Thursday, February 05, 2004
Administration on the Defensive:
The wmd issue is taking a toll, the Dems are getting the headlines, and the Repubs are having trouble dictating the daily headlines. Additionally, they’re more incompetent than ever in picking the issues, looking too nakedly self-interested/political in pushing immigration reform (for the Hispanic vote), the Mars idea (trying to be uplifting / change the subject) on issues that don’t reinforce their conservative base…whom they’ve allegedly alienated with their spending habits.
What’s at Stake:
Paul Starr in the current American Prospect summarizes what we’re after, and it reminds us that we can’t merely arrest the reactionary trend, but must reverse it, and take back the country (and the money) back after two decades of privatization of our wealth.
But if a Democrat does win, he will face huge deficits and a Republican Congress unwilling to repeal the Bush tax cuts. Where a Democratic president would immediately mater is in the conduct of war and peace, protection of civil liberties, separation of church and state, environmental regulation, and judicial nominations that would likely affect such key concerns as reproductive freedom and affirmative action. A democratic president would likely block new moves to privatize Medicare and Social Security and to shift taxes away fro (the) rich.
These are scarcely small matters, but political realities will bar any Democrat from launching major progressive initiatives. For Democrats, the limited victory achievable this year would b chiefly defensive: Checking the radical agenda that republicans are pursuing. www.americanprospect.com
Bush Budget: Quite the travesty, including the leaving out of the cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the Washington Post has condemned it, as "a masterpiece of disingenuous blame-shifting, dishonest budgeting and irresponsible governing.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A7234-2004Feb2?language=printer
Unemployment Hits Record High
No, that wasn’t the headline in any paper. But, as I’ve noted previously, the count has always been low-balled by not counting those who have exhausted their benefits (and ignoring those who found part-time work though formerly working at and now seeking full-time employ).
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Isaac Shapiro) cites new data that shows that 375,000 jobless workers finished with their insurance benefits in January, that the number will reach 2 million over the first six months of this year.
In no other month on record — and in no other six-month period for which data are available — have so many unemployed workers exhausted their regular unemployment benefits without being able to receive additional aid. This finding holds even if the number of exhaustees in previous years is adjusted upward to reflect the growth in the labor force since then. http://www.cbpp.org/1-29-04ui.htm
Voting Oddities in New Hampshire:
Many of us are concerned about the voting machine issue, whether Florida-like fraud will be perpetrated on a grand scale in the coming election. In that spirit comes a report that Kerry trounced Dean in New Hampshire where voting machines were used; but, in towns and cities where votes were hand-counted, Kerry barely edged Dean. As livejournal.com noted, Kerry’s ”% margin” where Diebold machines were used was 58.1% and was 35.0 % where ES&S machines were utilized. The margin where they were hand-counted was 4.7%.http://www.livejournal.com/users/explodedview/
9/11: Administration Caves?
The Administration has agreed to extend the deadline of the Commission, but the Republicans in Congress are balking. In an election year, one must include as a possibility the good guy-bad guy routine, that Bush could look cooperative, but the congressional allies could do the ‘dirty work’.
The White House announcement on Wednesday was welcomed by the commission. At the same time, though, the panel moved closer to a showdown with Mr. Bush and his lawyers in a dispute over access to information included in highly classified Oval Office intelligence briefings given to the president in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Panel members say they could vote as early as next week to serve a subpoena on the White House for access to the intelligence reports, which are known as the President's Daily Brief and are presented to Mr. Bush each morning by the Central Intelligence Agency. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/politics/05PANE.html?pagewanted=all
Intelligence Inqury:
The divergence begins. In Britain, the BBC is fighting back, and the self-examination continues unabated. Today the claim that Iraq could launch a bio-chemical attack in 45 minutes will be investigated. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1141549,00.html
Here, we will have to work at keeping it in the forefront, as the Administration seeks to appoint favorable people and terms for its Warren Commission-inspired investigation.
We will have to keep in mind that the “cherry picking” of intelligence to fit their preconceptions was widely reported/understood and that CIA analysts were bullied to confirm that Saddam was a “grave and growing threat.”
A Washington Post (Jim Hoagland) columnist cautions that the focus should be on the competence and credibility of the Administration.
The focus for Democrats should be on Bush's competence, not on the sinister but sketchy presentations of his motives that have formed the debate thus far. The most deft Democrat on this issue is Hillary Clinton, who has been forthright in describing Iraq as a justified war that has been subsequently mishandled at the White House and Pentagon.
Making the CIA's performance the big issue is hardly a clean victory or escape for Bush. The doctrine of preemption is badly wounded as a national policy by this intelligence failure. And the president has yet to explain in a convincing way what he believed and when he believed it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64855-2004Jan30?language=printer
For those wanting more of the darker stuff, of the Administration’s fudging of intelligence, Mother Jones (Robert Dreyfuss, Jason Vest) carries another such account.
Only weeks after 9/11, the Bush administration set up a secret Pentagon unit to create the case for invading Iraq. Here is the inside story of how they pushed disinformation and bogus intelligence and led the nation to war. ..
Until now, the story of how the Bush administration produced its wildly exaggerated estimates of the threat posed by Iraq has never been revealed in full. But, for the first time, a detailed investigation by Mother Jones, based on dozens of interviews—some on the record, some with officials who insisted on anonymity—exposes the workings of a secret Pentagon intelligence unit and of the Defense Department's war-planning task force, the Office of Special Plans. It's the story of a close-knit team of ideologues who spent a decade or more hammering out plans for an attack on Iraq and who used the events of September 11, 2001, to set it into motion. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html
We already have the Carnegie Report that documented the intelligence communities dissent from the Administration’s case-building. US News’ (Kevin Whitelaw) report at http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040209/usnews/9wmd.htm
And we’ve had reports that even the Administration knew that the wmd didn’t exist at least as early as May of last year.
Intelligence sources, policy makers and weapons inspectors familiar with the details of the hunt for WMD told The Observer it was widely known that Iraq had no WMD within three weeks of Baghdad falling, despite the assertions of senior Bush administration figures and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4849218-103550,00.html
President Cheney:
There are, finally, more confirming reports who’s running the show. We have the NY Times report:
And Mr. Powell is known to be deeply resentful over the large role that Mr. Cheney and the vice president's influential staff play in foreign policy, and feels that he has been undercut and marginalized on major issues. Mr. Powell has told associates that he has never before seen a vice president with so large a voice and so powerful a staff, and that it has created enormous problems for an administration that has never been able to speak with one voice on foreign policy. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/04/politics/04PREX.html
Add that to the quote from Paul O’Neill, in Ron Suskind’s The Price of Loyalty, that Cheney is “ "the power behind the throne of a disengaged and clueless president." Keeping such in mind should help Kerry/Edwards, whomever cut Junior down to size in the Fall and helps with those in the public that have needed to see Bush as their decisive leader.
Lights on, no one home.
Meanwhile, over there…Japan and Korea
Just to keep the rest of the world in mind… The Asia Times (Tom Tobback) reports that Japan is pressuring North Korea.
Japanese lawmakers are expected to approve a bill on Friday enabling the government to impose economic sanctions on any country considered a threat to Japan's security - read North Korea. The bill amends the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law and would allow Tokyo to halt trade, block cash remittances to North Korea and even halt ferry service.
Sanctions are not in the offing, as yet, but if imposed, they could have a serious economic impact on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Remittances alone from pro-Pyongyang Koreans and Japanese in Japan are said to amount to tens of billions of yen annually, a major source of income for Pyongyang. Japan is also the DPRK's third-largest trading partner, after China and South Korea. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/FB06Dg01.html
-R
The wmd issue is taking a toll, the Dems are getting the headlines, and the Repubs are having trouble dictating the daily headlines. Additionally, they’re more incompetent than ever in picking the issues, looking too nakedly self-interested/political in pushing immigration reform (for the Hispanic vote), the Mars idea (trying to be uplifting / change the subject) on issues that don’t reinforce their conservative base…whom they’ve allegedly alienated with their spending habits.
What’s at Stake:
Paul Starr in the current American Prospect summarizes what we’re after, and it reminds us that we can’t merely arrest the reactionary trend, but must reverse it, and take back the country (and the money) back after two decades of privatization of our wealth.
But if a Democrat does win, he will face huge deficits and a Republican Congress unwilling to repeal the Bush tax cuts. Where a Democratic president would immediately mater is in the conduct of war and peace, protection of civil liberties, separation of church and state, environmental regulation, and judicial nominations that would likely affect such key concerns as reproductive freedom and affirmative action. A democratic president would likely block new moves to privatize Medicare and Social Security and to shift taxes away fro (the) rich.
These are scarcely small matters, but political realities will bar any Democrat from launching major progressive initiatives. For Democrats, the limited victory achievable this year would b chiefly defensive: Checking the radical agenda that republicans are pursuing. www.americanprospect.com
Bush Budget: Quite the travesty, including the leaving out of the cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the Washington Post has condemned it, as "a masterpiece of disingenuous blame-shifting, dishonest budgeting and irresponsible governing.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A7234-2004Feb2?language=printer
Unemployment Hits Record High
No, that wasn’t the headline in any paper. But, as I’ve noted previously, the count has always been low-balled by not counting those who have exhausted their benefits (and ignoring those who found part-time work though formerly working at and now seeking full-time employ).
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Isaac Shapiro) cites new data that shows that 375,000 jobless workers finished with their insurance benefits in January, that the number will reach 2 million over the first six months of this year.
In no other month on record — and in no other six-month period for which data are available — have so many unemployed workers exhausted their regular unemployment benefits without being able to receive additional aid. This finding holds even if the number of exhaustees in previous years is adjusted upward to reflect the growth in the labor force since then. http://www.cbpp.org/1-29-04ui.htm
Voting Oddities in New Hampshire:
Many of us are concerned about the voting machine issue, whether Florida-like fraud will be perpetrated on a grand scale in the coming election. In that spirit comes a report that Kerry trounced Dean in New Hampshire where voting machines were used; but, in towns and cities where votes were hand-counted, Kerry barely edged Dean. As livejournal.com noted, Kerry’s ”% margin” where Diebold machines were used was 58.1% and was 35.0 % where ES&S machines were utilized. The margin where they were hand-counted was 4.7%.http://www.livejournal.com/users/explodedview/
9/11: Administration Caves?
The Administration has agreed to extend the deadline of the Commission, but the Republicans in Congress are balking. In an election year, one must include as a possibility the good guy-bad guy routine, that Bush could look cooperative, but the congressional allies could do the ‘dirty work’.
The White House announcement on Wednesday was welcomed by the commission. At the same time, though, the panel moved closer to a showdown with Mr. Bush and his lawyers in a dispute over access to information included in highly classified Oval Office intelligence briefings given to the president in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Panel members say they could vote as early as next week to serve a subpoena on the White House for access to the intelligence reports, which are known as the President's Daily Brief and are presented to Mr. Bush each morning by the Central Intelligence Agency. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/politics/05PANE.html?pagewanted=all
Intelligence Inqury:
The divergence begins. In Britain, the BBC is fighting back, and the self-examination continues unabated. Today the claim that Iraq could launch a bio-chemical attack in 45 minutes will be investigated. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1141549,00.html
Here, we will have to work at keeping it in the forefront, as the Administration seeks to appoint favorable people and terms for its Warren Commission-inspired investigation.
We will have to keep in mind that the “cherry picking” of intelligence to fit their preconceptions was widely reported/understood and that CIA analysts were bullied to confirm that Saddam was a “grave and growing threat.”
A Washington Post (Jim Hoagland) columnist cautions that the focus should be on the competence and credibility of the Administration.
The focus for Democrats should be on Bush's competence, not on the sinister but sketchy presentations of his motives that have formed the debate thus far. The most deft Democrat on this issue is Hillary Clinton, who has been forthright in describing Iraq as a justified war that has been subsequently mishandled at the White House and Pentagon.
Making the CIA's performance the big issue is hardly a clean victory or escape for Bush. The doctrine of preemption is badly wounded as a national policy by this intelligence failure. And the president has yet to explain in a convincing way what he believed and when he believed it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64855-2004Jan30?language=printer
For those wanting more of the darker stuff, of the Administration’s fudging of intelligence, Mother Jones (Robert Dreyfuss, Jason Vest) carries another such account.
Only weeks after 9/11, the Bush administration set up a secret Pentagon unit to create the case for invading Iraq. Here is the inside story of how they pushed disinformation and bogus intelligence and led the nation to war. ..
Until now, the story of how the Bush administration produced its wildly exaggerated estimates of the threat posed by Iraq has never been revealed in full. But, for the first time, a detailed investigation by Mother Jones, based on dozens of interviews—some on the record, some with officials who insisted on anonymity—exposes the workings of a secret Pentagon intelligence unit and of the Defense Department's war-planning task force, the Office of Special Plans. It's the story of a close-knit team of ideologues who spent a decade or more hammering out plans for an attack on Iraq and who used the events of September 11, 2001, to set it into motion. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html
We already have the Carnegie Report that documented the intelligence communities dissent from the Administration’s case-building. US News’ (Kevin Whitelaw) report at http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/040209/usnews/9wmd.htm
And we’ve had reports that even the Administration knew that the wmd didn’t exist at least as early as May of last year.
Intelligence sources, policy makers and weapons inspectors familiar with the details of the hunt for WMD told The Observer it was widely known that Iraq had no WMD within three weeks of Baghdad falling, despite the assertions of senior Bush administration figures and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4849218-103550,00.html
President Cheney:
There are, finally, more confirming reports who’s running the show. We have the NY Times report:
And Mr. Powell is known to be deeply resentful over the large role that Mr. Cheney and the vice president's influential staff play in foreign policy, and feels that he has been undercut and marginalized on major issues. Mr. Powell has told associates that he has never before seen a vice president with so large a voice and so powerful a staff, and that it has created enormous problems for an administration that has never been able to speak with one voice on foreign policy. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/04/politics/04PREX.html
Add that to the quote from Paul O’Neill, in Ron Suskind’s The Price of Loyalty, that Cheney is “ "the power behind the throne of a disengaged and clueless president." Keeping such in mind should help Kerry/Edwards, whomever cut Junior down to size in the Fall and helps with those in the public that have needed to see Bush as their decisive leader.
Lights on, no one home.
Meanwhile, over there…Japan and Korea
Just to keep the rest of the world in mind… The Asia Times (Tom Tobback) reports that Japan is pressuring North Korea.
Japanese lawmakers are expected to approve a bill on Friday enabling the government to impose economic sanctions on any country considered a threat to Japan's security - read North Korea. The bill amends the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law and would allow Tokyo to halt trade, block cash remittances to North Korea and even halt ferry service.
Sanctions are not in the offing, as yet, but if imposed, they could have a serious economic impact on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Remittances alone from pro-Pyongyang Koreans and Japanese in Japan are said to amount to tens of billions of yen annually, a major source of income for Pyongyang. Japan is also the DPRK's third-largest trading partner, after China and South Korea. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/FB06Dg01.html
-R
