Friday, February 06, 2004
Plame Probe Developments:
Word is out that, as per many months ago, Cheney's Staff is the focus. This is a big deal, yet only the UPI is reporting it, and the major news organizations have thus far ignored it.
Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.
According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls.
The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time" as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said. http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/02/17/National/Cheneys.Staff.Focus.Of.Probe-598606.shtml and http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4029.shtml
Democrat memo Scandal
This was about the Democratic strategy memos and other documents stored on a computer shared by Judiciary Committee members somehow made it into GOP’s possession. Now, Manual Miranda, who worked for Sen. Bill Frist on judicial nominations offered his resignation and is leaving his job today. Is this a sacrificial lamb? Will the Democrats cave? The AP has the goods: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4179918
Jobs
Even though the economy needs to create 150,000 jobs per month just to keep up with the growing number that want in to the labor market, disappointing numbers are too often treated as a success- “strong, but not quite as strong as expected.” Compare the Yahoo item with the jobswatch.com summary.
The major U.S. stock indexes were mixed Friday after data showed that the jobless rate fell to the lowest level in two years and that job growth was strong, but not quite as strong as expected.
The technology sector cheered a strong quarterly report from telecom equipment maker Ericsson, while blue chip stocks were clipped by declines in United Technologies and General Electric, which more than offset a rally in McDonald's.
The U.S. Labor Department said nonfarm payrolls grew by 112,000 in January, the strongest one-month gain since December 2000, but was below expectations of growth of 150,000 or more. The unemployment rate fell 5.6 percent from 5.7 percent, vs. expectations of a rise to 5.8 percent, to the lowest level in two years.
http://biz.yahoo.com/cbsm-top/040206/5cea8c109d1f85b53fe607a3584dc720_1.html
Weak labor market taking toll on weekly and hourly wage growth
Continued high unemployment and the lack of meaningful job growth made 2003 the worst year for weekly wage growth for the typical worker since 1996 … This clearly indicates that the weak labor market is now hurting employed workers as well as those looking for work. In 2003, real (inflation-adjusted) weekly wages fell for low- and middle-wage men and were stagnant or fell slightly for low- and middle-wage women. This trend is in sharp contrast to the significant and sustained real wage growth over the 1995-2002 period when unemployment http://www.jobwatch.org/
What’s Happening, Iraq:
The Globe actually carried this AP story, about pamphlets that are circulating in Ramadi and Fallujah. The gist: insurgent groups are vowing to take over the cities when they are vacated by U.S. troops. And, they reassure that non-collaborators will be allowed to participate in city councils.
A coalition of insurgent groups has vowed to take over cities vacated by U.S. troops, and warned of ''harsh consequences'' for Iraqis who resist, according to pamphlets circulating in this hotbed of anti-American resistance.
The pamphlets, signed by Muhammad's Army and other insurgent groups, began appearing Saturday in Ramadi and nearby Fallujah both part of the dangerous Sunni Triangle region.
''America is getting ready to withdraw its forces from our country with its tail between its legs ... pressured by rockets and explosive devices,'' the statement said. http://www.boston.com/dailynews/035/world/Insurgent_groups_vow_to_take_oP.shtml
Bush’s Missing Year
Yes, I wrote that this is of no consequence, that we have more important issues to follow than to decry young George getting into Houston’s famed “champagne unit”, the National Guard group of sons of the Texas elite and avoiding service in Vietnam. And amidst all the lies- they do lie as they breathe- any fibs / cover-up here is very small potatoes.
But I’ve gotten intrigued. The Globe’s Walter Robinson (he’s been the ace on this story) has told Eric Boehlert about documents that were taken out of Bush’s military file and that one had been inserted in 2000 that attempts to pass as one being of 1973.
I’m of the opinion that back-dating and (unethically) inserting documents into a file is both extraordinarily vile and surprisingly common.
The missing document:
· It is strategically torn along its left edge.
· There is no name on the document, only a single letter: W. Does it say "1LT BUSH GEORGE" just before the initial? Maybe, but the page has been torn so there's no way to tell.
· The Social Security number is blacked out.
· The tear eliminates the year and month of all the dates. (The date at the bottom right is just a note added by a reporter.)
In other words, there's really no evidence that this document refers to George W. Bush or even that it refers to the period 1972-73. But it's even worse than that: it turns out that this document wasn't even part of Bush's original service file.
"His records have clearly been cleaned up," says author James Moore, whose upcoming book, "Bush's War for Re-election," will examine the issue of Bush's military service in great detail. Moore says as far back as 1994, when Bush first ran for governor of Texas, his political aides "began contacting commanders and roommates and people who would spin and cover up his Guard record. And when my book comes out, people will be on the record testifying to that fact: witnesses who helped clean up Bush's military file."
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/02/05/national_guard/index_np.html http://web.archive.org/web/20000619121358/ http://www.boston.com/news/politics/campaign2000/news/One_year_gap_in_Bush_s_Guard_duty+.shtml
Newsweek (Fareed Azkaria) on the Intelligence stuff:
Why were the inspectors right and the administration wrong? Partly
this has to do with political pressure. The CIA had been battered for
30 years by accusations from the right that it was soft on the
Soviets, soft on the Chinese and most recently soft on Saddam. (Never
mind that in almost every case, the agency was more accurate in its
assessments than its neoconservative accusers. It lost the political
battle.) The U.N. inspectors could actually make their assessments
without fear. (Some in the administration did try to scare them. "We
will not hesitate to discredit you," Vice President Cheney said to
Blix before he began his job.)
If you’re a glutton, the Carnegie Report has the full details. The findings are headlined:
--Iraq WMD Was Not An Immediate Threat
--Inspections Were Working.
--Intelligence Failed and Was Misrepresented
--Terrorist Connection Missing
Kind of sums it up!
http://www.ceip.org/files/Publications/IraqSummary.asp
-R
Word is out that, as per many months ago, Cheney's Staff is the focus. This is a big deal, yet only the UPI is reporting it, and the major news organizations have thus far ignored it.
Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.
According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls.
The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time" as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said. http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/02/17/National/Cheneys.Staff.Focus.Of.Probe-598606.shtml and http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4029.shtml
Democrat memo Scandal
This was about the Democratic strategy memos and other documents stored on a computer shared by Judiciary Committee members somehow made it into GOP’s possession. Now, Manual Miranda, who worked for Sen. Bill Frist on judicial nominations offered his resignation and is leaving his job today. Is this a sacrificial lamb? Will the Democrats cave? The AP has the goods: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4179918
Jobs
Even though the economy needs to create 150,000 jobs per month just to keep up with the growing number that want in to the labor market, disappointing numbers are too often treated as a success- “strong, but not quite as strong as expected.” Compare the Yahoo item with the jobswatch.com summary.
The major U.S. stock indexes were mixed Friday after data showed that the jobless rate fell to the lowest level in two years and that job growth was strong, but not quite as strong as expected.
The technology sector cheered a strong quarterly report from telecom equipment maker Ericsson, while blue chip stocks were clipped by declines in United Technologies and General Electric, which more than offset a rally in McDonald's.
The U.S. Labor Department said nonfarm payrolls grew by 112,000 in January, the strongest one-month gain since December 2000, but was below expectations of growth of 150,000 or more. The unemployment rate fell 5.6 percent from 5.7 percent, vs. expectations of a rise to 5.8 percent, to the lowest level in two years.
http://biz.yahoo.com/cbsm-top/040206/5cea8c109d1f85b53fe607a3584dc720_1.html
Weak labor market taking toll on weekly and hourly wage growth
Continued high unemployment and the lack of meaningful job growth made 2003 the worst year for weekly wage growth for the typical worker since 1996 … This clearly indicates that the weak labor market is now hurting employed workers as well as those looking for work. In 2003, real (inflation-adjusted) weekly wages fell for low- and middle-wage men and were stagnant or fell slightly for low- and middle-wage women. This trend is in sharp contrast to the significant and sustained real wage growth over the 1995-2002 period when unemployment http://www.jobwatch.org/
What’s Happening, Iraq:
The Globe actually carried this AP story, about pamphlets that are circulating in Ramadi and Fallujah. The gist: insurgent groups are vowing to take over the cities when they are vacated by U.S. troops. And, they reassure that non-collaborators will be allowed to participate in city councils.
A coalition of insurgent groups has vowed to take over cities vacated by U.S. troops, and warned of ''harsh consequences'' for Iraqis who resist, according to pamphlets circulating in this hotbed of anti-American resistance.
The pamphlets, signed by Muhammad's Army and other insurgent groups, began appearing Saturday in Ramadi and nearby Fallujah both part of the dangerous Sunni Triangle region.
''America is getting ready to withdraw its forces from our country with its tail between its legs ... pressured by rockets and explosive devices,'' the statement said. http://www.boston.com/dailynews/035/world/Insurgent_groups_vow_to_take_oP.shtml
Bush’s Missing Year
Yes, I wrote that this is of no consequence, that we have more important issues to follow than to decry young George getting into Houston’s famed “champagne unit”, the National Guard group of sons of the Texas elite and avoiding service in Vietnam. And amidst all the lies- they do lie as they breathe- any fibs / cover-up here is very small potatoes.
But I’ve gotten intrigued. The Globe’s Walter Robinson (he’s been the ace on this story) has told Eric Boehlert about documents that were taken out of Bush’s military file and that one had been inserted in 2000 that attempts to pass as one being of 1973.
I’m of the opinion that back-dating and (unethically) inserting documents into a file is both extraordinarily vile and surprisingly common.
The missing document:
· It is strategically torn along its left edge.
· There is no name on the document, only a single letter: W. Does it say "1LT BUSH GEORGE" just before the initial? Maybe, but the page has been torn so there's no way to tell.
· The Social Security number is blacked out.
· The tear eliminates the year and month of all the dates. (The date at the bottom right is just a note added by a reporter.)
In other words, there's really no evidence that this document refers to George W. Bush or even that it refers to the period 1972-73. But it's even worse than that: it turns out that this document wasn't even part of Bush's original service file.
"His records have clearly been cleaned up," says author James Moore, whose upcoming book, "Bush's War for Re-election," will examine the issue of Bush's military service in great detail. Moore says as far back as 1994, when Bush first ran for governor of Texas, his political aides "began contacting commanders and roommates and people who would spin and cover up his Guard record. And when my book comes out, people will be on the record testifying to that fact: witnesses who helped clean up Bush's military file."
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/02/05/national_guard/index_np.html http://web.archive.org/web/20000619121358/ http://www.boston.com/news/politics/campaign2000/news/One_year_gap_in_Bush_s_Guard_duty+.shtml
Newsweek (Fareed Azkaria) on the Intelligence stuff:
Why were the inspectors right and the administration wrong? Partly
this has to do with political pressure. The CIA had been battered for
30 years by accusations from the right that it was soft on the
Soviets, soft on the Chinese and most recently soft on Saddam. (Never
mind that in almost every case, the agency was more accurate in its
assessments than its neoconservative accusers. It lost the political
battle.) The U.N. inspectors could actually make their assessments
without fear. (Some in the administration did try to scare them. "We
will not hesitate to discredit you," Vice President Cheney said to
Blix before he began his job.)
If you’re a glutton, the Carnegie Report has the full details. The findings are headlined:
--Iraq WMD Was Not An Immediate Threat
--Inspections Were Working.
--Intelligence Failed and Was Misrepresented
--Terrorist Connection Missing
Kind of sums it up!
http://www.ceip.org/files/Publications/IraqSummary.asp
-R
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
Monday, February 02, 2004
But the news-cycle controversies have obscured the book's central, and important, thesis. It is the contention of O'Neill -- and of Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of ''A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey From the Inner City to the Ivy League'' -- that in this White House, evidence and argument have been routinely pushed aside when they got in the way of previously decided political outcomes. That we've heard before. What enriches ''The Price of Loyalty,'' aside from the accretion of persuasive detail, is its assertion that in this administration, a time-honored notion of public service has been deeply corrupted. -Michael Tomasky, review of The Price of Loyalty, Ron Suskind’s book on Paul O’Neill’s tenure in the Bush Administration http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/books/review/01TOMASKT.html
Liars and the Lying…
Whether they are misrepresentations, omissions, distortions or lies, they do it ‘as they breathe’.
The latest example is the Administration having long known that the lousy Medicare law would cost much more than the advertised $400 billion. From the Washington Post (Amy Goldstein)
The president's top health advisers gathered such evidence and shared it with select lawmakers, congressional and other sources said, long before the White House disclosed Thursday that it believes the program will cost $534 billion over the next decade -- one-third more than the estimate widely used when Congress enacted the measure in November.
The higher forecast, coming less than two months after President Bush signed the landmark bill into law, has fueled conservative criticism of White House spending policies and prompted accusations that the administration deliberately withheld financial information as it pushed the bill through a divided Congress. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64627-2004Jan30?language=printer
Economic Debacle: Friedman chimes in
NY Times op ed columnist Tom Friedman remains steadfast in his support for the Invasion. But, he’s getting vehement re the economic performance of the Bush Administration.
The Bush team's real vulnerability is its B.M.D. — Budgets of Mass Destruction, which have recklessly imperiled the nation's future, with crazy tax-cutting and out-of-control spending. The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office says the deficit is expected to total some $2.4 trillion over the next decade — almost $1 trillion more than the prediction of just five months ago. That is a failure of intelligence and common sense that threatens to make us all insecure — and people also feel that in their guts.
That is the only way to expose what the shameful coalition of Karl Rove-led cynics, who care only about winning the next election; voodoo economists preaching supply-side economics; and libertarian nuts who think that by cutting tax revenues you'll shrink the government — when all you do is balloon the deficit — is doing to our future. And please don't tell me the tax cuts are working. Of course they're working! If you put this much stimulus into our economy — three tax cuts, loose monetary policy and out-of-control spending — it will produce a boom. Eat 10 chocolate bars at once and you'll also get a rush. But at what long-term cost?
This is so irresponsible and it will end in tears... If this isn't the election issue, I don't know what is. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/opinion/01FRIE.html
Tax System Skewed to Enrich the Very Wealthy: David Cay Johnston
The Pulitzer-prize winning reporter for the NY Times has made his case that the super rich are assuming a shrinking share of taxes while the middle class is bearing an increasing burden; less gently, Johnston talks of the rigging of the tax system for the rich at the expense of everyone else. His Perfectly Legal... is on the NY Times best-seller list, and is on On Point. http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2004/01/20040130_a_main.asp
From the NY Times review by James K. Galbraith:
As Johnston knows, the real scandal of our federal tax system isn't so much what the rich didn't pay. It's what the rest of us now have to -- particularly the middle and upper middle classes, with incomes from $50,000 to $500,000. This is the group Bush is squeezing, to benefit what Johnston aptly calls the ''political donor class.'' This truly shocking story emerges later on in ''Perfectly Legal.''
First we have the repeal of the estate tax, which shifts the tax burden downscale and from the dead to the living. Johnston, a business and financial reporter for The New York Times, explains how this tax, affecting only a handful of the very, very rich, fell victim to the arts of propaganda…
Next there is the Alternative Minimum Tax, the ''stealth tax,'' designed for the very rich but now set to overrun Middle America. In 2000 this tax hit just 1.3 million households; Treasury estimates held that it would affect 17.9 million by 2010. But the Bush tax cuts doubled this number to 35.6 million by design…
Then there is the payroll tax, a travesty ever since 1983, when Alan Greenspan sold the public on the myth of paying for Social Security in advance. And the difference between the amount brought in through the payroll tax and the amount needed to pay benefits underwrote Reagan's tax cuts for the rich… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/books/review/01GALBRAT.html
Kerry the Populist
We’ve been this route before (Gore, Summer, ’00); We in Massachusetts know that John is no populist, and we have other qualms. But, he’s (currently) looking strong and his message- “Fairness”- resonates.
Speaking of Kerry, the polls show him ahead in all upcoming states save South Carolina, while Dean has all but disappeared.
Newsweek finds Kerry in a statistical dead heat with Bush; And, Bush’s approval rating is at an all-time low (49%); A similar percentage do not want to see Bush re-elected. [And the same percentage [49%] still believe that Saddam was directly involved in 9/11.] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4120028/
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Intelligence Inquiry:
Supposedly the Administration has decided to support an independent inquiry. But, as with other inquiries, it will seek to delay and control it, seeking a long process that goes well beyond the election and would focus on the intelligence community, and not on the Administration’s failures. The Sunday Washington Post report: (Dana Milbank, Dana Priest)
President Bush has agreed to support an independent inquiry into the prewar intelligence that he used to assert that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, Republican and congressional sources said today.
The details about the commission are not yet firm, including how much authority it would have to investigate not just the intelligence gathering apparatus but also how the administration used the intelligence it was given.
By joining the effort to create the commission rather than allowing Congress to develop its framework on its own, Bush will likely have more leverage to keep the focus on the CIA and other intelligence organizations rather than on the White House. Democrats have asserted that Bush exaggerated the intelligence on Iraq to justify going war, a theory that was boosted by recent allegations from former Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill that Bush had been contemplating the ouster of Hussein long before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1723-2004Jan31.html?nav=hptop_tb
Monday’s NY Times (Douglas Jehl):
Others, including Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, have made clear that they will seek to ensure that any inquiry takes the Bush administration to task for building what they call a flawed case that the United States needed to act quickly to wage war against Iraq.
But Mr. [Peter, Florida Republican] Goss and others will argue that an inquiry ought to lead Americans to understand that intelligence gathering and analysis is, at best, an imperfect science. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/02/international/middleeast/02ASSE.html?pagewanted=all
David Kay’s comments were helpful, but he had an unintentionally humorous note when he asserted that Bush was mis-led by Intelligence. The Administration consistently sought the most ominous interpretations of all existing intelligence; Cheney made regular trips to Langley; they weren’t social calls.
Too Many Casualties…
The last months have been the worst; the incidents are now fewer, but deadlier. 37 Americans killed this month, compared with 24 in December. http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1073281412068&p=1012571727088
As a result,
American commanders have ordered a dramatic reduction in their military presence in Baghdad, as they increasingly turn over to local forces the most visible role of policing the capital while American troops pull back to a ring of bases at the edge of the city, senior military officers announced today. (Thom Shanker) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/international/middleeast/01CND-ADMI.html
The Shiites Surge
David Reiff’s article in the NY Times magazine captures their power.
As a result, the Iraqi Shiite political culture is a mixture of grievance and thwarted patriotism it was a foregone conclusion that Sunni dominance of Iraq would end. It soon became clear that the Iraqi Shiite religious leadership had not only survived Hussein's repression with its morale and cohesion intact, but had also quickly established itself as one of the principal forces of order and patronage in post-Baathist Iraq. The failure of American forces to stop the systematic looting in the week after the fall of Baghdad left a vacuum that was filled by hastily improvised militias organized by the Shiite religious council, the Hawza Moderate voices, including some Iraqi exiles who lobbied hard for the American invasion, will tell you that it was the American decision not simply to liberate Iraq but to declare Iraq an occupied country that has turned the Shiites against the United States. Some radical clerics agree
When Sistani calls for a direct election, as opposed to the American plan for an indirect voting system based on regional caucuses, what resonates with ordinary Iraqis is their deep skepticism about American motives and their deep resentment of the American occupation. If ''one man, one vote'' is good enough for the Americans, why isn't it good enough for Iraqis?…
''You can get rid of Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party,'' says Professor [Juan] Cole of the University of Michigan. ''But you can't get rid of the facts on the ground. And the Shiites are the most important of these facts.'' http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/magazine/01SHIITE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
-R
Liars and the Lying…
Whether they are misrepresentations, omissions, distortions or lies, they do it ‘as they breathe’.
The latest example is the Administration having long known that the lousy Medicare law would cost much more than the advertised $400 billion. From the Washington Post (Amy Goldstein)
The president's top health advisers gathered such evidence and shared it with select lawmakers, congressional and other sources said, long before the White House disclosed Thursday that it believes the program will cost $534 billion over the next decade -- one-third more than the estimate widely used when Congress enacted the measure in November.
The higher forecast, coming less than two months after President Bush signed the landmark bill into law, has fueled conservative criticism of White House spending policies and prompted accusations that the administration deliberately withheld financial information as it pushed the bill through a divided Congress. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64627-2004Jan30?language=printer
Economic Debacle: Friedman chimes in
NY Times op ed columnist Tom Friedman remains steadfast in his support for the Invasion. But, he’s getting vehement re the economic performance of the Bush Administration.
The Bush team's real vulnerability is its B.M.D. — Budgets of Mass Destruction, which have recklessly imperiled the nation's future, with crazy tax-cutting and out-of-control spending. The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office says the deficit is expected to total some $2.4 trillion over the next decade — almost $1 trillion more than the prediction of just five months ago. That is a failure of intelligence and common sense that threatens to make us all insecure — and people also feel that in their guts.
That is the only way to expose what the shameful coalition of Karl Rove-led cynics, who care only about winning the next election; voodoo economists preaching supply-side economics; and libertarian nuts who think that by cutting tax revenues you'll shrink the government — when all you do is balloon the deficit — is doing to our future. And please don't tell me the tax cuts are working. Of course they're working! If you put this much stimulus into our economy — three tax cuts, loose monetary policy and out-of-control spending — it will produce a boom. Eat 10 chocolate bars at once and you'll also get a rush. But at what long-term cost?
This is so irresponsible and it will end in tears... If this isn't the election issue, I don't know what is. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/opinion/01FRIE.html
Tax System Skewed to Enrich the Very Wealthy: David Cay Johnston
The Pulitzer-prize winning reporter for the NY Times has made his case that the super rich are assuming a shrinking share of taxes while the middle class is bearing an increasing burden; less gently, Johnston talks of the rigging of the tax system for the rich at the expense of everyone else. His Perfectly Legal... is on the NY Times best-seller list, and is on On Point. http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2004/01/20040130_a_main.asp
From the NY Times review by James K. Galbraith:
As Johnston knows, the real scandal of our federal tax system isn't so much what the rich didn't pay. It's what the rest of us now have to -- particularly the middle and upper middle classes, with incomes from $50,000 to $500,000. This is the group Bush is squeezing, to benefit what Johnston aptly calls the ''political donor class.'' This truly shocking story emerges later on in ''Perfectly Legal.''
First we have the repeal of the estate tax, which shifts the tax burden downscale and from the dead to the living. Johnston, a business and financial reporter for The New York Times, explains how this tax, affecting only a handful of the very, very rich, fell victim to the arts of propaganda…
Next there is the Alternative Minimum Tax, the ''stealth tax,'' designed for the very rich but now set to overrun Middle America. In 2000 this tax hit just 1.3 million households; Treasury estimates held that it would affect 17.9 million by 2010. But the Bush tax cuts doubled this number to 35.6 million by design…
Then there is the payroll tax, a travesty ever since 1983, when Alan Greenspan sold the public on the myth of paying for Social Security in advance. And the difference between the amount brought in through the payroll tax and the amount needed to pay benefits underwrote Reagan's tax cuts for the rich… http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/books/review/01GALBRAT.html
Kerry the Populist
We’ve been this route before (Gore, Summer, ’00); We in Massachusetts know that John is no populist, and we have other qualms. But, he’s (currently) looking strong and his message- “Fairness”- resonates.
Speaking of Kerry, the polls show him ahead in all upcoming states save South Carolina, while Dean has all but disappeared.
Newsweek finds Kerry in a statistical dead heat with Bush; And, Bush’s approval rating is at an all-time low (49%); A similar percentage do not want to see Bush re-elected. [And the same percentage [49%] still believe that Saddam was directly involved in 9/11.] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4120028/
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Intelligence Inquiry:
Supposedly the Administration has decided to support an independent inquiry. But, as with other inquiries, it will seek to delay and control it, seeking a long process that goes well beyond the election and would focus on the intelligence community, and not on the Administration’s failures. The Sunday Washington Post report: (Dana Milbank, Dana Priest)
President Bush has agreed to support an independent inquiry into the prewar intelligence that he used to assert that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, Republican and congressional sources said today.
The details about the commission are not yet firm, including how much authority it would have to investigate not just the intelligence gathering apparatus but also how the administration used the intelligence it was given.
By joining the effort to create the commission rather than allowing Congress to develop its framework on its own, Bush will likely have more leverage to keep the focus on the CIA and other intelligence organizations rather than on the White House. Democrats have asserted that Bush exaggerated the intelligence on Iraq to justify going war, a theory that was boosted by recent allegations from former Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill that Bush had been contemplating the ouster of Hussein long before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1723-2004Jan31.html?nav=hptop_tb
Monday’s NY Times (Douglas Jehl):
Others, including Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, have made clear that they will seek to ensure that any inquiry takes the Bush administration to task for building what they call a flawed case that the United States needed to act quickly to wage war against Iraq.
But Mr. [Peter, Florida Republican] Goss and others will argue that an inquiry ought to lead Americans to understand that intelligence gathering and analysis is, at best, an imperfect science. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/02/international/middleeast/02ASSE.html?pagewanted=all
David Kay’s comments were helpful, but he had an unintentionally humorous note when he asserted that Bush was mis-led by Intelligence. The Administration consistently sought the most ominous interpretations of all existing intelligence; Cheney made regular trips to Langley; they weren’t social calls.
Too Many Casualties…
The last months have been the worst; the incidents are now fewer, but deadlier. 37 Americans killed this month, compared with 24 in December. http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1073281412068&p=1012571727088
As a result,
American commanders have ordered a dramatic reduction in their military presence in Baghdad, as they increasingly turn over to local forces the most visible role of policing the capital while American troops pull back to a ring of bases at the edge of the city, senior military officers announced today. (Thom Shanker) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/international/middleeast/01CND-ADMI.html
The Shiites Surge
David Reiff’s article in the NY Times magazine captures their power.
As a result, the Iraqi Shiite political culture is a mixture of grievance and thwarted patriotism it was a foregone conclusion that Sunni dominance of Iraq would end. It soon became clear that the Iraqi Shiite religious leadership had not only survived Hussein's repression with its morale and cohesion intact, but had also quickly established itself as one of the principal forces of order and patronage in post-Baathist Iraq. The failure of American forces to stop the systematic looting in the week after the fall of Baghdad left a vacuum that was filled by hastily improvised militias organized by the Shiite religious council, the Hawza Moderate voices, including some Iraqi exiles who lobbied hard for the American invasion, will tell you that it was the American decision not simply to liberate Iraq but to declare Iraq an occupied country that has turned the Shiites against the United States. Some radical clerics agree
When Sistani calls for a direct election, as opposed to the American plan for an indirect voting system based on regional caucuses, what resonates with ordinary Iraqis is their deep skepticism about American motives and their deep resentment of the American occupation. If ''one man, one vote'' is good enough for the Americans, why isn't it good enough for Iraqis?…
''You can get rid of Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party,'' says Professor [Juan] Cole of the University of Michigan. ''But you can't get rid of the facts on the ground. And the Shiites are the most important of these facts.'' http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/magazine/01SHIITE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
-R
