Thursday’s Mini-Report

August 16, 2007

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Don’t get too excited about pseudo-political breakthrough in Baghdad: “Iraq’s political leaders emerged Thursday from three days of crisis talks with a new alliance that seeks to save the crumbling U.S.-backed government. But the reshaped power bloc included no Sunnis and immediately raised questions about its legitimacy as a unifying force.” Substantively, absolutely nothing has changed.

* It needs to be done: “In a letter today, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) asked the Justice Department’s inspector general to probe whether Alberto Gonzales has made false or misleading statements. The IG, Glenn Fine, a former prosecutor who’s respected by Democrats and Republicans alike, is already engaged in a joint probe with the Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility of the U.S. attorney firings and general politicization at the DoJ. The inspector general has the power to refer matters for a criminal investigation, but Leahy doesn’t want him to stop there.”

* Slate’s Fred Kaplan tears Rudy Giuliani’s Foreign Affairs article to shreds: “Giuliani’s essay in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, laying out his ideas for a new U.S. foreign policy, is one of the shallowest articles of its kind I’ve ever read. Had it been written for a freshman course on international relations, it would deserve at best a C-minus (with a concerned note to come see the professor as soon as possible). That it was written by a man who wants to be president — and who recently said that he understands the terrorist threat ‘better than anyone else running’ — is either the stuff of high satire or cause to consider moving to, or out of, the country.”

* Speaking of Giuliani, his FA piece detailed his thoughts on terrorism, but managed to go 6,000 words without mentioning Pakistan — where, you know, the terrorists are.

* I’m sure you’ve seen it by now, but just in case, take a look at Cheney discussing Iraq in 1994.

* Markos was on The Colbert Report last night.

* USAT: “Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new military report.”

* Ex-Rep. Bob Ney’s (R-OH) former chief of staff, Will Heaton, was sentenced to two years of probation today for his involvement with Ney and Jack Abramoff. Prosecutors noted that Heaton was hired at age 24 precisely because he was young and unqualified. “Ney intentionally hired and quickly promoted young, inexperienced staffers – who did not receive any formal ethics training from Congress – so that the staffers would have neither the knowledge nor the maturity to question Ney’s conduct,” prosecutors wrote.

* It’s going to be very difficult for Republicans to claim that they’ve been expecting all along that the mid-September Iraq report will come from the White House, not Petraeus.

* The same goes for the Bush gang.

* Salon’s Michael Scherer created a “secret test all elite reporters must pass before they can hit the 2008 trail.” For a fun little exercise, it’s challenging and clever.

* Ezra has a great piece on Bill Richardson’s economic policies. (If I hear “pro-growth Democrat” one more time….)

* Everything you ever wanted to know (and more) about what’s wrong with Rich Lowry’s political analysis.

* Winning hearts and minds? “[Career U.S. diplomat] Patrick Syring retired last month, about a year after he allegedly left racist and intimidating phone and e-mail messages with the Arab American Institute, but before his Wednesday indictment on federal charges of threatening and violating civil rights laws, [State Department] spokesman Sean McCormack said.” (thanks to L.M. for the heads-up)

* I don’t care about the marital plans of the president’s kids.

* The Hill: “Eight House Republicans have called for a boycott of next year’s Olympics in Beijing in a resolution introduced just before the congressional recess. The resolution criticizes China’s human rights record and compares the 2008 Beijing Games to the 1936 Olympics in Nazi-era Berlin. Those Olympics showed that ‘the integrity of the host country is of the utmost importance so as not to stain the participating athletes or the character of the Games,’ according to the resolution.”

* WaPo: “Lawyers for the Bush administration encountered a federal appeals court Wednesday that appeared deeply skeptical of a blanket claim that the government’s surveillance efforts cannot be challenged in court because the litigation might reveal state secrets. ‘The bottom line here is the government declares something is a state secret, that’s the end of it. No cases … The king can do no wrong,’ said Judge Harry Pregerson.”

* Fox News personality John Gibson now believes there are wars against terror, Christmas, Christians, Easter, and himself. Someone get this guy some help.

* And finally, on a related note, Gibson blasted The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart yesterday, prompting Stewart to mention it briefly during a discussion with Cheney sycophant Stephen Hayes. Explaining why so many Americans feel like their patriotism has been called into question, Stewart explained, “I myself had some idiot from Fox playing the tape of me after September 11th — very upset. And them calling me a phony … because, apparently, my grief didn’t mean acquiescence.”

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

CB wrote: Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

I have a list of songs you can play in the car for our Republican friends to thank them for all they are.

  • I hereby declare that a state of total war exists between myself and John “Less-Man-Than-Ann-Coulter” Gibson.

    Effective immediately….

  • excuse me for remembering, but weren’t the republicans all over jimmy carter for boycotting the 1980 games in moscow… for pretty much the same reasons (plus, of course, the invasion of afghanistan)? just askin’.

  • The 1936 Olympics in Berlin – isn’t that the one where the USA’s Jesse Owens kicked Hitler’s butt?

    Boycotting the Olympics is the ultimate meaningless gesture, just as it was when Jimmy Carter did it to the USSR in 1980. If these guys are so upset about China, why don’t they call for a trade embargo? You say that would cost American businesses money? Nope, can’t do that. Republicans know better than anyone that money is more important than principle.

    On the other hand, if the Republicans succeed in achieving an American boycott of the 2008 Beijing Games, it will be one more thing for Americans to hate them for as the election approaches.

  • Media reaction to the recent foreign policy pronouncements of Barack Obama and Rudy Giuliani provides a case study in double-standards. While Obama received a hellstorm of criticism for his statements on attacking Al Qaeda bases in Pakistan and the use of nuclear weapons, the mainstream media has been essentially silent on the blatantly bizarre and downright dangerous national security vision Giuliani penned in the pages of Foreign Affairs.

    For the details, see:
    “Media Double Standard on Obama, Giuliani Foreign Policies.”

  • …Cheney discussing Iraq in 1994.

    It’s weird how much younger he looks 13 years ago, but I could see a conservative putting up a pretty decent defense of Cheney’s 1994 words by distinguishing the situations then from the situation since 2001. I’m not going so far as to say it would stand up again a rebuttal, but there is a lot to start off with to say why a person could think a 1991 invasion and a 2003 invasion of Iraq were different scenarios.

  • * I don’t care about the marital plans of the president’s kids.

    Bu-but CB, you’re supposed to be distracted from the clusterfuck in the White House by the magic of a Royal Wedding.

    No, I’m not accusing her of announcing her engagement to help Daddy, but I think it’s a bit odd that after shrieking LEAVE THOSE GIRLS ALONE at the press, the White House releases information about one.

    And bless you for not posting a link.

    “Ney intentionally hired and quickly promoted young, inexperienced staffers – who did not receive any formal ethics training from Congress – so that the staffers would have neither the knowledge nor the maturity to question Ney’s conduct,” prosecutors wrote.

    Oh look. Another ReThug taking advantage of young people.

    The Wash. Post article about the hearing made me smile. I’m sure all of the judges have been labeled “Activists” by the fRight but it’s a great example of what happens when idiotic Administration lackeys run up against the judiciary:

    At one point, Garre argued that courts are not the right forum for complaints about government surveillance, and that “other avenues” are available. “What is that? Impeachment?” Pregerson shot back.

    Ka-Boom muthafucka!

  • Swan @ #7: I’m a bit intrigued and confused. I don’t follow you on the difference between the 1991 Iraq and the 2003 Iraq.

    The IAEA and other inspectors had completely dismantled all nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs after Gulf War I. These inspection organizations were present in Iraq until 2003 with short exceptions during Clinton’s airstrikes.

    As we now know, the inspection teams did their job and Iraq never did reconstitute their illicit programs. Of course, no one really mentions the fact that the U.S., Germany, and France, et al., set up the pre-1991 illicit programs. With the world watching post-1991, these nations were hardly going to help Iraq rebuild its WMD programs. And Iraq did not have the hardware or expertise to do it themselves.

    With the sanctions and no-fly zones in place, Iraq never rebuilt its conventional military either. So, how was the 2003 Iraq a more dangerous threat than the 1991 Iraq?

  • Astrogeek:

    Listen to what he says in the video- the rationales he gives, and consider how those could be different in 1991 from 2003.

    1) He says casualties were a reason not to invade Baghdad in 1991; Cheney’s rationale is really that it was politically unpopular to have a lot of casualties then, if you listen to the words he used. Cheney says in 1991 it came down to how many dead American was Saddam worth, but in 2003, the President and everyone who supported the Ira war weren’t thinking of the goal as being just getting rid of Saddam. So a conservative would argue that it was more tenable to invade / do regime change in 2003 because people were more ready to take casualties, because (the conservative would claim) after 2001, invading Iraq was connected to protecting the U.S. from terrorism. So a liberal rebuttal to that would have to undermine the terrorism connection.

    2) He says we were worried about pieces of Iraq “breaking off”- being taken over by the neighboring countries. In 2003, that would not be a concern because since 2003 we have been willing to long-term occupy Iraq, whereas in 1991 we weren’t. So long as we’re occupying it, no one can take over parts of it.

    3) He says we were worried about what would replace Saddam- this is kind of the same as 1) + 2) put together. In 2003, we had the political will to promote a new constitution and government in Iraq (a post-PNAC idea; PNAC wasn’t until after the first Gulf War). It wasn’t a situation like in 1991, where we would’ve just taken over and our troops would have been standing around as if they were asking each other, “Ok, now what do we do?”

    4) He says no one would have been willing to help us occupy Iraq in 1991- other countries did indeed help us occupy since 2003. A liberal rebuttal would definitely have to make note of the fact that the help was pretty limited compared to the commitment we made, but, that doesn’t do that much to undermine the conservative point about now being a good time to overthrow Baghdad whereas in 1991 it wasn’t, because it wasn’t even that important that we not have to totally go it alone anyway. The U.S. can occupy Iraq all by itself, it’s just crazy difficult. This is the response unless you’re taking Cheney to mean we needed the support of the other Arab countries in occupying, so that the Iraqi people wouldn’t be so offended by the occupation and wouldn’t be kicking our asses constantly. It’s arguable that this is what Cheney means, because he refers to the Arab allies who helped us invade Kuwait specifically. So a conservative would have a great point that a more limited amount of troops in the heart of Iraq would have eventually come under grave danger, whereas a greater commitment to occupation wouldn’t have been overwhelmed by the violence, and this is just what we were willing to do / did since 2003.

    It seems like you just didn’t watch the 1994 video, because as you can see, Cheney’s words had nothing to do with whether Iraq was a threat to us, but more wereanswering the humanitarian intervention rationale arguing for toppling Saddam.

  • I guess Global Islamofascojihadism didn’t work out all that well as The Eternal Enemy We Must Constantly Oppose In Every Way Possible. So now we’re back to China. You hear that, everyone? The enemy is China.

    Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

  • I thought this piece of spin from Dana Perino about Rumsfeld’s resignation letter was quite incredible: “Asked why the president did not announce Rumsfeld’s resignation as soon as he learned of it, Perino said that Bush was wary of influencing the vote.”

    Huh? The President who used the Iraq invasion resolution as a political bludgeon in 2002, slimes his opponents with regularity, and has turned most of the executive branch into a tool of the Republican party was “wary of influencing the vote”? Perhaps his bubble is so thick that he thought that announcing Rumsfeld’s resignation before the election would lose votes for the GOP!

    Source: San Francisco Chronicle

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