Month: January 2006

Nattering Nabobs of Negativism

by digby

My good friend William Henders has written in to help me understand the errors of my leftist ways.

Dear Digby,

Once again it falls to me the thankless task of instructing you and your rabid base of liberal mouth-foamers on a few realities of public life in America.

It is true that in recent times the current administration and the GOP as a whole has proven sporadically incompetent, sleazy and downright mendacious in dealing with a host of matters of grave national importance. The list of such transgressions has been ably chronicled by you and your ilk in the partisan hack brigade. There is little need for me to run through it – WMDs, Katrina, Abramoff, Plame, FISA violations, torture, etc. etc., blah blah blah, yada yada yada.

Yes, you folks have had all these and more little “gotcha” moments, upon the discovery of which the Left has regularly shown itself to be basely thrilled to toot its own horn as “speakers of Truth to Power.”

What your side fails to appreciate is that as terrible as any crimes by Republicans in leadership positions might be, it is in fact the whole concept of “speaking Truth to Power” that is the real cancer destroying our country from the inside out. The British of the Raj had a word for it: “Croaking.”

The American polity understands this. It’s why few on our side fear that the Democrats will regain any semblance of power in 2006, 2008 or beyond. But because you, Digby, and others like you so clearly have a tin ear to the concerns of real Americans, allow me to explain.

We are at war. When President Bush concedes that there exist “responsible ways” to debate our progress in the War on Terror, he is being overly generous (to his credit). But there is simply no “responsible way” to undermine through criticism of any stripe our leadership’s actions to protect us, no matter how plainly mistaken, inadequate or served by ulterior motives those actions may be. There may be time for future historians to do so, though the nature of this particular war means that the proper time for such revisionism will be at least decades from now.

An analogy: The “facts on the ground” are that we Americans have, through the democratic process, lined ourselves up behind a lead dog in a sled race against Islamofacism. Even though we may at times think that this lead dog is dragging us towards thin ice, or miring us in soft snow, or hurtling us over a cliff, the only purpose served by “fouling the traces” through criticism of the leader is to lessen our resolve to compete in this Global Iditarod against Terror at all.

Nor is the profound problem of the Left’s counterproductive harping limited to the affairs of war. What did incessant criticism of the President’s handling of the Katrina disaster do but promote more despair amongst the victims, who clearly needed a reason for hope as much as they needed relief supplies and an evacuation plan? Who amongst the survivors will find the inner spirit to rebuild, when the Digbys of the world are constantly reminding them of promises unkept by their leaders?

In an economy that is increasingly stratified and underserving of a growing underclass mired in debt and with vanishingly few options for entry into positions of financial health, the Left would only add to the problem by putting the brakes on any optimism that may naturally, if fitfully, arise under such conditions. How? By relentlessly picking apart every failed initiative by our leadership, by doggedly bringing to light every omission of relevant data in the administration’s projections … when instead of such micro-criticism of details, a macro-optimism towards Bush economic strategy is called for, nay incumbent upon any who would call himself a
patriot.

To put it bluntly, the problem is not the efficacy of any particular plan for war, disaster relief or economic growth put forward by our leaders, but rather the real threat that under the assault of liberals like you, we may have no leaders and no plans at all.

Cordially, etc.

William G. Henders

He’s right, of course. It’s no secret that the left has perversely signed on to the independent feline political style. (Check out that evil look in their eyes.)We will not foolishly expend our energy waging a useless, marathon Iditarod Against Terror. (We like to sleep a lot.)

However, like the lethal lion pride we are, we will encircle the Republican dogs, chained to their lead dog Balto Bush and his driver Karl “over the cliff” Rove as they optimistically yip and bark around their campfire. And then we will go in for the kill. On the veldt of American politics, the predators always win in the long run. (Why do you think the Chairman of the DNC is known for his leonine roar?)

To Mr Henders’ larger point that we endanger our country’s physical and economic security when we criticize the president, I can only hang my head in shame. I understand now that if you aren’t willing to unquestioningly support your president you don’t believe in freedom. QED.

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Grover’s Eunuchs

by digby

Wolcott says:

I was traveling the cable dial this afternoon where I came upon a panel on CNBC’s Kudlow & Company just as Lanny Davis, his insipid, ingratiating grin firmly in place, was saying that he hoped Democrats wouldn’t “politicize” the Jack Abramoff situation but simply let the facts of the case emerge.

[…]

Beltway Dems like Davis and the DLC crowd don’t want to politicize the Iraq war, or the Alito hearings, or the Katrina clusterfuck, or the NSA spying scandal; they shy away from every prospective fight and prevent any ongoing debate or controversy from gaining traction. Just as Jack Murtha’s bombshell was gaining momentum, in droops Joe Lieberman to back up the president with a gift-wrapped testimonial. Yes, I know Lanny Davis is not an elected official but he was representing the Democratic side along with Harold Ford against John Fund of WSJ and Arizona congressman Jeff Flake (R). Given how Davis was fawning over Flake (who was making mild reformist noises about the need to clean house)–saying that he wished he could vote for someone so bright and sensible–and how Ford was prudently urging us to stay the course in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was more of a barbershop quartet than a doubles match. Kudlow, of course, couldn’t have been more pleased by the civility and consensus shown by the fab four. Lanny Davis and Harold Ford were his kind of Democrats–reasonable, moderate, mainstream, and completely housebroken. They were good little guests.

Sadly, that brings to mind Grover Norquist’s observation after the last election:

“Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with Republicans. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are very unpleasant, but when they’ve been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don’t go around peeing on the furniture and such.”

To be fair, this does not apply to all Democrats. The leadership of Reid, Pelosi and Dean have been very aggressive. And the old dogs like Kennedy have been unafraid to raise a challenge. The problem lies with the alleged moderates like Ford and the gasbags like Biden who don’t know the difference between partisan rhetoric and action (and fail to publicly play the game with any finesse.) But the biggest problem is the “liberal” pundits like Davis who should all be shunned. They don’t speak for me and I don’t think they speak for the Democratic party. They seem to speak for the conventional wisdom of the beltway which places a premium on obedient, neutered Democrats.

Again, it’s the the old joke:

“Harry and Lanny are facing the firing squad. The executioner comes forward to place the blindfold on them. Harry disdainfully and proudly refuses, tearing the thing from his face. Lanny turns to him and pleads: “Please Harry, don’t make trouble!”

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“Intelligent Design” Creationism Is So 2005

by tristero

Now, it’s “intelligent evolution” creationism. Same lousy ideas. Same lack of peer-reviewed scientific evidence.

As PZ says, let’s remember exactly what Dembski wrote when they claim that they’ve got an entirley new product that’s not creationism:

I therefore offer the following proposal if ID gets outlawed from our public schools: retitle it Intelligent Evolution (IE). … [H]ey, it would still be evolution, and evolution can be taught in schools. In fact, I think I’ll title my next book Intelligent Evolution: The Mindful Deviation of Evolutionary Pathways. Perhaps this book has already been written.

Note to anyone who wants to argue against science and for “intelligent design” creationism: As always, first please go to Pharyngula and convince PZ Meyers that you’re right. When he’s satisfied, come on back here and I’ll be happy to discuss the subject with you. Until then, any attempt to “engage” will be answered by a boilerplate response to convince PZ first before wasting our time.

Message From Beyond The Fourth Dimension

by tristero

In tomorrow’s NY Times Magazine (no link yet), Yale Law professor Kenji Yoshino has a fascinating, provocative and nevertheless profoundly weird article about changes in discriminatory behavior.

The law, Professor Yoshino argues, has effectively eliminated discrimination by group membership; it is illegal to fire someone simply because she is black, for example. However, discrimination continues through the legal suppression (“covering”) of any expression of minority group membership. So an African-American flight attendant can be fired simply for wearing cornrows, as a company regulation prohibits all braided hairdos. Professor Yoshino argues that while the law can address a small part of this kind of discrimination, the best way to fight against this obsession with minimizing differences is in other cultural arenas. After all, even two seconds of thought makes it quite clear that an important question to ask about the flight attendant case is why there is a company regulation prohibiting cornrows in the first place. And the more one thinks about it, the more it seems like something that couldn’t possibly matter at all in the flight attendant’s workplace except to prohibit any hint of diverse cultural expression. And that is discrimination, argues Professor Yoshino.

Now, I got some problems with the details of his argumentation here, but I am on the good Professor’s side; he’s got a point. A very important point. He’s identified quite clearly an important, little noticed pattern of unfair discrimination. So the next step is for those of us who care about discriminatory practices to argue out the problems in Yoshino’s thesis and find ways, both little and small, to bring them to bear on American culture.

And it is at this point, it becomes distressingly clear how truly weird Professor Yoshino’s article was.

Although he says he teaches at Yale, which is in New Haven, Connecticut in the United States, I honestly don’t know what country Professor Yoshino is living in. As it happens, I too live in a country called the United States, where coinicidentally there also is a New Haven and a Yale Law School about 2 hours or so away from where I live. But in the country in which I live, initiatives to broaden and extend the cultural definition of discrimination are unimaginable. In my country right now, we are trying to find a way to rebuild an entire city that was predominantly African American until they were flooded out of their homes and whose awful plight has been met with foot-dragging, racist indifference by the national government. “Extend” civil liberties? How about, you know, simply making sure that one’s skin color doesn’t determine the speed with which one’s home is cleaned of raw sewage?

In my country, we are seeing, as David Neiwert documents so painfully over at Orcinus, a resurgence in the crudest form of elimationism rhetoric, “mainstream” think tanks and “respected” pundits rationalizing the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II as well as the murder, torture, and rape of prisoners today. Non-whites buying cellphones in bulk is deemed reasonable cause for fear of terrorism. To make matters worse, the very same people obsessed with excusing this kind of behavior seem all but indifferent to the crimes and terrorism being planned and committed by all white militia gorups.

In Professor Yoshino’s America, the citizens care about eliminating racism and discrimination because, apparently, they believe that by doing so they will develop a stronger America whose diversity will give it the flexibility and mental suppleness needed to confront 21st century problems. But here in my America, we’re arguing whether the Ku Klux Klan really was a racist organization or a legitimate expression of an aggrieved ethnic group.

Now the latest, hippest theories in physics tell us that there very well may be parallel universes, identical to ours but with different values for the natural laws. If that is so and Professor Yoshino’s paper is a communique from an alternate reality, does anyone know how that paper could have ended up in THIS universe? And more importantly, does anyone know how I can leave this reality and enter his? Like today?

However, if, by some slim chance, the latest theories of multiverses are wrong, and Professor Yoshino and I are in fact citizens of the same country on the same planet and are presumably experiencing the same reality, then one of us (at least) is talking pie-in-the-sky nonsense. Because nothing close to Professor Yoshino’s aspirations for increased civil liberties are conceivable in this America until Bushism collapses and the Enlightenment values which informed this country’s founders are once more affirmed and practiced. And frankly, I don’t see a chance of that happening anytime soon.

{Update: Added the Malkin Terrorist Cellphone Caper.}

Can’t Have It Both Ways

by digby

The Editors quote Pat Buchanan on the GOP’s hispanic problem:

Today, a Republican can sweep the white vote 55 percent to 45 percent, and still lose. And as President Clinton merrily predicted a few years ago, white folks will be just another minority in 2050, as they are already in California and Texas.

In short, Republicans need minority voters to survive as America’s Party. The Bush-Rove solution to the looming demographic disaster is to go all-out to court the nation’s fastest growing minority, Hispanics, who now number 40 million and 13 percent of the U.S. population. But, in seeking to win the Hispanic vote, the inherent defects of the Bush-Rove strategy have become manifestly clear.

First, Hispanics have never voted Republican in any presidential election. In his 49-state landslide in 1984, Reagan, despite a macho image that appealed to Hispanics, managed to win only 44 percent. In national elections, the Hispanic vote ranges between 56 percent and 75 percent Democratic. Thus, the more Hispanic America becomes, the more Democratic America becomes. […]

The question Bush and Rove face is this: Can the GOP be both the party that secures the border against Hispanic invaders and sanctions employers who hire them, and still be the party Hispanics will vote for? In the old imagery, if Bush reaches for the bird in the bush, the Hispanic vote, by favoring open borders and amnesty, he may lose the bird in the hand, the support of the white working and middle class that is the heart of the Republican coalition.

Bush and Rove think they can have both. They can’t. But if George Bush’s father, 15 years ago, had only sealed and secured the border and begun to deport illegals, his son and Rove would not be facing the seemingly insoluble problem the GOP is presented with today.

Either Bush and Rove secure the border now, or we can kiss the GOP goodbye.

The Editors, wise as always, add:

Pat’s got personal reasons for wanting to paint a bleak picture, of course, and there’s no fundamental reason why “God, gays and guns” wouldn’t work on socially conservative Latinos as well as it worked on socially conservative whites. Of course, there’s no fundamental reason why it wouldn’t work on socially conservative blacks, either, but it sure as shit doesn’t. That’s because – as Pat is at pains to avoid discussing – the reason the Nixon/Reagan strategy worked was not because conservative whites suddenly developed an interest in religion, marksmanship, and heterosexuality. The reason was race. The reason, as Pat more or less admits, is still race. It wouldn’t be impossible for the Republicans to appeal to Latinos, but it’s impossible to do that and hold on to the conservatarian whites who voted for Reagan, Nixon, and Bush. If the Republicans are still in trouble in November, a little media-driven race war could really help turn out that vote.

It might not be enough. Get this:

The Latino Coalition, a conservative group close to the GOP, has now provided just that: a new nationwide poll of Hispanics which, as it happens, confirms the trend away from the GOP shown in the June poll. Indeed, this poll shows the GOP in even worse shape among Hispanic voters than was suggested by that earlier poll. And, given who conducted it, you certainly couldn’t accuse this new poll of Democratic bias. Indeed, Latino Coalition Hispanic polls in the past have typically produced results substantially more favorable to the GOP than contemporaneous results of DCorps and other national polls of Hispanics. So it’s a real eye-opener to get these very, very unfavorable results from this particular organization at this point in time.

Let’s start with the generic Congressional contest. This poll finds Democrats with a stunning 61-21 lead over the GOP among Hispanic registered voters, which translates into a 50 point lead (75-25) among those who express a preference. The analogous figure among those who expressed a preference in the June DCorps poll was “only” 36 points. By way of comparison to the last two off-year elections, 2002 and 1998, Democrats carried the Congressional vote by 24 and 26 points, respectively.

The new poll also finds Democrats with a 35 point lead (58-23) in party identification among voters.

This issue buried the GOP in California for the last decade. So, let Pat (and Tom Tancredo) rant. The last time he got on this bandwagon he helped usher in a Democratic president.

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Honest Graft

by digby

Matt Yglesias, guest hosting TPM for the day, makes an important observation:

Abuse of the government contracting process is bad, and perpetrators of wrongdoing should in no way get off the hook. Nevertheless, the entire concept of farming government out work to private firms is a more-or-less open invitation to corruption. There are instances when contracting is the only reasonable solution. But for some years now — predating Bush, predating the DeLay era — all the pressure has always been to privatize more and more government functions. The theory is that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector, so contracting functions out to private firms should save money. The reality has had a lot more to do with union-busting, machine-building, and “honest graft” than money saved or improved efficiency.

I know it’s ridiculous to even ponder the idea that we might look to some of the endemic graft that’s grown into our new “free market” guvmint, but it’s there, nonetheless. The chances of reforming it are almost nil, of course. It’s the union buster, machine builders gift that just keeps on giving.

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A Matter Of Trust

by digby

Kevin Drum, Marshall Wittman and John Dickerson all issue dire warnings to the Democrats not to:

a) challenge the Republicans on the illegal NSA wiretapping scandal (and by extension the administration’s belief that the president has the power as both a unitary executive and commander in chief to ignore the laws) because the Republicans will wipe the floor with us just as they did over the Homeland Security issue in 2002.

and

b) get too excited about Abramoff because with Iran out there threatening, Bush will be able to use national security as effectively as he did in the past.

To all of that I say balderdash. Times have changed. There is no longer a single “boogeymahn” narrative. Not after Iraq.

The politics are very different now than they were in 2002. This country is no longer in thrall to a president with an 80% approval rating. Iraq is a huge drag, the Republicans’ credibility is in shreds because of it — and the Abramoff scandal just reinforces the whole ugly mess. The man with the bullhorn is now seen as the man with the bullshit to around 60% of voters.

Here are some numbers on the NSA scandal:

“As you may know, the Bush Administration has been wiretapping telephone conversations between U.S. citizens living in the United States and suspected terrorists living in other countries without getting a court order allowing it to do so…Do you think the Bush Administration was right or wrong in wiretapping these conversations without obtaining a court order?”

Right Wrong Unsure
50 46 4

Even when its worded in the most administration friendly way possible(“between US citizens and suspected terrorists”) half the country is against it. What do you think will happen when most people understand that the conversations were not just with “suspected terrorists?” After all, all these thousands of Americans who have allegedly been chatting to suspected terrorists overseas are still walking free; the only thwarted plot they’ve mentioned was some bozo from Cleveland who wanted to dismantle the Brooklyn bridge with a blowtorch.

Here’s another polling question to ponder:

“Do you think the Republican Party or the Democratic Party can do a better job of writing laws which help the government find terrorists without violating the average person’s rights?”

Republican/Democrat/Both/Neither/Unsure
1/5-8/06 33 42 5 7 13
12/7-10/01 33 26 14 7 20

As long as we are being crassly political, this is an important question:

“After 9/11, President Bush authorized government wiretaps on some phone calls in the U.S. without getting court warrants, saying this was necessary in order to reduce the threat of terrorism. Do you approve or disapprove of the President doing this?”

Approve/Disapprove/Unsure

ALL adults 49 48 3
Republicans 82 17 1
Democrats 31 67 2
Independents 41 54 5

From an electoral standpoint, (unless you think that the 31% of Democrats who support this will vote for Republicans because of it) the number to look at there is the independent voter. That’s the swing vote and they don’t like it.

Finally, there’s this:

“During wartime, some presidents have either received or assumed special war powers, which give the president more authority to act independently when he feels it is necessary. In the current campaign against terrorism, is it a good idea or a bad idea for the president to have the authority to make changes in the rights usually guaranteed by the Constitution?”

Good Idea/Bad Idea/Unsure
1/5-8/06 36 57 7
12/7-10/01 64 29 7

To be fair there are a bunch of questions in this poll that indicate that people don’t care much about this or support the president. They are all over the map. Which means that this is one of those issues about which people are still open to persuasion.

I do not think this is the same country that it was in 2002 and we are finally able to look at these issues with a bit of reason and dispassion. It’s time to make the case for rational assessment of the risks. I do not bleieve that the public is nearly as willing to jump on any national security whim as they were four years ago. At least I think it’s time to find out. If we don’t, there may be no going back.

And while some are apparently willing to take Bush at his word that he has only used the illegal wiretapping for purely national security reasons, nobody can be sure of that because there is no oversight. Which is the problem. Nobody says that the president shouldn’t be able to monitor Americans who are talking to suspected terrorists. But at least half the country doesn’t see why he couldn’t find a way to do that legally. Certainly, the more than a dozen whisteleblowers who came forward to the NY Times think he could have and that is what raises suspicions about his motives.

I think a good part of his motive is a desire to institutionalize Presidential Infallibility Doctrine and that is bad. People are not aware of this yet, but hearings, if done properly, could serve to educate them a bit.

But there is also ample reason to doubt the president’s word that this has not been used as he says it’s been used. And that’s because it has recently been revealed that the Pentagon has been monitoring protestors and political groups. The president’s most trusted advisor (who is possibly going to be indicted for perjury, I might add) along with a legion of his supporters, say publicly that “liberals” are unpatriotic. The president himself is going all over the country as we speak saying that anyone who questions his motives is giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

One can certainly see a scenario in which a president who thinks this way could also think that it is necessary to monitor American dissenters on national security grounds. And under his reading of the constitution, we have no right to inquire or demand that anyone review a decision like that. I continue to believe that most Americans would find that repugnant.

And that leads us to the Abramoff scandal. This issue of corruption and graft in the Republican party is hugely important and it is going to have a life of its own even if we do nothing. It plays directly into the idea that Republican leadership believes that they are above the law. Just like the president.

As for Iran, I have no idea what will happen politically. But I’m willing to bet big money that the president will not get the same benefit of the doubt he got on Iraq. And that is just sad because he blew his credibility on bullshit to the detriment of our country’s national security. Had he maintained the mystique of American power instead of proving to the world how incredibly fucked up we really are, we might have some clout to deal with Iran today. Iran with nukes is not good.

However, the consensus is that they cannot get one for another five years. So, I think we can afford to hold back any patriotic impulse to support this lying sack of shit until we can elect a new congress that can provide some oversight. This administration has damaged American credibility so badly that we are going to be lucky if we can persuade the world to believe us when we say the sun is coming up tomorrow. For the sake of national security I think it’s vitally important that we neuter him as much as possible. Every word he utters now makes this world a more dangerous place to live.

We cannot continue to worry about whether the Republicans are going to call us chickenshits on national security. They are. But I’m betting that the time is ripe to turn that back on them. There is an undercurrent of discontent with this administration and the Republican party in general, particularly on Iraq and public corruption. It’s all a matter of trust and they are losing it. We won’t benefit from that by playing it safe on matters of fundamental principle.

Right now the Democrats have a distinct advantage when it comes to the question of who “will write laws that will help the government find terrorists without violating the rights of the average American.” That is what we build upon. And if we lose in November, then we lose having at least begun to make a real case for progressive principles instead of losing because we tried to convince people that we weren’t quite as bad as they say we are.

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Going Chris Matthews One Better

by tristero

Should the president have the right to break the law and gather information after 9/11? Chris Matthews tells us what he thinks:

MATTHEWS: We’re under attack on 9-11. A couple of days after that, if I were president of the United States and somebody said we had the ability to check on all the conversations going on between here and Hamburg, Germany, where all the Al Qaeda people are, or somewhere in Saudi [Arabia], where they came from and their parents are, and we could mine some of that information by just looking for some key words like “World Trade Center” or “Pentagon,” I’d do it.

TICE [a former NSA official]: Well, you’d be breaking the law.

MATTHEWS: Yeah. Well, maybe that’s part of the job.

Well, I’ll see Matthews and raise him. I think the president of the United States should have detained for questioning the relatives of anyone suspected of involvement in 9/11. I don’t care what anyone says about guilt by association, if you’re related to bin Laden, for example, then by God, nothing in the weeks after 9/11 should stop the US Government from keeping you around for some extended questioning.

The thing is… nothing did stop the the Bush administration from detaining bin Laden’s relatives and other Saudi nationals here in the US after 9/11 for as long as they wanted. Except, of course, the Bush administration itself.* Oh, and it would have been perfectly legal to detain them, but they didn’t bother. That’s right: no laws had to be broken. Bush just had to exercise some common sense and summon the patriotic will to disobey his Saudi masters… oops, I mean good friends.

A corollary question: Would an illegal wiretap have prevented 9/11? Well, if it takes breaking the law to gather that kind of information, then yeah, let’s Dirty Harry Cleans Up Frisco, fellas! Screw the law.

But y’know what’s kinda funny? It really wasn’t necessary to break any laws to gather information that would have prevented 9/11. But it really is pretty important to have someone around who understands the language when they first come in::

Before Sept. 11, U.S. agencies collected about 30 communications from suspected al Qaeda operatives or other militants referring to an imminent event, but many were false alarms, a U.S. intelligence official said on Monday.

“You can’t dismiss any of them, but it doesn’t tell you tomorrow is the day,” the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. [Oh?? Shades of Austin Powers: “That’s not my Swedish Penis Pump.” Read on.]

Messages from members of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network included the phrases “Tomorrow is zero hour” and “The match begins tomorrow,” which government sources have said were picked up on Sept. 10 by National Security Agency eavesdropping on global communications.

Those two messages were not translated from Arabic until Sept. 12.

But let’s cut the crap. Matthews’ little conversation was about quite a serious topic, but the topic wasn’t the security of the United States which is adequately served by its security laws (the competence of its agencies under Bush is a different story). You don’t gotta be a cowboy to be president. Or a torturer, or a murderer of prisoners. And Matthews knows this. And he also knows what his real topic is:

Is it ok for George W. Bush to continue to violate the laws of the people and the government of the US? Is it ok for Bush to insist he is answerable only to the Voice of God in his head but not to any court of law?

Chris Matthews thinks that’s just fine. And y’know something? I don’t think Bush even has to pay him to say so. Kinda gives you the creeps, doesn’t it?

*Now, you may have noticed, if you clicked the link to Snopes, that they make a point of debunking the claims that the flights of bin Laden relatives and Saudi nationals occurred immediately after 9/11 and before the FBI questioned them. No argument with that: I’m not claiming Jim Garrison-style conspiracy, just incredible incompetence mixed with political pressure from on high (and no one believes permission for those flights didn’t come straight from Crawford’s Answer To Churchill himself).

Now the flights to evacuate the Saudis started a mere five hours after airspace opened up on 9/13. Most of the fugitives… I mean passengers, were not interviewed. Then, on Sept. 20, only nine days after the attacks, a flight with 26 passengers, mostly related to the terrorist mastermind left the US. Now twenty two of these people were interviewed and swore they knew nothing. Wouldn’t you? And they scrammed out of the country.

That’s what I call a thorough investigation.

Too Important For Bloviators

by digby

I would like second Glenn Greenwald’s call for a special Select Committee to investigate the illegal NSA wiretapping scandal. This issue is obviously too complex and difficult to be handled by Arlen Specter’s Judiciary Committee. I realize that the nation can’t get enough of Blowhard Biden and Huckleberry Graham after their riveting Kabuki star turns over the past week but I would hate to see them get over exposed. Trying to stay awake while boring senators get turned inside out by much more nimble witnesses is thrilling TV, I know, but we don’t want to overdo it.

Glenn points out that the House has a select bi-partisan committee up and running right now to investigate the federal response to hurricane Katrina so it’s not as if this is unusual. It is commonly used for hearings of national importance like the Katrina response, the Clinton impeachment hearings, Iran Contra, Watergate and others. This is that important and it should be treated that way. If it’s left up to Huckleberry’s cornpone lectures and Tom Coburn’s insane ramblings the hearings will be quickly made irrelevant by the incompetent questioning and bored media reaction alone.

These hearings are going to be about a fundamental constitutional understanding of how our system of government works. The stakes are very high. We could be setting a precedent for a unitary executive that completely abrogates the system of checks and balances. The committee will interview legal experts who are going to make arguments that the president has a right under the constitution to ignore the laws and I don’t want Dianne Feinstein being the one to challenge them.

The other side is going to question opposing views with a simple bullshit rationale about saving the babies from the boogeyman. We cannot leave the much more complicated opposing argument to gasbag senators questioning much more agile legal minds than theirs. We need real, practising lawyers who know the issues and know how to question a witness.

After watching the soporific Alito sideshow this week, it’s quite clear to me that the judiciary committee is not a venue in which to get to the bottom of this.

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“Who’s Being Naive, Kay?

by digby

Today, I’m calling a moratorium on calling Democrats spineless losers. This op-ed column by Harry Reid is one of the most in-your-face challenges I’ve seen in quite some time and it gets right to the heart of the matter:

In 1977, I was appointed chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission. It was a difficult time for the gaming industry and Las Vegas, which were being overrun by organized crime. To that point in my life, I had served in the Nevada Assembly and even as lieutenant governor, but nothing prepared me for my fight with the mob.

Over the next few years, there would be threats on my life, bribes, FBI stings and even a car bomb placed in my family’s station wagon. It was a terrifying experience, but at the end of the day, we cleaned up Las Vegas and ushered in a new era of responsibility.

My term on the gaming commission came to an end in 1981, and when it did, I thought I had seen such corruption for the last time. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. It is not quite the mafia of Las Vegas in the 1970s, but what is happening today in Washington is every bit as corrupt and the consequences for our country have been severe.

Our nation’s capital has been overrun by organized crime — Tom DeLay-style.

The gangsters are the lobbyists, cronies and lawmakers who have banded together and abused their power to serve their own self-interest. The casinos are the Capitol, which has had its doors thrown open for special interests to waltz in and help themselves, and the victims, of course, are the American people.

There is a price to pay for the culture of corruption, and we can see it in the state of our union.

Consider the state of our economy. On one side is Big Oil, which reaped $100 billion in profits in 2005. On the other side are middle-class families. Their wages are declining at the same time they are paying more for gas, heat, education and other needs.

Take the state of health care. On one side are the HMOs that benefited greatly from a $10 billion slush fund in the Medicare bill. On the other side are seniors who face gaps in their coverage and the high cost of prescription drugs.

And then there is our national debt. On one side are the special interests and the multimillionaires who have received tremendous tax breaks over the last five years. On the other side are our children and grandchildren who will pay for these tax cuts when they inherit billions in debt.

In our country today, we are seeing what happens when lawmakers and lobbyists conspire to put the needs of special interests before the needs of the American people. We have a country that grows more dependent on foreign oil each day. We have cronyism like that exposed by Hurricane Katrina, and we have a national security policy that does a good job of protecting Halliburton’s bottom-line but not a good enough job protecting the American people.

Damn!

This is exactly how this should be framed. They are a criminal mob. Democrats should not shy away from using that exact language because it’s absolutely true.

“I AM the federal government.”

– Comment uttered by Tom DeLay to the owner of Ruth’s
Chris Steak House, after being told to put out his cigar because of federal government regulations banning smoking in the building, May 14, 200

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