Month: October 2007

Hello?

by digby

Let’s take a little trip down memory lane, shall we?

Wednesday, June 22, 2005; A06

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) yesterday offered a tearful apology on the Senate floor for comparing the alleged abuse of prisoners by American troops to techniques used by the Nazis, the Soviets and the Khmer Rouge, as he sought to quell a frenzy of Republican-led criticism.

[…]

The week-long Republican campaign against Durbin shifted attention from the subject of the senator’s initial statement: allegations that terrorism suspects are being mistreated at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Critics have called for the base to be closed, but defenders, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, say there are no alternatives.

Durbin had prefaced his remarks, delivered June 14 on the Senate floor, by noting that for two years he had sought congressional hearings on the treatment of detainees. Then he cited an FBI account of how Guantanamo prisoners had been chained to their cells in extreme temperatures and deprived of food and water.

“If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings,” Durbin said. “Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.”

Quick to pounce were conservative Web commentators and radio talk-show hosts, followed by other media outlets with a strong conservative following, including Fox News and the Washington Times. Conservative activists who ordinarily take little interest in foreign affairs weighed in as well. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, issued a statement June 16 calling Durbin’s remarks “grossly unfair and hurtful.”

“They are extremely well organized,” Durbin said in an interview, referring to the conservative movement. “And, inevitably, they drag the mainstream media behind them.”

Comments from the White House and other elected officials helped to keep the spotlight on Durbin. Also on June 16 , White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the remarks “reprehensible” and “a real disservice to our men and women in uniform who adhere to high standards and uphold our values and our laws.”

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) called for a Senate censure of Durbin. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) wrote on Monday to Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), urging him to “encourage” Durbin to “apologize for and withdraw his remarks.”

[…]

Late Friday, Durbin’s office issued a statement saying that the senator regretted it if his statement had been misconstrued. “I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood,” he said.

But as the days unfolded, the story continued to dominate the conservative media while cropping up repeatedly in more traditional news outlets.

The Anti-Defamation League on Thursday joined lawmakers and other groups in calling for an apology for comparing the activities of U.S. troops to those of Nazis. Then, Chicago’s Democratic mayor, Richard M. Daley, declared: “I think it’s a disgrace to say that any man or woman in the military would act like that.”

That was one of the all-time best hissy kabukis ever. Brilliant. Wellstone funeral level brilliant. The people who had taken to the floor of the congress just a few years before calling FBI agents “jack booted thugs” forced Durbin to grovel and even cry. What else could he do? The right wing slime machine and the political establishment were all over him like a bunch of rabid dogs.

Here’s the adorable cartoon the Limbaugh Letter ran at the time:

So, what are we going to do about this?

Wednesday, October 17, 2007; 5:41 PM

Mukasey also sharply criticized a Justice Department legal opinion issued early in the Bush administration, and since rescinded, that narrowly defined the acts that constitute torture and laid the legal groundwork for the use of harsh interrogation techniques on U.S. detainees.

Calling the memo “a mistake” and “unnecessary,” Mukasey said torture violates U.S. laws and pointed to the role of American troops in liberating Nazi concentration camps during World War II. “We didn’t do that so we could then duplicate it ourselves,” he said.

Anybody?

Chirp, chirp???

Update: Heh. John Cole’s trip down memory lane on this one is much more colorful.

Update II: Speaking of Nazis and Pol Pot, whah???

“If nations concert to impose antiwarming measures commensurate with the hyperbole about the danger, the damage to global economic growth could cause in this century more preventable death and suffering than was caused in the last century by Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot combined. Nobel Peace Prize, indeed.”

How big is that fainting couch anyway?

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Feeding The Beast

by digby

Greg Sargent wonders what would happen if Democrats had pulled a stunt like one Mitch McConnell did the other day when he allowed (approved?) his staffer disseminating unconfirmed smears against the Frost family and then lied about it to the press. I’m sure the Republicans would go mad and the press would rush to cover it. The GOP motto, after all, is Hissy Fits R Us. But I don’t think that’s the whole answer.

Journalists will say that using political “oppo research” is a legitimate way to get tips, as long as they always check them out before they run with them. Fair enough. But what they fail to acknowledge is that this allows the best story-planters to set the agenda for coverage, and the best story-planters are those who know how to get the media interested.

And after watching them for the past two decades very closely, I think it’s obvious that what interests the media more than anything is access and gossip and vicious little smears piled one atop the other. And why not? They are easy to report, require no mind numbing shuffling of financial reports or struggling through arcane policy papers. In fact, the press has made a virtue of the simple-mindedness by calling what used to be known as gossip, “character issues”, which are used to stand in for judgment about policy.

The press, therefore, will go to great lengths to protect the people who give them what they crave, most of whom happen to be Republicans since character smears are their very special talent. There was a reason why Rove and Libby used “the wife sent him on a boondoggle” line. Stories about Edwards and his hair and Hillary and her cold, calculating cleavage are the coin of the realm.

Why we see so little of the same kind of feeding frenzies on the other side isn’t hard to fathom. Nobody is spoon-feeding them to the press with just the kind of cutesy meanness they prefer. (And frankly, the press is scared of the Republicans, probably for good reason.) In fact, the very nastiness of the Frost smear may have been its original selling point. If it had turned out to be even slightly verifiable — and if the liberal blogosphere hadn’t fought back vociferously — I have little doubt that the corporate media would have gleefully run with it, insisting that the Frosts “come forward” and submit themselves to some talking robot like Katie Couric or Scott Pelley.

The reason they won’t pursue McConnell unless absolutely forced to do so (if that’s even possible) is because they are implicated in stories like this. You’ll notice that nobody in the press revealed that they had received that memo. But we know they did. John Roberts of CNN proved it and plenty of others are thanking their lucky stars that they got the word before they were the ones who blurted out the juicy talking points on the air without checking. They all know it could have been them.

But even though that was a close call, the last thing in the world they want is for Mitch McConnell’s stooges and others like them to stop sending those delightfully bitchy tid-bits over the transom. Why, that would be as bad as being kicked off the Kewl Kidz High cheerleading squad.

This story actually sheds some light on why gossip ..er “character issues” are so useful to the right wing:

Gossip is more powerful than truth, a study showed on Monday, suggesting people believe what they hear through the grapevine even if they have evidence to the contrary.

Researchers, testing students using a computer game, also found gossip played an important role when people make decisions, said Ralf Sommerfeld, an evolutionary biologist at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, who led the study.

“We show that gossip has a strong influence… even when participants have access to the original information as well as gossip about the same information,” the researchers wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Thus, it is evident that gossip has a strong manipulative potential.”

And that is exactly why the Republicans use it so successfully and why the media busybodies are committing malpractice when they eagerly pass it on, even if they’re marginally true.

H/T to Julia

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He Said/She Said/Braindead

by digby

There has been a lot of discussion about the egregious coverage of the Gore Nobel prize in the Washington Post but I haven’t heard much about this catch from Mediabloodhound:

So Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize today for his years of work on global climate change, and what does The New York Times decide to do?

Representative of the most shameless type of “Fair and Balanced” reporting, made popular by Fox News and long de rigeur in our mainstream press, The Times very prominently placed reader comments on the front page of its online edition – specifically, in sets of two directly beneath photos of Mr. Gore, giving two sides to an issue on which the scientific community has already reached a consensus: man has, and is, contributing to the warming of the planet and we must take substantive action before it’s too late.

The Times ran this feature on its homepage for at least two and a half hours today, but possibly much longer. I noticed it around 10:30 a.m. By 1 p.m., The Times removed these dueling he said/she saids altogether and, much less conspicuously, placed the link “Share Your Thoughts | Read Comments” in the sixth and very last bullet under the photo (then of Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won along with Gore).

Here are just three different sets of these Foxified couplings

Beneath a photo captioned “Al and Tipper Gore at the Academy Awards in February”:

Comment by Elmer Stobbe: “Junk science prevails, and the Pope of junk science is rewarded.”

Comment by Ethan C.: “Nothing like a Nobel Peace Prize to tell the world that there’s a real crisis.”

Under a photo captioned “Al and Tipper Gore with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon in September”:

Comment by Liana: “You don’t have to politically like Gore, but at least realize what he has done for global awareness of our enviornment [sic]!”

Comment by William: “Nobel is probably spinning in his grave….Another left wing triumph over science and logic.”

Rotated comments beneath the same photo:

Comment by Michael Williams: “[Gore’s] own actions and lifestyle are in contradiction to the policies/actions that his film supports.”

Comment by James Law: “If Gore won’t run, then Hillary must appoint him as the head of the E.P.A.”

The screen shots are at the Mediabloodhound link.

I know that I don’t need to explain that while everyone has free speech, the paper of record has no obligation in the name of “balance” to print lies or nonsense just because some bozo spews them. None of those critical comments were worthy, necessary or true.

Furthermore, climate change is simply not something you can discuss this way unless you feature the comments of tens of thousands of scientists who agree with Gore vs one or two who don’t, most of whom work for big business. That would be an accurate representation of the “balance” on this issue.

The way this country’s media reflexively treat Al Gore is disgusting. I don’t know what kind of problems these people have with “the egghead” or “nerd” or whatever, but every time they do this stuff they reveal more about themselves than Gore. I’ve never seen anything like this — even on a day when he wins one of the most prestigious honors in the world, they still behave like junior high school bitches. It’s astounding.

I mean, come on:

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Beta Testing Their Product

by digby

This Gallup Poll on SCHIP shows some very interesting data on people’s attitudes on health care. If Democrats think this issue is in the bag, they’d better think again. Remember, most people in this country have health care and even if it’s inadequate they aren’t faced with the problems with the system unless they get sick. And they see no reason to spend money on people who they think should be able to “take care of themselves.” In other words, they don’t understand the health care crisis.

The Democrats’ 2007 reauthorization bill for SCHIP, passed earlier this year with bipartisan support, would have more than doubled the current annual budget for the program by raising eligibility to those earning up to $62,000, and nearly doubling the number of children enrolled by 2012. Bush vetoed the bill on Oct. 3 on the grounds that it would provide encouragement for people to leave private health insurance and effectively be a step toward socialized medicine. His proposed alternative would continue funding at the current income level.When the funding difference between the Democratic bill and Bush’s plan is described to respondents (see precise wording of the question below), a slight majority say they prefer Bush’s plan.

And the brainwashing has been thorough and relentless:

Americans are also generally sympathetic to Bush’s concern about the program leading to socialized medicine. Fifty-five percent say they are very or somewhat concerned that expanding the program would create an incentive for middle-class Americans to drop their private health insurance to enroll in the program. Another 25% say they are not too concerned about this, while only 17% say they are not at all concerned.

There’s much to quibble with in the form of the question and the way the numbers are presented. (Gallup even admits as much.) But I doubt this is wholly inaccurate. A great many people in this country believe that the misfortunes that befall others are their own fault but if something bad happens in their own lives it’s just bad luck. Perhaps that’s human nature. But one of the purposes of the rightwing’s assault on reason is to make it impossible to make abstract arguments. And unless you are currently enmeshed in the health care system without insurance or dealing with expensive treatments, this is an abstract issue.

Back in 92 many of us were convinced that the time had come. The Democrats finally controlled the government, the country was barely emerging from an ugly recession, (which throws a lot of previously covered workers into the pool of uninsured) and some races around the country had been fueled from the grassroots on a health care reform platform. The conditions were optimal. But it failed , for many reasons, (including the way it was negotiated and sold) but mostly because the Republicans were able to effectively demagogue the fears of losing what you have as opposed to the Democrats who had to explain a complicated formula for protecting you against something that may not happen.

Throughout this battle it’s been inexplicable to me that Junior has held the line on the SCHIP expansion. This one seemed easy, helpful to the struggling Republicans. But it’s clear that they are building their argument against universal health care just as the Democrats are building theirs for it. They recognize that the politics of this are so important that it’s even worth sacrificing a few seats for if that’s what it takes. (They’re unlikely to win back the majority anyway, and they know it.)

From Bill Kristol’s famous 1994 memo:

A simple, green-eyeshade criticism of the president’s health care plan–on the grounds that it’s numbers don’t add up (they don’t), or that it costs too much (it does), or that it will kill jobs and disrupt the economy (it will)–is fine as far as it goes, but it is not enough. Such opposition can only win concessions on the way to a “least bad” compromise.

But passage of the Clinton health care plan in any form would be disastrous. It would guarantee an unprecedented federal intrusion into the American economy. Its success would signal the rebirth of centralized welfare-state policy at the very moment that such policy is being perceived as a failure in other areas. And, not least, it would destroy the present breadth and quality of the American health care system, the world’s finest.

The stakes are much higher now. The Republicans have been shown to be almost supernaturally incompetent at actual governance and the country is looking to the Democrats for answers. In 1994, the conservative movement was peaking. On the politics, it is even more important to Republicans defeat the Democrats on this issue than it was then. They are strategizing now for that battle. (I presume that the Democrats are too, but their task is going to be — as always — more difficult because of the differences I outlines above.)

I’m hopeful that the public is tired of the rightwing’s nasty, selfish tone and are going to turn, for emotional reasons as much as anything, to a more hopeful, optimistic view that problems can be solved and the future can be better. I’m not holding my breath. This is an ugly time.

Update: Well, hell. Here’s a new poll done by NPR, the Kaiser Foundation and the Harvard School of Public health that shows much stronger support for SCHIP and much less support for the idea that it’s a step toward “socialized medicine.” I sincerely hope that this is a more accurate reflection of where the country is. I stand by my belief that the Republicans believe that it is imperative for their own political health to defeat health care reform. I also think they may be right in thinking that failure to enact it will be extremely harmful to Democrats as well. In other words, this is a do or die issue for the Democrats. They need to get it done or risk putting a final nail in the coffin of the citizenry’s extremely fragile belief in government. But it isn’t going to be as easy politically as we may think here in the blogopsheric bubble. There’s a lot of ejumakitin’ to do.

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Village X-Treme

by digby

It occurs to me that I haven’t seen a bunch of conservative writers and thinkers publicly rending their garments over how the Stalkin’ Malkin brigade and Rush Limbaugh have hurt the GOP cause with their jihad against the SCHIP kids. Sure, there have been some mentions, as with this WSJ article, about “the controversy.” But to the best of my knowledge, there have been zero long think pieces about how these extremists are going to alienate the Republican party from Real Americans or how they are dragging the party over the cliff with their impulsive and impolitic activities. I certainly haven’t seen any calls from within the Republican establishment for the GOP to distance itself from their tactics or risk being tagged as captive to a radical political faction.

Odd, don’t you think?

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Nutcracker Fever

by digby

Here are Tucker Carlson and Cliff May talkin’ bout bitches ‘n shit.

CARLSON: Gene, this is an amazing statistic: 94 percent of women say they’d be more likely to vote if a woman were on the ballot. I think of all the times I voted for people just because they’re male. You know? The ballot comes up, and I’m like, “Wow. He’s a dude. I think I’ll vote for him. We’ve got similar genitalia. I’m — he’s getting my vote.” ROBINSON: Look, you didn’t have a choice all those times you were voting, right? You didn’t have a choice of genitalia to vote for. CARLSON: No, but when I do, I just — I always vote the man. Because, I don’t know — come on. […]
MAY: Because if gender solidarity trumps all other interests, I think that’s kind of sad. I don’t think racial or religious solidarity should trump all interests, either. CARLSON: Do you think that people who are voting on the basis of gender solidarity ought to be allowed to vote in a perfect world? Of course they shouldn’t be allowed to vote on those grounds. That’s like — that’s moronic. I’m sorry. I know I’m going to get bounced off the air for saying it, but that’s true. ROBINSON: That doesn’t trump all other characteristics. There are a lot of women who are going to vote for Republicans in November because they’re conservative. CARLSON: I’m not saying women shouldn’t vote for Hillary at all. I’m merely saying the obvious: that you shouldn’t vote for her because she’s a woman. Here’s what the Clinton campaign says: “Hillary isn’t running as a woman. As Hillary says, she’s not running as a woman candidate. The only reason to vote for her is that you believe she’s the most qualified to be president.” Well, that’s actually completely false, considering the Hillary campaign — and I get their emails — relentlessly pushes the glass ceiling argument. “You should vote for her because she’s a woman.” They say that all the time. She just said that on The View. I mean, that’s like their rationale. MAY: At least call her a Vaginal-American, as opposed to — CARLSON: Is that the new phrase? MAY: I think that is, yeah. CARLSON: Boy, that’s nasty. I don’t think I can say that. ROBINSON: No, you don’t say that. CARLSON: I shouldn’t say that? I’m not going attempt it. No, no.

Carlson has well documented issues with Clinton, whom he says makes him “cross his legs” every time he hears her voice. Evidently his “instinctive” revulsion is a perfectly valid reaction, but women who are inspired by the fact that she is the first woman in history to be a serious candidate for president are thinking with their twats. Whatever. His point is so stupid it’s not even worth refuting.

I can only speak for myself, but guys like May and Carlson are why this woman thinks that “Dickhead-Americans” (also known as “Republicans”) have reached the end of their run. This snotty little bully routine has just grown tiresome. Regardless of whether they have a penis or vagina, thinking people are sick of this bullshit.

And by the way, if you want to see a Dickhead-American who makes Lil’ Tuckie and Cliff look mature by comparison, check out Dan Riehl, from our friends at Sadly No!.

As Atrios says, “the stupid … it burns…”

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Valuez

by digby

With the latest attack on a working family whose child is insured under the SCHIP plan, I hope the contours of the argument are crystal clear and that the Democrats understand what is really being said here:

Like the Frost family, the Wilkerson family has already become the subject of right-wing attacks. Michelle Malkin — whose baseless smear campaign against 12-year old Graeme Frost was deemed too bogus for even Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — is now trying to rally the right against Bethany. Heralding the arrival of a “new toddler-aged human shield,” Malkin writes that “the Wilkersons made a choice” — a seeming reference to the fact that Malkin now believes she has the license to attack the Wilkersons for their public support of SCHIP. “We need more ‘partisan bickering,’ not less,” added Malkin. Malkin’s not alone in her rage. In a piece entitled “Meet the New Frosts, Same As the Old Frosts,” the National Review’s Mark Hemingway attacks the Wilkersons as irresponsible parents:

While the debate around the Frost family at least initially centered around their relative wealth, the issue really at hand is one of bad behavior. […] For Dara and Brian Wilkerson, the fact that they don’t have health insurance is less about falling through the cracks than the decisions they’ve made.

This is what Republicans call “solutions to problems:” all of you people who work in jobs that don’t offer health insurance, and can’t afford the ridiculously expensive private health care plans that are available, well, you need to get a job that provides health insurance for your whole family — or don’t have kids.

Oh, and while you’re at it, you’d better be prepared to do whatever it takes to keep that job no matter what, especially if your kid gets sick, because if you find yourself without health insurance for any reason it will be because it was your choice. This is what Republicans call “freedom.”

In the earlier Frost family smear, this attitude was manifest with the criticisms of Mr and Mrs Frost for working “intermittently” and failing to get a “real job.” Implicit in all of this is that every parent in this country has an obligation to either work for someone who provides health insurance for their families —- or be rich. The alternatives — entrepreneurial risk taking, working for retail employers like Walmart or restaurants which fail to provide health insurance, is something that no responsible parent would do. Therefore, that sector of the economy is completely off limits to middle class families. And that is the only sector of the economy that’s actually growing.

(Oh, and by the way, those health insurance providing companies which all responsible middle class should work for are under no obligation to these employees with kids who indenture themselves for the benefit. They are allowed to pull back this coverage any time they want, raise the contributions and fire the employees at will. That’s what Republicans call “liberty.”)

Republicans apparently believe this is a good way to run a dynamic economy that’s undergoing massive change and adjusting to global competition. But they are, as usual, wrong. In order to encourage the kind of risk-taking and innovation that’s required of the United States economy in the next few decades, people are simply going to have to be able to take chances with their employment at the same time that they have kids. Our broken health insurance market makes that more and more impossible. That’s what right wing ideologues call a “choice.”

Of course, this doesn’t actually have much to do with health care or the economy, does it? This is about the right wing hit squad doing everything it can to intimidate people who speak out in favor of progressive programs. (When they are in the minority, this is where their focus lies — character assassination.) However, underlying this destructive sniping is a serious idea, and it is that children are a privilege that only those with means should be allowed to have. (This translates to the idea that sex is a privilege as well, since they don’t believe in abortion and birth control.) This is a very old trope and one which conflicts directly with one of conservatism’s most important arguments: family values. (Interestingly, it’s a common belief among authoritarian aristocrats and communist totalitarians alike.)

That’s where the Democrats need to make their stand. “Family values” Republicans value war, guns, blastocysts, all-powerful government police agencies (when they are in charge of them) and huge corporations, period. They hate taxes and anyone but themselves. When confronted with an economic problem where the working, taxpaying parents of sick children can’t afford the monstrous burden of over-priced health insurance for their kids, their answer to the problem is a simple, “don’t have kids.” It’s obvious by both their rhetoric and their policies that Republicans don’t value families so let’s take that lie off the table right along with their completely discredited claims that they have “honor and integrity” and they are good at economic stewardship and national security.

The only thing they have left is that they believe in low taxes. That may be enough for the 28 percenters, but I doubt seriously if the rest of the country find that very inspiring.

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In The Drivers Seat

by digby

Real men love Rudy:

Rudy Giuliani is taking the checkered flag when it comes to campaign donations from the NASCAR community.

It may seem an odd pairing…a former New York City mayor with stock car racers and executives. But Giuliani’s third quarter fundraising report shows he’s collected donations from drivers Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, and Casey Mears, according to the New York Daily News.

Each gave the maximum donation allowed to a presidential primary campaign- $2300. Giuliani also took in money from NASCAR chairman Brian France, and Rick Hendrick, owner of NASCAR’s dominant team

It’s hard to know all the reasons why these famously macho, red blooded, salt-of-the-earth Real Americans love Rudy so much, but I for one am heartened by it. That they feel comfortable openly supporting a man who is all over the internet wearing a dress is good news. Maybe we can finally get beyond all these old fashioned male stereotypes once and for all.

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Toddler Destruction

by digby

There is literally nothing they won’t do, no matter how ridiculous it makes them look or how embarrassing it is for their movement and their party. Like toddlers going through the terrible twos their only response to anything with which they disagree is childish destruction.

Al Gore wins the Nobel prize and this is the inevitable response:

One person we’re betting won’t be reacting so kindly is attorney, author, and talk radio host Mark R. Levin of the Landmark Legal Foundation, which earlier this year responded to Gore’s nomination for the Nobel by trying to put forward Rush Limbaugh’s name. Yesterday on his radio show, an exasperated Levin vowed to open an investigation into alleged “untoward, unethical behavior” if Gore won the prize, claiming that he’s been “…getting word that there’s been a lot of behind-the-scenes lobbying for Al Gore.” He added that, “I would hate for a scandal to break out…but something stinks already. I’m not sure what it is…”

[…]

Levin’s forthcoming “investigation” has been in the works for many months. Back in March, his pal Limbaugh was claiming that a Gore lecture in Oslo that was attended (and called “a very important message”) by the chairman of the Nobel committee somehow constituted improper “lobbying,” and suggested that Landmark might take action:

LIMBAUGH: My lawyers at the Landmark Legal Foundation are looking into the possibility of filing an objection with the Nobel committee over the unethical tampering for this award that Al Gore is engaging in. This is clearly above and beyond the pale. I mean, this might happen in high school class president elections and so forth, but this is shameless.

It’s ridiculous, of course, comic in its absurdity — a joke. Except it actually isn’t. They start these stupid campaigns and keep at it for years and years and years until they are able to convince the dimwitted talk radio crowd and the Village gossips that there must be something to it or people wouldn’t keep talking about it. (“Where there’s smoke there’s fie-yere…”)

They want to discredit the Nobel Peace Prize (probably all the Nobel prizes, actually — after all, they reward science and literature, both of which are anathemas to rightwing thinking.) Racist, warmongering authoritarians only win it if they actually make peace, and that is something the modern conservative movement adherent rarely does, although there have been a few, like Kissinger and Deklerk, who’ve won them. In any case, those awards also recognize the peacemaking of the former enemy which completely invalidates the honor for these puerile narcissists.

Today they are very upset that their enemy, Al Gore, won the prize. He’s supposed to be a whacked-out, crazy liar, you see, not someone who is validated by people all over the world as a leader and a visionary. So,they are going to have to take down the validators. One way to start doing that is to pretend that Rush Limbaugh, of all people, is entitled to the honor and that Al Gore “lobbied” for the prize and won it.

Mark Levin is a professional political hitman. He won’t be able to singlehandedly destroy the Nobel Prize, but he and his fellow assassins may very well keep this theme going for years. Since the whole concept of peace is antithetical to everything they believe in they won’t rest until a large number of people in this country no longer believe that winning the Nobel Peace Prize is one of the greatest honors that a person can have bestowed upon them. (Unless a rightwinger wins one all by himself, at which point it will, temporarily be something worth having.) Since that is unlikely, I suspect we will simply see another rightwing toddler destruction campaign. It’s what they do.

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Curveball

by tristero

Here’s an interview with Bob Drogin who wrote a book about Curveball, the Iraqi refugee who invented, out of thin air, Saddam’s reconstituted WMD program and whose lies were used by Bush to invade Iraq, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity (as Ann “The Perfected One” Coulter put it). His conclusion is that it is groundless conspiracy-theory mongering to claim the neo-cons really are to blame. It’s the CIA, who bought Curveball’s lies and passed them upwards who were the main actors at fault for Bush/Iraq.

There’s a problem with that scenario, namely the inconvenient truth that a gaggle of neocons, chickenhawks and related birdbrains wrote a letter to President Clinton in 1998, one year before Curveball defected from Iraq to Germany and started lying to support his asylum request. There is also abundant evidence that the Bush administration intended to invade Iraq from the earliest days of his regime.

In short, Curveball’s lies were useful, but not necessary. There really was (still is) a “Cabal.” That was the actual word used – as “self-mockery,” to be sure – by the Office of Special Plans, conceived by Wolfowitz to fix the intelligence around the policy of invading Iraq. And they really wanted to invade Iraq as the first part of an intended large scale regional war. And Bush was in agreement with the Cabal, long before 9/11, and probably long before anyone in his administration ever heard of Curveball.

Drogin urges us to accept the incompetence line about Bush, et al as the main reason for Bush/Iraq, essentially that the administration was misled by bad intelligence analysis by the CIA and failed to vet that intelligence carefully. Bush’s decision was “political” but presumably justifiable to Drogin, given what the White House knew. (Drogin also thinks that “Judy” Miller did a good job as a reporter, given what she knew at the time.)

First of all, it is easy to agree with Drogin that Bush is hopelessly incompetent. What Drogin fails to understand is that advocating and executing an invasion of Iraq for no good reason whatsoever is prima facie evidence of that incompetence and it was quite clear to most of the world that he had no good reasons despite the Curveballed intelligence. Also, there is nothing about being incompetent that precludes conspiring – in fact, one could argue that the two go together quite nicely, like Larry Craig and public toilets.

Furthermore, there is no question that the CIA fucked up royally, but it is not clear that they did so primarily in the way Drogin claims. Hersh’s story – that the CIA was essentially spineless and, after an enormous amount of vice-presidential arm-twisting, reported what Bush wanted reported – smells like the truth, given what we know about the way the Bush administration coerces so many people in so many different areas to do their wacky bidding.

Finally, while it looks as if Drogin has done some good work in fleshing out the Curveball story, including his complicated relationship with Chalabi’s gang, the overall picture he is trying to create – that the invasion and conquest of Iraq was, no matter how badly managed, a reasonable response to incompetent intelligence – is simply wrong. The neocons really did, and still are, pushing as hard as they can for a regional war in the Middle East. Bush really did greenlight this foreign policy from the earliest days, and the CIA – while no doubt riddled with serious problems including rampant incompetence – was coerced into manufacturing reports that were in agreement with these goals. Drogin asks:

I’ve never quite understood … the fixation that people have to try and prove that George Bush or George Tenet or somebody else deliberately lied. I mean, they took us into a war based on shockingly insufficient evidence; isn’t that bad enough?

Yes, it is. But that’s not all that happened.