Wash. Post: Bush wants to deal with Iran while he's president

Because the invasion of Iraq was such a stunning success, the failure that is our President is now going to take care of Iran before he leaves office. Bush is beyond scary....he's out of control:

Preparations for confrontation with Iran underscore how the issue has vaulted to the front of President Bush's agenda even as he struggles with a relentless war in next-door Iraq. Bush views Tehran as a serious menace that must be dealt with before his presidency ends, aides said, and the White House, in its new National Security Strategy, last month labeled Iran the most serious challenge to the United States posed by any country.

Many military officers and specialists, however, view the saber rattling with alarm. A strike at Iran, they warn, would at best just delay its nuclear program by a few years but could inflame international opinion against the United States, particularly in the Muslim world and especially within Iran, while making U.S. troops in Iraq targets for retaliation.

Is there one sane voice in the Bush administration? We know that the GOPers in Congress (and Joe Lieberman) will give Bush whatever he wants. The only way to stop Bush is to change the leadership in Congress (and beat Lieberman in the primary). Read the rest of this post...

Now bad guys can fake their caller ID when calling you to say they're anybody they want

That's incredibly creepy, and rather dangerous too. Hi, it's the police calling, open the door...

More from Congressman Engel's office. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Spent most of the afternoon learning new computer software. My head hurts. Read the rest of this post...

Bush's popularity has been dropping from the day he was elected

Something I've been noticing for a while, but I haven't seen mentioned much, is that Bush's popularity has been steadily dropping from the day he got elected. Every day he's been president is another day the American people like George Bush less and less.

That's a rather telling fact.

Bush's Popularity Has Been Dropping From Day One

Check out the Gallup poll results (via Slate) of Bush's popularity from 2000 to today. There has been a steady decline in his popularity from day one.

There have been a few major spikes in the positive direction, mostly when Bush declared war in Afghanistan and then again in Iraq. But shortly thereafter, each time, his popularity started to sink again. Just look at the chart, it's been one steady decline since election day 2000. That's bad. Real bad. And it's a point the media has missed.

Bush is not just an unpopular president, he's been an increasingly unpopular president from day one. The more the public knows about this man, the more they dislike him. Period.

Now, compare Bush's decreasing popularity to his predecessor, Bill Clinton.

Clinton vs. Bush



Clinton's popularity, on average, stayed the same from the beginning to the end. In fact, there was a sharp steady rise in the middle - Clinton did need to declare war to become popular - but in the end, Clinton started a popular president and ended a popular president.

Now, compare Ronald Reagan to daddy Bush, Clinton and sonny Bush.



What you see is that George Bush is just as unpopular as his father was - and Bush 1 was most certainly a failed presidency. At the same time, you see that Bill Clinton was just as popular, if not more popular, than Ronald Reagan - someone the Republicans like to consider a super-popular president.

The irony shouldn't be lost on anyone. George Bush ends up just as big a failure as his one-term father. And Bill Clinton ends up even more successful than Ronald Reagan. And that's the way history should remember all four of them.

Like I said, it's a fascinating chart. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

Lots going on.... but we need some time to talk.... have at it. Read the rest of this post...

Seymour Hersh: Bush already decided on war against Iran, thinking of using nukes

I don't even know where to begin with this. The story is from the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, who unfortunately gets his stories right.

Bush is planning to attack Iran with a massive massive attack. He's afraid Iran is developing nukes, so the idea is to launch a devastating attack against Iran so that - get this - the Iranians rise up against their own government. Sound familiar?

From the New Yorker:

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

Sound like Iraq yet? Try this quote:

A senior Pentagon adviser on the war on terror expressed a similar view. “This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war,” he said.

Yes, Bush has already decided that diplomacy won't work. He's already decided that the only way to solve the problem is to declare war on Iran. Just like the way the White House had already decided to attack Iraq the day after September 11, to hell with the evidence, to hell with the wisdom of it.

And one of the options the White House is considering, is using tactical nukes against Iran. Yes, nukes.

Yes, nukes.

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites.

And while the military is trying to take the nuclear option off the table, the White House is refusing to budge, they want the nukes:

Late this winter, the Joint Chiefs of Staff sought to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran—without success, the former intelligence official said. “The White House said, ‘Why are you challenging this? The option came from you.’ ”

If Bush uses nukes against Iran, kiss every high-rise in America good-bye. Kiss our relationship with every country in the world good-bye. Not to mention, as Hersh notes, imagine the reaction from the world's 1.2 billion Muslims if we nuke their brothers. I'm not one to shy away from a confrontation, but going nuclear? And against a country that has decades of experience with international terror? Is he mad?

Here's the dilemma for the US. Iran cannot be allowed to have nukes. But George Bush cannot be allowed to be the man running the war against Iran - he's going to screw it up. Something has to give, and that give is Bush.

The only way to take on Iran responsibly - whether that means war or diplomacy or something else - is for Bush and his senior leadership to step down. America cannot afford this man as president any longer. He is, quite literally, going to get us all killed.

We cannot afford having George Bush think that America is in the business of launching pre-emptive nuclear wars. Read the rest of this post...

St. Maarten police refuse to investigate gay-bashing of the senior producer of CBS News

Email the St. Maarten tourism bureau: info@st-maarten.com

The guys were attacked with a wrench and the police couldn't care less. Just as telling, the local newspaper report keeps putting the term "gay bashing" in quotes as though it's not quite real somehow. Note that the article is wrong about Jefferson's job, he works at CBS News, not NBC.

Senior NBC Nightly News producer Richard Jefferson, who was vacationing in St. Maarten, was one of two men rushed to St. Maarten Medical Center around 3:30am Thursday after they suffered a severe beating by a group of men who the victims say were “gay bashers.”

While Jefferson was able to walk, he sustained severe cuts on the back of his head and his lower back.

The second victim Ryan Smith had a fractured skull and has been unable to speak properly since the incident.

The men, who were reportedly beaten with a wheel wrench, expressed concern that the police here did not seem to be too concerned about crimes of this nature. They said the police’s failure to even contact them following the attack made it seem as though they sanctioned the “brutal beating.” ....

Jefferson said he had learnt that many people, including management at Sunset Beach Bar, Maho St. Maarten, a nearby casino and Bamboo Bernie’s, had called the St. Maarten Police, but no one showed up. He said he had called the police station on Thursday around 1:00pm and had spoken to a detective, but no one showed up at the hospital or called.

I know Dick Jefferson. I'd met him several times at journalist conferences. From what I recall, he's not just a senior producer, he's THE senior producer of CBS News. This is really horrendous.

Also contact the St. Maarten Bureau for Constitutional Affairs - apparently they're still part of the Netherlands and want to become an independent country. Feel free to explain to them that they just hurt their cause: sxmconstiburo@sintmaarten.net Read the rest of this post...

AP: "Leak-Hating President As Leaker-In-Chief?"

Bush is a liar, plain and simple. He says one thing and does another. What he says usually has no basis in reality. His whole administration does that same thing. They have had no fear that the traditional media would ever call them on their lying. For the most part, they've been right. The traditional media still finds it really hard to believe that Bush and his people would lie to them over and over and over.

Maybe, just maybe, that's changing. But it's only changing because the lies have been so blatant that they can't be ignored:

President Bush insists a president "better mean what he says." Those words could return to haunt him.

After long denouncing leaks of all kinds, Bush is confronted with a statement - unchallenged by his aides - that he authorized a leak of classified material to undermine an Iraq war critic.

The allegation in the CIA leak case threatens the credibility of a president already falling in the polls, and it gives Democrats fresh material to accuse him of hypocrisy.

There's a weird dynamic that takes place when someone is lying. Most people don't lie, they may exaggerate a little, but they don't blatantly lie. So when someone does lie, it's often the person who accuses the liar who looks bad. The Bush people figured out how to play that to their advantage. But too many lies are being exposed. And too many people died because of their lies. Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Rainy day in DC...and it's allergy season. Big time.

What do we need to know? Read the rest of this post...

Ohio GOP gubernatorial candidate in trouble again

This guy is a real treat. Recently we found out that he owned stock in Diebold at the time he was negotiating a deal with that company for voting machines. Yesterday the Columbus Dispatch reported that Blackwell owns stock in a gambling company despite claiming to be against gambling. He also owns stock in the company that makes the "morning after pill" despite his anti-choice claims. So which is it going to be for Blackwell? The Ohio GOP is a classic example of the arrogance of power and after so many years of absolute rule in Ohio, November might finally bring some well needed changes to the Buckeye state. Read the rest of this post...

Berlusconi playing the fear card as election nears

With a substantial block of Italian voters still not sure who they will vote for (or if they will even vote) Berlusconi is pulling out all of the tricks of his trade. He's making wild accusations about communists, complaints about everyone conspiring against him including the media (which he owns), his interior minister is talking about blocked Islamic terrorist attacks (thanks George) and now he's talking about asking the UN to oversee the elections.

The problem is that his rival Prodi is a sad example of a politician as well. Prodi is a typical recycled European so-called leader that has been around forever, including a previous stint as PM and like all political losers from the EU, he held a senior position in Brussels where he excelled himself at incompetence with charges of corruption and millions of euro down the tube. Nice choice for Italy, huh? I sympathize though, looking out to the elections in France in 2007 where the choices appear to be equally bad. Read the rest of this post...

Nantucket says "no" to chain stores

I couldn't agree with them any more. I know that shopping is the national sport so how boring is it to go anywhere and everywhere and find the exact same shops? I wish that people would stop supporting the homogenization of the country but at least some local communities are trying to block it. What's so bad about diversity? Read the rest of this post...

Religious right attacks Dalai Lama

Something the religious right has in common with the brutal Chinese dictators.

Then again, as Michael Petrelis just reminded me via email, the Dalai Lama isn't exactly the most pro-gay guy on the planet:

Although he is known for his tolerant, humane views, he is a surprisingly harsh critic of homosexuality. If you are a Buddhist, he says, it is wrong. "Full stop.

No way round it.

"A gay couple came to see me, seeking my support and blessing. I had to explain our teachings. Another lady introduced another woman as her wife - astonishing. It is the same with a husband and wife using certain sexual practices. Using the other two holes is wrong."

At this point, he looks across at his interpreter - who seems mainly redundant - to check that he has been using the right English words to discuss this delicate matter. The interpreter gives a barely perceptible nod.

"A Western friend asked me what harm could there be between consenting adults having oral sex, if they enjoyed it," the Dalai Lama continues, warming to his theme. "But the purpose of sex is reproduction, according to Buddhism. The other holes don't create life. I don't mind - but I can't condone this way of life."

Well, someone needs to remind the Lama that he too is sounding a bit too much like his Chinese oppressors. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Orchid Blogging is postponed until Saturday

I know, tears and wailing.

I'm trying something different, but it's taking quite a bit of time to figure out. Thus the delay. Will figure it out on Saturday.

Consider this an open thread. Read the rest of this post...