2007 archive

After I read this, I decided to write something about the difference between a report from the GAO, a bipartisan agency that has earned respect for its dispassionate, factual analysis, and a report from the Current Federal Administration, which makes Baron Munchausen look like Little Lord Fauntleroy, but I got distracted by a root canal and ASZ beat me to it.

Dick Polman wondering why Republicans are calling for the resignation of Senator Craig, but not for that of Senator “My Number Was in the Washington Madam’s Phone Logs” Vitter:

So why the double standard? Two points:

1. Whereas Vitter engaged in illicit straight behavior, Craig was seeking to engage in gay behavior. And whereas the Republicans are demonstrably concerned about how gay behavior might impact traditional family values, they are clearly not so concerned about the impact of heterosexual adultery on traditional family values. As Pat Buchanan noted last night on MSNBC, grassroots Republicans, when assessing the severity of sex scandals, are “especially against homosexual activity.” And as social conservative Ross Douthat explained yesterday, “it is easier to demonize gay people” than to talk about “heterosexual divorce rates.”

2. And this is really the crux of the matter. It’s fine for Republicans to display moral outrage against Larry Craig, and demand that he quit, because they know that the Republican governor of Idaho will merely tap another Republican as a replacement, and that therefore the Republican Senate tally will remain at 49. But if they were to bail out on David Vitter, and force him to quit, they would pay a political price. The Democratic governor of Louisiana would tap a Democrat as a replacement, and thus enhance the Democrats’ slim Senate majority.

Which prompts a serious question: If Republican Larry Craig was representing a blue or purple state, with a Democratic governor at the helm, would his colleagues be waxing indignant and demanding his resignation?

Or is the current display of umbrage merely an exercise in no-risk rectitude?

Gosh, how easy it is to ride a moral high-horse when doing so poses no risk to one’s own power and position.

No more moral courage than a Barbie Doll.

I think I shall throw up now. The hypocrisy is sick-making.

The local rag, always on top of things, set out to investigate what goes on in airport restrooms. Given that the local airport is usually in the top ten for delays, they had plenty of time for an investigative report:

The senator (Craig–R, Idaho I didn’t know that “hypocrite” started with an “R”–oops, sorry, I did know that) then slid his foot under the stall divider until his shoe was touching the officer’s shoe. Craig said later it was not a come-on. The senator explained that he has a “wide stance” when nature calls.

File that one under “too much information.”

Having interviewed the senator on many occasions, I really did want to give him the benefit of the enormous doubt. So I conducted a brief experiment in the nearest men’s room stall. First, I made sure there was nobody in an adjacent stall with the authority to fire me. In fact, I made sure all stalls were empty. I did so in the usual way, by calling out in a firm voice, “Is that you, Senator?”

The verdict? If a senator is standing, he could conceivably slide a foot underneath the divider. But tapping a foot in this untenable position is the last thing on the potty-goer’s mind.

Follow the link the link for the full steamy expose.

All slapstick aside, today’s lead editorial was spot on.

Once again:

It ain’t the sex.

It’s the hypocrisy.

But it was still nowhere near as painful as watching the Current Federal Administration attempt to extract the Bill of Rights from the Constitution of the United States of America.

The Current Federal Administrator was playing photo op in New Orleans today, a place he has pretty much ignored, except for photo ops, for the past two years.

If one fraudulent war doesn’t work out, why not try two?

Glenn Greenwald in Salon:

. . . Last month, the Senate unanimously passed a Lieberman-sponsored resolution gratuitously accusing Iran of acts of war against the U.S. — a resolution with no purpose other than to strengthen the case for war against Iran. Clearly, Congress can (or at least will) do nothing to restrain the White House.

More disturbingly still, we have the same exact cast of neoconservative warmongers who brought us the invasion of Iraq, now chirping away ever more loudly, performing their tough guy war dances while courageously beating their little chests and urging on new wars.

More explicit war demands are now issuing from the warped though representative likes of Max Boot (of the Council on Foreign Relations, The LA Times, and Norm Podhoretz’s Commentary Magazine) — who wants to invade Syria and bomb the Damascus airport — and then fueled by fresh-faced war cheerleaders like James Kirchick, who simultaneously (and revealingly) serves as Marty Peretz’s assistant and writes both for the “liberal” New Republic and Podhoretz’s Commentary blog.

From today’s local rag:

Rollover ratings issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for 2007 vehicles show SUVs making progress over previous model years. The ratings give consumers information on the likelihood of rollovers, which kill more than 10,000 motorists in the United States each year – more than a third of motorists killed in the country annually, despite accounting for only 3 percent of all crashes.

Seventy-eight 2007 SUVs received a four-star rating in the rollover tests, according to an analysis by the Associated Press. More than half of the 2007 SUVs had four-star ratings; only 48 of 103 2006 SUVs that were rated earned four stars. Only one SUV received four stars in 2001.

Unfortunately, I can say, based on close personal observation, that their drivers have not.

Gonzo’s top ten, from Josh Marshall:

Via Susie.

Republican, that is.

Is it an epidemic or what?

Words fail me.

Kos.

Once again, it’s not the sex.

It’s the hypocrisy (link added 8/29/2007).

Addendum, 8/29/2007:

Jon Swift makes a convincing case the Senator Craig is merely a conservative.

Balloon Juice examines the right-wing response (with a citation of Glenn Greenwald).

A lot was written last week while I was on the road about the Current Federal Administrator’s comparison of Viet Nam with Iraq.

The best I read was Trudy Rubin’s column in Sunday’s local rag.

So why would the president raise the specter of a war that haunted Americans for more than a generation? He seemed to imply – though one wonders why he didn’t say it – that we could have won the Vietnam War had we stayed longer. Such a claim is popular with part of his conservative base.

But it is impossible to prove and highly dubious. And it goes to the heart of Bush’s problem: He has yet to give a coherent argument for how we can stabilize Iraq by staying on.

The Vietnam analogy highlights this problem in ways I doubt Bush intended. Late in the day in South Vietnam, the U.S. military began to implement a counterinsurgency strategy that was having some success. But a weak South Vietnamese government was unable to capitalize on the gains.

Will Bunch sums up the analogy here. His post can’t really be summarized. Please just go look at it. And deja vu to you.

And the best thing I heard was here. Listen to segment one.

Iraq is indeed like Viet Nam: a quagmire fathered by deceit, born of lies, and reared in venality.

Tuesday, Tangier Restaurant, 18th and Lombard, Philadelphia, right behind Jeff.

I won’t be there. I’ll be doing the cooling tower thing.

So take up the torch.

Or the stein.

Or the highball glass.

Or whatever.

From the Washington Post:

Embattled Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has resigned from his post, according to an administration official, ending a controversial cabinet tenure that included clashes with Congress over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys and the scope of efforts to spy on U.S. citizens.

The official said Gonzales submitted a letter on Friday saying he had decided to step down, but the announcement was withheld until he met with President Bush at the president’s Crawford ranch. His resignation will be announced later today, the official said.

Or maybe not. From Daily Kos:

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, five minutes after having submitted his resignation to President George W. Bush, was asked by a passer-by whether the rumor was true that he had resigned.

“I have no memory of having submitted such a letter or of having any conversation with the President about anything at all,” Mr. Gonzales replied.

The former Attorney General immediately returned to his office at the Department of Justice, though he could not remember what he was supposed to do there.

(Via Phillybits.)

All seriousness aside, I’m betting that the Current Federal Administrator uses a recess appointment to name a successor to Gonzo so as to avoid hearings on a nomination. Gosh, if a nomination were placed before our representatives incongruously assembled, some little bit of truth might slip out. Can’t break a six-year president’s precedent, now, can we?

And it’s not even a Law and Order rerun!

Let a thousand flours bloom:

This is the real legacy of the last 7 years- a nation so whipped up into a frenzy over terrorism that you, me, anyone could be charged with a felony as long as some hysterical bedwetter somewhere thought we were committing an act of terrorism in our daily life. The Salchow’s are just lucky they are white. If they had biked back to the scene wearing brown skin and attempted to make their way through the crowd to talk to the cops, they probably would have been shot.

But, then, hysteria and perpetual war pave the way for tyranny, do they not?

I really can’t improve on this and it’s too good to summarize. From DelawareLiberal:

Scene One:

Determined to get the Roadrunner (e.g. The TERROR!) once and for all – Wile E. Coyote played by the USA with the leadership brain power of George Bush and Dick Cheney get some “sure fire” plans (PNAC)from ACME (played by Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz).

Please note how much we resemble the Coyote right down right down to our “over the top” (to the point of comical) egotistical bearing (e.g. “bring it on!” bravado, assorted Toby Keith songs) and big ears.

Scene Two:

The plans for the “ACME Sure Fire TERROR Eliminator” are rolled out and the Coyote builds a contraption (proudly undermanned and underplanned occupation to be staffed by Heritage Fondation Interns) while the Roadrunner (the TERROR) looks on quizzically.

Scene Three:

Wyle E. Coyote (the USA) launches himself without any thought about what will happen next toward the Roadrunner. With perfect confidence in the efficacy of the “ACME Sure Fire TERROR Eliminator”, Wyle E. Coyote draws up next to the Roadrunner in an imposing clamor and cloud of dust (Shock and Awe!).

Scene Four:

The Roadrunner slows to a stop. The Coyote, confident of his victory grins smugly (Mission Accomplished Photo Op). As the dust settles the Roadrunner is shown to be standing on an outcropping of rock, while the Coyote is standing on thin air.

The Coyote is suspended by his belief that he is standing on land. As long as WE (the Coyote) don’t look down (The Patreaus Report) he/we will not have to hold a sign that reads “Yipes!”

We know they’re not doing this on principle, since they have proven over and over again that they have none of those pesky little principle thingees, so the question becomes, “What are they hiding?” (Most likely, evidence of things suspected, but that’s just a guess.)

The Bush administration argued in court papers this week that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act as part of its effort to fend off a civil lawsuit seeking the release of internal documents about a large number of e-mails missing from White House servers.

The claim, made in a motion filed Tuesday by the Justice Department, is at odds with a depiction of the office on the White House’s own Web site. As of yesterday, the site listed the Office of Administration as one of six presidential entities subject to the open-records law, which is commonly known by its abbreviation, FOIA.

Addendum, 2/26/2007:

Daniel DiRito at ASZ.

Addendum Too:

John Cole at Balloon Juice.

In the Diane Rehm show cited here, Michael O’Hanlon twisted himself into knots (or pretzels) to justify installing an American-backed dictator in Iraq.

A modest proposal from a few miles up the road: Why not replace Maliki with George W. Bush? The reasoning seems pretty iron-clad to me:

. . . since George Bush has done such a wonderful job running America for the last 6+ years, I think in the event that we can’t establish a democracy much like ours, when and if we have to settle for the next best thing, an installed ruler of some sort, I think the Iraqi people should elect, and the American people should back, former United States President (when his time is up, of course), George W. Bush as President for life of Iraq.

Why not? Bush clearly wants to be a dictator, he feels the law doesn’t apply to him, or his minions and that it’d all be easier, just as long as he was the dictator. Besides, if things keep up the way they are, pretty soon, there’s going to be more sectarian divide in this nation than there is in Iraq and eventually, Bush is going to have to liberate this country from itself.

It’s a long way to the Greater Metropolitan Atlanta area, especially when you plot a route that includes a segment of the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was a great visit and worth all the miles.

We came home with a picture. Well, lots of pictures, but I forgot my Fuji, so this is the only digital one:

We came back by way of Fayetteville, North Carolina, where we had dinner with Mrs. Lt. First Son, who is waiting out his current 12 15 month tour in the s(pl)urge. It was good to see her.