No need to wait for the official report. Nope. Petraeus already has his talking points down:
The U.S. troop surge in Iraq has thrown al Qaeda off balance and led to a reduction in sectarian violence and bombings, the U.S. commander in Iraq was quoted on Friday by an Australian newspaper as saying.
"We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress and we believe al Qaeda is off balance at the very least," General David Petraeus told the Australian in an interview after briefing Australia's defense minister, Brendan Nelson, in Baghdad.
Petraeus and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker will testify before the U.S. Congress on either September 11 or 12.
Petraeus says the sectarian violence is down, but that doesn't mean it's true. Ilan Goldberg found some abnormalities when looking at the numbers from the Pentagon on sectarian violence:
I really have no idea why these numbers are so inconsistent, but it does lead me to call into question the violence numbers that are being reported by the Administration, when it touts progress. Clearly certain types of violence have been taken out and others have been added. What we need is some transparency. Congress needs to take a very careful look at the numbers that come before it in September
Congress should take a very careful look at everything anyone from the Bush team says about Iraq.
Read the rest of this post...
Okay, Jonathan Klein and CNN, make up your mind about New Orleans.
You sent Anderson Cooper to New Orleans to report live about the struggle to rebuild the city:
Good evening.
We don't care much for anniversaries on this program, solemn remembrances of stories long since past. But, tonight, we come to you from New Orleans to report on a story which is still very much unfolding.
Two years ago tonight, these streets were filling with water. Levees poorly built over decade on shifting sands failed. And, two years ago tonight, what was a natural disaster became very quickly a manmade one.
Now, two years later, the recovery of this city, this region, is under way. And it, too, is manmade. Two years ago tonight, governments failed. The people here have not. New Orleans is rising again.
You also had Soledad O'Brien (who never should have left the morning show, p.s.) do an hour long special on called "Children of the Storm."
But then, Mr. Klein, you have one of the stars of your network, Glenn Beck, completely trash New Orleans -- and say that the city should not be rebuilt.
Chris Achorn, who does yeoman's work bird-dogging Beck, reports that last night, while O'Brien and Cooper were doing their Katrina reports on one CNN network, the controversial host Glenn Beck was on CNN's Headline News saying don't rebuild New Orleans:
On the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Glenn Beck takes his distain and outright hatred for the city and people of New Orleans to another level. He just comes right out and says it, that we should not spend a single dime to rebuild New Orleans.
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, two years since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and everybody`s still talking about rebuilding. I say don`t spend one thin dime. I`ll explain why.
BECK: Hello, America. Do not adjust your set, the truth coming your way. Possibly for the first time on Katrina.
It was two years ago that Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans, and the gulf region. Thousands were left homeless, causing well over $150 billion in damages. And without question, Katrina is the worst national disaster in national history.
President Bush, Congress responded over $100 billion in aid to rebuild New Orleans. A lot of people, including me, think the president has blown it. Here`s the point tonight.
How much do I think should be spent rebuilding New Orleans? Zero. Nothing. Not a dime. And here`s how I got there.
So what is it, CNN? Do we believe Anderson and Soledad that your network cares about the people of New Orleans? Or is Glenn Beck the voice of CNN? More and more, it seems that the Beck's warped world-view is what Jonathan Klein wants his network to be.
Read the rest of this post...
Dana Bash, who is reporting from Idaho, just said she's hearing from sources in Idaho and DC that Craig will be quitting the Senate -- soon. One Idaho pol told her Craig should just "pull the plug." According to Bash:
...the expectation at this point is that they do think that Senator Craig will likely resign pretty soon. That is sort of the sense that people are getting.
Gonzales may be leaving, but his legacy of lying lives on. Bush's Attorney General is being investigated by the Inspector General at the Department of Justice. They're concerned about Alberto's "truthfulness." They should be:
Justice Department investigators are examining the truthfulness of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' testimony to Congress on the firings of federal prosecutors and domestic wiretapping.
The effort, disclosed in a letter released on Thursday, is a sign that political controversy over Gonzales' conduct will continue well beyond his resignation announced this week.
"The current attorney general is leaving, but these questions remain," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who sought the examination.
Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine said in a letter released by Leahy that concerns over the truthfulness of Gonzales' testimony to the committee on July 24 and other times would be covered as part of probes already under way.
KTVB Idaho has the audio recorded when he was being interrogated after the undercover officer busted him for lewd behavior in the Minneapolis Airport mens' room. He is -- no surprise -- quite belligerent during questioning. He does, btw, raise the issue of entrapment.
H/t Wordsmith.
UPDATE from Joe: Here's the AP article on the interview. Really, really not good for Craig. Expect a resignation soon:
The officer who arrested Sen. Larry Craig in a police undercover operation at an airport men's room accused the senator of lying to him during an interrogation afterward, according to an audiotape of the arrest.
On the tape, released Thursday by the Minneapolis Airport Police, the Idaho Republican senator, in turn, accuses the officer of soliciting him for sex.
"I'm not gay. I don't do these kinds of things," Craig told Sgt. Dave Karsnia minutes after the two men met in a men's room at the airport on June 11.
"You shouldn't be out to entrap people," Craig told the officer. "I don't want you to take me to jail."
Karsnia replied that Craig wouldn't be going to jail as long as he cooperates.
At one point during the interrogation, the officer told Craig: "You're not being truthful with me. I'm kind of disappointed in you, senator."
Jon Soltz from VoteVets has a must-read post over Huffington analyzing the three very recent news items about Iraq. Those include: 1) the GAO report "that finds, more or less, that Iraq is in chaos" and challenges the underpinnings of Bush's claims of success; 2) the McClatchy news article that indicates military leaders won't make a single recommendation about the war to Bush; and 3) the shocking revelation that the Secretary of Defense was not told about the additional request for $50 billion in Iraq spending. Yes, Gates didn't even know. Think Progress has the video of Gates on FOX News.
Soltz explains the dire impact these three developments are having on the U.S. military and the Iraq war effort:
The president, in losing control of the war in Iraq and clinging to what he wants to see, and not the reality, now has nearly a full-scale revolt in his own military that just isn't willing to go along for the ride anymore. The GAO surely interviewed a number of people on the ground for their report and got messages that didn't support the administration. The military can't come to an agreement on what to tell the president other than that this is his problem now. And the Secretary of Defense, who has strayed from the White House message a number of times, learns of administration war funding proposals from the Washington Post.
I take no joy in seeing this happen. Our troops are the best in the world. As they are fighting and dying in 130 degree heat, they've had to look to the East to see an Iraqi government that didn't care and went on vacation. Now, they look back to the West and see their department falling apart like a neglected Pinto, because this president is stubborn.
Maybe this president doesn't care because his administration is over. But I care. And I'm going to continue to care long after this president rides off into the sunset to clear brush for the rest of his life.
So another part of Bush's legacy will be that he destroyed the U.S. military -- and the Republicans in Congress have let him.
Read the rest of this post...
Ted Haggard's Daddy Dobson-approved Spiritual De-Gaying Oversight Squad has released a statement in light of the disgraced pastor, former male escort client and meth purchaser's outrageous fundraising plea to the faithful to support the lifestyle to which he had been accustomed while heading up New Life Church. (Ted promised the suckers his followers that they would be "rewarded in heaven" for supporting him.)
Ted had planned to move into a Phoenix halfway house, the Dream Center, where he would "minister to men" there while working toward his degree in counseling, but alas, that invitation was just withdrawn.
"Mr. Haggard's solicitation for personal support was inappropriate," his church supervisors said in the statement. The statement came one day after the four-member team of ministers responsible for overseeing the spiritual restoration of Haggard met with him in Phoenix.
Last week, Haggard had e-mailed a KRDO-TV reporter in Colorado Springs, asking that supporters send contributions to Families with a Mission, a Monument non-profit run by Paul Huberty, a twice convicted sex offender.
..."It was never the intention of the Dream Center that Mr. Haggard would provide any counsel or other ministry...Mr. Haggard will not be moving in or working with the Dream Center. He will not be doing any ministry. He will be seeking secular employment to support himself."
Dan Savage from Slog, whose reader Dave Coffman discovered Ted's request for cash was to flow through a dissolved non-profit run by a convicted sex offender, said:
Oh, man. What a great day. I fucking live for the day when every asshole out there bilking gullible Christians out of their hard-earned dough -- from the Nazi pope on down -- is told the same damn thing: Get a fucking job, you parasite.
The largest paper in Idaho has called for Senator Larry Craig to resign. (Idaho Statesman):
It is difficult and unpleasant to call on Idaho's senior senator to end a career in public service. We don't do this casually, or unanimously.
However, we cannot abide an elected official who didn't disclose a lewd conduct arrest until the story broke 77 days later -- a lie by omission and a violation of the public trust. We cannot believe Craig can effectively serve Idaho, under the shadow of his guilty plea on a lesser charge of disorderly conduct. We cannot afford, as a state with but four congressional representatives, to have a senator who merely provides fodder for bloggers and late-night talk show hosts.
It should be noted that Barney Frank (D-MA) says Craig shouldn't resign -- he should face the voters at the ballot box.
"What he did, it’s hypocritical, but it’s not an abuse of his office in the sense that he was taking money for corrupt votes," Frank told the Associated Press.
"I think people should resign when they have clearly done the job in a way that is dishonest."
Frank went on to tell the AP: "It’s one thing to say that someone can’t be trusted to vote without being corrupt, it’s another to say that he can’t be trusted to go to the bathroom by himself."
Yeah, Craig may be blogger fodder, but he brought it on himself. And where are the calls for the resignation of David Vitter who admitted to the crime of solicitation? Isn't that conduct unbecoming a Senator and "a lie by omission and a violation of the public trust?"
Remember this -- fellow Louisiana adulterer said Vitter shouldn't resign. Bob Livingston, a prime pick for House speaker, had to resign during Bill Clinton's 1998 impeachment hearings after admitting to affairs. He says Vitter should "pick himself up and charge forward." And in a mind-blowing statement, GOP Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) said this when asked at the time of Diaper Dave's media frenzy whether Vitter should step down:
I don't know what it is that he has apologized for, and until it's clear that there's some kind of crime that was committed, that was of such a nature that he should resign, it seems to me that talk is a little premature.
Prostitution's not only a crime, Senator Kyl, but for those of the bible-beating set, adultery is a sin punishable by death. The sleazy act Craig pled guilty to was a misdemeanor. If Craig's forced to resign, then Vitter should pack his bags as well.
Read the rest of this post...
Bush and his flunkies are the only people who can find progress in Iraq. The Government Accountability Office is issuing a report next week that seems to undermine Bush's claims about improvements in Iraq. Bush is lying -- again:
Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.
The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq.
The draft provides a stark assessment of the tactical effects of the current U.S.-led counteroffensive to secure Baghdad. "While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, U.S. agencies differ on whether such violence has been reduced," it states. While there have been fewer attacks against U.S. forces, it notes, the number of attacks against Iraqi civilians remains unchanged. It also finds that "the capabilities of Iraqi security forces have not improved."
"Overall," the report concludes, "key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds," as promised. While it makes no policy recommendations, the draft suggests that future administration assessments "would be more useful" if they backed up their judgments with more details and "provided data on broader measures of violence from all relevant U.S. agencies."
That would be more useful. But, the Bush administration doesn't work with details and data. That crowd deals in spin and public relations ploys.
They're all too busy planning next month's dog-and-pony show with Petraeus and Crocker to worry about the realities in Iraq. Not that it's news to most of us, but that long-awaited September report from the Bush White House -- and it will be prepared by the Bush White House -- won't be worth the paper it's written on.
Read the rest of this post...
Towleroad has this video from CNN up; it's an interview with Major Darryl Tolleson of the Atlanta Police Department on the kind of folks his unit has busted for having sex in public restrooms -- they've busted CEOs, bank presidents, law professors, you name it...but most of them are straight identified, with wives and children in the dark about their netherworld activities.
"The majority of these men, they have families...You would think that it would be a gay issue but overhwhelmingly more and more, we're seeing that these are people with families."
Yes, it's these pathetic hetero-identified closet cases making their way to these restrooms to engage in their same-sex desires, regardless of the impact on those families that they prize for social acceptance.
Meanwhile, those of us out here fighting to obtain our civil rights stand vulnerable to the political activities and judgment from Larry Craig and others like him. Sara Whitman at Huff Post nails it:
He claimed a higher moral ground while he was cruising for sex in bathrooms because... well, because his fundraising clearly depended on it. It's doubtful that a gay man in Idaho would get elected Senator but I might be wrong about that. Regardless, if he wanted to be in the closet, still stay married, be a Senator, well, I can understand all of that. It's not easy to be out, it means job discrimination, it means physical harassment and sometimes violence, it means not being able to have your loved one be your legal spouse or any of those benefits. It means, often, losing your family and friends. It's not an easy path. I can respect anyone who chooses to live in the closet on one condition:
They don't actively fight for laws in an elected office that allow for discrimination, hate and bigotry. If Senator Craig needs a pick me up every now and then from the men's room, I think that's pathetic, but ... to each his own and understand, you're going to get caught.
***
National Black Justice Coalition on Larry Craig
In a similar vein, Alexander Robinson of the National Black Justice Coalition has a thoughtful piece on the Senator Larry Craig's "dilemma" -- it's particularly relevant because it raises the issue of the fluidity of sexuality and the phenomenon of men who identify as heterosexual engaging in sex with men, something often brought up in discussions about the Down Low (usually associated with black men in popular culture).
The Craig incident shows how colorblind the phenomenon is -- there are a lot of "family men" cruising restrooms, parks and other public areas where illicit sexual encounters take place because these men cannot accept their same-sex desires as moral or legitimate. They act out inappropriately.
Since Sen. Craig clearly attempted to engage in gay sexual behavior but publicly denies a gay sexual identity does this mean that he is in sexual denial or perhaps deeply closeted? Not necessarily. Often men who engage in the underground culture of public restroom, rest stop, tea room sex do so as an act of sexual titillation, sexual release, and an immediate sexual gratification.
They are fueled by the sexual thrill of getting caught, doing something that is taboo and the potential danger of seeking out homoerotic encounters with men who otherwise would strictly identify as heterosexual.
So in every sense and definition of the word, the sex that these men have is truly, utterly and exclusively recreational. It is void of emotional value, love, respect, intimacy or an expectation of a romantic relationship to come. For them having male-to-male sex is truly a sport, a hobby, a distraction and a pastime or rebellion against convention with no emotional attachment or desire for more.
He covers the differences on how black and white DL men are treated in the media, as well as the reasons why many blacks refer to themselves as same-gender-loving (SGL) because of the media-driven image of what "gay" is. This is also the case for Larry Craig, who finds no identification with "gay."
Today for an individual to self-identity as gay, they seemingly must take on an image created by the media that is based upon societal stereotypes. For men, we must be either feminine or super gym macho bunnies. We must be either florists or hairdressers or super witty, smart, affluent and overly-successful. But all too often, the gay identity most exclusively seen and portrayed is that of white men and their lives (i.e. Will and Grace, Queer as Folk).
Sen. Larry Craig rejects this identity, because simply this is not who he is. He is a conservative, married man who has very little in common with America’s gay identity. In fact he is perfectly valid in stating that he is not a gay man.
Prime Minister Maliki of Iraq, in a wide-ranging interview with McClatchy Newspapers (which has consistently produced exceptional coverage of Iraq over the past several years), insisted that the surge is a result of political machinations within his government, not the US force escalation:
"The positive development in the security situation is owed to national reconciliation much more than to our security forces or coalition troops. Some would want to hide this fact, but it is a fact not to be hidden," he said.
The interview covered a variety of topics, and is absolutely worth reading for anyone interested in the details of Iraq. Frankly, Maliki comes across as having a fairly accurate read on his circumstances, if not entirely believable on the issues of sectarianism. This sums things up well, in terms of his hold on power:
At one point, asked if Iraq's parliament could agree on anything, let alone replacing him, he laughed and said, "So, the government is safe, then."
Maliki certainly hasn't distinguished himself as a transcendent leader, but it's not clear to me precisely what he's supposed to do given the demographic and political realities of the country. In the same position, Allawi failed and then Jaafari failed; it's not like Maliki took over a great situation and ran it into the ground. The US set up a political system in which unhappy minorities can derail most legislative efforts; disbanded the military and much of the government bureaucracy, preventing the national government from having power of either force or services; sponsored elections that virtually guaranteed a divided and crippled government; and then expected Iraqis to compromise in wholly unlikely ways.
Tom DeLay. Yes, Tom DeLay. That's who the Today Show had on this morning to discuss GOP values. Matt Lauer actually fought back against DeLay's insistence that the media is biased.
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OMFG, how humilating.
"Mr. Haggard's solicitation for personal support was inappropriate," his church supervisors said in the statement. The statement came one day after the four-member team of ministers responsible for overseeing the spiritual restoration of Haggard met with him in Phoenix.
