Good for a grin

In the voice of a weary copy desk editor, David Corn responds at length to David Brooks' incredibly misleading wrapup of the Plame/Libby affair -- it's what we old-timers call a good ole-fashioned Fiskin', and you should read the whole thing. Here he reacts to the fundamental lie at the heart of Brooks' and other Cheney/Bush apologists' tissues of lies -- that the Plame story only "pretended to be about the outing of an undercover C.I.A. agent":

[For the reader's benefit, you might want to note Ms. Wilson's position at the time of her outing: operations chief for the Joint Task Force on Iraq, a unit of the Counterproliferation Division of the CIA's clandestine operations directorate. And you might want to note that her primary duty was overseeing covert operations designed to gather intelligence on WMDs in Iraq. Then again, you might not want to note this. ...]*

Reacting to Brooks' final line -- "Everyone else will have moved on to other fiascos, other poses, fresher manias" -- Corn "edits":

[Good teaser of an ending. It's as if you expect another Bush aide to be caught lying under oath.]

See? You can be angry and laugh all at the same time.

AltHippo reflects on the question President Bush reportedly asks deep thinkers he invites to the White House -- "What is the nature of good and evil in the post-Sept. 11 world?"

Indeed, what is the nature of good and evil in the post-Sept. 11 world? Likewise, what is Newton’s second law of motion on a Tuesday afternoon? What’s the recipe for beef stroganoff during a light rain?

D. Aristophanes ("Sadly, No!") contacted Sadly, No! Research Labs to learn what Dick Cheney keeps in those 'man-size Mosler safes.' Answers:

* The master blueprint for the man-size Mosler safe
* Anyone who ever saw the master blueprint for the man-size Mosler safe
* Anyone who has ever worked for the Mosler Safe Company
* Multiple clones from which to harvest replacements for failed organs [...]
* Richard Nixon’s frozen sperm [...]
* One ring to rule them
* The memories of Alberto Gonzales [...]
* Fake passport, disguise, plane tickets to Brazil [...]
* Talking points to distribute following major terrorist attack on Nov. 2, 2008

...etcetera. Reader suggestions ("small jar of miniaturized people," "banana-powered superchimputer") are also good.

Roy Edroso on the possibility that New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is considering a presidential bid:

I hate the son of a bitch, but what are you gonna do? He doesn't care what I think, or what anyone else thinks, because a.) as the longtime operator of a popular news service, he knows exactly how much money it takes to implant a thought in the public consciousness, and b.) he has that much money.

Bonus Edroso: LIBERALS HAVE FAILED TO DENOUNCE, AND HENCE SUPPORT, THE POTHOLE AT FIFTH AND MAIN.

A year old, but still funny: DJ Ted Stevens Techno Remix: "A Series of Tubes", brought to you by Alaska Senator Ted Stevens' brain pondering the Internet. It's not a big truck, that's fer dang sure.

Roger Ailes and PG ("Half the Sins of Mankind") have discovered that Amazon.com is marketing Jonah Goldberg's soon-no-really-I-mean-it-to-be-released "Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Hegel to Whole Foods" as a "foam book" with Jonah as "colorist." For those of you unfamiliar with blog lingo, Mr. Goldberg is often fondly referred to as "Doughy Pantload," though Mr. Ailes has shortened that to the more matter-of-fact, familiar "Pantload." For those of you unfamiliar with foam books, they're generally simple, brightly colored books with removeable foam toys -- great for 1-3 year olds who often choose to bite or slobber on their reading material, and often don't want to be bothered with pretending to read.

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* In a June 5 "Capital Games" column, Corn notes that Patrick Fitzgerald definitively rebutted the "not a covert agent" lie in a court filing -- "It was clear from very early in the investigation that Ms. Wilson qualified under the relevant statute [the Intelligence Identities Protection Act] as a covert agent whose identity had been disclosed by public officials, including Mr. Libby, to the press." While the famously tightmouthed Fitzgerald doesn't say, most sane, honest observers believe the reason there was no prosecution for outing her under IIPA was that he felt he couldn't prove there was knowledgeable intent to "out" Valerie Plame, as required by that statute. And he couldn't prove that, among other things, because Libby was a perjurer instead of a reliable witness.

NOTES: Larry Johnson has done us all the favor of hand-delivering Corn's "Memo for David Brooks" directly to David Brooks' doorstep, with an invitation to chat about it over wine. No answer back so far. "Reportedly" -- "A President Besieged and Isolated, Yet at Ease," Peter Baker, Washington Post, July 2; "man-sized Mosler safes" -- "A Different Understanding With the President," Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, Washington Post, June 24; "DJ Ted Stevens" via Thoreau ("Unqualified Offerings"). posted by Thomas Nephew at 7:07:00 AM -- |  

 
"That's not just worth 30 months in jail. It's worth impeachment."
In Why The Perjury?, Andrew Sullivan reasons it out:

...I still have no explanation unless Libby had something major to hide and Cheney something major to fear.

Like the fact that he and Cheney knew the WMD evidence was weak, misled us, and then, busted more brutally than they ever expected, tried to cover their tracks. We can't know this yet for sure. But it surely remains the most plausible explanation for the entire affair.

It means of course that they knowingly exaggerated the causes for war. That's why this story still rankles, because it's the closest the outside world has really gotten to the real nexus of decision-making on Iraq that obviously took place in Cheney's circle. I can still just about believe that Bush thought the WMD case was sound. I can't believe, given all that we now know, that Cheney did. He's too smart. The data he read, we now know, was far more equivocal than the data the public was provided with. He's not new at this. He probably never wanted to make the WMD argument anyway, put it in to appease the UN crowd, and certainly wasn't going to query its validity. We may never know, of course, because Cheney will have destroyed the evidence, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's obvious Cheney knew all along that the WMD line was a cover, not a real threat, but realized by the summer of 2003 that any hint of this leaking (even from a two-bit blowhard like Wilson) needed swift and brutal rebuttal. They were embarrassed enough by the WMD bust, but if it was revealed that they had ignored all the caveats beforehand, it could get really dicey. One has to assume that Libby and Cheney are indistinguishable in their knowledge and involvement. Miller was also trying to cover her tracks that, in retrospect, had begun to look shady. Hence the weird Cheney-coordinated hit on Wilson and Plame. Hence Libby's clumsy perjury. Has Libby ever done something as clumsy in his entire life? Sometimes, even the smoothest cannot escape their own lies.

That's not just worth 30 months in jail. It's worth impeachment.

A quibble: I don't see why Joseph Wilson -- certainly not a "two bit" anything, but rather a bona fide hero as the US deputy chief of mission in Baghdad before the first Gulf War -- gets the slap above from Sullivan. But I can certainly second most of the rest of Sullivan's article. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:30:00 PM -- |  

 
Impeachment is patriotic: Takoma Park July 4th
What's more, it's fun. Yesterday I got up, put on my (rented) Minuteman duds and headed over to Maple Avenue for a morning and early afternoon of pro-impeachment petition gathering and action at Takoma Park's traditional July 4th parade, together with my friends from Takoma Park, MD Impeach Bush & Cheney.

As even more people are thus now aware, our city council has scheduled a vote for July 23d about whether to send a pro-impeachment resolution to Congress.

And as local politicians from our city council, the county council, the Maryland legislature, and the House of Representatives are now even more aware, there's a lot of support for impeaching George W. Bush and Richard R. Cheney around here. We've gathered hundreds of impeachment support petitions, and lawn signs have sprouted throughout town -- including along the parade route; it seemed like every fourth or fifth Maple Avenue house -- and quite a few Carroll Avenue ones -- had one of our handsome green "IMPEACH THEM" signs.

I'm happy to report that popular support is reciprocated. State delegate Heather Mizeur and her spouse Deb Mizeur were kind enough to let us plant a lawn sign on their parade-front lot and use a patch of their lawn for a sign-distribution and petition gathering table. County councilmembers Valerie Ervin and Duchy Trachtenberg even asked for signs and waved them from their parade cars, while state Delegate Sheila Hixson, county councilman Marc Elrich , and city councilmembers Joy Austin-Lane and Colleen Clay (to name a few) all signaled "thumbs up" when they saw us.

And while Congressman Chris Van Hollen was perhaps understandably reluctant to talk with some guy in a costume, my friends Michelle Bailey and Lisa Moscatiello say he gave a "thumbs up" sign of his own when he saw them near the beginning of the parade route.

Perhaps more important, by the time Congressman (and DCCC chairman) Van Hollen finished his July 4th parade in Takoma Park, I think he had reason to conclude this really is important to and strongly supported by a lot of his constituents.

For example, speaking to the latest self-dealing, scofflaw outrage from the White House, one house along the Maple Avenue parade route had a huge banner hanging from the porch roof saying "Commute Our Sentences: Impeach Bush & Cheney." I had a chance to talk with State Senator Jamie Raskin shortly after the parade;* he thinks Bush's commutation of Libby's perjury sentence has the potential to "blow the doors off" reluctance to consider and pursue impeachment.

From Raskin's lips to Speaker Pelosi's ears (figuratively speaking!); while she famously claimed impeachment was "off the table" before last year's general election, I hope her own outrage over the Libby commutation will cause her to reconsider.



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CROSSPOSTED to Takoma Park, MD Impeach Bush & Cheney, where more July 4th photos are available.

* Raskin's remarks about impeachment at Montgomery College earlier this year are an excellent resource for anyone on the fence about this issue, I think. It wasn't a prepared speech, but it was a clear 20-25 minute discussion of impeachment, why it's warranted, and how to (try to) frame the debate. The video at the link also has a question and answer session after Raskin's remarks. posted by Thomas Nephew at 7:39:00 PM -- |  

 
Shorter David Broder
posted by Thomas Nephew at 7:32:00 PM -- |  

 
Our sacred Honor (repost)

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Our sacred honor. We mutually pledge to each other our sacred honor.

Two hundred and twenty nine years later, "honor" is not a word that's used much in America any more. It's hard not to think those final words of the Declaration of Independence are outdated and quaint. The word often isn't merited, of course, but it's often not even aspired to.


Some suspect we're returning to an age of irony -- it can seem the only defense against the repeated abuse or expropriation of important words like "freedom" or "democracy," whether by Presidents or car salesmen, or against acts that make a mockery of the values we supposedly believe in. Irony is useful; it serves the need to laugh, the need to avoid crushing earnestness.

But irony is inadequate to face anything important for long. It's inadequate to deal with revelations that your country was misled and lied to to goad it into war -- and too many of your country's citizens seem to shrug and call that "bad PR." It's inadequate to the knowledge that those liars would stoop to treason to smear their opponents. It doesn't help you as you learn that your country is guilty of torture, and that too many of your country's citizens seem not to care about that, either.

I'm trying to move beyond disappointment and irony to a kind of declaration of independence of my own. Were I to draft one, it might include a decent respect for the opinions of all mankind, but not an abject one. It would require me to thoroughly question every statement from my country's political and opinion leaders, especially ones supporting war or diminished civil and human rights. It would require I never shrug my shoulders and turn away when my country does wrong, even and especially when my countrymen cheer that wrong or make excuses for it.

But this being a personal declaration, it would also use personal terms. It would require that I choose honor over irony, over apathy, and over apprehension.

And it could conclude by pledging that honor to return this country to the ideals it chose so long ago, and that it once defended for so long.


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FIRST POSTED July 4, 2005. posted by Thomas Nephew at 8:20:00 AM -- |  

 
Getting on with impeachment
Fellow Takoma Park Impeach Bush & Cheney volunteer Lisa Moscatiello and I (1) got about 100 signatures, (2) distributed about a dozen lawn signs and two dozen buttons, and (3) acquired two sunburns this weekend in an hour and a half or so of petitioning at the Takoma Park Farmer's Market.

It was kind of fun, actually -- for one thing, it's not a tough crowd, but for another, it beats doing nothing about the hypocrites and criminals running things from the White House.

We're also very fortunate to have something concrete and local to work towards -- a city council resolution calling for impeachment that will come to a vote on July 23. Thanks once again to Councilman Reuben Snipper for sponsoring the resolution.

For those of you who want to try this yourselves at home, we're using a variety of resources, including the Democrats.com "Impeach Bush Now!" site and the "Impeachment Resource Center" at AfterDowningStreet.org. Looking around the second one, I found that the Takoma Park, MD resolution that will come to a vote on July 23 is similar the one passed by Fairfax, California; there are a number of other models to choose from as well.

But we're also making up a lot ourselves as we go; Michelle Bailey, in particular, has been instrumental in getting the green lawn signs that have started sprouting around town, and in organizing public comment period speakers at city council meetings. July 4th will hopefully be a good day for getting petition signatures; if you'd like to help with that, contact takomaparkibc@gmail.com.


Meanwhile, here's James Madison once again, this time on the Scooter Libby story. At the Constitutional Convention, Madison was answering George Mason's concern that the President might use his pardoning power to "pardon crimes which were advised by himself" or, before indictment or conviction, "to stop inquiry and prevent detection":

[I]f the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds tp believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty...^*

-- 1974 House Judiciary Committee post-Watergate report, Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment: Chapter II. The Historical Origins of Impeachment: B. The Intentions of the Framers. Via David Swanson ("After Downing Street").


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CROSSPOSTED at Takoma Park, MD Impeach Bush & Cheney
UPDATE, 7/3: Steve Benen ("The Carpetbagger Report"): "...some offenses are impossible to forgive. Manipulating the rule of law and the U.S. system of justice to serve personal and political ends is one of them. Indeed, in a reasonable political world, it’s an impeachable offense." posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:05:00 AM -- |  

 
Same to you, Dubya

The Washington Post's Amy Goldstein reports:

President Bush commuted the sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby yesterday, sparing Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff 2 1/2 years in prison after a federal appeals court had refused to let Libby remain free while he appeals his conviction for lying to federal investigators.

From Bush's statement:

I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend 30 months in prison.

As usual, Bush makes no sense -- he isn't even trying. If 30 months is excessive... zero months is just right? And respects the jury's verdict? (Christy Hardin Smith -- a former prosecutor -- points out that 30 months was actually mid-range for a perjury conviction.) The New York Times gets it right in its "Soft on Crime" editorial:

When he was running for president, George W. Bush loved to contrast his law-abiding morality with that of President Clinton, who was charged with perjury and acquitted. For Mr. Bush, the candidate, “politics, after a time of tarnished ideals, can be higher and better.”

Not so for Mr. Bush, the president. Judging from his decision yesterday to commute the 30-month sentence of I. Lewis Libby Jr. — who was charged with perjury and convicted — untarnished ideals are less of a priority than protecting the secrets of his inner circle and mollifying the tiny slice of right-wing Americans left in his political base. [...]

Presidents have the power to grant clemency and pardons. But in this case, Mr. Bush did not sound like a leader making tough decisions about justice. He sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell.

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NOTE: Image via J.D. Rhoades ("What Fresh Hell is This?"), who observes: "Because here's the thing: If Bush pardoned Scooter, he'd lose the protection of the Fifth Amendment and he could be compelled to talk about what went on in the Dark Tower...sorry, the White House." Well, unless Bush then just pardoned him altogether.
UPDATE, 7/3: Avedon Carol has an instant roundup of reactions, from John Edwards to Christy Hardin Smith ("firedoglake"), and points out that this means the only avenue for accountability is impeachment (emph. in original):

[Bush] has announced that any attempt to hold accountable anyone whose transgressions touch upon the White House will be nullified if investigations imperil George Walker Bush or Richard Bruce Cheney.

This means that the only way to ensure that this White House can be held accountable is to start impeachment proceedings against them all now, because:

Section 2. The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:13:00 PM -- |  

 
Gerson's holiday from Cambodia
In further proof of the maxim that nothing succeeds in Washington like abject failure and bald-faced lying, Washington Post readers are apparently now doomed to read columnist Michael Gerson for the foreseeable future. Gerson, an escaped Bush 43 speechwriter who coined or helped with some of the defining phrases of this presidency (e.g., "smoking gun/mushroom cloud" and "axis of evil"), produced a particularly pungent column last week, "An Exit to Disaster."

Safely weeks removed from the heat of April and May's actual debates on Iraq war spending, Gerson finally bravely peeked over the parapet and pronounced the Democratic/anti-Iraq position to be "creating a momentum of irresponsibility," all the while graciously allowing as how things weren't going swimmingly in Iraq just this very moment. As Steve Benen pointed out, he couldn't even do that well: "Gerson isn’t willing to say he takes issue with some of Bush’s decisions; he’s willing to say history is rendering judgment."

No; as ever (e.g., "compassionate conservatism") Gerson's real aim was to perform a rhetorical parlor trick. To wit:

History seems to be settling on some criticisms of the early conduct of the Iraq war. On the theory that America could liberate and leave, force levels were reduced too early, security responsibilities were transferred to Iraqis before they were ready, and planning for future challenges was unrealistic. "Victory in Iraq," one official of the Coalition Provisional Authority told me a couple of years ago, "was defined as decapitating the regime. No one defined victory as creating a sustainable country six months down the road."

Now Democrats running for president have thought deeply and produced their own Iraq policy: They want to cut force levels too early and transfer responsibility to Iraqis before they are ready, and they offer no plan to deal with the chaos that would result six months down the road. In essential outline, they have chosen to duplicate the early mistakes of an administration they hold in contempt.

Good one -- that ought to put all us military know-nothings in our place, Lt. General Gerson! More to the point, Bush's failures do not compel the Democrats or anyone else in the country to double down to bail him out. The best way to fix someone else's mistake is not to compound it.

Meanwhile, commenting on candidate John Edwards' pledge not to leave the region, Gerson actually has the gall to counter: "So America would defend its interests from a safe distance in Kuwait. But how effective has it been to fight terrorist networks in Pakistan from a distance?" If Bush et al hadn't let Al Qaeda's leadership get away at Tora Bora, we might never have needed to know the answer to that.*

But it was the final paragraphs that made me put down the paper in disgust. Gerson cites Kissinger, telling of former Cambodian prime minister Sirik Matak's refusal to be rescued from the oncoming Khmer Rouge back in 1975:

"I thank you very sincerely," Matak wrote in response, "for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you, and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it. You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is no matter, because we are all born and must die. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you [the Americans]."

Eventually, between 1 million and 2 million Cambodians were murdered by the Khmer Rouge when "peace" came to Indochina. Matak, Kissinger recounts, was shot in the stomach and died three days later.

Sometimes peace for America can produce ghosts of its own.

No doubt this is how Henry Kissinger would like to lay out the story of Cambodia. But the alternative -- and strangely familiar -- version is this:

In April 1970, without Lon Nol's knowledge, American and South Vietnamese forces crossed into Cambodia. There was already widespread domestic opposition to the war in Vietnam; news of the "secret invasion" of Cambodia sparked massive protests across the US, culminating in the deaths of six students shot by National Guardsmen at Kent State University and Jackson State University. Nixon withdrew American troops from Cambodia shortly afterwards. But the US bombing continued until August 1973.

Meanwhile, with assistance from North Vietnam and China, the guerrillas of the Khmer Rouge had grown into a formidable force. By 1974, they were beating the government on the battlefield and preparing for a final assault on Phnom Penh. And they had gained an unlikely new ally: Norodom Sihanouk, living in exile, who now hailed them as patriots fighting against an American puppet government.

Sihanouk's support boosted the Khmer Rouge's popularity among rural Cambodians. But some observers have argued that the devastating American bombing also helped fuel the Khmer Rouge's growth. Former New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg said the Khmer Rouge "... would point... at the bombs falling from B-52s as something they had to oppose if they were going to have freedom. And it became a recruiting tool until they grew to a fierce, indefatigable guerrilla army."

-- Frontline, "Pol Pot's Shadow", 2002

Nixon and Kissinger helped light the Cambodian funeral pyre that consumed Mr. Matak. In Cambodia as in Iraq, a militarily and legally questionable war in pursuit of unachievable goals produced the very opposite of what we -- or, that is, American leadership -- claimed to desire: chaos, local patriotism converted into hatred of America, and a horrific reign of terror visited on the average inhabitants of that country. For Gerson to look at Cambodia and dare to see in it a justification for "staying the course" in Iraq is equal parts breathtaking idiocy and bloody minded "burn the village to save it" crusaderism.

That is, it's par for the course for loyal Bushies.


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* By the way: impeachable offense number 693. Recall Bush was explicitly warned by the CIA days in advance that forces committed at Tora Bora were "not up to the job" and that we were "going to lose [Bin Laden and Zawahiri] if we're not careful." No presidential action resulted. Apparently, it's good to have a permanent, invisible enemy -- especially if otherwise you're a waste of time like this president. posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:53:00 PM -- |