Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Embracing The New Conservatism

by poputonian

David Sirota writing in the December issue of In These Times:

Candidates all over the country talked about how corporate lobbyists have manipulated our trade policy to crush workers, our energy policy to harm consumers and our health care policy to hurt families. Polls show populism (a.k.a., challenging corporate economic power) is the “center” position for the voting public, even though it may not be the “center” position in a K-Street-owned Washington, D.C.

Since the election, Washington’s elite have tried to deny progressives credit and to downplay a mandate that threatens their agenda. These revisionists say the election was about Democrats pretending to be Republicans, billing people like Virginia Senator-elect Jim Webb as a “conservative.” Yet here is what this “conservative” wrote in a Nov. 15 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “Class Struggle”:

The most important—and unfortunately the least debated—issue in politics today is our society’s steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America’s top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. … The top 1 percent now takes in an astounding 16 percent of national income, up from 8 percent in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.

If that is the new “conservative,” progressives won an even bigger victory than we thought.

Yupperz. He goes on:

This is a difficult time for Beltway lobbyists and corporate front-groups like the Democratic Leadership Council. It hurts them to see how populism was the Democrats’ ticket. But the elite are not contrite, rather they babble—”Vital dynamic center! Vital dynamic center!” We can understand their outbursts—it hurts to be rejected—but they are just going to have to deal. As winning candidates from Virginia to Kansas to Montana proved, the strategy of repeating lobbyist-written talking points to win red states belongs in the historical scrap heap. It’s the Era of Populism now.

Read his brief article at the link. (Sorry for the typo in the post title.)

State Of Failure

by poputonian

I can’t remember if it was Stewart or Olbermann who spot-lighted Bush’s recent speech where he repeated the slogan “sectarian violence” about a hundred times. The boy-President was repudiating his own responsibility for said violence (by blaming it on Al-Qaeda) but was also refusing to acknowledge what others were calling a civil war. On this latter point, I think he might be on to something. From Christy quoting Joe Wilson:

The problem is we are so far down the road on the way to chaos that there may not be any way to stop this until all sides are exhausted. The question is not whether the situation has become a civil war but rather whether it has degenerated from a civil war to out and out anarchy and a failed state.

What Joe said.

Natural Allies

by digby

TPM Cafe’s Election central thinks that John Edwards’ decision to appear at Pasadena’s All Saints Church (which is being investigated by the IRS for an anti-war sermon) is a maneuver to get the anti-war vote.

It may be, but I think it also might be a more general (and savvy) move to curry favor with liberal Christians. They are starting to organize themselves in a more explicitly political way — partially to save themselves from a rightwing onslaught, but also because the left in general is simply organizing itself in a whole lot of new ways. If Edwards is smart enough to be looking for these organizing mechanisms and making a direct appeal, good for him. I believe that Democratic candidates who are looking beyond the usual suspects are going to be better positioned for 2008. The action is outside the beltway.

.

Be Careful What You Ask For

by digby

St John’s not getting much sleep tonight.

In a surprise twist in the debate over Iraq, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, the soon-to-be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he wants to see an increase of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops as part of a stepped up effort to ‘dismantle the militias.’

McCain’s the big tough guy who’s been saying 20,000 more troops is the answer. What happens if he gets them? Does he flip flop and say it was too late after all when things don’t go well? Does he blame the troops for not being able to get the job done? It’s quite the dilemma for the man who thought he had a fool proof way to run as the only one in Washington who knew how to fight and win the war like a man.

.

Space Cookies

by digby

Kevin Drum wonders why NASA is all excited about going to the moon.

Valuable minerals? Manufacturing of rocket fuel and “other materials”? Scientific laboratories? Did they crib this stuff out of a science fiction novel from the 50s? The scientific community seems barely able to think up anything useful to do with the International Space Station, and that even has zero gee as a selling point.

I love the space program, but if we’re going to spend a few hundred billion dollars on this program shouldn’t they at least pretend that they’re going to accomplish something?

Oh, they are. They are:

Space Policy.

Though the Bush administration’s attempts to realize a Pax Americana in the Middle East is the subject of sustained international debate, there’s been less attention to the White House’s dream of American hegemony in space. (This isn’t an accident: The current National Space Policy was released to the public at a moment when few reporters were around—5 p.m. on October 6, the beginning of Columbus Day weekend.) The Defense Department now has orders to “deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests.”

Exactly what this means in practical terms remains to be seen. But as Aviation Week and Space Technology recently reported, the new directive now has “military space commanders… discussing ‘space control’ and ‘space superiority’ issues with unusual candor” after years of those “politically sensitive terms [being] off limits.” Among the few Democrats who appear to have taken notice is Al Gore, who, according to the magazine, told the audience at a recent private conference that this “may be the most serious strategic error in the entire history of the United States of America.” Will Bob Gates be sympathetic, opposed, or indifferent to letting generals with stars in their eyes push the new policy to the limits? Stay tuned.

Never let it be said that the Republicans are not focused. No matter what happens they just keep right on going with every harebrained scheme any crazed wingnut ever dreamed up on a AEI week-end acid trip.

Maybe somebody needs to ask St. John McCain about this.

.

Understanding The Moment

by digby

Chris Bowers wrote a very poignant post about Barack Obama that expresses the bewildered dismay I think I lot of us feel when we read or hear our leaders still using us as a foil to distance themselves from their own base. It’s so disheartening to see someone we hope will be a brilliant leader make the mistake of running against the Party just when it is finding a new sense of unity — and the other side is having an identity crisis.

It’s worth recalling where these “Sistah Souljah” impulses came from and look at whether they make any sense in today’s politics. The term applies to Bill Clinton’s repudiation of some hot rhetoric after the LA riots, which happened smack in the middle of the presidential campaign. Souljah, a political activist and writer/rapper, had been widely quoted (out of context) in the mainstream media as saying, “if Black people kill Black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?” Clinton responded to that comment with “If you took the words ‘white’ and ‘black’ and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech.”

This was interpreted as part of his “centrist” campaign to be tough on crime and welfare, which, after twelve years of Welfare Queen and Willie Horton demagoguing, was deemed to be a necessary step to Democrats taking back the presidency. (In those days, remember, the GOP lizard brain appeals were more directly racial. They hadn’t yet adopted their new language of religious code to obscure their regional and racist strategy.) Clinton had made the calculation that if he could neutralize those issues and run on an economic message aimed at the middle class, he could win. (It was also an attempt to marginalize Jesse Jackson, at that time a major institutional player in the party, and widely considered to be a drag on the Democrats’ presidential chances in the south.) The three days of televised riots presented a very serious threat to that plan.

So, he did what he did and received huge plaudits from the punditocrisy. Jesse had a fit and that made everyone even happier. And Clinton won, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the candidacy of Ross Perot. (Whether you agree that Perot took votes from Clinton or Bush, there’s no doubt he scrambled that election.) It became, however, a matter of conventional wisdom that Democrats needed to distance themselves from their “special interests” and liberal base in order to win elections.

Now, fifteen years later, it’s become a tic, a reflexive point that is no longer used for any specific purpose but rather serves as a political ritual designed to assure the conservative political establishment that the candidate does not associate himself or herself with undesirable liberals. The members of the base who have been used for a decade and a half as the human sacrifices to the pundit Gods of the beltway are starting, quite naturally, to rebel. It’s not, however, just because they are sick of being scapegoated; it’s because it’s become part of the predictable “braindead politics” of Washington that Clinton so rightly ran against in the first place.

I don’t blame Bill Clinton for doing what he did. Indeed, I give him credit for having the guts to point to a specific act instead of adopting the modern mealy mouthed rhetoric (“some on the left need to stop …”) which at least allowed for an honest debate about something identifiable and real. And, in the wake of the riots, as part of a serious national debate about “law and order” and race in the middle of a presidential campaign, it made sense for a Democrat to try to thread that needle.

At that point it had been two decades of Republicans running against amnesty, acid, abortion — and, of course, civil rights. Democrats were ready to try new things. And Clinton already had all the liberal heuristics in his corner. He was only 46 years old and the first baby boomer candidate. He had extremely respectable anti-war and civil rights credentials. He listened to rock music and had a feminist wife and and a marriage of equality. He had even run McGovern’s campaign in Texas. Most importantly, he was comfortable with modern life, which after Reagan and Bush senior, had the fresh whiff of the future. (After all, the boomers, unlike most generational cohorts had been very politically active since they were teen-agers and had been waiting to take the reins for a long time.) Because of all those signifiers, he was forgiven all this tacking to the right because we believed that in his heart he was one of us. The passing of the torch to our generation stood in for liberalism.

The conditions that made that work were unique and it was a fleeting moment of liberal satisfaction anyway. Instead of being able to calm the waters, Clinton’s presidency immediately ushered in an unprecedented surge of right wing extremism — helped along by an unexpectedly hostile press and an emerging partisan media machine. They were anything but mollified by his rightward tack and used all the subtle, symbolic characteristics that we liberals all liked so much, to assassinate his character. Perhaps it was inevitable. Bill Clinton, or someone like him, was probably needed to exorcize the perceived sins of the liberal left.

But in that process, modern conservatism also began to discredit itself with the public. They never again reached the high water mark of 1994 and despite their very sophisticated efforts to portray George W. Bush as the “good” Clinton in 2000 they didn’t manage to convince a majority of the people to vote for him. The conservative era that began a quarter century ago had started to sputter. 9/11 momentarily stalled the progression (and perhaps even changed its direction in some unexpected ways now that Bush has so thoroughly discredited the Republicans’ greatest political strength — national security.) Bush’s grand failure has accelerated a process of political rejection I thought would be much slower. Today it is the right that requires the litmus tests and demands that their candidates show fealty to the extremist elements in their midst. It is those radicals, not the exaggerated hippie chimera the beltway keeps trying to conjure, who are making average Americans recoil.

So my problem with Democrats these days is not what they did back in the 90’s. That’s water under the bridge. It’s that they are failing to seize the moment right now. The most recent (imperfect) analogy I can think of is 1980. The Republicans seized that moment of national “malaise” and discontent to go mainstream. After that election it became a matter of faith among millions of Americans that “they didn’t leave the Democratic party, the Democratic party left them.”

The Republicans understood that the ship had finally made its turn, that many of the folks were unnerved by all the social and economic change of the previous 15 years. (And they knew they could leverage that discontent against everybody’s favorite scapegoat in times of trouble — African Americans, who also happen to be Democrats.) Over time they convinced a lot of people that they actually were “conservatives” but in that moment it was all about simply identifying with the great swath of Americans who were tired and fed-up — and pointing the finger at the opposition.

Today, it’s the Republicans who are seen as captives of their own worst impulses which is why it is so out of sync and dissonant for Obama and others to still be triangulating against their own base. It feels odd — discordant. The Democratic rank and file are no different than millions of average people in this country who are feeling uncomfortable with the radicalism, incompetence, hubris and corruption of the Republican party after six years of one party rule — and a quarter century of conservative consensus. And the activist base from which these politicians are trying to distance themselves is where the energy and future of this new majority party rsides. Why would you run from them just when the other side’s consensus is starting to fray? It’s far more politically useful to present them to the public as the average people they really are. We’re all just like you — regular everyday citizens who believe that the country needs a new direction.

As we have seen, triangulating can sometimes be the politically smart thing to do. But not right now. This is the political moment for the Democrats to seize the mantle of the mainstream — to argue that we are the big tent, where people of conscience from all over the political spectrum are coming together, concerned about our nation, ready to work in common cause. The Republican party has abandoned the concerns of the American people. The Democratic party is the party that will secure the future.

.

Check Their Hands

by poputonian

With eager Democratic candidates edging toward the starting blocks, be sure to check their hands for blood. John Edwards, Evan Bayh, and Hillary Clinton each made a fundamental error in judgment that should cost them any chance for the Democratic nomination. They traded 700,000 human lives, give or take, to build their own presidential credentials, to appear “strong on defense” and “tough on terror.” But they all flunked the judgment test.

Wesley Clark, as inexperienced politically as he might be is a better choice for the Democratic nominee.

So is Al Gore, even though he thought Joe Lieberman would be a good running mate. Oops.

So is Howard Dean, although he sometimes gets loud and lets it all hang out.

Even Barack Obama with his religious pandering is a better choice.

In fact, instead of categorizing the candidates as Republican and Democrat, why not go with Clean Hands and Bloody Hands as the name of each group. Doing so would put all the Republicans and the Democrats who sold out into one bucket, and those with sound judgment in another. Seems easy enough.

But just to be fair, let’s double-check to see how a Senator might have processed the known information at the time of the Iraq War vote:

But, Mr. President, I am increasingly troubled by the seemingly shifting justifications for an invasion at this time. My colleagues, I’m not suggesting there has to be only one justification for such a dramatic action. But when the Administration moves back and forth from one argument to another, I think it undercuts the credibility of the case and the belief in its urgency. I believe that this practice of shifting justifications has much to do with the troubling phenomenon of many Americans questioning the Administration’s motives in insisting on action at this particular time.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about the spectacle of the President and senior Administration officials citing a purported connection to al Qaeda one day, weapons of mass destruction the next day, Saddam Hussein’s treatment of his own people on another day, and then on some days the issue of Kuwaiti prisoners of war.
…
But the relentless attempt to link 9-11 and the issue of Iraq has been disappointing to me for months, culminating in the President’s singularly unpersuasive attempt in Cincinnati to interweave 9-11 and Iraq, to make the American people believe that there are no important differences between the perpetrators of 9-11 and Iraq.

Mr. President, I believe it is dangerous for the world, and especially dangerous for us, to take the tragedy of 9-11 and the word “terrorism” and all their powerful emotion and then too easily apply them to many other situations — situations that surely need our serious attention but are not necessarily, Mr. President, the same as individuals and organizations who have shown a willingness to fly planes into the World Trade Center and into the Pentagon.

Let me say that the President is right that we’ve got to view the world, the threats and our own national security in a very different light since 9-11. There are shocking new threats. But, Mr. President, it is not helpful to use virtually any strand or extreme rhetoric to suggest that the new threat is the same as other preexisting threats. Mr. President, I think common sense tells us they are not the same and they cannot so easily be lumped together as the President sought to do in Cincinnati.
…
I’m not hearing the same things at the briefings that I’m hearing from the President’s top officials. In fact, on March 11 of this year, Vice President Cheney, following a meeting with Tony Blair, raised fears of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists. He said, “We have to be concerned about the potential” — potential — “marriage, if you will, between a terrorist organization like al Qaeda and those who hold or are proliferating knowledge about weapons of mass destruction.” So in March, it was a potential marriage.

Then the Vice-President said, on September 8, without evidence — and no evidence has been given since that time — that there are “credible but unconfirmed” intelligence reports that 9-11 ringleader Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official several months before 9-11. We’ve seen no proof of that.

And finally then, the Secretary of Defense follows on September 27 of this year and says, “There is bulletproof evidence of Iraqi links to al Qaeda, including the recent presence of senior al Qaeda members in Baghdad.” I don’t know where this comes from, Mr. President. This so-called potential marriage in March is beginning to sound like a 25th wedding anniversary at this point.

The facts just aren’t there, or at least they have not been presented to me in the situations where they should have been presented to me as an elected Member of this body. In other words, the Administration appears to use 9-11 and the language of terrorism and the connection to Iraq too loosely, almost like a bootstrap.

For example, I heard the President say in Cincinnati that Iraq and al Qaeda both regard us as a common enemy. Of course they do. Well, who else are we going to attack in the near future on that basis alone?

Or do we see an attempt to stretch the notion of harboring terrorists? I agree with the President, if any country is actively harboring or assisting the terrorists involved in 9-11, we have to act against them. But I don’t think you can bring within the definition of harboring terrorists the simple presence of some al Qaeda members somewhere in Iraq. After all, Mr. President, apparently we have al Qaeda agents active in our country as well. They are present in our nation as well. How can this be a sufficient basis on its own?

Therefore, Mr. President, without a better case for al Qaeda’s connection to Saddam Hussein, this proposed invasion must stand on its own merits, not on some notion that those who question this invasion don’t thoroughly condemn and want to see the destruction of the perpetrators of 9-11 and similar terrorist attacks on the United States.

An invasion of Iraq must stand on its own, not just because it is different than the fight against the perpetrators of 9-11 but because it may not be consistent with, and may even be harmful to, the top national security issue of this country. And that is the fight against terrorism and the perpetrators of the crimes of 9-11.

In fact, I’m so pleased to see one of the most eloquent spokesmen of this viewpoint here in the Senate chamber, Senator Graham, who has done a terrific job of trying to point out our top priorities in this area. He said, “Our first priority should be the successful completion of the war on terrorism. Today we Americans are more vulnerable to international terrorist organizations than we are to Saddam Hussein.”
…
In any event, I oppose this resolution because of the continuing unanswered questions, including the very important questions about what the mission is here, what the nature of the operation will be, what will happen concerning weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as the attack proceeds and afterward, and what the plan is after the attack is over. In effect, Mr. President, we’re being asked to vote on something that is unclear. We don’t have answers to these questions. We’re being asked to vote on something that is almost unknowable in terms of the information we’ve been given.
…
Mr. President, we need an honest assessment of the commitment required of America. If the right way to address this threat is through internationally-supported military action in Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s regime falls, we will need to take action to ensure stability in Iraq. This could be very costly and time consuming, could involve the occupation — the occupation, Mr. President, of a Middle Eastern country. Now, this is not a small matter. The American occupation of a Middle Eastern country. Consider the regional implications of that scenario, the unrest in moderate states that calls for action against American interests, the difficulty of bringing stability to Iraq so we can extricate ourselves in the midst of regional turmoil. Mr. President, we need much more information about how we propose to proceed so that we can weigh the costs and benefits to our national security.
…
I do believe that the American people are willing to bear high costs to pursue a policy that makes sense. But right now, after all of the briefings, all of the hearings, and all of the statements, as far as I can tell, the Administration apparently intends to wing it when it comes to the day after or, as others have suggested, the decade after. And I think, Mr. President, that makes no sense at all.

So, Mr. President, I believe that to date the Administration has failed to answer the key questions to justify the invasion of Iraq at this time. Yes, September 11 raises the emotional stakes and raises legitimate new questions. This makes the President’s request understandable, but it doesn’t make it wise.

I am concerned that the President is pushing us into a mistaken and counterproductive course of action. Instead of this war being crucial on the war on terrorism, I fear it could have the opposite effect.

And so this moment — in which we are responsible for assessing the threat before us, the appropriate response, and the potential costs and consequences of military action — this moment is of grave importance. Yet there is something hollow in our efforts.
…
We are about to make one of the weightiest decisions of our time within a context of confused justifications and vague proposals. We are urged, Mr. President, to get on board and bring the American people with us, but we don’t know where the ship is sailing.

That’s good judgment by Senator Feingold. Other Senators gave similar speeches. Each Senator now running for president had an opportunity to hear Feingold’s floor speech. But for some, presidential ambition carried more weight and clouded their thinking.And now they have blood on their hands.

Grown-ups

by digby

Via Atrios and TPM I see that John McCain is sharing his sophisticated foreign policy views again:

“Well in war, my dear friends, there is no such thing as compromise; you either win or you lose.”

Heavy duty. And how would we win the war if John McCain were in charge?

“One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit,’” said Mr. McCain, according to Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, an invitee, and two other guests.

See? There’s nothing complicated about this. If only we had a straight talkin’ president who would just cut through all the crap and take charge maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess today:

Bush: You see, the thing is what they need to do is to get Syria, to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over.

If people like what Bush has been doing these past six years, they’re gonna love McCain. He too is a big believer in the Classical Shitstopping school of foreign policy.

.

Bitchin’ Bolton

by digby

tristero got to it before I did, but I did want to comment on the petulant, immature president we are forced to put up with for two more years. Not only did he send out the snotty statement about Bolton’s resignation that tristero quotes below, he held a photo-op and talked to the press slumped down in his chair, lip curled, obviously pissed off. He said this:

“I’m not happy about it. I think he deserved to be confirmed. And the reason why I think he deserved to be confirmed is because I know he did a fabulous job for the country.”

You’d think he’d be used to failure after experiencing it his entire life but he doesn’t seem to he handling it well. His arrogance has always been there, throwing his weight around, peppering his speech with phrases like “I told the American people they were gonna have tah be patient and I meant it.” But now there’s a darker edge to it. I see no signs that he’s ready to see reason on a judgment call like Iraq.

Meanwhile, here’s a fun trip down memory lane with John Bolton from The Nation. Very informative.

But for sheer Bolton surreality, nothing beats Atlas Shrugs’“interview” with him:

What I most admire about John Bolton is his steely demeanor and moral clarity. His spectacular fortitude in the face of scoundrels, liars, and internationally sanctioned criminals never fails to surprise and delight me. What was completely unexpected was the other side of Bolton. He was funny, thoughtful, deliberate. I really enjoyed the chat.

Atlas: If I could I’d like to talk about you. [he is looking at me askance, laughing here] What formed you……….what is your favorite book?

JB: That’s a good question actually. I’d say one of the things that made a big impression on me was Edmund Burke’s book Reflections on the Revolution in France and I’ve read a lot of John Locke and that had a big impact on me and Ayn Rand.

Atlas: You’re just saying that to make me feel better……..

JB: No it’s true.

Atlas: Growing up, were you one of many?

JB: No, I had one sister, nine years younger.

Atlas: So you were the oldest. Your parents were tough? Encouraging? Non approving?.
Trying to figure out where you developed that spine of yours……..I find that quality rare. There’s a lot of it in that administration.

JB: My father was a firefighter in the city of Baltimore, my mother was a housewife.

Atlas: YAY, the great American story.

[…]

Atlas: Do you find it is less difficult, more difficult getting things done in this political climate?

JB: When I was in earlier administrations I was in assistant secretary level positions working hard on my issues and I didn’t pay as much attention to the broader…….

Atlas: the big picture? [Atlas interrupting? WTF?]

JB: So when I see it now, it’s probably more discouraging how much there is to do.

Atlas: Discouraging how? Discouraging how much there is to do? Or discouraging as in –is it do-able?

JB: Oh its do-able, under the right circumstances. I’m not so naive that I would be doing it if I didn’t think there was a chance which makes it in some senses more frustrating. You can see sometimes how close you can get and yet you can’t finish a particular thing. Like Iran, I’ve been working on this for three and a half years

Atlas: And you’ll be working on it for three and half more.

JOB: I hope not, I hope not because now that it’s in the Security Council, now is the time to say this is their chance that either they give up their pursuit of nuclear weapons or we go to what the President said, we do something else.

Atlas: We do something else? That’s a little vague, don’t you think? Deliberately vague?

JB: Yeah, sure absolutely. The President said I never take options off the table. And you’ve got to be that way. Look this has happened to me enough times before …. if I said, well — I’ll give you an example……after the invasion of Iraq, after Saddam was overthrown I said something in a BBC interview like I hope the governments of Syria and Iran take notice of what’s just happened and I got into enormous trouble for that because it sounded like I was threatening the invasion of Iran and Syria.

Atlas: yeah but you get in enormous trouble for waking up in the morning

JB: Well that’s true too.

to be continued

More to come guys, but right now I am going to take a break, head downstairs, meet up with some AIPAC folks, and have me a glass of pinot noir…………I’ve had it. Long day. But great.

You can’t make this stuff up. Read on to find out how Pammy and John propose to nuke Lebanon.

Today is the worst day of her life:

Anybody happy about this is an America hater. The tyranny of the minority strikes again.

.

Big Al

by tristero

Read this from Al Gore, and then I have a question for you:

“[I]t’s almost too easy to say, ‘I would have heeded the warnings [about an al Qaeda attack in the summer of ’01].’ In fact, I think I would have, I know I would have. We had several instances when the CIA’s alarm bells went off, and what we did when that happened was, we had emergency meetings and called everybody together and made sure that all systems were go and every agency was hitting on all cylinders, and we made them bring more information, and go into the second and third and fourth level of detail. And made suggestions on how we could respond in a more coordinated, more effective way. It is inconceivable to me that Bush would read a warning as stark and as clear [voice angry now] as the one he received on August 6th of 2001, and, according to some of the new histories, he turned to the briefer and said, ‘Well, you’ve covered your ass.’ And never called a follow up meeting. Never made an inquiry. Never asked a single question. To this day, I don’t understand it. And, I think it’s fair to say that he personally does in fact bear a measure of blame for not doing his job at a time when we really needed him to do his job.

“And now the Woodward book has this episode that has been confirmed by the record that George Tenet, who was much abused by this administration, went over to the White House for the purpose of calling an emergency meeting and warning as clearly as possible about the extremely dangerous situation with Osama bin Laden, and was brushed off! And I don’t know why — honestly — I mean, I understand how horrible this Congressman Foley situation with the instant messaging is, okay? I understand that. But, why didn’t these kinds of things produce a similar outrage? And you know, I’m even reluctant to talk about it in these terms because it’s so easy for people to hear this or read this as sort of cheap political game-playing. I understand how it could sound that way. [Practically screaming now] But dammit, whatever happened to the concept of accountability for catastrophic failure? This administration has been by far the most incompetent, inept, and with more moral cowardice, and obsequiousness to their wealthy contributors, and obliviousness to the public interest of any administration in modern history, and probably in the entire history of the country!”

Here’s the question.

Who should be his running mate?

Oh. And to those who claim Al Gore is humorless, read this:

Do you know if President Bush has seen the movie [An Inconvenient Truth] yet?

Well, he claimed that [he] would not see it. That’s why I wrote the book. He’s a reader.

ps. Gotta take a break, get some stuff done. Back in 2 weeks or so.