Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Her Legacy

by digby

Molly Ivins: Stand up against the surge

January 11, 2007

(CREATORS) — The purpose of this old-fashioned newspaper crusade to stop the war is not to make George W. Bush look like the dumbest president ever. People have done dumber things. What were they thinking when they bought into the Bay of Pigs fiasco? How dumb was the Egypt-Suez war? How massively stupid was the entire war in Vietnam? Even at that, the challenge with this misbegotten adventure is that WE simply cannot let it continue.

It is not a matter of whether we will lose or we are losing. We have lost. Gen. John P. Abizaid, until recently the senior commander in the Middle East, insists that the answer to our problems there is not military. “You have to internationalize the problem. You have to attack it diplomatically, geo-strategically,” he said.

His assessment is supported by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who only recommend releasing forces with a clear definition of the goals for the additional troops.

Bush’s call for a “surge” or “escalation” also goes against the Iraq Study Group. Talk is that the White House has planned to do anything but what the group suggested after months of investigation and proposals based on much broader strategic implications.

About the only politician out there besides Bush actively calling for a surge is Sen. John McCain. In a recent opinion piece, he wrote: “The presence of additional coalition forces would allow the Iraqi government to do what it cannot accomplish today on its own — impose its rule throughout the country. … By surging troops and bringing security to Baghdad and other areas, we will give the Iraqis the best possible chance to succeed.” But with all due respect to the senator from Arizona, that ship has long since sailed.

A surge is not acceptable to the people in this country — we have voted overwhelmingly against this war in polls (about 80 percent of the public is against escalation, and a recent Military Times poll shows only 38 percent of active military want more troops sent) and at the polls. We know this is wrong. The people understand, the people have the right to make this decision, and the people have the obligation to make sure our will is implemented.

Congress must work for the people in the resolution of this fiasco. Ted Kennedy’s proposal to control the money and tighten oversight is a welcome first step. And if Republicans want to continue to rubber-stamp this administration’s idiotic “plans” and go against the will of the people, they should be thrown out as soon as possible, to join their recent colleagues.

Anyone who wants to talk knowledgably about our Iraq misadventure should pick up Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s “Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone.” It’s like reading a horror novel. You just want to put your face down and moan: How could we have let this happen? How could we have been so stupid?

As The Washington Post’s review notes, Chandrasekaran’s book “methodically documents the baffling ineptitude that dominated U.S. attempts to influence Iraq’s fiendish politics, rebuild the electrical grid, privatize the economy, run the oil industry, recruit expert staff or instill a modicum of normalcy to the lives of Iraqis.”

We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we’re for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush’s proposed surge. If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on January 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, “Stop it, now!”

“Today’s Virtual March on Washington to stop escalation in Iraq is dedicated to the memory of syndicated columnist and progressive movement hero, Molly Ivins.”

Join The March

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Save Junior, Impeach The Surging Dick

by poputonian

How about “IRAC” as an acronym for “Independent Republicans Against Cheney?” This would be a new example where my enemy’s enemy is my friend:

Washington insiders report that the Bush family may be the critical factor in getting rid of Cheney, a scenario which is being mooted in the media.
…In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, when asked about the Senate resolution against the “surge,” which had just been passed by the Foreign Relations Committee, Cheney boasted, “That won’t stop us . . . we are moving forward . . . the President has made his decision.”…
… with the opening statement by Special Counsel Fitzgerald in the Libby trial, on Jan. 23, in which he alleged that Cheney issued a hand-written memo to Libby on discrediting Wilson, the situation changed. Not only did Fitzgerald disclose the existence of the memo, but he charged that Libby had “wiped out” that incriminating piece of evidence.

However, reportedly through the combination of computer memory recovery methods, and the testimony of witnesses who also knew about Cheney’s memo, Fitzgerald was able to introduce the matter in his opening remarks.
…
On Jan. 25, Keith Olbermann, the host of the popular “Countdown” show on MSNBC, did a five-minute spot called, “Should Cheney Go?” He pointed to longtime Bush family operative, James Baker III, as the person who tried-and failed-to save G.W. Bush from the Cheney disaster.

Olbermann opened his show saying, “Piece by piece testimony at the Scooter Libby trial is dismantling the already tattered reputation of the nation’s Vice President, portraying him as consumed with retaliating against a serious credible critic of his attempts to sell the war. . . .”

Later in the program, Olbermann said, “Another friend of this show, Craig Crawford, reported today that Jim Baker not only led the Iraq Study Group, he was also leading a kind of a private attempt to wrench the President away from Mr. Cheney’s influence and ideology, and ultimately failed in that, judging from what the President is trying to do in Iraq now, in light of the Baker Commission. . . .”

The phrase being increasingly heard in the halls of Congress and around Washington is, “the time is now.” It is being used in the appeals from Republicans to the Bush family to save the Party and the Bush legacy-by getting Cheney out.

Take us there, Republicans.

The Irony Is That If Franken Gets Elected…

by tristero

there’ll be one less joker in the Senate.

(Yes, I know, my quip’s not on the level of an Al Franken, say, but someone had to make it.)

h/t, Dr. Black.

[Dumb grammatical error corrected.]

Clean And Bright

by digby

The other day I wrote about Marty Peretz’s not so unconscious racism toward African Americans. And lo and behold along comes Joe Biden and he sticks his big white foot in the same stupid mouth. Apparently, a lot of privileged white people really believe they aren’t racist when they separate “the blacks” between the “articulate, bright, clean” kind and “the others.” (Peretz calls the others four-flushers and race hustlers. A member of my family used to call them “The Ubangis.” You get the drift.)

The funny thing is that in a private conversation with Glenn Greenwald on the subject I said I thought it would take Obama or Deval Patrick to step in and show some solidarity with his fellow African American politicians for it to sink in.

Obama did just that, today:

I didn’t take Senator Biden’s comments personally, but obviously they are historically inaccurate. After all, we’ve had presidential candidates like Jesse jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Mosely Braun and Al Sharpton. They gave a voice to many important issues through their campaigns and no one would call them inarticulate.

Thank you. Maybe at least the people who are as clueless as Biden about their reflexive assumptions will think about it when they hold Obama up as a “different kind of negro.”

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Hearing From Our Betters

by digby

Money in politics better than some people in it

From Darren McKinney

The Jan. 24 letter to the editor from Nick Nyhart and Chellie Pingree (“Full public funding of elections proven to work in states, cities,”), respective presidents of Public Campaign and Common Cause, lament the lack of public financing for all American political campaigns: “A democracy should be about all of us and not just about those who can write huge checks.”

But if Nyhart and Pingree had their way, black helicopter conspiracy theorists off their meds, the dysfunctionally unemployed, irresponsible young men and women who have multiple babies out-of-wedlock, repeat felons and various other burdens to society without means might have as much to say about our nation’s political leadership and direction as folks who soberly get up every morning, lovingly raise their children, productively hold jobs, responsibly pay taxes, and occasionally write checks, huge or otherwise, to the political campaigns of their choosing.

Though poll taxes have rightly been abolished, and every qualified registered voter willing to wait on line should certainly be free to exercise the franchise, there’s a lot to be said — though Hillary “I Won’t Take Matching Funds” Clinton is never likely to say it — for having most of our big political decisions influenced in greater measure by those who have succeeded in life and thus have a better sense of what it’ll take for our nation to succeed in the future.

Washington, D.C.

McKinney is the former spokesman of the National Association of Manufacturers and currently represents the American Tort Reform Association.

This must be that liberal elite they keep telling us about?.

*I especially like the “willing to wait on line” to vote bit. Sweet.

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Snake Bit

by digby

We always figured that “media strategist” and WHIG member Mary Matalin was one of the authors of the Plame smear. She’s one of Cheney’s intimates, she was hired to do damage control and is a mean and nasty person. Exposing “the wife” has her style all over it.

Today, it’s revealed that it was her idea to have Libby call Russert to complain about Tweety:

Mr Libby called Matalin for advice. On July 8 he wrote down notes in which Rove said, “people are taking Wilson as a credible expert.” 2 days go by, he calls Matalin for advice. She tells him, she gives him strategy. “We need someone who can sum it up. This is fitting into Democratic story. It has legs. The story’s not going away. We need to address Wilson motivation. The President should wave his wand.”

“Call Tim,” [says]Mary Matalin, “he hates Chris, he needs to know it all.” Underneath, Mr Libby’s notes, “Wilson’s a snake.”

My, my, my all the dirty laundry is coming out. Here’s looking forward to seeing Lil Russ on the stand.

And buy Marcy Wheeler’s book “Anatomy of Deceit.” It’s really gooood.

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Believe Your Eyes

by digby

I think the thing I hate the most about Republicans is how they insult your intelligence and then dare you to challenge them on it. They installed that silly, little boy in the white house and forced us all to pretend that he was a competent leader for years or risk being called a traitor or worse even as we watched him drive the country into the ditch. They lied right in our faces about the “gathering threat” of Iraq and now they are trying to shove this bucket of swill down out throats:

The Air Force is preparing for an expanded role in Iraq that could include aggressive new tactics designed to deter Iranian assistance to Iraqi militants, senior Pentagon officials said.

The efforts could include more forceful patrols by Air Force and Navy fighter planes along the Iran-Iraq border to counter the smuggling of bomb supplies from Iran, a senior Pentagon official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing future military plans.

Such missions also could position the Air Force to strike suspected bomb suppliers inside Iraq to deter Iranian agents that U.S. officials say are assisting Iraqi militias, outside military experts said

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Yeah, right.

One of the problems with being exposed as a liar over and over again is that you have no credibility. We’ve been here before and we know that they used no-fly-zone flights to try to provoke Saddam. They even discussed the idea of disguising a U2 plane with UN insignia to provoke him. It didn’t work with Iraq, but we’d be fools to think they aren’t trying this again. This whole Iran-supplying-the-insurgents gambit stinks to high heaven.

I realize that it’s hard for people to believe they would actually start another war as this one is going so very badly. Believe it. They really do this crazy stuff as they’ve demonstrated over and over again.

It’s obvious that everyone should be mobilizing against this next war, but once again their sheer, nutty audacity seems to have paralyzed everyone. They have a real gift for making you mistrust what you are seeing with your own eyes.

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Fighting Words

by digby

Free Republic posted a YouTube video of their counter-protest on Saturday. Judge for yourself. It runs about 9 minutes, but it’s worth looking at. Clearly there was some point when people were able to walk closely by the counter-protesters on the sidewalk and it’s possible that somebody spit on Sparling during that period. It’s not captured on this film. Police are casually walking through and people are lolling about with baby strollers, so it doesn’t appear to be a very dangerous scene. (You can see a woman dressed in black who appears to be interviewing Sparling at one point. Perhaps she is the NY Times reporter who observed that he was spit on?)

The video shows the Freepers with a megaphone shouting things to the protesters and protesters shouting back. The guy with the megaphone calls them things like “nutcases” and and some protesters shout back things like “asshole.” (The tough guy freeper filmakers get very delicate when one of the protesters “drops the M—F– bomb. Mercy me!) I observe no violence, however, and no shouts of “baby-killer”, “you have blood on your hands,” “you’re just upset because you can’t run.” In fact, the worst thing most of the protesters say repeatedly is “enlist,” which I’m sure Sparling and other veterans there found particularly insulting, but which actually isn’t. The filmmakers put up some title cards that have protesters saying “go back there” but I didn’t actually hear it.

There is nothing in this footage that shows Sparling speaking at the Code Pink rally to mostly polite response earlier or standing up close to the stage and loudly booing the speakers, as has been reported. Perhaps someone else has that footage.

In this film, mostly what you see is just some people shouting back and forth across two chain link fences separated by about 30 yards and a couple of people having a heated face to face interaction. (There is a lot of focus on black faces in the crowd for some reason.)

The Freepers set up shop with their megaphone clearly seeking a response from the protesters. Nobody who watches the footage can believe that they weren’t asking for a response. They were “march trolls” being deliberately provocative, looking for trouble. All they got was some people shouting back at them, as far as I could tell. That they are now complaining about how terrible they were treated shows them to be whining little children. Please.

They are perfectly within their rights to do what they did. But the protesters were also perfectly within their rights to shout back. This is still America, the last I heard, and nobody is required to be polite to Freepers with a megaphone.

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Someone’s Completely Lost His Marbles.

by tristero

And he happens to be the president of the United States:

“I would suggest moving back,” Bush said as he climbed into the cab of a massive D-10 tractor. “I’m about to crank this sucker up.” As the engine roared to life, White House staffers tried to steer the press corps to safety, but when the tractor lurched forward, they too were forced to scramble for safety.”Get out of the way!” a news photographer yelled. “I think he might run us over!” said another. White House aides tried to herd the reporters the right way without getting run over themselves. Even the Secret Service got involved, as one agent began yelling at reporters to get clear of the tractor. Watching the chaos below, Bush looked out the tractor’s window and laughed, steering the massive machine into the spot where most of the press corps had been positioned.

And of course, immediately afterwards, Dick Cheney shot ’em all in the face.

Special note to those amongst us who think I don’t understand towel-slapping rough play fratboy-style pranks. You’re absolutely right, when the president does them. In Fort Worth Texas, on the morning of his death, John F. Kennedy was filmed accepting the gift of a cowboy hat while appearing at the Chamber of Commerce. He was urged to put it on so the press could take pictures. He looked at it, clearly decided it would be undignified for the president of the United States to do so. So he smiled broadly and said he’d be glad to pose in it, back in Washingon, the following Monday.

Kewl Kid High

by digby

John Kerry is a decent man and he doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment by the low-life little creeps who make up the DC press corps. This snotty derision from a bunch of overpaid, useless, psychologically stunted twits is a new low.

The kewl kidz are back on top and they are sharpening their claws on Democrats again. From their nasty little Clenis fantasies to talking about Hillary’s “girl humor” to making shit up about John Kerry crying when he bowed out of ’08, it’s obvious that they are gonna party like it’s 1999. I can’t believe it.

Update: The Queen Bee weighs in on Senator Clinton. It’s not too nasty.

This is interesting, though:

She uttered the most irritating and disingenuous nine words in politics: “If we had known then what we know now. …”

Jim Webb knew. Barack Obama knew. Even I knew, for Pete’s sake. The administration’s trickery was clear in real time.

She’s right, of course. But, Maureen Dowd has a twice weekly column in the NY Times, the most valuable journalistic real estate in the world. Does anyone remember her saying anything about that?

Update II: Actually, I stand corrected. I just went and looked and she did. The problem is that nobody took her seriously because she explained it like this:

”My head hurts. Pillow, puh-leeze! I can’t find a way out of the Middle East, and if it blows sky high, I can’t invade Iraq in time for the 2004 election and I’ll lose the war on terror. I could end up a one-termer, just like Poppy. How did a creep like Clinton manage two?

To her credit she did write this in August of 2002, which was very early:

Like a buoyant Dr. Evil holding a napping Bush Mini-Me in a Snugli, Mr. Cheney seems to relish running the world alone. Consider how primary the secondary man is. Without Mr. Cheney, America would not be planning to invade Iraq. Who else understands why the U.S. is starting a war without provocation for the first time in its history?

Perhaps everyone should have been reading Modo for foreign policy punditry instead of Tom Friedman.

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