Bloated Plutocrats

So, via Matt Y., I see that The Politico's Mike Allen has done a piece for Time about John Edwards' evolution on the use of the term "war on terror" (and I say "evolution" in a positive way, not as some snarky code accusing Edwards of "flip-flopping").

The Allen article is an interesting read, and well worth your while if you're interested in where the Democratic presidential hopefuls are on the larger issues.

Except for the last sentence.

I read the whole piece, appreciating that Edwards was explaining his position clearly, only to find that the article ends with a bit of absurd, totally uncalled-for "analysis" from Allen:

"What they have proven beyond any doubt is that the exercise of raw power does not make you a leader," Edwards said. He stated he doesn't know why the other top-tier Democrats didn't join him in boycotting GWOT, but added: "My conjecture is that they've used the term so many times themselves that they would be concerned about saying that they reject it now. And they're also concerned about the political implications. I'm going to say the truth, and that's it."

But the truth is that the war on terror is destined to outlast a change in the Oval Office — or in vocabulary.

Wha?? According to whom? Oh, right. According to noted linguist and defense expert Mike Allen.

Why would you write this, Mike Allen? Do you not realize that after spending 1,000 words detailing Edwards' carefully considered reasons for rejecting the term "war on terror," you look like an idiot when you punctuate those 1,000 words with a sentence that blindly accepts the concept? That last sentence dismisses literally everything that Edwards has said, and without a single shred of reasoning offered for support, I might add.

"The truth is." "Is destined." Unbelievable.

While I'm ragging on someone associated with The Politico, Washington's newest dumping ground for ill-considered conventional wisdom and slipshod "journalism," I might as well highlight how the publication's business model is set up:

Step 1: Write something catty about Democrats or potentially damaging to them.

Step 2: Give Matt Drudge a heads-up about what you're writing, even before it's posted on your website or published in your poorly designed print product, which is apparently read voraciously by congressional staffers sick of the more straightforward fare found in Roll Call and The Hill. 

Step 3: Drudge drives a significant amount of traffic to your website. In fact, someone with access to Hitwise, a service that measures Web traffic, told Glenn Greenwald that the Drudge Report generally provides 65 percent of the traffic for The Politico.

I'm not suggesting that there's a problem with the separation of editorial decisions and advertising interests at The Politico. I would go in another direction: The Politico produces yet another bit of "journalism" germinated in Beltway groupthink; Drudge likes; Drudge links.

If I were at The Politico, that sort of thing would make me think twice about what I was doing. An approving response from the notoriously hacktacular Matt Drudge is definitely cause for a re-evaluation of one's work.

I really can't add much to this Think Progress post. It must be appreciated in its full glory, which is presented below:

Profiles in courage. 

A U.S. Senator talks to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius:

“This is the most incompetent White House I’ve seen since I came to Washington,” said one GOP senator. “The White House legislative liaison team is incompetent, pitiful, embarrassing. My colleagues can’t even tell you who the White House Senate liaison is. There is rank incompetence throughout the government. It’s the weakest Cabinet I’ve seen.” And remember, this is a Republican talking.

What’s truly pitiful and embarrassing is that this Senator understands these truths but hides behind a veil of anonymity, protecting his own political fortunes while the nation suffers.

Wow. Just wow.

During the past week or so, a thought has washed over me continually: In 100 years, our era will be judged to be a clear low point in American history — not necessarily because we have a corrupt, incompetent president and a corrupt, incompetent administration, but because people like the nameless Republican senator above won't publicly challenge that corruption and incompetence.

We suffer from a crippling lack of political leadership. At this stage in our republic's history, that's an embarrassment of epic proportions.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the modern base of the Republican Party.

But now the prominent wingnut blogwrecks have begun a full-throated tsk-tsking of the students who got shot, or who were trying to not get shot. 

Because you can be damned sure they would throw themselves in front of a psychopath with guns blazing.

Just as soon as they finish this next level … and get a Mountain Dew Code Red. 

This comes up from wingnuttia from time to time, and it desperately needs to be slapped down as the farce that it is.

U.S. Rep Tim Walberg, R-the white part of Michigan, said Iraq "is reasonably under control, at least as well as Detroit or Chicago or any of our other big cities. That's an encouraging sign." Like any good wingnut soldier (not literally a soldier, c'mon!), he's not backing down.

Gaze into the Great Gazoogle for more.  

At various blogs and especially in the comments on the Detroit Free Press story Drudge linked to, there were great huzzahs and whatnot from the wingnut peanut gallery. All kinds of numbers were squeezed out of so many poopers, trying to show that the congressman was actually right on.

Obviously, it's impossible. First, you're comparing apples to oranges. Second, the wingnuts were comparing moldy applesauce to bright new orange pez.

Thirty to 50 bodies are found, every day, in Baghdad. Every week there are a handful of bombings at crowded markets, killing five to 50 people. Three thousand people, at a minimum, are dying in Iraqi violence each month. 

It's absolutely crazy to compare an American city — even a struggling American city like Detroit — to anything that is going on Iraq. There's no comparison. Not even to try to prove that Dear Leader's Great War was worth the trillion dollars, the thousands of Americans' lives. The 600,000 Iraqi war dead.  

If you're not gonna believe that Lancet study, whose scientific method is becoming more and more proven, then at least peek at the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index. 

Juan Cole, two and a half years ago, wrote a piece on what America would look like if it were "as safe as Iraq."

Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on Sept. 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll.

And what if those deaths occurred all over the country, including in the capital of Washington, D.C., but mainly above the Mason-Dixon line, in Boston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco?

What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or Alexandria?

What if all the reporters for all the major television and print media were trapped in five-star hotels in Washington, D.C., and New York, unable to move more than a few blocks safely, and dependent on stringers to know what was happening in Oklahoma City and St. Louis? What if the only time they ventured into the Midwest was if they could be embedded in Army or National Guard units?

There are estimated to be some 25,000 guerrillas in Iraq engaged in concerted acts of violence. What if there were private armies totaling 275,000 men, armed with machine guns, assault rifles (legal again!), rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar launchers, hiding out in dangerous urban areas of cities all over the country? What if they completely controlled Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Denver and Omaha, such that local police and federal troops could not go into those cities?

What if, during the past year, the secretary of state (Aqilah Hashemi), the president (Izzedine Salim), and the attorney general (Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim) had all been assassinated?

What if all the cities in the U.S. were wracked by a crime wave, with thousands of murders, kidnappings, burglaries, and carjackings in every major city every year?

What if the Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly) bombed Billings, Mont., Flint, Mich., Watts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, D.C., and other urban areas, attempting to target "safe houses" of "criminal gangs," but inevitably killing a lot of children and little old ladies?

That was in September 2004. Tell me, has Iraq gotten better, or worse, since then?

Oh, the wingnuts will tell you about painted schools, about god knows what. The truth is, Iraq is a hellish place to live. A hundred thousand Iraqis are fleeing their homeland each month. And yet some dumbass congressman wants you to believe that it's just fine, except for the one bombing each day that ruins it for everyone. 

The story now isn't Tim Walberg needing to apologize. He needs to get his head out of his ass and look at the facts in Iraq.  

A USAT poll: 

Four years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Iraqis describe daily lives that have been torn apart by spiraling violence and a faltering economy. The bursts of optimism reported in a 2004 public-opinion survey taken a year after the invasion and another in 2005 before landmark legislative elections have nearly vanished.

Face-to-face interviews with 2,212 Iraqis — a survey sponsored jointly by USA TODAY, ABC News, the British Broadcasting Corp. and ARD, a German TV network — find a nation that in large measure has fragmented into fear. Six in 10 Iraqis say their lives are going badly. Only one-third expect things to improve in the next year.

 

POLL RESULTS: Iraqis say life is deteriorating

That represents a dramatic deterioration in just 16 months, a reflection of how the security situation and quality of life in Iraq have unraveled. In an ABC News poll in November 2005, seven in 10 Iraqis said their lives were good and nearly as many predicted things would get better.

Now, said Zaid Hisham, "You worry about everything." The 29-year-old Shiite engineer has postponed plans for his wedding until he can find a job. He and other Baghdad residents were interviewed by USA TODAY to supplement the poll findings. "When I go out, my family calls me every five minutes or whenever there is an explosion — there are many — to see if I am still alive. It's worry, worry all the time. You can't see your future, and you can't even try to put an outline for your future."

"We are in hell," said Solaf Mohamed Ali, 38, a Shiite woman who works in a bank.

What Tim Walberg said is absurd on its face. I can't believe more people aren't calling him out on this. I can, of course, believe that Rush Limbaugh is rushing to his side. I think Rush Limbaugh is very desirous that a white Republican do well. 

Dear Oklahoma,

I hope you're happy.

Seriously, that guy's your senator? The homeless guy on the corner who's always arguing with himself wasn't available?

I didn't think it would happen again in the last two years of Hard Work's presidency, but once more, I find myself in slack-jawed awe over how thoroughly corrupt our rulers are.

Josh Marshall says Attorney General Gonzales will be gone, and maybe Sen. Pete "I concluded the conversation" Domenici (R-Not For Much Longer). I can only hope so.

The NYT and WaPo stories that Marshall discusses were based on government e-mails.

Morons.

That's revealing, actually. There were officials in the White House and the Justice Department who felt so comfortable with the idea of shitcanning federal prosecutors based solely on their failure to indict political opponents that those officials used government e-mail accounts to discuss it. That, in a nutshell, illustrates the total disintegration of the line between politics and governing that has occurred under these psychos.

Side note: Bill Richardson is the governor of New Mexico. Does that mean that Richardson, a Democrat, would appoint Domenici's replacement?

Kick Joe Lieberman out of the caucus! Now!!

In all seriousness, though, fuck that guy. Democrats should seize every opportunity to marginalize him.

The standard disarming tactic used against someone who criticizes Lieberman is to point out that he's been a "good liberal" on every issue other than the Iraq war. Now, I've read several people in the blogosphere who say he's strayed on lots of other issues, like abortion rights and labor. I think their critiques are pretty narrowly focused and not persuasive. Lieberman is preferable on almost every vote to, well, pretty much any actual Republican senator.

But I still have a one-line, conversation-ending argument as to why Lieberman must be removed from the caucus:

Lieberman: Criticism Of Administration’s Iran Intelligence Is ‘Unwarranted’

Oh yeah. Check it:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) said today that he is upset that critics have been questioning the administration’s intelligence on Iran, calling the reaction “unwarranted.” Lieberman said the “danger point” learned from the criticism is that the media and politicians reacted with “suspicion.” “I wouldn’t start with suspicion,” Lieberman said.

To me, that defines the phrase "unfit to lead."

If average Americans have learned only one thing in the past six years, I would hope that they have learned to be skeptical of what the Bush administration is telling them about foreign intelligence.

Joe Lieberman isn't an average American. He's a U.S. senator. He should know much better than the rest of us how important this is. Instead, he takes exactly the opposite stance. That's why Joe Lieberman can no longer be allowed to occupy a meaningful place in our national dialogue.

If Lieberman starts caucusing with the GOP or just becomes a Republican outright, he loses his exalted position as Teh Voice of Moderation. At that point, he's just another pro-war Republican.

Marginalize him. 

As soon as I heard that Ann Coulter had called John Edwards a "faggot," I knew exactly what she was going to say when asked about it. She didn't disappoint:

Ms. Coulter, asked for a reaction to the Republican criticism, said in an e-mail message: “C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean.”

"Ms. Coulter." If ever a courtesy title was made to seem ironic, I'd say that's probably it right there.

The worst part about Coulter's excuse is that it's not true in any sense. It was not a joke. Not only was it not funny, but her intentions were not humorous. She wanted to defame John Edwards, and she wanted to get attention for doing so by using a hateful word that is simply unacceptable.

Mission accomplished. (I'm sure she's familiar with that expression.) 

There is a larger reason she did this. As I have written before, Ann Coulter is a circus monkey. This is her existence. A lawyer who allegedly graduated with honors from Cornell and Michigan has decided that the best thing she can do with her life is to screech sixth-grade insults about presidential candidates. People have done this in private for a long, long time, of course, and that is their right. But they never got rich doing it, and they sure as shit didn't get offered spots on the Today show.

The laugh riot during Coulter's appearance at CPAC didn't stop when she called John Edwards a "faggot," though.

In the session after Romney, Ann Coulter used an anti-gay slur to describe John Edwards (the line drew applause) and asked: "Did Al Gore actually swallow Michael Moore?" When a questioner asked Coulter why she praises marriage but broke off so many engagements, she responded by calling the questioner ugly.

Someone questions her personal devotion to her ideals, and she responds by calling them ugly. Also, Al Gore is fat. Michael Moore, too.

I know I use naughty words, but I'd like to think that most of the time I offer some substantive thoughts along with my foul incivility.

What sort of substance does Ann Coulter bring to the table? Why does anyone pay attention to her, conservatives included?

Come to think of it, I may have already answered that question:

Because there ain't enough news to fill 24 hours, and vacuous blondes will always give the failed ex-jock types a stiffy.

I'd like to think that this incident will hugely damage her acceptability to big media outlets. Let's just say that I'm not optimistic.

Swiss Accidentally Invade Liechtenstein

The Swiss troops who had gotten lost turned around right when they figured out they had wandered into Liechtenstein. But knowing this:

Liechtenstein, which has about 34,000 inhabitants and is slightly smaller than Washington DC, doesn't have an army.

Why didn't they keep going and finish the job?

They shoulda asked themselves, What Would Cheney Do?

Scorching. Just scorching.

The indispensable Crooks and Liars has the goods — video and transcript of Keith Olbermann's special comment on tonight's Countdown.

This is great work by Olbermann. He takes apart what Rice said and shows, through and through, that it's deeply embarrassing for her.

Rice was on Fox News Sunday, talking about the Democrats' plan to vote on a repeal of the 2002 authorization to use force against Iraq:

It would be like saying that after Adolf Hitler was overthrown, we needed to change then, the resolution that allowed the United States to do that, so that we could deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after he was overthrown.

Olbermann hits all the right notes. Saddam was not Hitler, and Iraq was not Germany, as I have exasperatedly written before. The U.S. didn't pass a resolution to overthrow Hitler — the Germans declared war on us, and we responded in kind. And, of course, the president did go back to Congress to seek a new mandate on "creating a stable environment in Europe." It was called the Marshall Plan. Olbermann notes the irony: When George Marshall was pushing the plan, he was … the secretary of state, as is Condoleezza Rice now.

This special comment was particularly acidic. Olbermann spread around the sarcasm and condescension freely. Considering the comment as a direct address to Rice, Olbermann was downright insulting. After Olbermann finished, MSNBC cut to Joe Scarborough, who looked livid. In a way, I can't really blame him. In Beltway World, Rice is thought of quite well. She's an academic, a policymaker and, certainly, someone who should be taken seriously. Rice is a member of Scarborough's party who is still considered to be in good standing, amongst a crowd of people whose reputations are in tatters.

Which brings me to my point. Condoleezza Rice should not be taken seriously. She is no less a relentless, blinkered ideologue than any other longtime member of the neocon cabal. Cheney's crowd has had a goal since Day One — using military force to remake the Middle East into a land of Western-style democracy, and in eight years or less. They have never even remotely given a shit what it takes to get there. By any means necessary. Lie, cheat or steal. To this day, they will not allow outside evidence, no matter how empirical, no matter how painfully obvious, to puncture their happy little plan. "Iraq failed? Who fucking cares? Ahmadinejad is still flipping us off in Tehran! TO THE RAMPARTS!!!"

These are bad people who care more about their pet theories than about the welfare and strength of the country they supposedly love so much. And Condoleezza Rice has always been a key player in the confidence games about WMDs and aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds and scary messianic Persian dictators (who happen, incidentally, to not be able to take a piss without permission from the religious authorities, which hold the real power in Iran).

At first, I thought Olbermann might have stepped over the line. He really was brutal at the end of his piece. He suggested that Rice should "use the Google" to check her facts, and that rather than appearing on Fox News Sunday, Rice would be more at home on a new Fox show: Are You Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader? That is hugely insulting to a sitting secretary of state who holds a doctorate and was a professor at Stanford.

To me, this begs a question. Can Condoleezza Rice claim that this is unfair? No, she cannot. Rice deserves all of this and more.

During BlowJobGate, Republicans seemed pretty convinced that Bill Clinton didn't deserve deference simply because of the office he held. In fact, he was to be reviled because he had brought shame on the office. Well, how much more shame can you bring on a federal office than having conned the American people into a war?

Condoleezza Rice doesn't deserve deference. She deserves to be exposed for what she really is: a stain on every federal office she has held. She was no less integral to this catastrophe than was Cheney or Rumsfeld. Don't let her off the hook for what she helped to cause. Be unflinching in your ridicule of her disgraceful record.

This NYT article is a giant piece of crap.

U.S. Says Arms Link Iranians to Iraqi Shiites

After weeks of internal debate, senior United States military officials on Sunday literally put on the table their first public evidence of the contentious assertion that Iran supplies Shiite extremist groups in Iraq with some of the most lethal weapons in the war. They said those weapons had been used to kill more than 170 Americans in the past three years.

Mmkay. I can't remember where I read this — TPM, of some flavor, I think — but it's been clear from the start of the war that the Shiite groups in Iraq, especially those in southern Iraq, are funded and supplied by Iran. There's never been any question. Due to the late hour, I can't remember the name, but there was a known Shiite terrorist group backed by Tehran that we allowed to operate openly during the invasion to destabilize Saddam's regime.

The idea that Shiite extremists are being armed by Iran is not "contentious." It is a known fact.

Never before displayed in public, the weapons included squat canisters designed to explode and spit out molten balls of copper that cut through armor. The canisters, called explosively formed penetrators or E.F.P.s, are perhaps the most feared weapon faced by American and Iraqi troops here.

So, this is transparently false. It is ridiculous to claim that "explosively formed penetrators" are "perhaps the most feared weapon faced by American and Iraqi troops." We have been informed over and over that the most deadly weapon that U.S. and allied forces face are of a different three-letter abbreviation — IEDs, or improvised explosive devices. Roadside bombs have been BY FAR the most deadly threat to U.S. troops. A third of the 3,000-plus dead in Iraq have been killed by IEDs, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

Also, saying that "E.F.P.s" represent some kind of new, ultra-deadly threat to U.S. troops is an obvious use of hyperbole. The Iranians gave Iraqi Shiites the technology to use canister shot? Why, it's only been in use for centuries! How would the Iraqis ever have figured out how to use "E.F.P.s" without help from those clever Persians?

I would also say that this NYT article is an excellent example of the hawks introducing a mentally sticky abbreviation into the discourse in order to give their fellow travelers something to latch onto. IEDs, WMDs — EFPs have a proud tradition to live up to. 

Frankly, I've only read the first two grafs of that NYT story. I'm sure there are a plethora of easily falsifiable claims made throughout the rest of it. Anyone else want to take a crack?