Friday, October 03, 2003
Weapons of Mass Destruction: ‘Evidence of Intentions’
Aren’t we all tired of this subject? Well that’s what the Administration is hoping for, that it’ll all be “yesterday’s news” and it will be our “fault” that we are “unable to move on.” So, until the Administration is thoroughly discredited via bi-partisan denunciations, the repetition must proceed.
David Kay’s report essentially said there was not only no WMD program, but that they could only find “some evidence of intentions” to build a WMD program. Some imminent threat! The Guardian has this summary today:
In sum, Saddam Hussein's regime did not possess useable biological, chemical or nuclear weapons when the war was launched. Iraq could not therefore accurately be said to pose a current or serious or imminent threat to its neighbours and the west, at least in terms of WMD, as the US and Britain claimed. Less expected, perhaps, is the strong probability, on the basis of these preliminary findings, that such proven Iraqi WMD capability as did exist was largely destroyed in 1991, as Saddam maintained. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1055079,00.html
And, discrediting, while proceeding, is far from complete. The NY Times reports today (Todd S. Purdum, Janet Elder) on a Times/CBS poll.
Thirteen months before the 2004 election, a solid majority of Americans say the country is seriously on the wrong track, a classic danger sign for incumbents, and only about half of Americans approve of Mr. Bush's overall job performance. That is roughly the same as when Mr. Bush took office after the razor-close 2000 election.
But more than 6 in 10 Americans still say the president has strong qualities of leadership, more than 5 in 10 say he has more honesty and integrity than most people in public life and 6 in 10 credit him with making the country safer from terrorist attack.
By contrast, the Democratic presidential contenders remain largely unknown, and nearly half of Americans — and a like number of registered voters — say the Democrats have no clear plan of their own for the country.
Wilson/Plamegate The AP reports that “the federal investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's name expanded Thursday beyond the White House and the spy agency to other parts of the government with access to the officer's classified identity. The Justice Department sent ``do not destroy'' letters to the Defense and State departments requesting preservation of phone logs, e-mails and other documents that could become evidence in the inquiry, senior.”
So maybe they can take some heat off the White House? Not likely; even Republicans are restless. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb) notes that if he, Hagel, were Bush, he would be “sitting down with my vice president and asking what he knows about it.” (CNBC, “Capital Report”) So, a Republican is pointing at Cheney’s office, which includes Cheney and other suspect Scooter Libby, Cheney’s chief-of-staff. So, Cheney, Rove… whichever, it’s an ominous time for the Administration. And, those polls… just under 70% of the public believes that a special prosecutor should be named to investigate the allegations. (Washington Post/ABC News, in the Post, Dana Milbank/Mike Allen).
What’s Happening, Iraq
General Sanchez comes clean, warning that the military situation is worsening. “The enemy has evolved. It is a little bit more lethal, little bit more complex, little bit more sophisticated and in some cases a little bit more tenacious… We should not be surprised if one of these days we wake up to find there’s been a major firefight or a major terrorist attack.”
Iraq-Terror Blurring: Good Media, Bad Media
An example to note. The Boston Globe’s Bryan Bender filed a story that did the proper distinguishing of the Iraq invasion and the “war on terror”, i.e. al-Qaeda.
Senior Bush administration officials and media executives gathered here yesterday at the only national war correspondents memorial to unveil a plaque in memory of four American journalists who died covering the war in Iraq and the war on terror. (Good!)
Compare with the AP report (David Dishneau- Bad)
Four U.S. journalists who died covering the war on terrorism were honored by the Bush administration on Wednesday as brave protectors of the First Amendment.
David Bloom of NBC News; Michael Kelly of The Atlantic Monthly and The Washington Post; Elizabeth Neuffer of The Boston Globe; and Daniel Pearl of The Wall Street Journal were memorialized in the ceremony.
Grover Norquist, Republican arch-rightest ideologue, on Fresh Air (Terry Gross)
I know this is long, but it’s rich and disturbing. This fellow very much has the Administration’s ear.
Norquist [Discussing the death tax] I think it speaks very much to the health of the nation that 70% plus of Americans want to abolish the death tax because they see it as fundamentally unjust. The argument that some who play to the politics of hate and class division will say it's only 2% or 5% in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax. I mean, that's the morality of the Holocaust, it's only a small percentage, it's not you it's somebody else. And this country, people who may not make, earning a lot of money, at the centerpiece of their lives, they may have other things to focus on, they just say it's not just, if you've paid taxes on your income government should leave you alone, not tax you again.
Q. Did you just compare the estate tax with the Holocaust?
Norquist: No, the morality that says it's ok to do something to a group because they're a small percentage of the population, is the morality that says that the Holocaust is ok because they didn't target everybody. It's just a small percentage what are you worried about? It's not you. It's not you, it's them. And arguing that it's ok to loot some group because it's them, or kill some group because it's them, and because it's a small number, that has no place in a democratic society that treats people equally. The government's going to do something to or for us it should treat us all equally. And the argument that Bill Clinton used when he wanted to raise taxes in 1993 is I'm only going to tax the top 2%, so this doesn't affect the rest of you, I'm only going to get some of these guys, not you, others.
The challenge there, when people use that rhetoric, in addition to the fact that I think it's immoral to separate the society, by, uh, when South Africa divided society by race, that was wrong. When East Germany divided them by income and class, that was wrong. East Germany was not an improvement over South Africa. Dividing people so when you can mug them one at a time is a bad thing to do. Whether you do on racial grounds, religious grounds, whether you work on Saturdays or not grounds, economic grounds.
Q. So you see taxes as being, the way they are now a terrible discrimination against the wealthy, comparable to the kind of discrimination of say, the Holocaust?
A. Well, when you pick, when you use, you can use different rhetoric, or different points for different purposes, and I would argue that those who say don't let this bother you I'm only doing it, the government is only doing to a small part of the population, that is very wrong. And it's immoral. they should treat everybody the same. They shouldn't be shooting anyone. And they shouldn't be taking half of anybody's income or wealth when they die.
Lest we Forget: While the Bush administration was declaring war on the intelligence community North Korea was quietly preparing to threaten the peace of the world with deliverable (and sellable) nuclear weapons. From MSNBC: North Korea said Thursday it is using plutonium extracted from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods to make atomic weapons, a move that would dramatically escalate tensions on the Korean peninsula. But U.S. officials cast doubt on the the statement, and suggested it was a move by Pyongyang to strengthen its hand in negotiations with the United States.
Enron: Still slow mo
This scandal still is on a slow track. An example: The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request by the Houston Chronicle to force the District judge to release sealed transcripts and to stop holding closed hearings in Enron criminal cases. The active cases are against three former Enron execs, including Enron’s CFO, Andrew Fastow. And, the Chronicle notes,
"Federal regulators are trying to force former Enron Corp. chairman Ken Lay to hand over documents they believe will shed light on the Houston energy company's collapse.
Lay has refused to turn over the records, asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The SEC, trying to determine whether Lay had knowledge of, or was involved in, fraudulent activities at Enron has subpoenaed documents from Lay's tenure at the one-time energy trading giant." http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.hts/special/enron/2129992
-R
Aren’t we all tired of this subject? Well that’s what the Administration is hoping for, that it’ll all be “yesterday’s news” and it will be our “fault” that we are “unable to move on.” So, until the Administration is thoroughly discredited via bi-partisan denunciations, the repetition must proceed.
David Kay’s report essentially said there was not only no WMD program, but that they could only find “some evidence of intentions” to build a WMD program. Some imminent threat! The Guardian has this summary today:
In sum, Saddam Hussein's regime did not possess useable biological, chemical or nuclear weapons when the war was launched. Iraq could not therefore accurately be said to pose a current or serious or imminent threat to its neighbours and the west, at least in terms of WMD, as the US and Britain claimed. Less expected, perhaps, is the strong probability, on the basis of these preliminary findings, that such proven Iraqi WMD capability as did exist was largely destroyed in 1991, as Saddam maintained. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1055079,00.html
And, discrediting, while proceeding, is far from complete. The NY Times reports today (Todd S. Purdum, Janet Elder) on a Times/CBS poll.
Thirteen months before the 2004 election, a solid majority of Americans say the country is seriously on the wrong track, a classic danger sign for incumbents, and only about half of Americans approve of Mr. Bush's overall job performance. That is roughly the same as when Mr. Bush took office after the razor-close 2000 election.
But more than 6 in 10 Americans still say the president has strong qualities of leadership, more than 5 in 10 say he has more honesty and integrity than most people in public life and 6 in 10 credit him with making the country safer from terrorist attack.
By contrast, the Democratic presidential contenders remain largely unknown, and nearly half of Americans — and a like number of registered voters — say the Democrats have no clear plan of their own for the country.
Wilson/Plamegate The AP reports that “the federal investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's name expanded Thursday beyond the White House and the spy agency to other parts of the government with access to the officer's classified identity. The Justice Department sent ``do not destroy'' letters to the Defense and State departments requesting preservation of phone logs, e-mails and other documents that could become evidence in the inquiry, senior.”
So maybe they can take some heat off the White House? Not likely; even Republicans are restless. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb) notes that if he, Hagel, were Bush, he would be “sitting down with my vice president and asking what he knows about it.” (CNBC, “Capital Report”) So, a Republican is pointing at Cheney’s office, which includes Cheney and other suspect Scooter Libby, Cheney’s chief-of-staff. So, Cheney, Rove… whichever, it’s an ominous time for the Administration. And, those polls… just under 70% of the public believes that a special prosecutor should be named to investigate the allegations. (Washington Post/ABC News, in the Post, Dana Milbank/Mike Allen).
What’s Happening, Iraq
General Sanchez comes clean, warning that the military situation is worsening. “The enemy has evolved. It is a little bit more lethal, little bit more complex, little bit more sophisticated and in some cases a little bit more tenacious… We should not be surprised if one of these days we wake up to find there’s been a major firefight or a major terrorist attack.”
Iraq-Terror Blurring: Good Media, Bad Media
An example to note. The Boston Globe’s Bryan Bender filed a story that did the proper distinguishing of the Iraq invasion and the “war on terror”, i.e. al-Qaeda.
Senior Bush administration officials and media executives gathered here yesterday at the only national war correspondents memorial to unveil a plaque in memory of four American journalists who died covering the war in Iraq and the war on terror. (Good!)
Compare with the AP report (David Dishneau- Bad)
Four U.S. journalists who died covering the war on terrorism were honored by the Bush administration on Wednesday as brave protectors of the First Amendment.
David Bloom of NBC News; Michael Kelly of The Atlantic Monthly and The Washington Post; Elizabeth Neuffer of The Boston Globe; and Daniel Pearl of The Wall Street Journal were memorialized in the ceremony.
Grover Norquist, Republican arch-rightest ideologue, on Fresh Air (Terry Gross)
I know this is long, but it’s rich and disturbing. This fellow very much has the Administration’s ear.
Norquist [Discussing the death tax] I think it speaks very much to the health of the nation that 70% plus of Americans want to abolish the death tax because they see it as fundamentally unjust. The argument that some who play to the politics of hate and class division will say it's only 2% or 5% in the near future of Americans likely to have to pay that tax. I mean, that's the morality of the Holocaust, it's only a small percentage, it's not you it's somebody else. And this country, people who may not make, earning a lot of money, at the centerpiece of their lives, they may have other things to focus on, they just say it's not just, if you've paid taxes on your income government should leave you alone, not tax you again.
Q. Did you just compare the estate tax with the Holocaust?
Norquist: No, the morality that says it's ok to do something to a group because they're a small percentage of the population, is the morality that says that the Holocaust is ok because they didn't target everybody. It's just a small percentage what are you worried about? It's not you. It's not you, it's them. And arguing that it's ok to loot some group because it's them, or kill some group because it's them, and because it's a small number, that has no place in a democratic society that treats people equally. The government's going to do something to or for us it should treat us all equally. And the argument that Bill Clinton used when he wanted to raise taxes in 1993 is I'm only going to tax the top 2%, so this doesn't affect the rest of you, I'm only going to get some of these guys, not you, others.
The challenge there, when people use that rhetoric, in addition to the fact that I think it's immoral to separate the society, by, uh, when South Africa divided society by race, that was wrong. When East Germany divided them by income and class, that was wrong. East Germany was not an improvement over South Africa. Dividing people so when you can mug them one at a time is a bad thing to do. Whether you do on racial grounds, religious grounds, whether you work on Saturdays or not grounds, economic grounds.
Q. So you see taxes as being, the way they are now a terrible discrimination against the wealthy, comparable to the kind of discrimination of say, the Holocaust?
A. Well, when you pick, when you use, you can use different rhetoric, or different points for different purposes, and I would argue that those who say don't let this bother you I'm only doing it, the government is only doing to a small part of the population, that is very wrong. And it's immoral. they should treat everybody the same. They shouldn't be shooting anyone. And they shouldn't be taking half of anybody's income or wealth when they die.
Lest we Forget: While the Bush administration was declaring war on the intelligence community North Korea was quietly preparing to threaten the peace of the world with deliverable (and sellable) nuclear weapons. From MSNBC: North Korea said Thursday it is using plutonium extracted from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods to make atomic weapons, a move that would dramatically escalate tensions on the Korean peninsula. But U.S. officials cast doubt on the the statement, and suggested it was a move by Pyongyang to strengthen its hand in negotiations with the United States.
Enron: Still slow mo
This scandal still is on a slow track. An example: The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request by the Houston Chronicle to force the District judge to release sealed transcripts and to stop holding closed hearings in Enron criminal cases. The active cases are against three former Enron execs, including Enron’s CFO, Andrew Fastow. And, the Chronicle notes,
"Federal regulators are trying to force former Enron Corp. chairman Ken Lay to hand over documents they believe will shed light on the Houston energy company's collapse.
Lay has refused to turn over the records, asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The SEC, trying to determine whether Lay had knowledge of, or was involved in, fraudulent activities at Enron has subpoenaed documents from Lay's tenure at the one-time energy trading giant." http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.hts/special/enron/2129992
-R
