Orchid Obsession

Some of us were obsessed three years ago. Read the rest of this post...

Wash Post: Democrats angry that Bush administration adopts their Iraq proposal after savaging it all week

This is good, the story is getting out there. Though on page A13.

Interesting that Republican Senator Lugar (R-IN), a big foreign policy expert, is already shooting down Bush's timetable for the partial withdrawal (keep in mind that Bush's "withdrawal" is really a plan to keep 100,000 US troops in Iraq at least through 2008 - that's hardly a "withdrawal" plan).

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, voiced some skepticism that the administration can reach the conditions set for withdrawing troops.

"Given current events in Baghdad in particular reported on every day quite apart from Anbar province, the violence is horrific," he said on "Face the Nation.

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Iraqi amnesty plan causing increasing heartburn for Bush, Republicans

Funny, I thought the Republicans wanted Iraq to be the number one issue in the US congressional elections this fall. Looks like they may get their wish. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Off in search of a turkey burger. Read the rest of this post...

Republican McCarthyism in full swing

Are these really the kind of extremists the American people want in charge in Washington? This fine gentleman is in charge of the House committee overseeing Homeland Security.

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee urged the Bush administration Sunday to seek criminal charges against The New York Times for reporting on a secret financial-monitoring program used to trace terrorists.... [Rep. Peter] King [R-NY] said he thought investigators should also examine the reports by the [Wall Street] Journal and Los Angeles Times...

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Republican presidential candidates seemingly at odds with Bush over Iraq

From AP

"We cannot pull out and hope for the best," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., calling redeployments now "a significant step on the road to disaster."

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., likewise dismissed a timetable: "We have to see this through to a successful conclusion."

But as we learned in last night's New York Times, Bush has seemingly approved a plan to establish a timetable for a partial US withdrawal from Iraq - albeit a very small withdrawal. So does McCain think Bush's new redeployment plan is a significant step on the road to disaster? And is Brownback upset that Bush apparently is no longer interested in seeing it through? Read the rest of this post...

Newsweek on Markos and the blogs

It's a good story, and I think accurate (other than the quotes from Gingrich, who is clearly worried now that the Democrats are the sole remaining superpower of the blogosophere). Otherwise, I think Newsweek accurately captured Markos and the blogosphere: who Markos is; how he's grown in political maturity as his blog has grown in readership and influence; and how the blogosphere got a bit overheated in response to criticism of Markos and Jerome over the past week.

It's a fair piece, and I think it helps Markos and the blogs. And how often can you say that nowadays, in terms of traditional media "getting it"? Read the rest of this post...

Newsweek: "Lieberman stands a good chance of losing"

From Newsweek. Read the rest of this post...

GOP Senator McConnell flip-flops on amnesty for Iraqis who kill US troops, Republican divide over issue grows

You'll recall that a number of key Republican Senators, including Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have been defending the Iraqi proposal to give amnesty to insurgents, including those who have attacked, injured or killed American troops in Iraq.

Well, today on ABC's "This Week," McConnell changed his mind.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We spoke to Iraqis in the parliament this morning and they're saying it's still being debated... giving amnesty to people who may have killed Americans. And I just want to know is that acceptable to you?

MCCONNELL: No, I don't think granting amnesty to people who killed Americans is acceptable...

Interesting, since a few days ago McConnell suggested we praise the Iraqi government for that very same amnesty proposal.

MCCONNELL: ...might it not just be as useful an exercise to be trying to pass a resolution commending the Iraqi government for the position that they've taken today with regard to this discussion of Amnesty?

Other top GOP Senators joined McConnell at the time in defending the Iraqi amnesty proposal.

It would appear that the Republicans are not at all comfortable with their previously stated position in support of amnesty for insurgents who kill US troops. And in fact, the Republicans were already split earlier in the week - 19 GOP Senators voted in favor of amnesty this week, while the rest voted against.

And now that the Iraqi government has made clear that such amnesty is coming - even though last week the Republicans and the White House repeatedly told the American people that no such amnesty package was being considered - the GOP is going to have to deal with the fact that nearly half of their members in the Senate supported killers of American troops over the troops themselves. Read the rest of this post...

UK's "The Independent" calls Sears Tower arrests "hype"

Some newspapers and media outlets just don't understand the value of fear and sorry attempts at changing the subject after a failed propaganda campaign. Within days of killing the over-hyped al-Zarqawi, we had a flurry of spin and propaganda that quickly met with the realities of Iraq. In a predictable manner, Gonzalez tried his best to terrify America with this breaking fear story that every day sounds more and more like a bunch of loonies who had no actual al-Qaeda ties and who posed little, if any actual terror threat. Is anyone besides the most extreme wingnuts actually believing the administration on this?

When the dust had settled barely 24 hours later, a rather more modest version of events had emerged. The seven young black men arrested at a warehouse in Miami and Atlanta had never been in touch with al-Qa'ida, and had no explosives. Their "plan" to destroy America's tallest building was little more than wishful thinking, expressed by one of them to an FBI informant purporting to be a member of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organisation.

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Josh Marshall on Bush's lack of a plan for Iraq

From Josh:

He's like an owner of a business that's slowly going under. He doesn't know how to save the situation. So he won't get more money or resources to fix the business. That's throwing good money after bad. And he won't just liquidate and save what he can, because then he'd have to come to grips with the fact that he's failed. So his policy is denial and slow failure. Here of course the analogy to President Bush is rather precise since he only has to hold out until 2009 when he can give the problem to someone else, just as he did in his past life with other businesses he drove into the ground.

But for the country that's not acceptable. We don't have a policy except for slow burn and denial. And the president's ego isn't enough to ask men and women to die for. We need an actual plan. And the president doesn't have one.

Democrats need to hammer this point again and again and not get tripped up in the president's bully-boy rhetoric. The president has no plan. He wants to stay in Iraq forever. He says for at least three more years. All the Republicans agree they want more of the same.

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Sunday Talk Shows Open thread

Here's the line-up. Provide commentary, please:

Meet the Press:

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-WI, on the Iraq war & his potential candidacy for the White House in 2008. Then, a political roundtable on how Iraq will affect the 2006 and 2008 elections with David Broder, Ron Brownstein, David Gregory & Anne Kornblut

This Week:

* SUNDAY EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., on the renewed debate over Iraq in the Senate
* SUNDAY EXCLUSIVE: Larry Summers, outgoing Harvard University president, on the comments and controversy surrounding his leadership
* SUNDAY'S ROUNDTABLE: Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria, ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz, and CNN anchor Lou Dobbs
* VOICES SUNDAY: ABC News anchor John Stossel on "Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity"

Face the Nation:

Topics:Situation In Iraq, North Korea Missile Threat...Guests: Sen. Richard Lugar...Sen. Barbara Boxer...Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times, Washington Bureau Chief

Fox News Sunday:

Timetable for withdrawal from Iraq? Sens. John Warner and Carl Levin weigh in...Plus, Sen. Arlen Specter and Rep. Pete King on immigration reform deadlock

CNN's Late Edition:

Hamid Karzai: President of Afghanistan, Sen. Joseph Biden: D-Delaware, Foreign Relations Committee ranking member, Sen. Chuck Hagel: R-Nebraska, Foreign Relations Committee and Select Intelligence Committee, Hussein Shahristani: Iraqi oil minister, Madeleine Albright: Former secretary of state, Henry Kissinger: Former secretary of state

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UK Foreign Minister's "mission accomplished" sounds familiar

What a complete ass. Margaret Beckett pulled a classic Blair/Bush spin this past week but as one expects from that crowd, facts do not match reality. The British troops are finding themselves caught up in the middle of the violence and are being pushed out by local militias. The relative calm that used to be common in the British section has fallen victim to the regular cycles of violence from the American region.

Lieutenant General Nick Houghton told the Commons defence committee: "There is a worrying amount of violence and murder carried out between rival Shia factions. There is no doubt that it has got worse of late, due to the protracted period of talks to form the government."

Since a spate of bomb attacks against them last autumn, British forces have largely kept out of the centre of Basra. Much of the police force in the south has been taken over by Shia militias who often clash with one another as well as intimidating ordinary people and attacking what is left of the Sunni community in the south.

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Another open thread

It's late. Yet you're still getting a 100% man-made open thread. Is this a great blog or what? Read the rest of this post...