in the abstract. Rather, it is an act of war against our strategic ally. On balance, I am prepared to say that Saddam must go, and the sooner the better.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t answer the question of whether or not America should go to war against Iraq. It is only logical to go from Saddam-must-go to we-must-invade if that is the only way or at least the best way to depose Saddam.

Before we address that question, we must take note of the other justifications for the war. Saddam has been said to have a nuclear weapons program. The U.N. inspectors say otherwise. We can only say that the current regime of inspectors is keeping the Iraqi nuclear program at bay, and there is no reason to think that Saddam will threaten us anytime soon with nuclear weapons. Even the White House has dropped this line of argument.

Saddam, we are told, possesses chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. I believe it. We are told that Saddam is ruthless, and the inference is that he would threaten us with these weapons. On this, I am much more skeptical. Saddam may be ruthless, but he is not crazy. The costs of attacking America with chemical or biological weapons are just too high. Again, the inspectors impose a significant deterrent.

Of course, we are told that Saddam has “gassed his own people.” Put aside the fact that the Kurds are not Saddam’s own people any more than are the Chasidim of Boro Park. What is especially irksome about this justification for war is that it was the United States that supplied targeting information for Saddam’s gas attack on Kurdistan. So if the argument is that Saddam is evil and therefore we should attack him, what does that say about his collaborators? Are they not evil, too? Shall they lead us into this war? Their names by the way are Rumsfield, Wolfowitz, Perle, and Powell.

And then there is the problem of the United Nations which illustrates the complexity of this debate. One could argue that the United Nations serves American interests in many ways, not least of which is by reducing the scourge of war. Should we wage war against Iraq to establish the principle that the previous U.N. resolutions calling for Iraqi disarmament under threat of severe consequences must be obeyed? Or does proceeding to war without Security Council approval marginalize and thereby weaken the U.N.?

And what if it does? After all, we are talking about a Security Council which includes Syria, a state sponsor of terrorism. The United Nations does much which is good, some which is bad and a lot which is irrelevant. The posturing of Security Council members doesn’t impress me one way or the other, especially when one considers that France has a veto. France, it must be recalled, sold Iraq nuclear reactors, apparently under the impression that Iraq faced an impending shortage of fossil fuel. According to Bill Safire, France sold Iraq five tons of rocket fuel in violation of the U.N. Sanctions as recently as last April. So whether the war is good or bad for the U.N. is, simply put, not a worthy consideration here.

Don’t Worry; Be Happy The war will pit the American military against a regime that was to some degree disarmed 10 years ago, has little popular support, and has no realistic chance of military success. The American military might is awesome and overwhelming. Not to diminish the value of the lives that will be lost, it is reasonable to hope that within a short while, less than a month, the military objectives will be achieved, though not without costs.

Then what? The suggestion has been made that Americans will be welcomed as liberators, and that democracy will blossom in the desert, from whence it will spread throughout the Arab lands. Don’t believe it.

America has imposed a regime of sanctions on Iraq for a decade now, such that the 40% of Iraqis who are under the age of 14 cannot remember a time when clean drinking water, medicine and food were not limited by the sanctions. “UNICEF confirms that five to six thousand Iraqi children are dying unnecessarily every month due to the impact of sanctions, and that figure is probably modest,” Denis Halliday told a Congressional hearing in October 1998. Halliday, who had just resigned his post as U.N. Assistant Secretary General and head of the U.N. humanitarian mission in Iraq, spoke of the “tragic incompatibility of sanctions with the U.N. Charter and the convention on Human Rights.”

Though the Saddam regime could have traded oil for food and medicine, or taken other affirmative steps to avoid sanctions, it is too much to expect that the average Iraqi sees Saddam’s government as the responsible party for his or her deprivation. It is much more reasonable to think that after an initial show of gratitude, the Iraqi’s will chafe at the presence of Americans in their country, and feel the sting of the war which was brought to them by the United States. In six weeks, whatever goodwill there was, will be gone.

What will Iraq look like then? Here’s a worst case scenario provided by Mike Turner, a retired colonel and former policy planner for the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the Mideast and east Africa.

Now we've firmly committed ourselves to war with Iraq, and what is our political objective? To get Saddam. The uniformed Joint Staff in the Pentagon strongly opposed this plan early on. It requires an attack with a force half that of Desert Storm against an entrenched urban enemy renowned for its ruthlessness in defending its own survival. The uniformed Joint Staff was overridden, yet in so many horrifying ways this operation resembles Somalia, not Desert Storm, only with nerve gas and biological weapons. And without Turkey as a base to launch a northern assault, a dual-pronged attack will be all but impossible.

Perhaps we can pull this off, but here's a far worse scenario that's at least as likely. Within hours of our attack, Saddam launches Scuds on Israel. Israel's right-wing government launches a full-scale attack on Iraq, creating a holy war nightmare. Saddam, threatened with his own survival, uses chemical and biological weapons and human shields just as he has in the past. He torches his own oil fields, thousands of his own people are killed. Photos of American soldiers amid landscapes of Iraqi civilian bodies blanket the world press which aligns unanimously against the US. The US is condemned by NATO and the UN.

The war ends within a few weeks, but the crisis deepens. The US is left to administer a political vacuum in Iraq. Iran is emboldened to help the Shiites in the south. Disease breaks out, food and water are contaminated and the cost of the war skyrockets. The US economy is dealt a body blow, but the administration can find no credible way out. Britain's Prime Minister Blair is voted out of office.

Meanwhile, al-Qaeda, seeing an opportunity due to a shift in US focus, attacks a major US target. North Korea, emboldened by the distraction, ignores diplomatic efforts to restrain its development of nuclear weapons and begins to export weapons-grade plutonium to terrorists.

These are not remote possibilities, but in my view reasonable, possibly even likely outcomes.

Horrible as that scenario is, it doesn’t project what will happen to the Kurds in the northern part of Iraq. Past experience doesn’t supply the answer to that question, but it strongly suggests that whatever it will be, it will not be good.

There is another cost to consider as well. How does one measure the cost of setting a dangerous precedent? In this case the precedent is pre-emptive invasion. If the case for going to war were a stronger one, I might be persuaded to bear this cost as well as the others. After all, I did publicly defend Israel’s pre-emptive strike at the Iraqi nuclear bomb factory. (But let’s not forget that the U.S. condemned it.)

In the current situation, the arguments against war are fortified by the fact that this war can not be unequivocally viewed as a just, proportionate, response to an imminent threat, which left the U.S. with no alternative but to strike pre-emptively. Is this the case to establish the precedent of pre-emptive war? As the old lawyer’s saw has it, ‘Bad cases make bad law.’

We are told that we should trust our government and that there is much information that if only we knew it, we would support the President. There are many lessons to take from the Viet Nam war, but surely the most important one is that blind trust goes beyond the duties of citizenship. Indeed, it crosses over the line into abdication of responsibility. The manner in which the debate has been conducted in this country convinces me more than ever that it is our duty to form our own opinions and express them if they are based upon careful thought and investigation. And though the opinions of other countries count for only so much, they are not to be ignored entirely.

I can’t escape the conclusion that though the goals of ousting Saddam, and de-fanging Iraq are laudable, the risks of military invasion are not worth taking at this time. The costs in terms of life and treasure are too great. It’s a long-shot gamble at best and the stakes are too high.

I have seen nothing in the record of the current administration that warrants confidence in their ability to pull off the difficult balancing act required. One need only look at the damage that has been done to American prestige, to the NATO alliance, and, on the domestic side, to the economy and the budget. The conclusion that can’t be dismissed out of hand is that the President just doesn’t know what he is doing.

What to do? What to do? As I said, Saddam must go. I arrive at this conclusion on the strength of one argument, namely that he supports terrorism against Israel.

Israel is a strategic ally, and therefore, American interests strongly align with Israel’s in this matter. Furthermore, by removing Iraq’s leader, America can say to Israel, “okay, your security is improved; now you must take steps toward peace with the Palestinians.” America can also say to the Palestinians, “okay, your supporter is gone. Make peace now, or it will only get worse.” Since it is axiomatic that resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict is in America’s interests, Saddam’s demise is welcome by America directly, as well as indirectly for its benefit to Israel.

Two Problems. We have two problems to deal with. The first is the Iraqi situation. The second is the blundering president and the mess he has gotten us into.

The first problem is actually much easier to deal with than it seems at first blush. As I have said, inspections seem to be working to some extent. That is to say, inspectors have prevented Saddam from getting a nuclear development program under way, and have inhibited him from arming missiles with chemical and biological WMDs. All this is good, as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. What we need, is to destroy the weapons of mass destruction that he is presumed to have.

As long as America threatens unilateral military invasion, Saddam Hussein will do anything and everything to keep his weapons of mass destruction. This is especially true because Saddam reasonably believes that even if he were to destroy his weapons of mass destruction, America will invade and impose regime change. It is easy for Saddam to see that there is no percentage in him destroying his WMDs as long as America threatens unilateral action to depose him. Therefore, the United States must foreswear unilateral action, if there is to be any chance of success in disarming Iraq.

In order to destroy the WMD’s we need a new regime of inspectors. The inspectors should be empowered not merely to report to the UN, but also to destroy weapons and components wherever they are found. By ‘empowered’ I mean to say, given legal authority and military capability. The legal authority would come from the Security Counsel, or the General Assembly of the United Nations. The military capability should wear the uniforms of the UN troops. There must be a true coalition of the willing involving the vast majority of nations willing to back up the Inspectors with invasion if Saddam fails to cooperate in any way. This back up force has to be a significant multi-national force, mobilized and able to strike on very short notice.

What would trigger the multinational force? The plan I propose would necessarily involve a much more active inspector corps. They would be given provisional authority to order military strikes from a joint command. The implied bargain is this, “cooperate and live; fail to cooperate and you face the combined forces of the world’s free nations, which means certain death for you.”

Of course, we have said that Saddam must go, and that regime change is devoutly to be wished for. We should be willing to settle for Saddam dying peacefully of old age, if he is restrained from doing evil for the rest of his life.

I think that there is much that can be done to promote regime change from within Iraq. This goes beyond my expertise, but it seems obvious that America has supported the overthrow of tyrants before, and our intelligence services are capable of doing it again. It seems that we have made enough mistakes in the past that, were we disposed to learn from mistakes, we could be very wise, indeed. I might mention here that I am not a conscientious objector to Israel’s policy of targeted assassinations.

The specifics of how we could bring about regime change are difficult to discuss. I would observe that the inspectors would impose limitations on Saddam’s ability to resist popular uprising, and could also hamper his capacity for making mischief abroad.

If through the implementation of these measures Saddam is harmless until his time on earth comes to an end, I would count the policy as a great success. Of course, harmless means more than not employing WMDs. It also means not having the means by which to threaten peace. Therefore, the inspector regime should include specifically the ability to trace money and insure access of the Iraqi people to information. Transferring money to terrorists, or their families, is supporting terrorism, and that would be contrary to the commitments which Iraq would have to make. An attack on Radio Free Iraq, would be interpreted at an aggressive act, incompatible with a disarmed Iraq.

A special consideration is the role of sanctions on Iraq. It should be sufficient to observe that 10 years of sanctions have weakened Saddam no more than 40 years of sanctions have weakened Castro. Indeed, sanctions seem to have strengthened the anti-American component of support for these dictators. Elsewhere herein, I have suggested that they have made any post-invasion scenario greatly more problematic. Therefore, I would reverse the sanctions. In their place I would impose a program of directly aiding groups within Iraq which are not friendly to Saddam.

First and foremost among these is the Kurds. Since the Kurds live in Iraq’s northern no fly zone, it should not be an impossible task to give aid directly to them.

The Shi’ites in the South should be naturally allied with the Saudis against the Baathists. Saudi Arabia should be persuaded to find a way to support their brethren to obtain democracy in a way that doesn’t threaten the House of Saud directly. I say directly because in the historical time scale, all democracies threaten all monarchies. Nevertheless, Saudi support for Iraqi Shi’ites is sufficient if it keeps Saddam hunkered down in Baghdad, and creates an environment in which the seeds of democracy can be sown.

The other problem we have is that our President is a knucklehead and he has gotten us into a horrible mess. The solution to his incompetence is to vote against him in the next election, as most people did in the last. The solution to the horrible mess that he has gotten us into is to be guided by the words of the Good Book: “Pride goeth before a fall.” We must admit our mistakes, and not allow our nation to shed blood, lose treasure, and diminish our security to save face.

_____________________
“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

Welcome, Ike Ferguson.

One of the most steadfast members of the Republican legal team is the little known Ike Ferguson. Today, Tony Snowjob revealed that he has lent his considerable talents to the White House.

First some background: Back in the relatively innocent days of Watergate, tape recordings in the Oval Office revealed Nixon channeling Ike Ferguson’s advice to his co-conspirators when he told them how to tailor grand jury testimony. “You say, ‘I don’t remember.’ You can say, ‘I can’t recall. I can’t give an answer to that, that I can recall,’” said Nixon.

Ike Ferguson’s clever hand was guiding the defense of notorious Republican supporter Ken Lay. Kenny-boy, as he was called by his buddy, Dumb Dubya, testified in his own trial, and said he didn't remember being told about any rules governing the use of loan money by banks to buy stock.

I don't recall them ever coming to my attention we were not in compliance with any of those loan agreements. I can't categorically say somebody didn't, but I sure can't recall.

Of course, it was not the first time that a corporate criminal took his cues from the indomitable Ike Ferguson.

Dumb Dubya himself was in a tight spot when he dumped a bunch of Harken stock just before it announced an unexpected loss. This could have been a problem because Dumb Dubya was a director and member of the firm’s audit committee. Sounds like insider trading, doesn’t it?

Well, as it happens there are laws about that, and one requires that an insider’s sales of stock has to be reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Bush didn’t do this until eight months after the required deadline, but as he explained, he didn’t know about Harken’s impending financial disaster, and he “simply forgot” to file the SEC reports.

Ike Ferguson was an important architect of the Scooter Libby defense team. Back on May 27th, 2006, I reported “Scooter Libby claimed that his misstatements regarding conversations he had with Judy Miller, Joe Cooper and Tim Russert are the products of a faulty memory.” Actually, Scooter didn’t claim this in his trial, since committing perjury at your trial for perjury is just a bad idea. But his lawyers were clearly following Ike Ferguson’s playbook.

Lo, these many years later, King George the Incompetent is still employing the services of Ike Ferguson. Today, March 21st, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow responded to questions about the politically motivated firing of U.S. Attorneys. Here’s what he had to say:

The president has no recollection of this ever being raised with him.

Maybe it’s time to reveal where this legal genius, Ike Ferguson came from.

Many years ago, a young German Jew immigrated to this country. His family sent him off with very little material goods but with plenty of advice. When he came to Ellis Island, he became thoroughly baffled and confused by the noise and cacaphony of the main processing building. When at last he stood before the immigration officer's desk, hat in hand, the immigration officer barked at him: “Name?”

The young man’s disorientation was so great that he could not recall even his own name. And so he replied, “Ich vergesse!” [fn. 1]

The overworked immigration officer, unperturbed, says, “Right! Ike Ferguson! Next!” and waved the young man on...

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

[fn. 1] For the Yiddishly challenged, “Ich vergesse!” means, “I forget!”

The Pleasure of the President

Tomorrow the House Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman John Conyers, will vote in favor of subpoenaing Harriet Miers, Karl Rove, and the Alberto “Fredo” Gonzales. Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will do the same under the leadership of Patrick Leahy. The White House can be expected to refuse to comply, claiming executive privilege.

It’s ironic, n’est pas? The Bush administration has claimed all along that it disapproves of the Court’s making laws, and that the role of the judiciary is to strictly apply the letter of the Constitution. Executive Privilege is not to be found anywhere in the Constitution of the United States.

But let’s take a moment to review what we know so far about executive privilege. There is not a lot of law on the subject, but clearly the leading case is United States vs. Nixon. That case arose in the context of the criminal case against John Mitchell, who was Nixon’s Attorney General. Mitchell was on trial for conspiracy to obstruct justice and other crimes relating to the break-in of the Democratic National Headquarters in the Washington’s Watergate complex. Nixon was an un-indicted co-conspirator.

The prosecutor wanted access to recordings secretly made in the White House, and he prevailed upon the District Court to issue a subpoena. The President appeared through counsel, moved to quash the subpoena and lost. The case made it to the United States Supreme Court, which unanimously ruled against Nixon’s claim of executive privilege.

Three observations are pertinent. First, the Nixon case clearly differentiates between military and diplomatic information in the possession of the executive branch and other information. Military and diplomatic information deserves special protection, but in the present controversy, the information sought does not merit this higher level of protection.

Second, the Nixon case dealt with a fight ostensibly between the executive branch and the judicial branch. In contrast, the controversy today will test the will as well as the power of the legislative branch vis a vis the executive branch. In a sense, this may be a distinction without a difference.

If Bush refuses to comply with the subpoena, Congress can hold him in contempt, and refer the case to the United States Attorney for indictment and prosecution. Assuming that he or she goes forward with the prosecution, the President will be in court, and the battle lines will be drawn between the courts and the executive.

Third, and most importantly, the Nixon case concerned “a subpoena essential to enforcement of criminal statutes.” In contrast, over and over again, we have heard the apologists for this administration point to the fact that the United States Attorneys “serve at the pleasure of the President.” Indeed, though the present case raises serious questions about the independence of United States Attorneys, we are repeatedly told “no crimes were committed.”

Let’s look a little closer.

Suppose you had a small business, and you hired a secretary. After a bit, you decided that you didn’t want him or her to work for you anymore. You could fire the employee with impunity: you don’t need a reason. Likewise, if you discovered that your employees were stealing from you, you could fire them because, obviously, you have a good reason. The point is you can fire an employee for a good reason or for no reason.

But now suppose you discovered that your secretary was married to a member of a minority group. If you decided to fire the employee for that reason you would be guilty of discrimination, and your conduct would be actionable. You can fire for a good reason, or for no reason, but not for a bad reason.

Turning now to the facts of the present controversy, there is an appearance that the United States Attorneys were fired not for a good reason, and not for no reason. Rather, there is growing evidence that they were fired for bad reasons.

As I reported back on January 17th

Tonight, Keith Olbermann reported that the Bushies are in the process of purging 7 U.S. Attorneys and giving no public explanation. One of them, Carol Lam, is responsible for the Duke Cunningham conviction, and according to Dianne Feinstein, she has subpoenas out for other members of Congress. The concern is that the purge is payback for going after corruption. A purge of those who are not loyal to the Party of Bush – it’s just so typical of these fascists.

Since then it has been learned that Ms. Lam's prosecution of Duke Cunningham was spreading to Republican Congressman Jerry Lewis of California. This provoked Mr. Kyle Sampson (Generalissimo Gonzales’ chief of staff) to write an e-mail message referring to the “real problem we have right now with Carol Lam.” He said it made him think that it was time to start looking for a replacement.

In a New York Times article entitled, It Wasn’t Just a Bad Idea. It May Have Been Against the Law. Adam Cohen points out the criminal statutes that may have been violated.

Start with 8 U.S.C. § 1505, which makes it illegal to lie to Congress, and also to “impede” it in getting information. That’s the statute that David Safavian went down on last year, and arguably it applies to the false statements of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty who indicated that the White House’s involvement in firing the United States attorneys was minimal. “If Kyle Sampson withheld the information about the White House’s role in the firings from Mr. McNulty, who then misled Congress, Mr. Sampson may have violated § 1505,” says Mr. Cohen. And let’s not forget that el Generalissimo Gonzales asserted to Congress that, “I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons.”

Then there’s 18 U.S.C. § 1512 (c), which applies to anyone who corruptly “obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,” including U.S. attorney investigations. David Iglesias, one of the fired United States attorneys says he “felt pressured” by a call from New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici who wanted a corruption case against a political opponent to occur before the election. Read his story here. Indeed, firing Carol Lam, if it was done to obstruct the investigation of Jerry Lewis sounds like obstruction of justice.

Michael Elston, Mr. McNulty’s chief of staff, contacted one of the fired attorneys, H. E. Cummins, and suggested that if he kept speaking out there would be retaliation. There’s a name for that – witness tampering – and 18 U.S.C. § 1512 (b) makes it a crime.

Advise to Democrats: It’s time to start calling a spade a spade. The investigation raises serious concerns that crimes were being countenanced, if not committed, in the White House. Advice to Republicans: be careful about trying to distinguish this case from United States v. Nixon on the basis that the Nixon case was a criminal case. That case, like the present controversy, involved obstruction of justice.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

Bedtime for Gonzo

If there were any doubt that El Generalissimo Gonzalez is about to hit the bricks, it was removed today.

King George the Incompetent called him at 7:15 a.m. We read here, “The president reaffirmed his strong backing of the attorney general and his support for him. The president called him to reaffirm his support,” according to White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino.

Dumb Dubya might as well have painted a target on el Generalissimo’s forehead.

But what to make of Perino’s categorical denial of the story that the Bushies are looking for a replacement for Alberto?

To Big Mitch it can only mean one thing: the Bushies are looking for a replacement for Alberto. Hasta luego, Alberto.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”

Wilson? Yeah! Fitz? Feh!

I just got a chance to review the testimony of Valerie Wilson before the Waxman committee. What an excellent witness she was!

The Party of Bush loyalists are still trying to get into the public discourse the idea that Mrs. Wilson was not a covert agent, but Mrs. Wilson and Henry Waxman drove a stake through the heart of that nonsense. But is that enough? The Party of Bush has a fall back position that also needs to be laid to rest.

The idea is that Mrs. Wilson might have been covert but that the bastards that outed her did not know that. It’s time for a little refresher course in the law.

It is a criminal offense to out a CIA covert agent. The statute is 50 U.S.C. 421. The elements of the offense are:

The perp had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent,

He or she intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information,

knowing that the information disclosed identifies a covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States.

It’s too late in the day to argue that Rove, Libby and Cheney didn’t have access to classified information that identified Mrs. Wilson, or that Robert Novak was authorized to receive classified information. The question is, did the party of Bush’s hit men “intentionally” disclose the information.

Intentionally is a word that seems to be brimming over with legal significance, and yet, it is quite simple. It means that the actor knew what he or she was doing. It is not intended to cover an act done through ignorance, mistake or accident. A person normally intends the natural consequences of his acts.

Rove may say that he was talking in his sleep, or that it was a slip of the tongue. Or he might argue that he thought he was talking to Cheney when he called up Chris Matthews and said, “Valerie Plame is fair game.” If so, he has the balls of a blind burglar.

On the other hand, if he admits that he knew that he was talking to someone not authorized to receive classified information, then he has ’fessed up.

There’s another part to the statute: the perp has to “know” that the information disclosed identifies a covert agent, who is being actively protected by the government. So, you can well imagine these guys saying, “we had no idea she was under cover.”

It’s a ludicrous argument, but certainly, not beneath the thugs in the service of King George the Incompetent. Here’s why it won’t work.

A typical jury instruction in cases like this would say something like:

When knowledge of the existence of a particular fact is an essential part of an offense, such knowledge may be established if the Defendant is aware of a high probability of its existence, unless the Defendant actually believes that it does not exist.

Which one of these buffoons could say with a straight face that he actually believed that Valerie Wilson was not covert? Not one. The most they might say is that they had no idea, and didn’t really think about it.

But were they aware that there was a high probability that she was a covert agent? Mrs. Wilson’s testimony on Friday laid it all out.

First, remember that the Royal Stenographer, Judith Wilson has stated that Irve Wilson, (a/k/a “Scooter”) told her that Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA in WINPAC (Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control).

Mrs. Wilson confirmed that she was working in the Counter-Proliferation Division (CPD). What we know so far – and what Mrs. Wilson confirmed on Friday – was that almost everyone who works in the CPD was covert. In other words, it would be impossible to know that she worked in the CPD and not know that there was a “high probability” that she was covert.

Next time you hear someone sing the praises of Fitz, the special prosecutor remember he didn't get the guys who ruined the career of the patriotic Mrs. Wilson, and he let the guilty guys wriggle off the hook.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”