Gordon Brown, the new U.K. lapdog?

As Chris in Paris wrote in his earlier post about Tony Blair's successor Gordon Brown's then-upcoming meeting with Bush, he noted that Brown should keep in mind that most Americans and Brits want change and want out of Iraq.

Unfortunately, after the visit, it looks like might be a new poodle in Bush's lap -- it appears Brown lapped plenty of the White House Kool-Aid from the water bowl. From the Sun:

Gordon Brown last night praised George Bush for leading the global war on terror -- saying the world owed America a huge debt.

The Prime Minister vowed to take Winston Churchill's lead and make Britain's ties with America even stronger.

Mr Brown stunned critics by THANKING President Bush for the fight against Islamic extremism, and insisted the UK-US relationship will be his No1 foreign policy priority.

..."We acknowledge the debt the world owes to the US for its leadership in this fight against international terrorism."

There's nothing wrong with expressing support for a strong partnership with the U.S., but there was no reason for him to affirm Big Military Anti-Terrorism Adventures -- if this is what he calls fighting terrorism, Brown may not be PM for long.

You have to check out the picture and caption.

The Times Online, however, says the pressure for a Brit pullout on Brown is not far from his mind.

Downing Street remains emphatic that he will not unveil a plan to withdraw British troops, who are due to remain in southern Iraq until the Iraqi army is deemed capable of maintaining security. A spokesman said there had been no change in the government's position.

Behind the scenes, however, American officials are picking up what they believe are signals that a change of British policy on Iraq is imminent.

..."The view is Britain feels it can't fight two wars, and Afghanistan is more worth fighting for,” added the source. Yesterday a British soldier was killed during a rocket attack in Afghanistan, bringing to 67 the number of British fatalities there.

Also, check out the AP story on this same meeting between Brown and Bush. It's a decidedly different spin.

Brown took power just a month ago, with strong early marks for his response to terror threats and catastrophic flooding at home. He faces the tricky task of helping Bush tackle world crises without getting too closely aligned with a U.S. leader scorned in Britain.

Bush, meanwhile, likes to size up a fellow world leader in person and, over time, measure the person's mettle under fire. Yet he doesn't have much time left. And his popularity, along with a good bit of clout, have worn away with the war in Iraq.

"What the president wants to find out is whether the new prime minister is a reliable ally," said Simon Serfaty, a European expert at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. "The word to use is reassurance. This is not about a marriage. It's a date."

...Brown's spokesman Michael Ellam said there was no plan to withdraw British troops before the Iraqi army is deemed capable of maintaining security. Notably, though, Brown is covering his bases. After leaving Bush, he planned to meet leaders on Capitol Hill.

Read the rest of this post...

Home Depot, jetblue and Bill O'Reilly's alleged vibratory onanism

Has to be read in the original to be fully appreciated. Section 81.

Markos and Atrios have more. Read the rest of this post...

Iraqi PM may ask Petraeus to get the hell out

Seems Iraq's Prime Minister may want the top US commander in Iraq, General Petraeus, fired. Funny, because I thought things were going so well there. Read the rest of this post...

It's "too soon" to know how the surge is going, but Petraeus "knows" we have to stay in Iraq at least another two years

You are watching a career-obsessed political puppet in action, with General Petraeus. I thought if the surge was a success, we could leave soon? Now it doesn't even matter, we're staying no matter what. Sure it will kill hundreds of US troops a month for the next two years, but at least George Bush can blame it all on the next president, and General Betray-us can blame it all on the next general. Read the rest of this post...

BillOReilly.com: "He is a Muslim. He will say anything. He will do anything.... It is what they do."

"He is a Muslim. He will say anything, He will do anything. No oath of office means anything to him. History is irrelevant.... He is a Muslim, It is what they do."

Wow, do jetBlue and Home Depot agree with their good friends at BillOReilly.com that their Muslim-American customers will say anything, do anything, because "it is what they do"? Read the rest of this post...

Home Depot - lavish CEO regardless of success

Wow, wouldn't everyone love an employer like this? No matter how badly you perform and no matter how much money the company loses, you get paid a few hundred million dollars, case closed. The Home Depot board eventually fired former hotshot CEO Bob Nardelli after six years of misery but Nardelli probably could care less since the board, the folks still running the company and supporting Bill O'Reilly, dished out one of the fattest work agreements without any connection to performance and left Nardelli $200+ million richer.

So the next time you are looking for supplies, think about the lack of common sense or spirit of American fairness that Home Depot gives to their execs. When you look out at some of the most extreme cases of CEO-worship, the kind that infuriate hard working Americans who have to work for a living and prove themselves at their jobs every day, Home Depot and the infamous contract with Nardelli always is right up there in the top tier, just below Lee Raymond of Exxon who retired with $400m. Why can't Home Depot understand average Americans who believe in fair pay based on success instead of showering mediocre CEOs with millions despite a lack of success?

It comes as no surprise that Home Depot supports Bill O'Reilly in this fiasco because they seem to have great experience with disastrous PR campaigns. No wonder they are so rude to working Americans who have honest values and who are upset with this smear campaign. So while we are waiting for Home Depot to explain their biased support for O'Reilly, maybe they can also tell Americans why they are part of the problem in America of giving handouts to CEOs regardless of their successes or failures. Is Home Depot really supporting American values? Read the rest of this post...

Electricity? What electricity?

When something isn't going how the Bush administration wants it to, its officials tend to use one of two ingenious methods of obfuscation: portray the issue mendaciously, or pretend it doesn't exist. Apparently the wheel stopped at "doesn't exist" last week, as the LA Times reports that the administration decided to stop reporting to Congress the status of electricity in Baghdad.

There are a few concrete indicators of quality of life in Iraq, including things like hours of electricity, waste (sewage) disposal, and amount of drinkable water. Electricity is a major one for several reasons. It indicates whether air conditioners are working (and let me say from personal experience that 130 degrees is no joke -- I'd get violent if I had to live in that all summer), affects health and diet (because of refrigeration, or lack thereof), and it also has a tremendous impact on what little economy Iraq has left -- imagine trying to run any kind of business with no power.

In the past several months, hours of power in Baghdad have gone from five to six per day to "an hour or two," according to Ryan Crocker, our ambassador to Iraq. Until Crocker's testimony last week, Congress was apparently uninformed of this regression because the State department stopped estimating how many hours of electricity the people of Baghdad receive. They switched, instead, to an estimate of national electrical production, which can have little correlation to power actually received.

Insurgencies depend on local support. That support dries up when people feel they are being adequately taken care of by the government. Electricity is near the top of that list. Iraqis look at the U.S. and think (and frequently ask), if you could put a man on the moon, why can't you get us electricity? And after a while, incompetence tends to get interpreted as malice. But don't take my word for it that it's an Iraqi priority -- Ambassador Crocker himself recently told CBS news that electricity was "more important to the average Iraqi than all 18 benchmarks rolled up into one."

And what's the official reason for ceasing to report this metric? "The change, a State Department spokesman said, reflects a technical decision by reconstruction officials in Baghdad who are scaling back efforts to estimate electricity consumption as they wind down U.S. involvement in rebuilding Iraq's power grid." Just as the summer starts to heat up and hours of power are plummeting to near-nonexistence, we're . . . winding down U.S. involvement in rebuilding Iraq's power grid. Read the rest of this post...

GOP Argument On Children's Health Care Full Of Holes

We’re all for SCHIP reauthorization. We’re just not for SCHIP expansion.” Senate Republican leaders appear to be trying to pursue that nuanced message as well by cautioning that they actually do support SCHIP as it currently stands.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is expected to offer the Republicans’ primary alternative as the party’s first amendment. The proposal would reauthorize SCHIP without expanding it to more children and includes provisions on small-business health plans and tax-free health savings accounts.

As you can see, Republicans do not want to end the S-CHIP program, they just don't want to expand it. If government run health care is so bad, then why reauthorize S-CHIP at all? Shouldn't the Republicans, who say they oppose government run medicine, want to do away with the program altogether?

The fact is, the GOP has proven that they do not oppose government involvement in health care. They supported a prescription drug bill for seniors and they support the S-CHIP program. What they don't support is giving Democrats a legislative victory. And they'll use any argument, no matter how illogical, to give themselves some cover. Read the rest of this post...

BillOReilly.com: "A certain group led by George Soros"

BillOReilly.com: "It's sad that a certain group led by George Soros is turning America into a Socialist, Communist state."

A certain group? Would that be "Democrats"? "Open Society Institute"? "Jews"? I don't know about you, but when I hear people use the euphemism "a certain group," it isn't usually because they're afraid to say the name of a political party or a non-profit.

Do Home Depot and jetBlue think "a certain group" is trying to destroy America? Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

A new week starts. So get it started. Read the rest of this post...

Australia refuses to apologize to Indian doctor in bogus terror case

John Howard says he would prefer to be "safe than sorry" and is refusing to apologize to an Indian doctor who was held for three weeks under anti-terror laws, despite the fact that after three weeks his crack team was unable to file a single charge. Howard almost seems surprised that such a request would even be proposed. The entire event reminds me of the disgusting photo ops that the GOP rolled out a few years ago in the US when they talked about the great food and Caribbean setting for the prisoners being held at Gitmo.

Australia will not be apologising to Dr. Haneef," he told reporters.

"Dr. Haneef was not victimised and Australia's international reputation has not been harmed by this 'mis-start' to its new anti-terrorism laws."

Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews, who has drawn fierce criticism for withdrawing Haneef's working visa just hours after he was granted bail on the terror charge, also said he would not be apologising to the doctor.

"There's nothing to apologise about because in my discretion, looking at the evidence that the Australian Federal Police provided to me, he failed the character grounds," he told reporters in Hobart.

Why both with the truth when fear and smear works so well with core voters? Read the rest of this post...

8 million Iraqis require emergency aid

And to think the Iraqi people aren't impressed with Bush-style democracy. Go figure.

About 8 million Iraqis — nearly a third of the population — need immediate emergency aid because of the humanitarian crisis caused by the war, relief agencies said Monday.

Those Iraqis are in urgent need of water, sanitation, food and shelter, said the report by Oxfam and the NGO Coordination Committee network in Iraq.

The report said 15 percent of Iraqis cannot regularly afford to eat, and 70 percent are without adequate water supplies, up from 50 percent in 2003. It also said 28 percent of children are malnourished, compared with 19 percent before the 2003 invasion.

"Basic services, ruined by years of war and sanctions, cannot meet the needs of the Iraqi people," said Jeremy Hobbs, the director of Oxfam International. "Millions of Iraqis have been forced to flee the violence, either to another part of Iraq or abroad. Many of those are living in dire poverty."

Maybe they will somehow be distracted by the soccer victory, which is oddly receiving so much media attention in the US. So much attention, in fact, that one might even get suspicious about the miracle on the pitch against Saudi Arabia. Read the rest of this post...