Category: Republicans

Bush and the CIA: Strangers In The Night

July 11, 2007
IraqRantRepublicans
0 Comment

Does the President of the United States listen to anyone in the Intelligence Community? I know he doesn’t read newspapers. He doesn’t “get” news, prefers to know things his own way. But how can he be so far removed from knowing what the CIA knows?

Bob Woodward writes in a July 12 article for The Washington Post:

Early on the morning of Nov. 13, 2006, members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group gathered around a dark wooden conference table in the windowless Roosevelt Room of the White House.

For more than an hour, they listened to President Bush give what one panel member called a “Churchillian” vision of “victory” in Iraq and defend the country’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. “A constitutional order is emerging,” he said.

Okay. That really sounds great. A new world order is on the horizon. Soon, and very soon, it will all be over. Peace is but a heartbeat away.

And then the CIA reported to the Iraq Study Group, in the same room, the same day, just a short time later:

Two hours later, around the same conference table, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden painted a starkly different picture for members of the study group. Hayden said “the inability of the government to govern seems irreversible,” adding that he could not “point to any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around,” according to written records of his briefing and the recollections of six participants.

“The government is unable to govern,” Hayden concluded. “We have spent a lot of energy and treasure creating a government that is balanced, and it cannot function.”

Okay. So, that really sounds bad. And who was the skinny guy sitting in the same room just a few hours before, and what Magic 8 Ball was he using to divine the future? Did Director Hayden ever talk to him? Because, gee, his story sounded a heck of a lot nicer. The CIA is always being so, well, realistic.

And Condoleeza Rice played along too:

Asked by former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a member of the study group, if she was aware of the CIA’s grim evaluation of Iraq, Rice replied, “We are aware of the dark assessment,” but quickly added: “It is not without hope.”

No, because, like, losing hope would be bad, and we can’t do that. But the spin has already begun. You see, Hayden didn’t really say all that. The Iraq Study Group just misunderestimated what Hayden said.

What?

But O’Connor heard the scary man say the bad things too:

O’Connor, a Republican, also confirmed Hayden’s assessment. She said she didn’t agree with his conclusion that it was irreversible, but she said she was pessimistic.

“It is a dire situation,” she said. “I don’t think it has gotten any better. It just breaks your heart. . . . Iraqi people are dying, American soldiers are dying. So far it does not seem we have achieved any kind of security there.”

Yes, it breaks your heart.  And it should. How many different ways can we spin disaster?

Progress in Iraq, Sort of

July 11, 2007
IraqRepublicansStrange
0 Comment

The New York Times reports in a July 12 article President Bush will declare progress in Iraq on some benchmarks:

The Bush administration will assert in the next few days that progress of the Iraq security plan has been satisfactory on nearly half of the 18 benchmarks set by Congress, according to several administration officials.

But it will qualify some verdicts by saying that even when the political performance of the Iraqi government has been unsatisfactory, it is too early to make final judgments, they said.

The administration’s decision to qualify many of the political benchmarks will enable it to present a more optimistic assessment than if it had provided the pass-fail judgment sought by Congress.

If anyone can figure out exactly how the President is able to declare progress, please let me know.  This article is making my head spin.

Is There A Doctor In the White House?

July 10, 2007
Anti-ScienceRantRepublicans
0 Comment

Many times have I read The Bad Astronomer rant about the anti-science forces in the current administration. We’ve heard complaints from officials at NASA, we read about the “alternative explanations” for the formation of the Grand Canyon, on sale at Grand Canyon National Park book stores. And now we hear from former United States Surgeons General:

Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional panel Tuesday that top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.

Dr. Carmona spoke at length with Judy Woodruff on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer. Attempts to stifle science for political ends are not new:

JUDY WOODRUFF: At this hearing today, it was not only you, but it was your Democratic and your predecessors of both Democratic and Republican administrations who spoke of conflicts with the administration. But you said your experience was worse under this administration. What did you mean?

DR. RICHARD CARMONA: Well, let me put it in context. It really wasn’t me. It was my predecessors who, after I was in office a few months, went to them for counsel, for mentoring, and mentioned to them the struggle I was having. And they recounted to me all the struggles that they had and said that is the way the surgeon general position has been for some time, but what we see is that you have it worse than any of us. And this is coming from several surgeon generals who preceded me.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And what were they basing that on? What was happening to you?

DR. RICHARD CARMONA: Their observations that the surgeon general was not allowed to speak out on health issues when needed, based on the best science, to deliver the best science, that often policy or spokespersons in government would be talking about given issues without appropriate scientific due diligence. And they were very concerned about that and had called me a number of times when I was in office.

But Carmona’s predecessors agree that this suppression is worst ever under King George the Puerile:

JUDY WOODRUFF: And was it worse under this administration or not?

DR. RICHARD CARMONA: Well, again, my reference point is solely this administration. It is my colleagues who came to me, several surgeon generals, Loop, Satcher, Novello, Julius Richmond, going back to the ’70s, who all said, “We had to fight battles, but nobody has had it as bad in this partisan environment as Surgeon General Carmona.”

Is there a doctor in the White House – anywhere?

“God Forgave Me, So Piss Off…”

July 10, 2007
RantRepublicansStrange
0 Comment

Vittner Gay Flag

Well, that’s what I heard in Senator David Vitter’s statement.

Did you catch Sen. David Vittner’s profound apology? Did you feel his remorse at getting caught? He jumped right to the chase. Amazing! Ted Haggard took a few days, went away for a miracle cure for his indiscretions. But Vitter informs us he talked to the Big Guy a long time ago. It’s over. CNN reports:

“This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible,” Vitter said in a statement given to reporters Monday night. “Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and from my wife in confession and marriage counseling.”

So, let’s take a step back. Some restraint is in order here. It’s so easy to just mock these guys when they are exposed for who they really are — when they tell us outright who they really are, and have been, for a long, long time. Let’s just stick to the facts. That’s all we really need here. The Moral Majority, that great granfalloon on the right, defender of The Ten Commandments, God’s voice on earth, has lost yet another apostle.

You told us who you are, Senator. You told us who you have been for a long, long time. You allegedly took calls from alleged D.C. madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey, according to news reports. All the while you were fighting the Left.

I didn’t hear remorse, Senator. I would have heard remorse if you had spent the past several years as champion to the poor, showing some understanding for the rest of humanity. But you didn’t.

I heard arrogance. I heard you telling all of us to piss off. “I got caught. Already settled with God. Go away. Piss off.”

How does it feel to be brought down by Hustler?

Here we go: “The Haves” Want to Have More

July 9, 2007
RepublicansStrange
0 Comment

Bush.

Do you remember him quipping about, “The Have Mores?” It was in a Michael Moore film.

By now we’ve all read the headlines: Bush Denies Congress Access to Former Aides. The Democrats are in an uproar — and I hope they’re joined by more Republicans. “Truth buried will at some point rise,” we wrote the other day. The Wasington Post reports:

President Bush’s move yesterday to block congressional testimony by two former aides provoked immediate condemnations from Democratic lawmakers and escalated a confrontation between the White House and Capitol Hill over the dismissals of nine U.S. attorneys.

White House counsel Fred F. Fielding informed lawmakers in a letter yesterday that Bush was asserting executive privilege for the second time in two weeks regarding requested testimony by former counsel Harriet E. Miers and former political director Sara M. Taylor about the prosecutor firings.

Executive privilege. Well, the president is just wrong:

Mark J. Rozell, a George Mason University political scientist and author of “Executive Privilege,” said the Bush administration’s claim in this case “goes way beyond the proper scope of executive privilege” because it is not limited to specific discussions and amounts to “a blanket prohibition on former aides discussing anything at all.”

Rozell and other legal experts also noted that the White House has little real power to prohibit Miers or Taylor from testifying.

There’s too much smoke here. There must be a fire, somewhere, burning hot. We have a right to know.

New Poll: Majority of Americans Say Impeach Cheney

July 7, 2007
CongressRepublicans
0 Comment

Downward graph

A new poll released yesterday from American Research Group, Inc. shows 54% of all Americans favor the impeachment of Vice President Cheney, and only 40% oppose such a measure. Not surprisingly, 76% of all Democrats favor such action, while only 17% of those who identify themselves as Republican are in support.

The numbers are statistically even for the number of Americans who favor impeachment of the President, with 45% in favor and 46% opposed.

The numbers were more similar between party lines regarding a full pardon of Mr. Libby: 7% of Democrats favor a pardon, and 23% Republicans are in favor. 82% Democrats oppose a pardon, and a full 70% of Republicans oppose a presidential pardon. Republicans were split on Bush commuting Libby’s sentence: 50% supportive, 47% opposed.

The last poll measuring the president’s overall job approval rating showed only 27% approve of the job the president is doing, and 67% oppose.

Dick Cheney Scares Me

June 28, 2007
PhilosophicalRepublicansStrange
0 Comment

Salon.com ran a brilliant piece by Sidney Blumenthal about Dick Cheney today, “The imperial vice presidency.” Thoroughly fascinating exploration and summary of the Washington Post series that we spoke about earlier in the week. Seeing it all summed up so neatly in one place left me with a feeling of fascination — the kind I used to feel in my adolescent days, perhaps, for Hitler. I know it’s easy to toss the “H-word” around, and we do it all too easily in the media and elsewhere. But, at some point, we study Hitler almost as if his actions never impacted us – as if we live elsewhere, not on planet Earth. How could one of those humans, one of those animals, become so powerful, and do so many horribly ungodly things?

Plenty of food for thought, and an exercise in futility, perhaps. Many hours in the dorm room lost to such feeble yet at the time seemingly important discussions.

Indeed, how could Hitler become so powerful?

Enter Dick.

He scares me now. He never did before. Before I let the Washington Post sink in, before I permitted Salon.com to sink in, I relegated Cheney to the comedians — Jon Stewart somehow helped me cope. Letterman made me laugh at it all.  Colbert made sense.  I could laugh at Cheney, and then go on with my day, my week, seven years or so.  I could sleep at night, content that reason would someday prevail, and the long nightmare of the Bush presidency would finally end.

But not any more. The man is dangerous.

Just a small selection:

Cheney has crushed the normal interagency process that permitted communication, cross-fertilization and cooperation at the sub-Cabinet level through all previous modern administrations. At the same time, he has isolated Cabinet secretaries, causing them to be fired when they contradicted him, as he did with Christine Todd Whitman, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill.

Cheney thrives in darkness, operating by stealth within the government, and makes a cult of secrecy. None of these insights are new, except for additional telling details. Reports the Post: “Man-size Mosler safes, used elsewhere in government for classified secrets, store the workaday business of the office of the vice president. Even talking points for reporters are sometimes stamped ‘Treated As: Top Secret/SCI.'”

“Cheney thrives in darkness…?” What the hell does that mean? He is a man so ruthless that even John Ashcroft objected to his ethics:

Of the Bush Cabinet secretaries, former Attorney General John Ashcroft most strenuously confronted Cheney about his seizures of power. Ashcroft was perhaps the most conservative member of the Cabinet, and it was out of a sense of his own constitutional obligation that he objected. When Ashcroft discovered that John Yoo, the deputy assistant in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, had been recruited by the Cheney operation to write memos on detainee policy that would deny any role in the new legal process to the Justice Department, he was outraged. At the White House he confronted Cheney and Addington. “According to participants [at the meeting],” the Post reported, “Ashcroft said that he was the president’s senior law enforcement officer, supervised the FBI and oversaw terrorism prosecutions nationwide. The Justice Department, he said, had to have a voice in the tribunal process.” But Cheney did not relent. Ashcroft received no meeting to discuss the matter with Bush. Cheney was the gatekeeper — the decider for the Decider.

Indeed, the Decider is a puppet. Cheney is King. And he doesn’t care. Damn the torpedoes. Damn the Democrats. Damn the Republican Party. Cheney no longer has to care:

Despite the recent round of punditry that Cheney’s influence has waned, he remains a formidable force. These are Cheney’s final days; this is his endgame. He will never run again for public office. He is freed from the constraints of political consequences. He now has no horizon. He lives only in the present. He is nearly done. There are only months left to achieve his goals. Mortality impinges. Next month, he will have his heart pacemaker replaced. He disdains public opinion. He does not care who’s next. “We didn’t get elected to be popular,” he said on Fox News on May 10. “We didn’t get elected to worry just about the fate of the Republican Party.”

Cheney is worse than I ever imagined.

King George the Puerile

June 20, 2007
RantRepublicans
0 Comment

George Bush

There are no words that adequately sum up the legacy of the worst president in United States history. I never thought I would have to admit that. I suppose someone will make a strong case for running one of the other chaps who led this nation up the , “Worst President Ever,” flagpole, but I don’t see that anyone else will compare. Yes, the president most likely had to go to Dictionary.com to figure out what the title of this article actually is saying.
Lost is any respect this county has ever earned. Lost is any dignity we ever possessed. Lost is any moral authority we might ever have claimed. Lost is our economy. Lost is our drive. Lost is our science. Lost, our imagination, our pride, our love of neighbor.

“Go shopping,” he told us after 9/11. That will show “the terrorists.”

And many of us went shopping.

Today, the president vetoed a Stem Cell Research bill. He said:

“The Congress has sent me legislation that would compel American taxpayers, for the first time in our history, to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos,” Bush said.

Word up, George. Those embryos are going to be destroyed. Will you adopt them? Perhaps Laura will agree to artificial insemination? Add them to the many children the two of you have adopted?

Someone in Washington needs to wake up now and grow some.

Instead, what games are we playing? Send $25 to Barack Obama so I can maybe have dinner with him? Help Hillary pick a song?

We need leadership in Washington now. We’re not getting it from the president. The Republicans have lost credibility. Our only hope is the Democrats, united, now. Right, maybe we get the White House within the next two years. Maybe we don’t. But we never will unless we show some damned leadership right here, right now.

And it’s not happening.

And King George the Puerile continues to play.

Blair Knew Bush Had No Post-War Plan for Iraq

June 17, 2007
IraqRepublicans
0 Comment

Things just go from bad to worse for Tony Blair, and worse to – ah, worser? – for George W. Bush.

Turns out Tony Blair knew from the start that Bush had no post-war plan for Iraq. The Observer UK reports:

Tony Blair agreed to commit British troops to battle in Iraq in the full knowledge that Washington had failed to make adequate preparations for the postwar reconstruction of the country.

In a devastating account of the chaotic preparations for the war, which comes as Blair enters his final full week in Downing Street, key No 10 aides and friends of Blair have revealed the Prime Minister repeatedly and unsuccessfully raised his concerns with the White House.

He also agreed to commit troops to the conflict even though President George Bush had personally said Britain could help ‘some other way’.

And still Blair reported to the public in 2003 that he was satisfied with the post-war planning. What possible reason could he have had to jump in the war bandwagon so blindly? What did Bush really tell him? Did they pray together and act on secret, revealed knowledge that they were, by God, doing the right thing?

Click a few sites on the right that show the toll from Iraq, in lives lost and dollars spent. During the time it has taken me to write this post, more lives have been lost, and dollars have been spent exponentially. It’s too much.

We need to hit the streets and forget the blogs for a while.

Let’s do this: wherever you are, write a letter, make a phone call to the White House (White House opinion line: 202-456-1111, White House switchboard: 202-456-1414), call your Representative and Senators in Congress (Senate switchboard: 202-224-3121, House switchboard: 202-225-3121), and express your 1st Amendment right to Free Speech. Tell them to leave Iraq.

And then return to Turning Left and let us know how who you called and what you said.

That’s step one.

Will The Empire Strike Back?

June 14, 2007
RantRepublicansStrange
0 Comment

There’s a wonderful temptation to gloat and rejoice that I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby may soon be marching off to prison for a two-and-one-half year sentence. If it really happens, I’m sure he’ll only stay part of that time and be released for good behavior.

The reports say, “No date was set for Libby to report to prison but it’s expected to be within six to eight weeks. That will be left up to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, which will also select a facility.” I’m sure he’s not going to stay with the general population. Will he still be able to golf? Time will tell. Polo matches will most certainly be out, but you never know.

But will George W. Bush pardon the dude? Will the Empire Strike Back? Really, Bush has nothing to lose in doing so. He has no credibility. He enjoys no positive ratings to speak of. He has never even tried to negotiate anything with Congress. He’s not a “negotiator,” he’s a “decider,” and once the decision has been made, why discuss anything with anyone? “Deciders” make up their minds ahead of the game, apparently, so there’s really no reason to consult anyone.

We could even gloat if Libby really does scoot off to the graystone college. The temptation to rejoice at this news is enticing.  But, we shouldn’t. Karma and all that.

But a knowing smile does not qualify as a gloat.

We may smile yet.

(Clipart from Clipartheaven.com)