Month: August 2007

Classy

by digby

A reader sent this in as a reminder of the work-a-day right wing commentary of recent years that’s so enchanted Americans that they have succeeded in alienating virtually everyone in the nation except ditto-heads and sadists (a group with a lot of crossover.)

Here you see a typical arrogant Republican jackass, smug in the notion that he and his grubby little friends were masters of the universe who could never fail. Certainly not at the hands of the DFH’s:

Why am I smiling? It’s those Dems!

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/30/2004

Thinking Right on the week gone by:

* This is too much fun. During Democratic convention week, my employer is entitled to shortchange the pay. Material overflows. It’s there for the plucking. Dear AJC, lunch is on me.

* Could’ve been a dead body on the stage and no delegate or speaker would have called attention, so desperate are they to appear mainstream. These are folks who think hiding their beliefs is necessary, because you wouldn’t like them if you found out. And yet . . .

* Democratic convention delegates are to the left of rank-and-file Democrats and far to the left of the electorate. When asked to describe themselves, they label themselves — and nominee John Kerry — as “moderates.” If these are moderates, there’s no left in America.

* Only 7 percent of convention delegates think “the U.S. did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq,” compared to 46 percent of all voters. If Kerry wins, it’s cut-and-run. Count on it. This is the George McGovern anti-war party. Omega Lamont of Peachtree City calls it the “Botox convention.” Any cosmetic to dress up Kerry and his band of ’60s peaceniks as a party that can be trusted to lead in a world in which fanatics are determined to destroy us.

* Michael Moore, more visible this week than Kerry, agrees to appear on the Bill O’Reilly show on the condition that his remarks not be edited. This from the moviemaker whose selective editing for propaganda purposes is his stock in trade.

* Columnist Ann Coulter’s USA Today-spiked column is funny. To conservatives anyway. She posits that pretty girls and cops are conservative. “As for the pretty girls, I can only guess that’s because liberal boys never try to make a move on you without the U.N. Security Council’s approval. Plus, it’s no fun riding around in those dinky little hybrid cars. My pretty-girl allies stick out like a sore thumb amongst the corn-fed, no makeup, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons they call ‘women’ at the Democratic National Convention.”

Thinking Right is, of course, appalled at her crass generalizations (though the eye did strain in search of contrary evidence).

* Coulter is just one of those “opinionated” women who would be thought “smart or well-informed” if she were a man. My only hope is that one day soon Teresa and husband John Kerry will recognize opinionated conservative women, too. And that Senate Democrats will allow them to serve as federal judges. Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carolyn Kuhl. California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown. All are targets of Democratic filibuster.

* Al Sharpton didn’t get the message. We’re not into hate this week. And yet, according to the Rev, had Bush been president in 1954, “Clarence Thomas would have never got to law school.” This Democratic prime-timer is best remembered as the chief proponent of the Tawana Brawley hoax: Kidnapped, raped, smeared with feces by a gang of whites, including a county prosecutor. All lies. Sharpton paid the prosecutor $65,000 for defamation.

This from a proud member of the diaper wearing, bathroom trolling, teen predator, Republican family values party.

Hubris:

Hubris or hybris (Greek ὕβρις), according to its modern usage, is exaggerated self pride or self-confidence (overbearing pride), often resulting in fatal retribution. In Ancient Greece, “hubris” referred to actions taken in order to shame the victim, thereby making oneself seem superior.

It’s their fatal flaw. Their downfall. Someday, perhaps, people will write epic poems featuring them as the puny fools who overreached and (almost?) destroyed a powerful nation. Right now, they are just a bunch of shrieking failures, scrambling madly to remain relevant in a world grown tired of their bad judgment and unwarranted superior attitude.

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Three Wars

by digby

Christopher Hitchens’ reason for backing this war has always been that he loathes fascism and loves western liberal values over all else and they are worth killing for. He has been consistent in that, always holding out against the Islamo-fascists for being religious fundamentalists and well … fascists. He’s blind with arrogance and bloodlust — and almost comically naive about the likelihood of the Bush administration actually delivering on its promises of a “non-sectarian” Iraq government.

Today he wrote a rather disjointed piece in Slate claiming that the war is actually three wars. The first is the glorious success of the “Kurd war” where everything is going along swimmingly. (Those truck bombs that killed more that 500 Yazidis, who are Kurds, are apparently what he means by “pin-prick events.” )

The second war is the one where the surge is surging — Anbar — which he floridly describes as “the venomous rabble of foreign murderers and local psychopaths that goes to make up AQM has insanely overplayed its hand, lost all hope of local support, and is becoming even more vicious as its cadres are defeated.” Huzzah!

And there there is the third war, which encompasses, well, the Iraq civil war:

The third area of combat is the most depressing. The Maliki government, in my opinion, showed its irredeemably sectarian character a long time ago by the dirty manner in which it carried out the execution of Saddam Hussein. Maliki himself has recently attacked the coalition forces for carrying out raids in Shiite districts of Baghdad. Perhaps he ought to be told that he is not being lent our armed forces for the purpose of installing Shiite power. The secular parties have walked out of his shaky Cabinet, and it is on these forces that our moral support should be concentrated. Let’s put it like this: An American family that lost a son or a daughter in the defense of free Kurdistan or in the struggle against AQM could console itself that the death was in a worthwhile cause. The same could not be said for a soldier who fell in some murky street engagement, shot in the back by a uniformed policeman who was doing double duty as a member of a theocratic Shiite militia.

In Basra and elsewhere, these Shiite militias replicate the division among the Sunnis by fighting among themselves and by the degree to which they do or do not reflect the interference of Iran in Iraqi affairs. This subconflict—or these subconflicts—makes it hard to accept the proposal made by some U.S. politicians and pundits to the effect that the country should be partitioned along ethnic and religious lines. In that event, we would quite probably not end up with three neatly demarcated mini-states, one each in a three-way split among Sunni Arab, Shiite, and Kurd. Instead, there could be partitions within the partition, with Iran and Saudi Arabia becoming patrons of their favorite proxies and, in the meantime, a huge impetus given to the “cleansing” of hitherto-mixed cities and provinces. (This, by the way, as I never tire of saying, is what would have happened to Iraq when Saddam’s regime collapsed and the country became prey to neighboring states and to the consequences of 30 years of “divide and rule” politics.)

Like it isn’t happening now, I guess.

(And Americans are supposed to be thrilled to have their children die in “defense of a free Kurdistan?” Jesus, I think they may have thought they were stopping a genocidal maniac from unleashing chemical weapons on innocent people or liberating Iraq and spreading freedom and winning the Global War on Terror. I doubt any of them are quite as happy as Hitchens is that their loved one died “defending a free Kurdistan,” which isn’t even its own country.)

But as depressing as the “bad war” is — the one that is actually tearing the country apart — Hitchens hasn’t given up hope that someday it will be as successful as the first two “good wars.” He calls on all politicians to acknowledge the two good ones even as they condemn the bad:

The ability to distinguish among these different definitions of the “war” is what ought to define the difference between a serious politician and a political opportunist, both in Iraq and in America. The obliteration of political life and civil society by Saddam Hussein’s fascism has meant that most of the successor political figures are paltry (and the Kurdish exception to this exactly proves the point: Kurdistan escaped from Baathist control a full decade before the rest of Iraq did). It will take a good while before any plausible nonsectarian figures can emerge from the wasteland and also brave the climate of murder and intimidation that the forces of the last dictatorship, and the would-be enforcers of an even worse future one, have created.

How long is a good long while? Funny, he doesn’t mention the new Iraqi It-Boy, the resolutely non-sectarian Ayad Allawi, at all. You know, former Mukhabarat agent and Baathist who personally executes prisoners? The new product the entire GOP establishment is rolling out and marketing like the second coming of Thomas Jefferson?

If things go according to Hitchens’ new best friends, the neocons’, plans, it is very likely that the United States will quite soon install a tyrannical psychopath fascist to run Iraq now that the entirely predictable sectarian, sub-sectarian civil war is already roaring. But he’s secular. Very non-sectarian.

Maybe once Allawi is installed and brings the hammer down, Hitchens will face the fact that trusting a bunch of neoconservative oil men to give a damn about secular western values and democracy might not have been the wisest course. It’s so amusing that this jaded, cosmopolitan intellectual was so easily taken in by a bunch of Straussians.

Update: I’m reliably informed by Chris Hayes that while the Yazidi speak Kurdish,(and Wikipedia says they are centered in Mosul, Kurdistan and are considered ethnic Kurds) they are definitely not considered Kurds by other non-Yazidi Kurds. They are a very distinct and unusual religion — kind of like the Mormons of Iraq.

It’s an important distinction when considering if the Non-Yazidi Kurds have gotten things more or less in order as Hitchens implies. To the extent that they have quelled the worst kind of sectarian violence between themselves and the various arab Muslims in their region, it’s quite true.

I would only add that if Yazidi are now being blown up in large numbers it doesn’t exactly support the idea that all is hearts and flowers in Kurdistan, however. They are a despised minority who are being killed, which I would think tends to put those horrific bombings into the category of the sub-sectarian conflict Hitchens claims we prevented by invading.

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Unforgiveable

by digby

Susie Madrak points me to this horrible story from the Katrina doctor who was accused of murder but the grand jury refused to indict. It’s a nightmare, a horror story and it makes me want to scream every time I think of George W. Bush strutting around the gulf one short day after this had happened, yukking it up with Brownie and saying:

“We’ve got a lot of rebuilding to do … The good news is — and it’s hard for some to see it now — that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house — he’s lost his entire house — there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.”

and this:

“I believe the town where I used to come – from Houston, Texas, to enjoy myself, occasionally too much – will be that very same town, that it will be a better place to come to.”

Meanwhile:

In normal triage situations, the sickest people are treated first. But my understanding is that conditions were so bad, you and the other medical staff switched to a reverse triage or battlefield approach. Tell me about this.

The conditions were unbearable. Inside the hospital it was pitch black, with odors, smell, human waste everywhere. It was very rancid. You would take a breath in and it would burn the back of your throat. The patients were very sick. That’s when we had to go from triage to reverse triage because we came to realize if patients aren’t being evacuated, [we had to deal with what we had]. Basically it was a general consensus that we’re not going to be able to save everybody. We hope that we can, but we realize everybody may not make it out.

What were the categories?

We divided patients into groups one, two and three. Patients in category one are able to sit up and walk and are not very sick. Patients in three are critically ill, “Do Not Resuscitate.” The ones in category two were sick, but doing much [better than those in category three]. The triage system was very crude—we’d write the number 1, 2 or 3 on a sheet of paper and tape it across the patient’s chest with their hospital records. There was limited use of flashlights. There were limited batteries. [Parts of the hospital] were pitch black. I’m talking jet black. Very dangerous. It was pitch dark in inner rooms.

What is the reverse triage process like?

Let me tell you, for a patient to be triaged—typical triage isn’t that difficult. Reverse triage is heart wrenching. Absolutely heart wrenching. You place patients into categories. With boats coming and going we could evacuate patients who could sit. There were elderly couples—how do you make that decision who can go when one was sick and the spouse wasn’t? Do you let elderly couples go together as husband and wife? Some of these couples had been married 50 years.

As Susie said:

That these BushCo hacks allowed all those Americans to suffer and die in New Orleans – and then rezoned the entire area to push out the survivors in favor of high-end developers – well, that tells you everything you need to know about their character.

Dolphin Fighting

by digby

Didn’t we just get another lecture from a journalism professor about how lazy, dumb and unprofessional bloggers are? Lookie, lookie here, from Gawker:

“The case against Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick has exposed a split within both the NAACP and the larger African-American community, as some activists condemn Vick’s role in the deaths of fighting dogs and others cast him as a victim of a racist justice system,” an MSNBC article revealed yesterday. Who are some of the dog-murdering quarterback’s defenders? Well, you’d expect Al Sharpton to step up, right?

Here’s the blurb from the MSNBC story:

Most recently, the Rev. Al Sharpton, a two-time Democratic presidential candidate, charged that a star white athlete never would have been prosecuted for the same crime.

Like Hayes, Sharpton has denounced images of dogfighting in popular black culture, and he signed a letter with Russell Simmons condemning the activity as ignorant and cruel.

But at the same time, Sharpton argued that the prosecution of Vick was overkill.

If the police caught Brett Favre (a white quarterback for the Green Bay Packers) running a dolphin-fighting unit out of his pool, where dolphins with spears attached to their foreheads fought each other, would they bust him? Of course not,” Sharpton wrote Tuesday on his personal blog.

They would get his autograph, commend him on his tightly spiraled forward passes, then bet on one of his dolphins.

Turns out that Sharpton quote, allegedly from his “personal blog”, actually came from the parody site News/Groper. Who would have ever guessed?

The editor of the site, terribly impressed with MSNBC’s investigative skills as you might imagine, wonders which one of these clues finally tipped them off:

1. The words “fake parody blogs” in the titlebar of every page of our site
2. Our logo
3. Al Sharpton blogging on the same site as Lindsay Lohan, George Bush
and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
4. Our about page www.newsgroper.com/about/
5. Al Sharpton referring to himself in his bio as an “Emancipation
Proclamation enthusiast”

Maybe MSNBC’s crack reporters are fans of former NBC election analyst Rush Limbaugh who tells his listeners that the Democrats want to invade Darfur so that they can appease their African American constituency (like they always do/) It’s hard to imagine anyone sentient would believe Sharpton would come up with with the “dolphins with spears on their heads” thing. He’s colorful but he isn’t retarded.

What’s the explanation for this stuff? Is everyone eating lead paint chips and salsa all of a sudden?

Full screen shots here.

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Another One Bites The Dust

by digby

Republican Fred Thompson sidestepped questions Monday about the departure of yet another presidential campaign-in-waiting.

Linda Rozett, a longtime U.S. Chamber of Commerce official, is gone from the former Tennessee senator’s committee to “test the waters” of a presidential bid after spending the last several weeks as communications director.

“I don’t know what the story is,” said Thompson, who was asked about the departure while campaigning at the Minnesota state fair. “I don’t know what to say about it except that she’s a wonderful lady.”

Rozett’s departure was disclosed in an e-mail to staffers from campaign manager Bill Lacy.

“It is my duty to let you know that Linda Rozett is no longer with our committee,” Lacy wrote. “I will have to make a lot of tough decisions to make our venture successful and this was one of them. Linda is a talented, professional and gracious lady who will be missed. But in the limited amount of time we have I feel it critical to have a communications point person with significant campaign experience.”

The all-but-declared candidate collected about $1.5 million less than the $5 million backers had hoped to bring in during June, his first fundraising month. In July, Thompson sidelined his campaign-manager-in-waiting, Tom Collamore, and watched a few other aides follow him out the door amid consternation inside the operation about the active role of Thompson’s wife, Jeri.”

I’d love to hear from some of the media sages who say that how a campaign is run is indicative of how the candidate is going to run the country. If that’s true, Frederick of Hollywood’s better half is evidently going to run it like Martha Stewart on her short-lived version of the “The Apprentice,” while Fred wanders around like a blind salmon, completely out of the loop. Good to know.

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He Was A Very Nasty, Bad, Naughty Boy

by digby

I’m sure you’ve all heard what Chris Matthews called “the very sad news,” by now. Yes it’s reported that Senator Larry Craig was arrested in Minnesota a couple of months ago for lewd conduct in the airport men’s room:

From Roll Call:

According to the incident report, Sgt. Dave Karsnia was working as a plainclothes officer on June 11 investigating civilian complaints regarding sexual activity in the men’s public restroom in which Craig was arrested.

Airport police previously had made numerous arrests in the men’s restroom of the Northstar Crossing in the Lindbergh Terminal in connection with sexual activity.

Karsnia entered the bathroom at noon that day and about 13 minutes after taking a seat in a stall, he stated he could see “an older white male with grey hair standing outside my stall.”

The man, who lingered in front of the stall for two minutes, was later identified as Craig.

“I could see Craig look through the crack in the door from his position. Craig would look down at his hands, ‘fidget’ with his fingers, and then look through the crack into my stall again. Craig would repeat this cycle for about two minutes,” the report states.

Craig then entered the stall next to Karsnia’s and placed his roller bag against the front of the stall door.

“My experience has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bags to block the view from the front of their stall,” Karsnia stated in his report. “From my seated position, I could observe the shoes and ankles of Craig seated to the left of me.”

Craig was wearing dress pants with black dress shoes.

“At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area,” the report states.

Craig then proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times, and Karsnia noted in his report that “I could … see Craig had a gold ring on his ring finger as his hand was on my side of the stall divider.”

Karsnia then held his police identification down by the floor so that Craig could see it.

“With my left hand near the floor, I pointed towards the exit. Craig responded, ‘No!’ I again pointed towards the exit. Craig exited the stall with his roller bags without flushing the toilet. … Craig said he would not go. I told Craig that he was under arrest, he had to go, and that I didn’t want to make a scene. Craig then left the restroom.” In a recorded interview after his arrest, Craig “either disagreed with me or ‘didn’t recall’ the events as they happened,” the report states.

Craig stated “that he has a wide stance when going to the bathroom and that his foot may have touched mine,” the report states. Craig also told the arresting officer that he reached down with his right hand to pick up a piece of paper that was on the floor.

“It should be noted that there was not a piece of paper on the bathroom floor, nor did Craig pick up a piece of paper,” the arresting officer said in the report.

Here’s another memorable Craig moment that should have clued everyone in that he was a little kinky:

Meet the Press January 24, 1999, Sunday 9:00 AM

MR. RUSSERT: Larry Craig, would you want the last word from the Senate be an acquittal of the president and no censure?

SEN. CRAIG: Well, I don’t know where the Senate’s going to be on that issue of an up or down vote on impeachment, but I will tell you that the Senate certainly can bring about a censure reslution and it’s a slap on the wrist. It’s a, “Bad boy, Bill Clinton. You’re a naughty boy.” The American people already know that Bill Clinton is a bad boy, a naughty boy.

I’m going to speak out for the citizens of my state, who in the majority think that Bill Clinton is probably even a nasty, bad, naughty boy. The question issue now is simply this: Did he lie under oath? Did he perjure himself and did he obstruct justice? And that’s where we’re trying to go now in this truth-seeking process.

And I hope we can get there. And then I’m going to have the chance to decide and vote up or down on those articles. After we’re through with this impeachment trial, it’s collapsed, it’s gone, then the Senate will make a decision on if it’s a censure or not.

Not that we haven’t known that Craig was closeted for some time. BlogActive outed him last October during the Foley scandal. And the rumors go back to 1982:

But the Minneapolis airport men’s room? Classy. At least George Michael had the good taste to do his trolling in a Beverly Hills park restroom.

H/T to Archpundit for the MTP transcript.

Update: Yglesias has a point. What exactly was “disorderly” or “lewd” about Craig’s actions? I accept that his rather obscure actions must be known to be typical cruising signals, but I don’t see how they could be against the law just standing on their own without being able to prove the intent, which doesn’t seem that easy.

Presumably, Craig thought he could keep this hushed up,(which is truly stupid) by pleading guilty. But I’m not actually sure what he was guilty of.

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Darcy

by digby

Darcy Burner is this close to raising a hundred thousand dollars in her campaign to send a message to George W. bush and his Go-Along congress. If you’re inclined to throw some coin her way, do it today.

As Jane Hamsher writes:

Groups like Emily’s List come in with a check for a hundred thousand dollars and can pretty much demand to control messaging on a Congressional campaign. Much of the blogosphere’s ability to get the attention of politicians when they go off the reservation is due not only to the fact that we raised quite a bit during the last election cycle for candidates we support, but also because we made Joe Lieberman raise $17 million to keep his seat. Yes, a hundred thousand dollars — particularly at this point in the election cycle — does get people’s attention.

You can watch the candidate make the pitch herself, right here.

Burner’s campaign is holding a virtual town hall meeting this afternoon at 3pm pacific time. You can find it on her website where they are still collecting questions.

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Back To Square One

by digby

I’d forgotten about this. It’s a reminder of why the bloodthirsty neocons, especially little Cowboy George and his sidekick Quickdraw Dick, loves them some Allawi:

Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings. They say the prisoners – handcuffed and blindfolded – were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city’s south-western suburbs. They say Dr Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they “deserved worse than death”. The Prime Minister’s office has denied the entirety of the witness accounts in a written statement to the Herald, saying Dr Allawi had never visited the centre and he did not carry a gun. But the informants told the Herald that Dr Allawi shot each young man in the head as about a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister’s personal security team watched in stunned silence. Iraq’s Interior Minister, Falah al-Naqib, is said to have looked on and congratulated him when the job was done. Mr al-Naqib’s office has issued a verbal denial. The names of three of the alleged victims have been obtained by the Herald. One of the witnesses claimed that before killing the prisoners Dr Allawi had told those around him that he wanted to send a clear message to the police on how to deal with insurgents. “The prisoners were against the wall and we were standing in the courtyard when the Interior Minister said that he would like to kill them all on the spot. Allawi said that they deserved worse than death – but then he pulled the pistol from his belt and started shooting them.” Re-enacting the killings, one witness stood three to four metres in front of a wall and swung his outstretched arm in an even arc, left to right, jerking his wrist to mimic the recoil as each bullet was fired. Then he raised a hand to his brow, saying: “He was very close. Each was shot in the head.” The witnesses said seven prisoners had been brought out to the courtyard, but the last man in the line was only wounded – in the neck, said one witness; in the chest, said the other. Given Dr Allawi’s role as the leader of the US experiment in planting a model democracy in the Middle East, allegations of a return to the cold-blooded tactics of his predecessor are likely to stir a simmering debate on how well Washington knows its man in Baghdad, and precisely what he envisages for the new Iraq. There is much debate and rumour in Baghdad about the Prime Minister’s capacity for brutality, but this is the first time eyewitness accounts have been obtained. A former CIA officer, Vincent Cannisatraro, recently told The New Yorker: “If you’re asking me if Allawi has blood on his hands from his days in London, the answer is yes, he does. He was a paid Mukhabarat [intelligence] agent for the Iraqis, and he was involved in dirty stuff.” In Baghdad, varying accounts of the shootings are interpreted by observers as useful to a little-known politician who, after 33 years in exile, needs to prove his leadership credentials as a “strongman” in a war-ravaged country that has no experience of democracy.[…]

The Herald has established that as many as 30 people, including the victims, may have been in the courtyard. One of the witnesses said there were five or six civilian-clad American security men in a convoy of five or six late model four-wheel-drive vehicles that was shepherding Dr Allawi’s entourage on the day. The US military and Dr Allawi’s office refused to respond to questions about the composition of his security team. It is understood that the core of his protection unit is drawn from the US Special Forces units. The security establishment where the killings are said to have happened is on open ground on the border of the Al-Amariyah and Al-Kudra neighbourhoods in Baghdad. About 90 policemen are stationed at the complex, which processes insurgents and more hardened offenders among those captured in the struggle against a wave of murder, robbery and kidnapping in post-invasion Iraq. The Interior Ministry denied permission for the Herald to enter the heavily fortified police complex. The two witnesses were independently and separately found by the Herald. Neither approached the newspaper. They were interviewed on different days in a private home in Baghdad, without being told the other had spoken. A condition of the co-operation of each man was that no personal information would be published. Both interviews lasted more than 90 minutes and were conducted through an interpreter, with another journalist present for one of the meetings. The witnesses were not paid for the interviews. Dr Allawi’s office has dismissed the allegations as rumours instigated by enemies of his interim government.[…]
Mr Khadum added: “Do you think a man who is Prime Minister is going to disqualify himself for life like this? This is not a government of gangsters.” Asked if Dr Allawi had visited the Al-Amariyah complex – one of the most important counter-insurgency centres in Baghdad – Mr Khadum said he could not reveal the Prime Minister’s movements. But he added: “Dr Allawi has made many visits to police stations … he is heading the offensive.” US officials in Iraq have not made an outright denial of the allegations. An emailed response to questions from the Herald to the US ambassador, John Negroponte, said: “If we attempted to refute each [rumour], we would have no time for other business. As far as this embassy’s press office is concerned, this case is closed.”

Junior has only been able to execute people by proxy. Allawi gets to do it personally. He’s definitely a Bush/Nuge dream come true.

I think what’s most startling is that this happened three years ago yet everything you read about the occupation shows it’s gotten much worse. And now the US is trying to install this psychopath to bail them out. There is a special place in hell for the people who made this happen.

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Gonzo A-Go-Go

by digby

So Gonzales and Rove ride off into the sunset together. How convenient. They can run out the clock from the comfort of their Texas mansions, at which point they will expect that the Democrats, if they win, will opt to “move forward” and “heal the nation’s wounds.”

There is a lot of chatter on the cable shows about who is going to replace Gonzales and whether there will be a confirmation fight. The gossip is that it will be Clement continuing to stonewall as acting AG for as long as they can get away with it and then Chertoff. Or maybe a member of the Senate club, Cornyn or Hatch. Jane even thinks they might put up Lieberman! (Personally, I think that might be the best thing that could happen. He’d be out of government entirely in 18 months.)

Either way, it won’t be surprising if the Dems opt to quickly pass through anyone Bush puts up because Bush is such a lame duck. That would be a terrible mistake. They should fight tooth and nail and use the opportunity to highlight the fact that the entire upper echelon of the Department of Justice has resigned under a cloud of scandal. Part of being held accountable is being held accountable by the voters and the congress must make that case using every tool at their disposal. If we want to drive the stake through the GOP zombie, the modern Republican party must be thoroughly discredited in the eyes of the public. Any chance they get to keep this on the public stage, with hearings and press conferences and constitutional challenges is another chance to pound it into the electorate that these people are authoritarian crooks.

Gonzo and Rove going now is another delaying tactic. The Democrats should ratchet up the pressure instead of ratcheting it down, which is clearly what the white house is going to be attempting to do.

And, naturally, the press is eating it up. The Politico’s Mike Allen on C-Span this morning:

Fred Fielding is a Village elder. I’m sure that the likes of David Broder and Tim Russert all think he is an honest broker, kind of like Howard Baker, who came in to save the Reagan administration after Iran Contra. The truth is that Howard Baker was conspiring with the Nixon white house during the Watergate hearings and Fred Fielding has been a professional GOP scandal fixer for more than two decades. Hacks R Us.

But he’s a very calm a reassuring fellow to the Village because he isn’t shrill and partisan like the DFH’s. I have little doubt that the elders all believe that he must be given a chance to rescue Junior’s reputation for the good of the country.

Those of us scruffy know-nothings from outside the Village beg to differ and we should make sure that the Democrats understand that we will be very, very, very unhappy if they take a pass on this. Harry Reid must be held to his word:

“Alberto Gonzales was never the right man for this job. He lacked independence, he lacked judgment, and he lacked the spine to say no to Karl Rove. This resignation is not the end of the story. Congress must get to the bottom of this mess and follow the facts where they lead, into the White House.“

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Bunraku

by digby

ALLAWI: Wolf, I want to save Iraq. I want to save the mission of the United States. I am building a plan. I am trying to stop the deterioration and violence in Iraq. I am trying to reverse the course in Iraq into a less sectarian, non-sectarian course. And for that reason, we have developed a plan, a six-point plan. Because of the crucial role of the United States, we are asking this firm to help us to advocate our views, the views of the nationalistic Iraqis, the non-sectarian Iraqis.

And I assure you, Wolf, that this payment is made by an Iraqi person who was a supporter of us, of the INA, of myself, of our program, and he has supported this wholeheartedly, without any strings attached.

But our objective is to develop a plan to save Iraq and to save American lives, as well as, of course, Iraqi lives, and to save the American mission in Iraq, and this is what we are looking at.

BLITZER: And the numbers that have been reported, $300,000 over six months, those numbers are accurate?

ALLAWI: I think these numbers are accurate. I am not party to the exact amount, Wolf. But these figures are really much less than the figures that are being paid by others, our adversaries, who are advocating sectarianism and having satellite stations, TV stations, daily newspapers, Web sites, and what have you, broadcast.

We don’t have this. We don’t have such support. And the support we got is from an Iraqi person. I cannot unfortunately divulge his name. He is a supporter of our program, and I don’t know the exact figure, but it is in the region that you mentioned. But the exact figure, I don’t know.

BLITZER: If you had your way, Dr. Allawi, how much longer would U.S. troops need to stay in Iraq?

ALLAWI: I think this is one of the points we made, Wolf. We need a full partnership between us and the United States — Iraq and the United States — to work around a schedule of draw down which is matched by building the institutions of Iraq, institutions loyal to the country, not loyal to the sects, which are capable of shouldering and facing the threats which are being posed on Iraq.

I think if we talk around the region of two to two-and-a-half years, if we work in a full partnership with the United States, to have a draw-down. I think we are in the right direction.

H/T to BB