10 Years Later

I wasn't blogging yet 10 years ago, I started this blog in May of 2004.  But I was reading blogs.  I remember that many pointed out that the ultimate winner of the war would be Iran.  I spent some time today going over some of my early posts.  One of the sources of intelligence used by the Bush/Cheney cabal was one Ahmed Chalabi.  In May of 2004 we found out that Chalabi was working for the Iranians.  Here is my post from May, 21, 2004:
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Talk about being had, it appears that Cheney and the Defense Department were being taken in and paying Iranian spies as in Chalabi and his slimy group.
Agency: Chalabi group was front for Iran

WASHINGTON -- The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that a U.S.-funded arm of Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress has been used for years by Iranian intelligence to pass disinformation to the United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets, according to intelligence sources.

"Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection Program information to provoke the United States into getting rid of Saddam Hussein," said an intelligence source Friday who was briefed on the Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusions, which were based on a review of thousands of internal documents.

In other words we attacked one country part of the Axis of Evil, Iraq, for another, Iran.
Will the incompetence ever end.
Josh Marshall also has some thoughts on this
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Indeed, we fought a war against Iran's arch enemy - we lost and Iran won.

Cheney promised us that the US would be seen as liberators.  It took a little over a year to see proof that this was just another lie.  This post from June 19, 2004:
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In a recent poll conducted by the US CPA in Iraq 55 percent of the Iraqi's polled said they would feel safer when the Americans left. With headlines like this you can see why:
US Strikes 'Al Qaeda Safe House' in Iraq, 22 Dead

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. forces launched an air strike on Saturday on what they said was a safe house linked to elusive al Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the Iraqi city of Falluja, killing 22 people in a "precision strike."

"An American plane hit this house and three others were damaged. Only body parts are left," a witness said, as rescuers dug through the rubble of the shattered house for survivors.

"They brought us 22 corpses, children, women and youth," Ahmed Hassan, a cemetery worker, said after the blast.

I'm sorry, but even if it was an al Quida safe house this is no way to make the Iraqi citizens feel more secure or feel good about the American presence. No matter how you felt about the war it can't be hard to concede that the effort has been thourghly botched.

Update

Juan Cole has some thoughts on this. He thinks it might be considered a war crime since many of the dead were women and children.
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Iraq was a colossal mistake.  Even those who think it might have been a good idea admit that there was gross incompetence on the part of the Bush administration.

Now A Presidential Stimulus ?

***Cross Posted from "Chuck for..."***
I've owed Ron a post for some time, but most get dated too quickly to cross post and lately I've been time limited. This headline got 7100 views on reuter.com, it's not that good...

Just the other day George II quit talking about how good the economy is and said a stimulus is needed. In fact the stimulus needed is "direct and rapid." (Go ahead and make jokes) Maybe a stimulus is needed now that things are going south for those with big bucks in the stock market.

Just as a measure of how some things seem to miss the CiC, lets take a look at some US Bureau of Census figures for a couple segments of the economy, like the second one fifth from the bottom and the bottom of the top 5%, and note, this has nothing to do with extremes. In 1984 in 2006 dollars the second 1/5th earned $32,863 and the bottom of the top 5% earned $126,610. In 2006 in 2006 dollars the number are 37,774 and $174,012 the changes respectively are, $4,911 and $47,402 which means an increase of 14.9% and 37.4%. I suppose you think I ought to give George a break and only use numbers he could reasonably have some responsibility for, like 2001 to 2006? Ok, sure. 2001 2nd 1/5th $37,940 and bottom of top 5% $171,395 so the differences are -$166 and $2617 or -0.5% and 1.5% so at an upper middle class you've stayed close to the game with BushCo, blue collar, you've sucked.

2003-2004 were pretty tough, in the 2nd 1/5th you lost $260 and in the bottom of top 5% you lost $1,190 but in the average of the top 1% of after tax income you went from $572,000 to $620,700 or +8.5%. You're still not talking about George II's pals, the top 0.1%, they did nicely in 2003-4 to the tune of 9.5% while their tax rates fell by 3.4% while the bottom 80% experienced a drop of 0.3%. For perspective, this top 0.1% had more income than the bottom 33% of taxpayers a group 330 times as large. In 1979 the bottom third's income exceeded the top 0.1% by 2.5:1.

Dow Jones average on 12/24/07 was about 13,500 on 1/18/08 about 12,100 or a 10% decrease. That's a chunk of change for those in the top 0.1% of tax payers. 1/14-18/08 was the big drop, 700 points, about half the loss or 5% and nearly 5.5% in those days. Reflect on the wages of the 2nd 1/5th during BushCo, the income of the top 0.1%, and who lost when George II started talking about something other than a good economy. It became something worthy of "direct and rapid" stimulus only the other day. If you work for a living you may have noticed direct and rapid stimulus during his Administration - if you were bent over.

If you'd like to compare the Reagan years, you'd find 1976-81 interesting, for the same groups,
'76 $31,721 and '81 $31,907 or +0.6% and bottom of top 5% $110,250 to $117,419 or +6.5%. (sorry, I don't have 0.1%) Tinkledown economics at its finest.

Who's the big dog?

I seem to have personally survived the duo of Pacific typhoons the battered the Pacific Northwest. I did experience a short power outage but that's all. There is a lot of news today but perhaps the biggest is the release of a year old National Intelligence Estimate.
U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work

A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

Now it's easy to see why Cheney, Bush and DNI Mike McConnell didn't want it released - if proves that once again they were lying in order to push their war agenda. This will make it extremely difficult for the psychopaths in the administration to attack Iran.

Kevin Drum asks a very good question; WHY WAS THE NIE RELEASED? is the administration did not want it released.

All I've got is speculation on the second question, but here it is: it was congressional pressure. Democratic members of the various intelligence committees saw the NIE (or a summary or a verbal report or something) and went ballistic. Footnotes and dissents are one thing, but withholding a report whose primary conclusion is 180 degrees contrary to years of administration innuendo produced a rebellion. Somebody who got briefed must have threatened something pretty serious if the NIE didn't see the light of day.

Like I said, just a guess. But who else has the clout to force Bush, Cheney, and McConnell to change course?

I have to wonder if the lawmakers may have had some help from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Pentagon.

This should also all but take Iran off the table for the 2008 presidential elections meaning the Republicans will have to stick to immigration to prove how manly they are.

Update
Spencer Ackerman doesn't think it was the Democrats on the Intelligence Committee that forced the release of the NIE but that it may have been a case where the Intelligence Community wanted to set the record straight. I don't think so. While the rank and file members may have wanted to release it they couldn't without Mike McConnell's approval and I would doubt that he would have any interest is "setting the record straight". My money is still on the the Pentagon and Robert Gates perhaps working with Rice and her people at State. Perhaps that's why Wolfie is coming back - to keep a leash on Condi.

King George and the Law

The DOJ is a part of the Executive branch and can be ordered about by George W. He asserts that "the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege," according to the WaPo . This is rather sticky for Congress, the law states that a House or Senate statutory contempt citation must be submitted to the DC US Attorney "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action."

"A senior official, who said his remarks reflect a consensus within the administration. "And a U.S. attorney wouldn't be permitted to argue against the reasoned legal opinion that the Justice Department provided. No one should expect that to happen."
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, added: "It has long been understood that, in circumstances like these, the constitutional prerogatives of the president would make it a futile and purely political act for Congress to refer contempt citations to U.S. attorneys."

So apparently being President means Congress can just go take a hike and is what you might call - inconsequential. Fit for doing the bidding of the Supreme Executive, and you may have noticed that they will do just that rather than be accused of being soft on terror - so they'll be soft on spying. So, the Supremes are very nearly a BushCo creation, Congress is his yapping lap dog, and what's left? I suppose it's the ballot box or the Second Amendment, it's a pretty sad state of affairs when there is actually reason to wonder which is most utilitarian.

Ed Morrissey on Gonzo

I noted below that the right has been slow to react to the performance of Alberto Gonzales yesterday. The often reasonable Ed Morrissey has weighed in.

The reversals, the constant reclarifications, and the lack of any sense of personal control by Gonzales at Justice makes him appear to be one of the more incompetent Cabinet officials in recent memory. No one made any case for corruption at yesterday’s hearing, but a lack of criminality should not be the base qualification for remaining at the head of the DoJ — especially during a time of war. As Gonzales continues to flounder in a sea of his own contradictions, one has to wonder why the White House continues to allow this bleeding to continue.

If the White House is shrinking from a confirmation hearing on a replacement for Gonzales, it should remember that the DoJ serves the nation, and the nation deserves a competent and capable chief for this critical point in history. If Bush clings to Gonzales out of a sense of loyalty, then he should consider the damage that personal loyalty has done to his own credibility and the credibility of federal law enforcement. Gonzales is a mistake he can rectify, and Bush should do so immediately.

Impeach Now!

I haven't heard from or read anything by Jimmy Breslin for awhile but it was worth the wait. In Impeach George Bush to stop war lies, deaths he mostly take it to George W. Bush but he save a shot or two for the politicians who won't do what should be done - impeach Bush and Cheney. Go read the entire thing but there are a few paragraphs that stand out.

The war was there to take his life because George Bush started it with bold-faced lies.

He got this lovely kid killed by lying.

If Bush did this in Queens, he would be in court on Queens Boulevard on a murder charge.

He did it in the White House, and it is appropriate, and mandatory for the good of the nation, that impeachment proceedings be started. You can't live with lies. You can't permit them to be passed on as if it is the thing to do.

Yesterday, Bush didn't run the country for a couple of hours while he had a colonoscopy at the presidential retreat, Camp David. He came out of it all right. He should now take his good health and go home, quit a job he doesn't have a clue as to how to do.

The other day, Bush said he couldn't understand why in the world would some people say that millions of Americans have no health insurance. "Why, all they have to do is go to the emergency room," he said.

Said this with the smirk, the insolent smug, contemptuous way he speaks to citizens.

And about those politicians.

People, particularly these politicians, these frightened beggars in suits, seem petrified about impeachment. It could wreck the country. Ridiculous. I've been around this business twice and we're all still here and no politician was even injured. Richard Nixon lied during a war and helped get some 58,500 Americans killed and many escaped by hanging onto helicopter skids. Nixon left peacefully. Mike Mansfield of Montana, the Democratic Senate majority leader, said on television that the Senate impeachment trial of Nixon would be televised and there would be no immunity. That meant Nixon would have to face the country under oath and if he lied he would go to prison. He knew he was finished as he heard this. Mansfield said no more. He got up and left. Barbara Walters, on the "Today" show, said, "He doesn't say very much, does he?"

The second time the subject was Bill Clinton for illegal holding in the hallway.

This time, we have dead bodies involved. Consider what is accomplished by the simple power of the word impeachment. If you read these broken-down news writers or terrified politicians claiming that an impeachment would leave the nation in pieces, don't give a moment to them.

Breslin gets to the meat in his folksy sort of way. Not only is George W. Bush the worst president ever he is also the sorriest excuse for a human being to ever hold public office. Yes he is worse than Joe McCarthy and worse than Nixon. Impeachment is not only the right thing to do it is necessary to save this country.

I have more over at The Gun Toting Liberal

The Fear Card isn't what it used to be

As I reported yesterday the latest Newsweek poll showed that only one in four Americans approve of the job George W. Bush is doing. Perhaps the most disturbing number for Bush and the Republicans was that their trump card is not working as only 43% approve of Bush's handling terrorism. Today's Gallup Poll paints an even bleaker picture. After six and a half years of the Bush administration and six years of total Republican control only 29% think the US is winning the "War on Terror". While 65% of Americans see Afghanistan as a part of the WOT only 43% see Iraq as a part of it. That explains why a majority now oppose the occupation.

Destruction Equals Progress

*cross posted from Chuck for...*

You've actually got to hand it to Tony Snow, he found a way to link failure to success in today's Press Briefing:

Snow: "As the president has pointed out before, when pro-democracy movements seem to be making some progress — Lebanon, for instance — there are actions that are designed to derail it. This is part of the larger war on terror.."

If the magnitude of the actions to derail this movement in Iraq are a measure of it's progress, this thing must be a roaring success. How odd that I hadn't noticed, must be those defeatist news organizations...

There's something these people ignore and it is so blatantly simple and straight forward that, well, I guess it just bears ignoring: if there is such widespread enthusiasm for democracy in Iraq then why is it relatively safe to be a terrorist?

It has been pointed out that this is a 'weapons rich' environment, most people can get their hands on dangerous items, but it seems the violently enthusiastic are all dedicated to something other than the rule of law and democracy. There are neighbors who are busy killing Shia/Sunni and Americans and in general causing real trouble, a bee in an American ear would certainly be useful or a bullet in the neighbor's head. Sure, that's risky behavior, but gee, so is just being in Iraq.

The Only Way To End The Occupation....

....Is To End The Rule Of The Bush/Cheney Cabal.
David Ignatius has an Op Ed in the Washington Post today on Dick (Lord of Darkness) Cheney's trip to the Middle East - specifically to Saudi Arabia.

The Cheney visit is aimed partly at mutual reassurance. Both sides want to reaffirm the alliance, despite disagreements over Iraq policy and the Palestinian issue. The Saudis also want to establish an additional channel for communication so they can avoid misunderstandings that have sometimes arisen when the primary intermediary is Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the freewheeling former Saudi ambassador to Washington who is now national security adviser.

Abdullah had seemed to be distancing himself from Washington in some recent comments. In February, he broke with U.S. efforts to isolate the radical Palestinian group Hamas by sponsoring the Mecca Agreement that created a Palestinian "unity government" fusing Hamas with the more moderate Fatah. In March, he surprised U.S. officials by calling the military occupation of Iraq "illegitimate" in a speech to an Arab League summit in Riyadh. He also nixed plans for a White House dinner in April.

Abdullah's criticism of the "illegitimate" American presence in Iraq reflects the Saudi leader's deep misgivings about U.S. strategy there. Saudi sources say the king has given up on the ability of Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, to overcome sectarian divisions and unite the country. The Saudi leadership is also said to believe that the U.S. troop surge is likely to fail, deepening the danger of all-out civil war in Iraq.

And then there is this:

The ferment in the region is driven partly by the perception that U.S. troops are on the way out, no matter what the Bush administration says. To dampen such speculation, Bush is said to have told the Saudis that America will not withdraw from Iraq during his presidency. "That gives us 18 months to plan," said one Saudi source.

So there is a time line but it's not September, 2007 but January, 2009. That would seem to fit with recent comments by Condolezza Rice and this;
Commanders in Iraq See 'Surge' Into '08

Pentagon to Deploy 35,000 Replacement Troops
The Pentagon announced yesterday that 35,000 soldiers in 10 Army combat brigades will begin deploying to Iraq in August as replacements, making it possible to sustain the increase of U.S. troops there until at least the end of this year.

U.S. commanders in Iraq are increasingly convinced that heightened troop levels, announced by President Bush in January, will need to last into the spring of 2008. The military has said it would assess in September how well its counterinsurgency strategy, intended to pacify Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, is working.

"The surge needs to go through the beginning of next year for sure," said Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day commander for U.S. military operations in Iraq. The new requirement of up to 15-month tours for active-duty soldiers will allow the troop increase to last until spring, said Odierno, who favors keeping experienced forces in place for now.

Bottom line - we will have 100,000 plus troops in Iraq as long as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are in office. If you want to end the US occupation of Iraq you must prematurely end the regime of Bush and Cheney.

Update
Our friend Cernig has a well deserved I Hate To Say I Told You So... over at NewsHoggers

More Chest Pounding

George W. Bush is still pounding his chest like the playground bully but he has a lot fewer sycophants standing behind him.
Bush Derides Iraq War Measure

In his most combative comments yet, President Bush mocked Democratic lawmakers yesterday for including a deadline for troop withdrawals and "pork" projects in an Iraq spending bill, declaring that "the American people will know who to hold responsible" if funding for the war stalls.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) shot back that Bush's vow to veto the spending bill carries its own cost. In a joint letter, they warned him against following "a political strategy that would needlessly delay funding for our troops."

Bush has little support from the American people, decreasing support from the Republicans and even the Saudis have turned on him. So will Bush really veto the bill? David Sirota has some excellent advice for the Democrats if he does.
Memo to Democrats On Iraq: The Post-Veto Strategy

Democrats will be forced to write another supplemental bill, and in vetoing the current supplemental, Bush will be daring Democrats to send him back the exact bill. His theory is that the only way he wins is to either peel off conservative Democrats, and failing that (as he likely will because they are already on record), getting Democrats to be perceived as stubbornly, irrationally digging in.

But here's the thing: Democrats don't have to send Bush back the exact same supplemental bill with the exact same language. The specific binding language to end the war in the current supplemental is not unique - that is, there are many ways to achieve the goals of that language in a binding way without simply copying and pasting that exact language into the new, post-veto supplemental.

Democrats could, for instance, call Bush's bluff on timetables and take out the sections about a timetables completely - all while tightening the troop training requirements and removing the waiver that lets Bush get out of such requirements. That has strong public support and would effectively end the war, because troops are simply not being trained and equipped fast enough to sustain the current rotation schedules in Iraq. Similarly, Democrats could put a provision in circumventing Bush by ordering military generals to join with a bipartisan, congressionally appointed commission to construct, within a month, a plan for withdrawal within a year that will automatically have the binding force of law. I'm just coming up with scenarios off the top of my head, but the point is that the possibilities to appear flexible while holding firm to binding antiwar goals are limitless and further, that achieving both is essential.

Such a strategy could result in repeated volleys of congressional passage and presidential veto (which, by the way, may require extremely short-term continuing resolutions from Democrats so as to not allow themselves to walk into the "cutting off funds for the troops" trap Bush will be in, and will want to ensnare Democrats with by claiming their moves are "shutting the military down"). But if Democrats employ this shotgun approach of sending up different variations of the same antiwar theme, each volley will drive Bush further into isolation and consequently bring the war closer to an end. The less power a pro-war president has, the more we will be able to end the war.

Better advice than they will get from the DC strategists. Email Sirota's advice to your Senator and Congressman.

Quote of the Day

The New York Times has picked up the story about Saudi King Abdullah referring to the US involvement in Iraq as an illegal occupation I discussed below. The Times article, Saudi King Condemns U.S. Occupation of Iraq, doesn't really have any additional details but does have some observations from from the region. This one deserves the quote of the day.

Turki al-Rasheed, who runs a organization that promotes democracy in Saudi Arabia, said the king was “saying we may be moving on the same track, but our ends are different.”

“Bush wants to make it look like he is solving the problem, the king wants to actually solve the problems,” Mr. Rasheed said.

That could just about describe the entire Bush presidency.

There is a timetable

All the talk of timetables is silly.
Republicans Soften Stance on Pullout Language
GOP Senators Willing To Let Bush Confront Iraq Timetable Issue

Unwilling to do the White House's heavy lifting on Iraq, Senate Republicans are prepared to step aside to allow language requiring troop withdrawals to reach President Bush, forcing him to face down Democratic adversaries with his veto pen.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) announced the shift in strategy yesterday, as the chamber took up a $122 billion war spending package that includes a target date of March 31, 2008, for ending most U.S. combat operations in Iraq. The provision, along with a similar House effort, represents the Democrats' boldest challenge on the war, setting the stage for a dramatic showdown with Bush over an otherwise popular bill to keep vital military funds flowing.

As E.J.Dionne explains Bush's my way or the highway approach is forcing Republicans to support an unpopular war with elections approaching.

Now, Van Hollen argues, Bush's "take-it-or-leave-it" approach to the bill is also "hurting the political standing of his Republican colleagues" in Congress by forcing them to back an open-ended commitment in Iraq at a time when their constituents are demanding a different approach.

Bush continued his effort to polarize the debate in his weekly radio address Saturday, condemning the House vote as a "political statement" and urging Congress "to put our troops first, not politics" by sending him "a clean bill, without conditions, without restrictions and without pork."

Bush's threat to veto the House bill might be seen as either safe or empty, because the final compromise that emerges from the House and Senate will be different from the measure passed by Pelosi's majority. But the president's uncompromising language and his effective imposition of an April 15 deadline for the funding bill -- after that date, he said, "our men and women in uniform will face significant disruptions" -- may solidify Democratic ranks without rallying new Republican support.

With 20 Republican senate seats on the line in 2008 and Bush's mis-adventure in Iraq becoming more unpopular everyday the Republicans realize they must break with Bush on Iraq and soon. That's called a timetable. The flap over the firings of US Attorneys will further erode Bush approval and erode his support among congressional supporters. Yes, there is a timetable and everyone knows it. It's sometime before November 2008.

How low can he go

I seem to be suffering from outrage overload again. Nothing really inspired a rant today even though there was plenty of outrage. This did attract my attention however.
New Bush, Iraq Poll Numbers

In the months since the Congressional elections, President Bush has lost substantial support among members of his own party, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.
Mr. Bush’s approval rating dropped 13 percentage points since last fall among Republicans, 65 percent of whom now say they approve of the way he is handling his job as president, compared with 78 percent last October.
Over all, Mr. Bush’s job approval remains at one of its lowest points, with 29 percent of all Americans saying they approve of the way he is doing his job, compared with 34 percent at the end of October. Sixty-one percent disapproved, compared with 58 percent in October, within the margin of sampling error.
Twenty-three percent of those polled approved of the way Mr. Bush is dealing with the situation in Iraq. Twenty-five percent approved of his handling of foreign policy.
Even the president’s campaign against terrorism, long his signature issue, is seen positively by only 40 percent of those polled, while 53 percent disapprove.

So is Bush losing Republican support because even the Republicans now realize he is dangerously incompetent? I'm afraid not. Melinda Henneberger reporting from Conservative Political Action Conference says it's because he's not enough of a wingnut. Are they unhappy because the Bush/Cheney cabal has mismanaged the Iraq war, the war in Afghanistan and foreign policy in general. No.

"We cannot afford to be 'Bush Republicans,'" Phyllis Schlafly said, to great applause, in the vast Omni Hotel's largest ballroom. "This has got to be a grassroots party," and works best as such, as when "the whole conservative movement rose up to tell George Bush that we could not have Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court."

Not unlike opponents of, say, the war in Iraq, the crowd here is fed up with non-binding blah-blah on their core issues: "We don't just want words" of support on abortion and gay marriage, said Schlafly -- who, as Helen Mirren recently said of the queen, has been carrying on with the same devotion and hairstyle for the last half-century. Today, again, she was dressed in red and wearing her trademark eagle pin.

Her biggest applause line, though, was not on abortion but on the issue of what she called "sovereignty."

"We've got to stop this nonsense of teaching our schoolchildren in foreign languages," she told the crowd. "We cannot afford to let Mexico turn us into a two-language nation."

She was incensed, she said, that that George Bush had made such a big deal of signing the bill into law that would provide for a fence along part of the border between the countries: "Was that dishonest? I've been looking at TV every night and haven't seen that fence being built yet. We want that fence!"

Wasting Time On George W. Bush

Are we wasting our time going after George W. Bush? I think the answer is yes. George W. Bush is not the problem. He is little more than a not too bright dry drunk. He is involved little, if any, in the policy decisions of the administration. As I have said here many times the source of evil is the megalomaniacal would be tyrant Dick Cheney. George W. Bush is little more than Dick Cheney's puppet and his impeachment would not only be politically damaging but a waste of time. It's time those who care about the United States and the world to ignore George W. Bush and go after the evil at it's source, Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney represents a greater threat to the United States and it's system of government than al Qaeda ever could.

A slide toward tyranny?

On the left we have had David Neiwert talking about a slide into fascism under the Bush/Cheney administration. But the left isn't the only side that's noticed, so has the Libertarian right. In the American Conservative we had Hunger for Dictatorship by Scott McConnell.

And yet the very fact that the f-word can be seriously raised in an American context is evidence enough that we have moved into a new period. The invasion of Iraq has put the possibility of the end to American democracy on the table and has empowered groups on the Right that would acquiesce to and in some cases welcome the suppression of core American freedoms. That would be the titanic irony of course, the mother of them all-that a war initiated under the pretense of spreading democracy would lead to its destruction in one of its very birthplaces. But as historians know, history is full of ironies.

And there is the always shrill Dr Paul Craig Roberts who talks about the Brownshirting of America. Joe Conason is the latest to explain It could happen here .

For the first time since the resignation of Richard M. Nixon more than three decades ago, Americans have had reason to doubt the future of democracy and the rule of law in our own country. Today we live in a state of tension between the enjoyment of traditional freedoms, including the protections afforded to speech and person by the Bill of Rights, and the disturbing realization that those freedoms have been undermined and may be abrogated at any moment.

Such foreboding, which would have been dismissed as paranoia not so long ago, has been intensified by the unfolding crisis of political legitimacy in the capital. George W. Bush has repeatedly asserted and exercised authority that he does not possess under the Constitution he swore to uphold. He has announced that he intends to continue exercising power according to his claim of a mandate that erases the separation and balancing of power among the branches of government, frees him from any real obligation to obey laws passed by Congress, and permits him to ignore any provisions of the Bill of Rights that may prove inconvenient.

Whether his fellow Americans understand exactly what Bush is doing or not, his six years in office have created intense public anxiety. Much of that anxiety can be attributed to fear of terrorism, which Bush has exacerbated to suit his own purposes -- as well as to increasing concern that the world is threatened by global warming, pandemic diseases, economic insecurity, nuclear proliferation, and other perils with which this presidency cannot begin to cope.

Of course it's no coincidence that the ghost of Richard Nixon should appear now. The Nixon and Bush administration have a common personality, Dick (the Lord of Darkness) Cheney. From his earliest days a firm believer in the President as all powerful tyrant. In this case however of course the president is only a puppet now and Dick Cheney is the one pulling the strings.

And how is that war on terra goin!

While Bush continues his failed policy in Iraq and pounds his bully chest while threatening Iran our "good friends" in Pakistan have let al Qaeda regain much of it's former strength.
Al Qaeda Chiefs Are Seen to Regain Power

Senior leaders of Al Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their once battered worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials.

American officials said there was mounting evidence that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, had been steadily building an operations hub in the mountainous Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan. Until recently, the Bush administration had described Mr. bin Laden and Mr. Zawahri as detached from their followers and cut off from operational control of Al Qaeda.

The United States has also identified several new Qaeda compounds in North Waziristan, including one that officials said might be training operatives for strikes against targets beyond Afghanistan.

Do you feel safer with commander codpiece in charge of keeping you safe?

Figuratively if not literally

There has been much talk of the myth of Vietnam era soldiers being spit on when they returned. I am a Vietnam era veteran who returned to one of the most anti war cites in the country and I was treated with the utmost respect when I returned in 1971 and never saw anyone who wasn't. While this may not be literally spitting on returning troops it might as well be.
Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility

On the worst days, soldiers say they feel like they are living a chapter of "Catch-22." The wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk of suicide.

Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case managers fumble with simple needs: feeding soldiers' families who are close to poverty, replacing a uniform ripped off by medics in the desert sand or helping a brain-damaged soldier remember his next appointment.

"We've done our duty. We fought the war. We came home wounded. Fine. But whoever the people are back here who are supposed to give us the easy transition should be doing it," said Marine Sgt. Ryan Groves, 26, an amputee who lived at Walter Reed for 16 months. "We don't know what to do. The people who are supposed to know don't have the answers. It's a nonstop process of stalling."

And then we have this:
Bush budget shows cuts to vets’ benefits in 2009
And as we have seen this administration figuratively spits on the troops when they send them over to fight their war of choice.
Thousands of Army Humvees Lack Armor Upgrade
And the chicken hawk war mongers have the nerve to accuse those who oppose this war of not supporting the troops. And of course we have the hypocrite in chief himself, commander codpiece saying this:

“My job is to protect our troops. And when we find devices that are in that country that are hurting our troops, we’re going to do something about it, pure and simple.”

Now explain to me how this is supporting the troops - explain to me how this is not spitting in the troops.

Has Bush lost his mojo?

While David Broder has not been paying much attention to reality Frank Rich has and sees an administration that's lost it's mojo.
Oh What a Malleable War

MAYBE the Bush White House can’t conduct a war, but no one has ever impugned its ability to lie about its conduct of a war. Now even that well-earned reputation for flawless fictionalizing is coming undone. Watching the administration try to get its story straight about Iran’s role in Iraq last week was like watching third graders try to sidestep blame for misbehaving while the substitute teacher was on a bathroom break. The team that once sold the country smoking guns in the shape of mushroom clouds has completely lost its mojo.

Surely these guys can do better than this. No sooner did unnamed military officials unveil their melodramatically secretive briefing in Baghdad last Sunday than Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, blew the whole charade. General Pace said he didn’t know about the briefing and couldn’t endorse its contention that the Iranian government’s highest echelons were complicit in anti-American hostilities in Iraq. Public-relations pandemonium ensued as Tony Snow, the State Department and finally the president tried to revise the story line on the fly. Back when Karl Rove ruled, everyone read verbatim from the same script. Last week’s frantic improvisations were vintage Scooter Libby, at best the ur-text for a future perjury trial.

And they couldn't even come up with a new story.

Yet for all the sloppy internal contradictions, the most incriminating indictment of the new White House disinformation campaign is to be found in official assertions made more than a year ago. The press and everyone else seems to have forgotten that the administration has twice sounded the same alarms about Iranian weaponry in Iraq that it did last week.

In August 2005, NBC News, CBS News and The Times cited unnamed military and intelligence officials when reporting, as CBS put it, that “U.S. forces intercepted a shipment from Iran containing professionally made explosive devices specifically designed to penetrate the armor which protects American vehicles.” Then, as now, those devices were the devastating roadside bombs currently called E.F.P.’s (explosively formed penetrators). Then, as now, they were thought to have been brought into Iraq by members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Then, as now, there was no evidence that the Iranian government was directly involved. In February 2006, administration officials delivered the same warning yet again, before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

As Rich reminds us it's deja vu all over again - think Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN complete with props and photos. And while the administration couldn't keep it's story straight George W. Bush could still say this with a straight face.

“My job is to protect our troops. And when we find devices that are in that country that are hurting our troops, we’re going to do something about it, pure and simple.”

OK, so why doesn't he do it?

But if the administration has warned about these weapons twice in the past 18 months (and had known “that they’re there,” we now know, since 2003), why is Mr. Bush just stepping up to that job at this late date? Embarrassingly enough, The Washington Post reported on its front page last Monday — the same front page with news of the Baghdad E.F.P. briefing — that there is now a shortfall of “thousands of advanced Humvee armor kits designed to reduce U.S. troop deaths from roadside bombs.” Worse, the full armor upgrade “is not scheduled to be completed until this summer.” So Mr. Bush’s idea of doing something about it, “pure and simple” is itself a lie, since he is doing something about it only after he has knowingly sent a new round of underarmored American troops into battle.

So why is the administration trying to pull another quick one?

To those who are most suspicious of this White House, the “something” that Mr. Bush really wants to do has little to do with armor in any case. His real aim is to provoke war with Iran, no matter how overstretched and ill-equipped our armed forces may be for that added burden. By this line of thinking, the run-up to the war in Iraq is now repeating itself exactly and Mr. Bush will seize any handy casus belli he can to ignite a conflagration in Iran.

Iran is an unquestionable menace with an Israel-hating fanatic as its president. It is also four times the size of Iraq and a far more dangerous adversary than was Saddam’s regime. Perhaps Mr. Bush is as reckless as his harshest critics claim and will double down on catastrophe.

Or is is something else?

Let’s not forget that the White House’s stunt of repackaging old, fear-inducing news for public consumption has a long track record. Its reason for doing so is always the same: to distract the public from reality that runs counter to the White House’s political interests. When the Democrats were gaining campaign traction in 2004, John Ashcroft held an urgent news conference to display photos of seven suspected terrorists on the loose. He didn’t bother to explain that six of them had been announced previously, one at a news conference he had held 28 months earlier. Mr. Bush played the same trick last February as newly declassified statistics at a Senate hearing revealed a steady three-year growth in insurgent attacks: he breathlessly announced a thwarted Qaeda plot against the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles that had already been revealed by the administration four months before.

We know what Mr. Bush wants to distract us from this time: Congressional votes against his war policy, the Libby trial, the Pentagon inspector general’s report deploring Douglas Feith’s fictional prewar intelligence, and the new and dire National Intelligence Estimate saying that America is sending troops into the cross-fire of a multifaceted sectarian cataclysm.

That same intelligence estimate also says that Iran is “not likely to be a major driver of violence” in Iraq, but no matter. If the president can now whip up a Feith-style smoke screen of innuendo to imply that Iran is the root of all our woes in the war — and give “the enemy” a single recognizable face (Ahmadinejad as the new Saddam) — then, ipso facto, he is not guilty of sending troops into the middle of a shadowy Sunni-Shiite bloodbath after all.

As I discussed below the reasons for the war and the definition of victory have been a constantly moving target. Rich refers to it as a malleable war.

Oh what a malleable war Iraq has been. First it was waged to vanquish Saddam’s (nonexistent) nuclear arsenal and his (nonexistent) collaboration with Al Qaeda. Then it was going to spread (nonexistent) democracy throughout the Middle East. Now it is being rebranded as a fight against Tehran. Mr. Bush keeps saying that his saber rattling about Iran is not “a pretext for war.” Maybe so, but at the very least it’s a pretext for prolonging the disastrous war we already have.

But the Iraq war does have a winner. No it's not the US or even Iraq - the winner of course is Iran.

What makes his spin brazen even by his standards is that Iran is in fact steadily extending its influence in Iraq — thanks to its alliance with the very Iraqi politicians that Mr. Bush himself has endorsed. In December the president welcomed a Shiite leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, to the White House with great fanfare; just three weeks later American forces had to raid Mr. Hakim’s Iraq compound to arrest Iranian operatives suspected of planning attacks against American military forces, possibly with E.F.P.’s. As if that weren’t bad enough, Nuri al-Maliki’s government promptly overruled the American arrests and ordered the operatives’ release so they could escape to Iran. For all his bluster about doing something about it, Mr. Bush did nothing.

It gets worse. This month we learned that yet another Maliki supporter in the Iraqi Parliament, Jamal Jafaar Mohammed Ali Ebrahimi, was convicted more than two decades ago of planning the murderous 1983 attacks on the American and French Embassies in Kuwait. He’s now in Iran, but before leaving, this terrorist served as a security adviser, no less, to the first Iraqi prime minister after the American invasion, Ibrahim al-Jafaari. Mr. Jafaari, hailed by Mr. Bush as “a strong partner for peace and freedom” during his own White House visit in 2005, could be found last week in Tehran, celebrating the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution and criticizing America’s arrest of Iranian officials in Iraq.

Even if the White House still had its touch for spinning fiction, it’s hard to imagine how it could create new lies brilliant enough to top the sorry truth. When you have a president making a big show of berating Iran while simultaneously empowering it, you’ve got another remake of “The Manchurian Candidate,” this time played for keeps.

Yes indeed, since Mr Broder isn't paying attention it's good we have a Frank Rich who is.

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At least someone gets it!

While the brain dead David Broder sees a Bush "comeback" USA Today's Al Neuharth gets it.
Al Neuharth: Bush Is Worst President of All-Time

NEW YORK Al Neuharth, the former Gannett chief, USA Today founder and currently weekly columnist for that newspaper, has had a change of heart.

A year ago, in honor of President's Day, he stated that while he was often critical of George W. Bush, he did not, and probably would not ever, crack his list of the five worst presidents we've ever had.

A year later he admits he was wrong. In his USA Today column today he announces that Bush has not only cracked the bottom five, he's now at the very bottom.

Last year, Neuharth, a World War II hero who has met every president since Eisenhower, listed his five worst as Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan, Ulysses Grant, Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon. "It's very unlikely Bush can crack that list," Neuharth wrote.

Now he admits: "I was wrong. This is my mea culpa. Not only has Bush cracked that list, but he is planted firmly at the top." By top, of course, he means bottom.

Neuharth, after calling the Iraq war Bush's "albatross," concludes: "Is he just a self-touted decider doing what he thinks right? Or is he an arrogant ruler who doesn't care or consider what the public or Congress believes best for the country?

"Despite his play on words and slogans, Bush didn't learn the value or meaning of mea culpa (acknowledgement of an error) during his years at Yale.

It's nice to know that at least one person in the MSM gets it.

It's time to pull the plug

This is so moronic I wasn't even going to waste bandwidth discussing it.
Bush Regains His Footing
I was just going to chock this up to another example of how the DC punditry corps is just as brain dead as Terri Schiavo but Glenn Greenwald does such a great job of taking Broder down that it was just too good to pass up.

Beltway pundits have long been petrified of the reality that most Americans have turned against the President permanently and with deep conviction. Because the David Broders of the world propped up the Bush presidency for so long, they are deeply invested in finding a way to salvage it. They do this exactly the same way -- driven by the same motives and using the same methods -- that they refuse to accept the reality that the Iraq war which they cheered on and enabled is a profound failure, and are therefore intent on finding a way to salvage at least the apperance of success, if not the reality.

The DC punditry, including Broder, have spent six years building Bush up and when he goes down for good so will they. And yes, he has gone down for good.

The collapse of Bush's approval ratings is not some isolated or fleeting event that can be reversed with a few magic tricks from Karl Rove. Americans who once vigorously supported the President have simply abandoned him over time. Contrary to Broder's desire (masquerading as belief), the contempt with which Americans regard the Bush Presidency is not some recent, fleeting, reversible phenomenon. Instead, the Bush presidency has been steadily collapsing over the last two-and-a-half years:Simply put, as Americans have come to see what George Bush really is, they have inexorably turned against him. It is not some petty scandal or momentary intemperate outburst from the masses. The Bush presidency has collapsed because Americans, with emotional distance between themselves and 9/11, were emancipated from the fear-mongering which was the administration's sole weapon, and gradually realized the extreme corruption, dishonesty, and ineptitude which drives this presidency. And yet all along the way, the David Broders have repeatedly insisted that Bush was on the verge of some grand "comeback," as though eventually, the poor, confused Americans would come to their senses and realize what a decent and honorable man the President really is.

Sorry David, the Bush administration and you have dug a hole too deep to ever come back.

Yes, it's time to remove the feeding tube from Broder and the other DC pundits, they are obviously brain dead.

Update
Even Rick Moran on the right thinks this is nonsense.