Hillary: I'm not apologizing, vote for somebody else

UPDATE: Markos on Hillary. It isn't pretty. He's written her off, which is exactly what she told him to do. I fail to see how this helps her campaign, especially in the Democratic primary. It's one thing to make a calculated gamble to write off the "left wing of the party," but other than Joe Lieberman's, whose Democratic vote is she angling for?

This does not strike me as a wise course for Senator Clinton to take. From Sunday's NYT:

[Y]esterday morning Mrs. Clinton rolled out a new response to those demanding contrition: She said she was willing to lose support from voters rather than make an apology she did not believe in.

“If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from,” Mrs. Clinton told an audience in Dover, N.H., in a veiled reference to two rivals for the nomination, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

The most important thing for sixty to seventy percent of the country is finding a new president who "gets it" with regards to Iraq. So, talking about as aspect of the Iraq debate as though it's not the most important thing is, I think, risky, though I get her overall point that this is just one sub-issue in the entire debate.

Several advisers, friends and donors said in interviews that they had urged her to call her vote a mistake in order to appease antiwar Democrats, who play a critical role in the nominating process. Yet Mrs. Clinton herself, backed by another faction, never wanted to apologize — even if she viewed the war as a mistake — arguing that an apology would be a gimmick.

In the end, she settled on language that was similar to Senator John Kerry’s when he was the Democratic nominee in 2004: that if she had known in 2002 what she knows now about Iraqi weaponry, she would never have voted for the Senate resolution authorizing force.

John Kerry. Seems like a nice man. Not the guy I turn to when I'm looking for "quotes that work."

“She is in a box now on her Iraq vote, but she doesn’t want to be in a different, even worse box — the vacillating, flip-flopping Democratic candidate that went to defeat in 2000 and ‘04,” said one adviser to Mrs. Clinton. “She wants to maintain a firmness, and I think a lot of people around her hope she maintains a firmness. That’s what people will want in 2008.”

True, but now you're taking a page from George Bush's playbook, wrong but firm. It worked for six years, but now people are seriously over the "I'm wrong, but resolute" personality type.

To her credit, it's not as though Hillary is saying all the wrong things on the war. Just today she called for the withdrawal from Iraq to begin in 90 days:

"Now it's time to say the redeployment should start in 90 days or the Congress will revoke authorization for this war," the New York senator said in a video on her campaign Web site, repeating a point included in a bill she introduced on Friday.

(There's more here about her new plan.) And notice the second half of that sentence again, the legislation she's proposing says that if the president doesn't begin withdrawing in 90 days, the authorization for the use of military force is revoked. That's good stuff.

It would be nice if we heard more of that talk out of the Clinton campaign and less of this position-of-the-week on the war vote.

One final point. Hillary may have chosen to take on the "anti-war left," but she must remember that that's who votes in Democratic primaries. The second issue she needs to keep in mind is that people like Joe and me aren't the anti-war left. We tend to be progressive, obviously, but I, at least, am not anti-war (I'm not sure what Joe's position is on the more general subject of "war," so I'll leave that to him). I'm anti- THIS WAR, and that's a big distinction. Nonetheless, the things I'm reading and hearing the past several weeks, like all this talk about Senator Clinton's war vote being influenced by her special experience of September 11 - you know, that day the rest of us apparently went on vacation - is starting to bug me. And I'm not someone who was bugged by Hillary at all in the past. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

I'm assuming there have been no Republican atrocities this late on a Saturday night... Read the rest of this post...

The real treason. Our maimed soldiers are living in cockroach infested ghettos back here in the states.

This is what the NY Post headline would have read today if they really gave a damn about our troops.



Oh my God. While the Republicans were posturing all week about how the Democrats hate the troops, the Sunday Washington Post takes a look at how the Bush administration and the Republican congress have been treating our hurt and maimed troops back here in the US: in cockroach infested ghettos.

It is absolutely sickening. Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi should lock the Congress down until every single one of these problems is finally fixed.

Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncan expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of the hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is beyond sickening. We have to sit back and listen to GOP members of Congress, George Bush's White House, and that pig General Petraeus dare to tell us how WE'RE the ones turning our backs on the troops, when all three of them knew this was going on under their watch and none of them lifted a finger to fix it.

Our soldiers were lied to about this war, they were lied to about their enlistment, they were never given a plan for victory or the numbers of troops they needed, they still don't have the armor they need for their vehicles. And now, the young men and women wounded and maimed for our country are living in government-run pig-stys not fit for farm animals. The American Taliban and the detainees in Guantanamo get better conditions than this, all courtesy of the Republicans.

The Republicans want to talk about treason? They want to talk about slowly bleeding our troops to death? Fine. Forget the agenda Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid had planned. It's high time we helped our troops. And if the Republicans won't do it, then we will. Let's ensure that the American people and our troops know which party got them into this mess, and which party is getting them out of it. Let the hearings and investigation and legislation begin until we fix these problems once and for all.

Read the article, then send it to ten friends. I am sick and tired of being called a traitor by right-wing scum who love the troops when the cameras are rolling, then spit in their faces over and over again. The Republicans want to talk about emboldening the enemy and harming the troops, great. Let's start talking about it, loudly and often. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

Lots of news for a Saturday.

Lots to discuss.

Have at it. Read the rest of this post...

NY Post to troops: America hates you

Following on to what I wrote earlier today, the NY Post, good Republican newspaper that it is, just informed the troops that the overwhelming majority of Americans hates them. The NY Post also just informed Al Qaeda that the debate over Iraq in Washington isn't a normal functioning of a healthy democracy, it's actually proof that America no longer has the will to fight Al Qaeda. So, feel free to blow up a few more US troops or American cities, because apparently we won't fight back any more, if you're to believe these guys. Oh, why don't I just quote the NY Post's message to the terrorists:

"you can slaughter the innocent with our blessing."

Who's guilty of treason now?

Read the rest of this post...

Giuliani: Send more troops to Iraq even though I don't think we're going to win

Now there's a presidential mind if I've ever seen one. I think we're going to lose anyway, so let's send more troops to die. Read the rest of this post...

Final tally: 56-34, GOP filibuster stands

Voting to permit debate about Bush's "surge" plan"
- Snowe (R-ME)
- Specter (R-PA)
- Warner (R-VA)
- Collins (R-ME)
- Hagel (R-NE)
- Coleman (R-MN)
- Smith (R-OR)

Voting to filibuster and stop the debate.
- Lieberman (I-CT)

Not voting: Nine Republicans and one Democrat, Tim Johnson (who is in the hospital):
- Bennett (R-UT)
- Bond (R-MO)
- Cochran (R-MS)
- Corker (R-TN)
- Ensign (R-NV)
- Hatch (R-UT)
- Johnson (D-SD)
- Kyl (R-AZ)
- McCain (R-AZ)
- Murksowksi (R-AK) Read the rest of this post...

GOP to troops: America hates you

If I were an American soldier in Iraq, I'd be convinced that Americans hate me. And if I were an Al Qaeda terrorist, I'd be convinced that America no longer has the will to take me on. Why? Because scores of Republicans in the House and Senate, and the Bush administration, just told me so.

Before this week's debate in the House and Senate on Bush's "surge" escalation plan (the plan to send 40,000 additional US troops to Iraq), it would have been easy for Al Qaeda terrorists or our soldiers to think that the vigorous debate about the war in America is simply an expression of our democracy, rather than evidence of our disgust with our troops and our lack of willingness to continue the war on terror.

But now all that has changed.

The Republicans have made it clear, in practically every speech they've given recently - including the testimony of General Petraeus, our new top general in Iraq - that the resolutions being debated this week, resolutions that have the support of the majority of the House and Senate, and that reflect the will of 63% of the American people who oppose Bush's "surge," are evidence that everyone who supports those resolutions hates our troops and has lost the will to fight the war on terror.

The only reason our troops will be dispirited, and Al Qaeda emboldened, is because some of the most senior voices in the American government told them that this is the meaning of the debate this week in Washington.

Every Senator, House member, and general who told our troops that 63% of Americans and the majority of the Congress hate them, and who told our enemy that the majority of Americans have lost the will to fight the war on terror, have in my view committed treason. There is no other explanation for why Republicans would be so cavalier about sending such an awful message to our troops and our enemy. Read the rest of this post...

Senate debating Iraq resolution now

Typical. Republicans think we should stay the course.

UPDATES: - Protester arrested in the Senate gallery.

- Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Larry Craig (R-ID) still sound awfully gay.

- Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) thinks the resolution will tell current troops we like them, but new troops rotated in to replace the old troops going home will be told we hate them. Kay is a bit confused.

- Judd Gregg (R-NH) just told the troops, and Kay Bailey agreed, that today is all about people hating them. That was smart. More on that one later. Read the rest of this post...

Forget Iraq. McCain wants to be the anti-sex candidate. He's preaching abstinence now.

Oh, this is rich. John McCain can't make the votes on Iraq -- the dominant issue of these times. No, McCain has more pressing matters on his plate. He's too busy working on his no-sex agenda. In McCain's effort to pander to the theocrats, he's reaching another new low. John McCain major policy is telling people who aren't married not to have sex:

Most presidential candidates are trying to get people to say "yes." Republican Sen. John McCain will be encouraging South Carolina students to say "no." The Arizona lawmaker is scheduled to speak Sunday night to about 1,500 middle and high school students about abstaining from premarital sex. Abstinence and abortion loom large as issues in this first-in-the-South primary state in the heart of the Bible Belt.

"Senator McCain has a long legislative record of supporting abstinence-based initiatives in his record in the U.S. Senate," said Trey Walker, McCain's South Carolina campaign director. "He thinks that abstinence is healthier and should be promoted in our society for young people."

So, if this is such an important issue, we must ask: What is the abstinence policy for the McCain staff? If one works for John McCain, must one sign a "I won't have sex" pledge...or does the no-sex thing only apply to other people. Does his "no-sex" policy apply to unmarried soldiers? And, what exactly are people supposed to abstain from? Everything? Is oral sex okay?

If McCain wants people to abstain from pre-marital sex -- and he opposes gay marriage -- does that mean McCain doesn't think gay people should ever have sex? Maybe one of the many gays working on his campaign can answer that question for us.

We dare some member of the press corps to ask John McCain if he really believes this crap. If John McCain really wants to make sex an issue to placate the right-wingers, John McCain should really have to answer questions about sex. He's making it an issue so make him explain his policy -- in detail. Read the rest of this post...

Let these armchair generals put their money where their mouth is

Bush has received a bump in support for the surge, though support is still dismal with 63% against the surge.

The president has nudged support for the troop increase to 35 percent from 26 percent in early January. Sixty-three percent of those surveyed still oppose the increase.

The increased support came from some of Bush's core supporters -- Republicans, men, whites, suburbanites and people with higher incomes.

Great. No need to further for those extra troops since I'm sure they all want to be patriotic and do the right thing. Read the rest of this post...

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Another freezing, bitter day in DC. January may have been the warmest on record, but we haven't had cold like this for years.

Condi made a "surprise" visit to Iraq today -- both NBC and CNN dutifully reported it that way. The real surprise will come when any member of the Bush Administration announces in advance that they are making a trip to Baghdad -- a country the Bush Administration decided to invade four years ago. My bet is that no member of the Bush team will ever be able to announce an upcoming Baghdad visit that isn't a super-secret, surprise, drop-in and get out, kind of trip. Will never happen before 2009.

Okay, it's early. It's the weekend. But, there's plenty to say. Have at it. Read the rest of this post...

GM potatoes linked to cancer, study suppressed for 8 years

Eh, I think I'll take a pass on the frankenfood for a while. Considering the countless problems that Big Food already has, I'd rather not gamble with their experiments. Let them test it on themselves for twenty years and then let us know how it all works out.

The disclosure last night of the Russian study on the GM Watch website led to calls for David Miliband, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to withdraw permission for new trials on GM potatoes to go ahead at secret sites in the UK this spring. Alan Simpson, a Labour MP and green campaigner, said: "These trials should be stopped. The research backs up the work of Arpad Pusztai and it shows that he was the victim of a smear campaign by the biotech industry. There has been a cover-up over these findings and the Government should not be a party to that."

Mr Simpson said the findings, which showed that lab rats developed tumours, were released by anti-GM campaigners in Wales. Dr Pusztai and a colleague used potatoes that had been genetically modified to produce a protein, lectin. They found cell damage in the rats' stomachs, and in parts of their intestines.

Read the rest of this post...

Dole cantaloupes with salmonella recalled

Salmonella in cantaloupes? Factory food just isn't what it's cracked up to be.

The company said the recall covered roughly 6,104 cartons of cantaloupes distributed to wholesalers in the eastern United States and Quebec between Feb. 5 and Feb. 8.

Read the rest of this post...

January 2007 smashes record for warmest ever

Not an encouraging way to start the year.

The broken record was fueled by a waning El Nino and a gradually warming world, according to U.S. scientists who reported the data Thursday.

Records on the planet's temperature have been kept since 1880.

Spurred on by unusually warm Siberia, Canada, northern Asia and Europe, the world's land areas were 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) warmer than a normal January, according to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

That didn't just nudge past the old record set in 2002, but broke that mark by 0.81 degrees Fahrenheit (0.56C), which meteorologists said is a lot, since such records often are broken by hundredths of a degree at a time.

"That's pretty unusual for a record to be broken by that much," said the data center's scientific services chief, David Easterling. "I was very surprised."

The scientists went beyond their normal double checking and took the unusual step of running computer climate models "just to make sure that what we're seeing was real," Easterling said.

Read the rest of this post...

If you still think Joe Lieberman is a nice level-headed moderate, read this

Joe Lieberman, like most of the Republicans, still has this odd notion that we're back in 2003 when much of the country thought the Iraq war was necessary, going well, and somehow linked to September 11. Back then, this kind of speech from Lieberman - which pretty much reflects the arguments made the Republicans in the House today - might have been effective. Today it's just bizarre. More from TPM.

By the way, I'm told by friends on the Hill that the vote to break the GOP filibuster on debating Iraq in the Senate will be Saturday sometime between 1:45pm and 2:15pm Eastern (at least that's the current plan). Read the rest of this post...