Back in the day, long before Blog for America or the Dean Call to Action blog, Jerome Armstrong invited me to write at MyDD.com.
Man, it was an honor. MyDD was one of the best blogs around in late 2002/early 2003.
Which is why I'm glad to see that, after an extended hiatus, MyDD is back. Jerome has just relaunched the site in Scoop.
Now everybody can write for MyDD.
Go start your diaries.
The Bush administration blew it big time prior to 9/11. The evidence continues to mount, from Bob Woodward's fawning book to Richard Clarke's damning one-- and now from the prepared text of a speech Condeleeza Rice herself was set to deliver on September 11th, 2001. Robin Wright reports for the Washington Post:
The speech provides telling insight into the administration's thinking on the very day that the United States suffered the most devastating attack since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text.The speech was postponed in the chaos of the day, part of which Rice spent in a bunker. It mentioned terrorism, but did so in the context used in other Bush administration speeches in early 2001: as one of the dangers from rogue nations, such as Iraq, that might use weapons of terror, rather than from the cells of extremists now considered the main security threat to the United States.
The text also implicitly challenged the Clinton administration's policy, saying it did not do enough about the real threat -- long-range missiles.
"We need to worry about the suitcase bomb, the car bomb and the vial of sarin released in the subway," according to excerpts of the speech provided to The Washington Post. "[But] why put deadbolt locks on your doors and stock up on cans of mace and then decide to leave your windows open?"
I'd like to see the 9/11 commission ask Rice that very question.
Two days before Sept. 11, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Rice said the administration was ready "to get serious about the business of dealing with this emergent threat. Ballistic missiles are ubiquitous now."
Why was the Bush administration so focused on ballistic missle defense, despite repeated warnings from Tenet, Clark and others that al Qaeda may have been preparing an attack on US soil? Follow the money. As with most of George Bush's policies, the anti-ballistic missle system's dubious usefulness was outweighed by the program's ability to line the pockets of his campaign's biggest corporate contributors.
Bush was focused on defense, all right-- the defense of his cronies' bank accounts.
I'll concede, however, that the Bush administration is right about one thing: 9/11 couldn't have been prevented. Not when the entire administration-- including the president's national security adviser, for God's sake-- was busy spinning tall tales about illusory threats. Creating excuses to loot the United States treasury is hard work, after all.
That the press continues to allow these guys to run for reelection based on their ability to defend the nation is simply ridiculous.
Damn, and I just deleted a few hundred messages from my old Yahoo! account (to make room for the spam):
Key features of Gmail include:Search: Built on Google search technology, Gmail enables people to quickly search every email they've ever sent or received.
Storage: Gmail comes with 1,000 megabytes (1 gigabyte) of free storage -- more than 100 times what most other free webmail services offer.
Speed: Gmail makes using email faster and more efficient by eliminating the need to file messages into folders, and by automatically organizing individual emails into meaningful "conversations" that show messages in the context of all the replies sent in response to them. And it turns annoying spam e-mail messages into the equivalent of canned meat.
I love that last line. A copywriter having fun-- why not?
And it's either ironic or portentious that the Google press release is on Yahoo! Finance.
600 US soldiers now killed in Bush's needless war in Iraq. Meanwhile the Bush administration shifts its rational for going to war, yet again:
"Ultimately what we want is a comprehensive picture, not just simply answering questions -- were there weapons, were there not weapons?" Charles Duelfer told reporters after briefing the Senate Armed Services Committee behind closed doors.
Actually, we'd prefer that some questions be "simply" answered.
As to Iraq's relevance to the war on terrorism, Andrew Lazarus over in the Kos threads makes a point that is gathering steam in the blogosphere. But he makes it so eloquently that it warrants repeating here:
Just because Iraq was irrelevant to the WoT last year doesn't mean it's irrelevant today. We (that is, Bush) made this totally unnecessary connection. Bush tied up troops that could be used in Afghanistan. That's a connection.Bush brought lots of targets hard and soft closer to Islamic militants. That's a connection.
Bush must spend money on military action that could have been used for Marshall Plan reconstruction.
Best guess: Bush helped Al Qaeda's recruiting drive, although they don't publish figures.
Soviet communism and Anglo-American democracy weren't linked in 1940, no matter how Hitler slandered his democratic opponents. But by 1942 they were: entirely because of the strategic misjudgments of Hitler and his Japanese ally.
[Bush has] done something just as stupid.
You can listen to the launch of Air America at noon ET today by going here.
Yesterday I mentioned the anti-intellectual attitude that one has come to expect from the Bush administration. As if on cue:
SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - An emotional former President George H.W. Bush on Tuesday defended his son's Iraq war and lashed out at White House critics.It is "deeply offensive and contemptible" to hear "elites and intellectuals on the campaign trail" dismiss progress in Iraq since last year's overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the elder Bush said in a speech to the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association annual convention.
Elites such as these? Progress such as this this (warning-- graphic image)? Backlash populism rises again.
The Washington Post's editorial this morning, and Josh Marshall's subsequent analysis of the editorial, have brought to the surface an issue that has been boiling under my skin lately.
Specifically, the Post's editorial writers let loose this idea, which has gained currency on both sides of the aisle of late:
Richard A. Clarke's book criticizing the administration, while stimulating an important public debate, brings this concern into sharp relief. If career national security officials write tell-all accounts while the presidents they serve not only remain in office but are facing reelection, decision-making is bound to suffer.
Divorce yourself for a moment from the specifics of the case-- from both the Bush administration and Richard Clarke. At issue here is whether "career national security officials" should write "tell-all accounts."
The Post is, of course, being disingenious. Against All Enemies is not a tell-all; Clarke himself admits to having redacted portions of it following the White House vetting process. Anything sensitive to our nation's security has already been removed. The book is simply-- and at worst-- a personal account of one senior official's experience within a presidential administration.
The question being bandied about by the Post, the pundits and others is whether such books should be written-- or if loyalty or some as-yet-unnamed code of conduct insists that those with a front-row view of history should keep their experience to themselves. Howard Dean, strangely enough, wandered into this debate last week when he reacted to pollster Paul Maslin's recounting of the Dean campaign in The Atlantic. Dean said of Maslin, on CNBC (according to Political Wire):
"I think, generally, staffers who are sources to press after campaigns should not have been staffers in the first place."
Howard Dean is a man I know to be intelligent, intellectually curious, well-read and well-educated-- which is why I was simply floored when I read his comment last week. And it is why this morning's Post editorial on the Clarke book has raised the alarm once again.
There is nothing disloyal about former staffers or former government officials recounting their experiences to the press or in autobiographical accounts. While some of these "tell-alls" (as they are derisively known) are vindictive, many strive to be objective or fair-minded-- and it within the bounds of intellectual discourse for us to make assessments of a person's motivation in writing such a book.
But to suggest that such accounts should not be written is unforgivable; it is from such first-person recollections that we gain our understanding of our own history.
I would expect such anti-intellectual arguments from the Bush administration; but when the argument leaks from the pens of instituions like the Post, I have some concern. Presidential politics is by its very nature of historical importance, and the decision-making process that leads to action or inaction by an administration (or a campaign) is not the equivalent of a private conversation between individuals. To suggest that it is-- or that it should be treated so-- is to allow that one's allegiance to a man is higher than one's allegiance to the public that that man serves.
Do I really need to spell out where such ideas will lead a democracy?
History, as they used to say, outs in the end. One would think that in America it would go without saying that that is a good thing.
Krugman, in his inimitable way, takes on the Clarke affair today:
This administration's reliance on smear tactics is unprecedented in modern U.S. politics — even compared with Nixon's. Even more disturbing is its readiness to abuse power — to use its control of the government to intimidate potential critics.To be fair, Senator Bill Frist's suggestion that Mr. Clarke might be charged with perjury may have been his own idea. But his move reminded everyone of the White House's reaction to revelations by the former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill: an immediate investigation into whether he had revealed classified information. The alacrity with which this investigation was opened was, of course, in sharp contrast with the administration's evident lack of interest in finding out who leaked the identity of the C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame to Bob Novak....
Where will it end? In his new book, "Worse Than Watergate," John Dean, of Watergate fame, says, "I've been watching all the elements fall into place for two possible political catastrophes, one that will take the air out of the Bush-Cheney balloon and the other, far more disquieting, that will take the air out of democracy."
Many of us feel the way John Dean does; it's the explanation behind the nervous handwringing in the blogosphere over whether Bush's poll numbers are up or down following the Clarke revelations. This administration's deceptions and its abuse of power seem so apparent and so egregious to many that it is not the presidency that is at stake in this election, but our faith in democracy itself. I don't know which way it will go.
Wonkette displays her DC connections:
We have it on semi-reliable authority that the Bush administration's next attempt to discount Richard Clarke's credibility will consist of alleging that he's a big gay.
The groundwork is already out there. This morning's Boston Globe paints Clarke as a young conservative but hints that he may be of the Log Cabin variety:
An only child who lost his father at a young age and whose mother supported him on her nurse's salary, Clarke stood out as a bright pupil at Charles H. Taylor School in Mattapan....Clarke, who is unmarried and lives in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., has long received plaudits as a diligent, highly effective bureaucrat with equal regard on both sides of the aisle....
For many of his friends, the expectation was that Clarke would always stand up for his convictions, living up to the quote by the Italian poet Dante that he used in his high school yearbook: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those, who in a time of great crisis, maintain their neutrality."
A fatherless, unmarried bureaucrat who quotes Dante? Clearly we know which team he's batting for. But I suspect that any attempts to push the issue by the Bush administration will backfire. They've shown the American people in the past ten days how vicious they can be; they won't improve their case by grasping at the irrelevant, especially if it's done in a transparent manner.
We know where the desperation comes from in the Bush administration. Larry Sabato sums it up:
At stake is nothing less than the Bush presidency, according to Larry Sabato, director of the center for politics at the University of Virginia. Sabato criticized Clarke's methodology, saying, "It is unethical to publish a book about a president you advised during his term." But Sabato said that if Americans are convinced Clarke's charges are true, "I don't see how any American could vote for Bush if they think he did a poor job on leading the war on terror. It literally destroys Bush's candidacy if the charges are believed."
Bluetooth Against Bush reminisces on the glory days of the Bush Cheney Sloganator-- and "the prompt that launched a thousand PDFs." My favorite Bush/Cheney slogans, direct from the grassroots:
More Amendments, Fewer Liberties
F.U. Frenchie!
Master of Stratagery
Which of your favorites didn't make the list?
Time for some of them there energy savin' lightbulbs:
CARLSBAD, Calif. - When police noticed Dina Dagy's family was spending $250 to $300 a month on electricity, they suspected a marijuana farm was flourishing under high-intensity lights inside their suburban home.
What they found when they showed up with a drug-sniffing dog and a search warrant was a wife and mother who does several loads of laundry a day, keeps a dishwashing machine going, has three electricity-guzzling computers and three kids who can't remember to turn the lights out when they leave a room.
"It's hard to believe a high utility bill would be enough to issue a state warrant," said Dagy, who is demanding the Police Department issue a written apology.
What I want to know is what the hell are the police doing reviewing electricity bills?
From the Washington Post:
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, at the center of a controversy over her refusal to testify before the Sept. 11 commission, yesterday renewed her determination not to give public testimony and said she could not list anything she wished she had done differently in the months before the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Not one thing?
Rice said she has "absolutely nothing to hide" and "would really like" to testify but will not because of the constitutional principle.
Josh Marshall parses Rice's "flagrantly bogus argument" here.
Dean pollster Paul Maslin, whose most endearing talent is his habit of singing political parodies of classic pop songs, gives his view of the Dean campaign in the May issue of The Atlantic, which hits stores April 13th. An online preview is available here.
On going up early with television ads:
I assumed that we would proceed carefully and not consider airing anything until after the Fourth of July. So imagine my surprise when Howard Dean burst into our Burlington headquarters on the afternoon of Friday, June 6, followed not long after by Joe Trippi, and announced that we were going to "go up" in Iowa."Kerry's planning to go up," Dean said. "We've got to be there first. We can't let him get the jump on us."
Maslin captures the feeling we had when Clark entered the race. It felt like a sock in the gut:
The Dean campaign saw him as a real threat: the only other guy to share our outsider message who could raise money and run a national effort. To most D.C. types—the same people who had failed to understand or predict our ascendancy—he was a rookie; he would make mistakes and bomb out eventually. Both views proved to be right. But in mid-September Clark was nothing but trouble for us; with his campaign diverting money, our fundraising slowed for the first time. This is relative: we still raised a record amount in the third quarter of 2003—nearly $15 million. But it might have been three or four million more without Clark. Endorsements were put on hold, and our aura of invincibility was dimmed, at least for a time.
Maslin accepts that we all made our share of mistakes, but he risks the ire of the Deaniacs when he places some of the blame for the campaign's failure at the Governor's feet. Most striking of all is his recollection of the December 3rd meeting at Burlington headquarters regarding Dean's sealed records:
I felt worse half an hour later, when—after Dean had left the headquarters having decided not to release the records—Trippi called McMahon, Squier, and me into his office. He shut the door and said in a compassionate voice, rare for him, "He just lost it in here. He basically told me that he never thought he'd be in this position. Never thought he could ever win. Never thought it would come to all this. He was just about in tears, and for once, I really feel for him. He said, 'I don't know why I say the things I do.' He ain't gonna release the records, even if it costs us everything."
I want to know your reaction to Maslin's article. Read the preview here and share your thoughts in the thread below.
The Kerry campaign whacks Bush for his poor-taste joke at the Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner last night:
"Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere," Bush mimicked, as a slide of the President looking under furniture in the Oval Office appeared on the screen.That's supposed to be funny?
If George Bush thinks his deceptive rationale for going to war is a laughing matter, then he's even more out of touch than we thought. Unfortunately for the President, this is not a joke.
585 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq in the last year, 3,354 have been wounded, and there's no end in sight.... George Bush sold us on going to war with Iraq based on the threat of weapons of mass destruction. But we still haven't found them, and now he thinks that's funny?
A year ago this attitude could only be found in the blogosphere; now it's in the Democratic nominee's press releases. Things really can improve.
