Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Serious Madmen

by digby

Glenn Greenwald takes Michael Ledeen downtown today in a thoroughly satisfying fashion. Despite the fact that he is an embarrassment on virtually every level, and almost certifiably nuts, he is considered “serious” by people like Fred Hiatt, who Glenn quotes today:

We’re not part of that [bomb Iran]camp, though we consider its members saner than many of the statements of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Right-o. Ahmadinejad is a holocaust denier and desires the destruction of Israel. Insane for sure.

What do you suppose he would call this?

March 10, 2003

A Theory

What if there’s method to the Franco-German madness?

Assume, for a moment, that the French and the Germans aren’t thwarting us out of pique, but by design, long-term design. Then look at the world again, and see if there’s evidence of such a design.

Like everyone else, the French and the Germans saw that the defeat of the Soviet Empire projected the United States into the rare, almost unique position of a global hyperpower, a country so strong in every measurable element that no other nation could possibly resist its will. The “new Europe” had been designed to carve out a limited autonomy for the old continent, a balance-point between the Americans and the Soviets. But once the Soviets were gone, and the Red Army melted down, the European Union was reduced to a combination theme park and free-trade zone. Some foolish American professors and doltish politicians might say — and even believe — that henceforth “power” would be defined in economic terms, and that military power would no longer count. But cynical Europeans know better.

They dreaded the establishment of an American empire, and they sought for a way to bring it down.

If you were the French president or the German chancellor, you might well have done the same.

How could it be done? No military operation could possibly defeat the United States, and no direct economic challenge could hope to succeed. That left politics and culture. And here there was a chance to turn America’s vaunted openness at home and toleration abroad against the United States. So the French and the Germans struck a deal with radical Islam and with radical Arabs: You go after the United States, and we’ll do everything we can to protect you, and we will do everything we can to weaken the Americans.

The Franco-German strategy was based on using Arab and Islamic extremism and terrorism as the weapon of choice, and the United Nations as the straitjacket for blocking a decisive response from the United States.

This required considerable skill, and total cynicism, both of which were in abundant supply in Paris and Berlin. Chancellor Shroeder gained reelection by warning of American warmongering, even though, as usual, America had been attacked first. And both Shroeder and Chirac went to great lengths to support Islamic institutions in their countries, even when — as in the French case — it was in open violation of the national constitution.

[…]

It sounds fanciful, to be sure. But the smartest people I know have been thoroughly astonished at recent French and German behavior. This theory may help understand what’s going on. I now believe that I was wrong to forecast that the French would join the war against Iraq at the last minute, having gained every possible economic advantage in the meantime. I think Chirac will oppose us before, during, and after the war, because he has cast his lot with radical Islam and with the Arab extremists. He isn’t doing it just for the money — although I have no doubt that France is being richly rewarded for defending Saddam against the civilized countries of the world — but for higher stakes. He’s fighting to end the feared American domination before it takes stable shape.

If this is correct, we will have to pursue the war against terror far beyond the boundaries of the Middle East, into the heart of Western Europe. And there, as in the Middle East, our greatest weapons are political: the demonstrated desire for freedom of the peoples of the countries that oppose us.

No, that isn’t the ranting of some lunatic on late night radio. That’s our friend Ledeen, the “Freedom Scholar” at the American Enterprise Institute, writing in the pages of the flagship conservative magazine The National Review.

He’s one of the serious people who are now advocating that we must bomb Iran immediately, a “crowd” which Hiatt doesn’t consider himself a part of but which he nonetheless doesn’t see as insane. Yet this crowd listens to “Iran expert” Michael Ledeen, who as Glenn points out, speaks no Persian and has never set foot in the country. But then why should he? He believes that France and Germany (and God knows who else) are involved in a massive conspiracy with Iran, Iraq and al Qaeda to destroy the United States.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds just as insane as anything Ahmadinejad ever said and much more dangerous. We actually do have nuclear weapons. Lots of ’em.

And, by the way, don’t think this is just one guy’s paranoid fantasy. This notion of taking the GWOT into the heart of Europe is quite fashionable in right wing circles. Here’s Mark Steyn making the argument from another angle, with one of the right’s premiere journalists:

PAUL GIGOT, FOX HOST: “America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It” forecasts a dark future in which the nations of Old Europe fall to Islam fundamentalism. And the United States remains the last Western democracy.

Earlier, I spoke to the author, columnist Mark Steyn.

GIGOT: In your book, you write that much of what we loosely call the “Western World will not survive the 21st Century. And much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many, if not most, European countries”, end quote. That sounds like a doomsday scenario.

MARK STEYN, COLUMNIST AND AUTHOR OF “AMERICA ALONE”: It is. I tried to be cheerful. But it is hard to be cheerful about apocalyptic-type stuff. And this is what it is.

Basically, 17 European countries have what demographers call lowest-load fertility, from which no society ever recovered. That means they are basically not having enough babies.

And the way Europe is set up, they have these unsustainable social programs and welfare. And they imported the babies that they didn’t have. They imported them essentially from the North Africa and the Middle East.

So we’re seeing one of the fastest population transformations in history, whereby an aging ethnic European population is being replaced by a Muslim population. And the Muslims understand that, in fact, Europe, as they see it, is the colony now.

This pithy remark brings it all together:

You can understand why the Quai d’Orsay is relaxed about Iran becoming the second Muslim nuclear power. As things stand, France is on course to be the third. You heard it here first.

As far as I can tell, these guys are picking them off one by one. First it was Iraq. Now Iran. And as soon as we’re done with them, we’re going to invade France. What could go wrong?

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By Any Means Necessary

by digby

I have a new post up over at The Big Con about the Republican assault on the spirit on democracy and why they will keep doing it even though Bush had virtually destroyed their reputation. (Hint: they don’t care about their reputation.)

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Interesting

by tristero

Gallup Poll, May 2007:

Which brings to mind Pastor Ray Mummert’s immortal complaint regarding opposition to the advocacy of “intelligent design” creationism in science classes:

We’ve been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture.

Well, yes.

h/t to recent print editions of Reports of the National Center for Science Education and Skeptical Inquirer.

Swift Balloting 2008

by digby

In case there’s anyone who doubts that this gambit to change California’s electoral college votes is anything but a standard, GOP dirty trick, this should put them to rest:

Lawyers behind a California ballot proposal that could benefit the 2008 Republican presidential nominee have ties to a Texas homebuilder who financed attacks on Democrat John Kerry’s Vietnam War record in the 2004 presidential campaign. Charles H. Bell and Thomas Hiltachk’s law firm banked nearly $65,000 in fees from a California-based political committee funded almost solely by Bob J. Perry that targeted Democrats in 2006. Perry, a major Republican donor, contributed nearly $4.5 million to the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that made unsubstantiated but damaging attacks on Kerry three years ago. The Perry-financed committee in California, the Economic Freedom Fund, continued to spend money this year, mostly on legal expenses tied to an ongoing legal dispute in Indiana over phone calls made to voters in 2006. It lists the Sacramento law office’s address as its home and its Web site directs contributions to the firm, Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk. In addition, Bell serves as the committee’s treasurer. Hiltachk has been pushing a proposal to revamp the way California awards its electoral votes, a change Democrats claim would rig the 2008 race. He and Bell are the sole officers of a new political committee, Californians for Equal Representation, that is raising money to place the plan on the ballot in June. Their success could hinge on whether they get the financial backing to collect more than 400,000 petition signaturesneeded to qualify the proposal for the ballot. And while Perry has not donated to their cause, his wealth and connections make him a potential financier for a drive that could cost more than $1 million. Running a statewide campaign would cost millions more. Democrats are working to defeat the effort and already have lined up supporters such as Hollywood producer Stephen Bing, whose credits include the 2000 “Get Carter” remake with Sylvester Stallone. Supporters say the vote-change plan could open a new era of fairness in presidential contests. But the law firm’s link to Perry and other Republican candidates and causes will make it difficult to separate the proposal from partisan politics. Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk is one of the most politically involved law firms in the state. According to a news story on its Web site, Bell keeps a life-sized cardboard image of President Bush in his office. Federal records show the firm does legal work for a host of political committees, most with Republican or business ties.

They really couldn’t be more obvious.

I suspect this is as much mind fuck as anything, and perhaps a simple desire to force Democrats to spend money on something they don’t want to spend it on, but you cannot take that for granted. These people have no compunction about cheating. They’ve shown that. Look what it got us in 2000. And if they succeed again, the press will just laugh and giggle about haircuts and cleavage and tell everyone to get over it. Just like last time. And the time before. And the time before that.

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Gettin’ Jiggy Wid It

by digby

Please just shoot me. I can’t take any more:

Bush Sees Possible Troop Cuts in Iraq

President Bush raised the possibility Monday of U.S. troop cuts in Iraq if security continues to improve, traveling here secretly to assess the war before a showdown with Congress.

The president was joined by his war cabinet [when did the press start calling it his “war cabinet”?] and military commanders at an unprecedented meeting in Iraq over eight hours at this dusty military base in the heart of Anbar province, 120 miles west of Baghdad.

Bush did not say how large a troop withdrawal might be possible or whether it might occur before next spring when the first of the additional 30,000 troops he ordered to Iraq this year are to start coming home anyway. He emphasized that any cut would depend upon progress.

Gosh. I’m all on pins and needles. What ever do you think will happen?

I say to the President, respectfully, pick whatever number you wish. You do not want to lose the momentum. But certainly, in the 160,000 plus — say 5,000 — could begin to redeploy and be home to their families and loved ones no later than Christmas of this year.

Here, once again for your reading pleasure, is me, from last week:

So, here’s how I see the narrative: The surge is working so well that we can bring home 5,000 troops to fight the war on Christmas. But we mustn’t set forth any timetables beyond that because things are really starting to move politically over there. Haven’t you heard? Everybody’s saying that the Prime Minister is on the rocks. That signals political change — just what we’ve been waiting for! Hallalujah. All we need to do is hang on just a bit longer to see how that all pans out.

I know everyone knows this. I get that I’m just recycling the obvious. But the press knows they are being manipulated and yet they continue to write stories like this because that’s how they perceive their jobs. They report facts — and the fact is that the president did say this ridiculous swill. But there’s something terribly wrong when a large portion of the public, the elite media and all politicians see through this completely — and yet everyone pretends they don’t. Sure there are commentators and bloggers and some others who point out that this is complete nonsense, but it doesn’t matter. The president and his allies know that the media, with its outmoded journalistic conventions and useless code of “objectivity” will report all these “facts” with enough credulity that a good portion of the public will buy in and that’s all it takes.

These slow motion trainwrecks are all too familiar by now. Krugman knows it better than anyone:

In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell, addressing the United Nations Security Council, claimed to have proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He did not, in fact, present any actual evidence, just pictures of buildings with big arrows pointing at them saying things like “Chemical Munitions Bunker.” But many people in the political and media establishments swooned: they admired Mr. Powell, and because he said it, they believed it.

Mr. Powell’s masters got the war they wanted, and it soon became apparent that none of his assertions had been true.

Until recently I assumed that the failure to find W.M.D., followed by years of false claims of progress in Iraq, would make a repeat of the snow job that sold the war impossible. But I was wrong. The administration, this time relying on Gen. David Petraeus to play the Colin Powell role, has had remarkable success creating the perception that the “surge” is succeeding, even though there’s not a shred of verifiable evidence to suggest that it is.

It’s hard to believe they’re trying this again and it’s even harder to believe they’ll get away with it. But here we are.

Update: Or as Atrios says…

Update II: Oh my God. From Greenwald:

Our country’s authoritarians are glorifying the Leader today like it’s 2003, all for his very brave (and covert) sneaking into Iraq. Jules Crittenden (cousin of David Frum) uses language typically reserved for Jesus to describe Bush’s every movement:

NPR reporting he’s landed, enroute to an econmic summit in Australia. Web reports now coming in. AP: He’s in Anbar, landed at Al-Asad. . . . he’s expected to meet with al-Maliki and Sunni tribal leaders who’ve joined the United States and the Iraqi government against al-Qaeda.

He is risen. This is the same Jules Crittenden who, back in January on the day of the President’s speech unveiling the Surge, began his post this way: “George Bush will address us tonight, and show us the way forward.” He will show us the way forward. Similarly, Blue Texan notes that Glenn Reynolds — in addition to linking to the Crittenden post above — also linked to a post which began this way: “Unlike the last Commander-in-chief, is there any doubt that the men and women who serve our country love President Bush.” Finally, Fred Kagan, writing in National Review, declared that Bush’s trip “should be recognized as at least the Gettysburg of this war” — at least — and that the Leader’s Glorious Visit “could well mark a key turning point in the war in Iraq and the war on terror.” He is Jesus. He is Lincoln. He is beloved by Our Troops. He “shows us the way forward.” He is Our Leader.

This is an under appreciated aspect of the working the refs tactic. By contrast to this delusional clap-trap, the MSM believes itself to be harsh and skeptical. Neat, huh?

Of course, many wingnuts believe this stuff completely. They yearn for the codpiece with every fiber of their being.

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White Flour!

by digby

Via Perlstein, here’s a hilarious story about a Klan rally. For real.

Saturday May 26th the VNN Vanguard Nazi/KKK group attempted to host a hate rally to try to take advantage of the brutal murder of a white couple for media and recruitment purposes.

Unfortunately for them the 100th ARA (Anti Racist Action) clown block came and handed them their asses by making them appear like the asses they were.

Alex Linder the founder of VNN and the lead organizer of the rally kicked off events by rushing the clowns in a fit of rage, and was promptly arrested by 4 Knoxville police officers who dropped him to the ground when he resisted and dragged him off past the red shiny shoes of the clowns.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s shouted, “White Flour?” the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt “White Flour”.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s angrily shouted once more, “White flowers?” the clowns cheers and threw white flowers in the air and danced about merrily.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s tried once again in a doomed and somewhat funny attempt to clarify their message, “ohhhhhh!” the clowns yelled “Tight Shower!” and held a solar shower in the air and all tried to crowd under to get clean as per the Klan’s directions.

At this point several of the Nazi’s and Klan members began clutching their hearts as if they were about to have a heart attack. Their beady eyes bulged, and the veins in their tiny narrow foreheads beat in rage. One last time they screamed “White Power!”

The clown women thought they finally understood what the Klan was trying to say. “Ohhhhh…” the women clowns said. “Now we understand…”, “WIFE POWER!” they lifted the letters up in the air, grabbed the nearest male clowns and lifted them in their arms and ran about merrily chanting “WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER!”

This is the funniest thing I’ve read in years. It’s perfect, sublime.

And if this part is true, then it makes my year:

After the VNNers left in their shiny SUVs to go back to Alabama and all the other states that they were from the clowns and counter demonstrators began to march out of the area chanting ‘WHOSE STREETS? OUR STREETS!”

But the cops stopped the clowns and counter protestors. “Hey, do you want an escort” an African-American police officer on a motorcycle asked. “Yes” a clown replied. “We are walking to Market Square in the center of town to celebrate.”

The police officers got in front of the now anti racist parade and blocked the entire road for the march through the heart of Knoxville. An event called imagination station was taking place and over 15,000 thousand students and their parents were in town that weekend. Many of them cheered as the clowns, Knoxvillians and counter protestors marched through the heart of Knoxville singing and laughing at the end of the Nazi’s first attempt at having a rally in Knoxville.

Let’s Rollout

by digby

You’ve got to be kidding me:

Bush slipped out of a side door of the White House for the furtive trip that was aimed at bolstering his position for not drawing down troops from Iraq. During six hours on the ground here, the president was to meet with Army Gen. David Petreaus and other military commanders and Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, before holding a session with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and members of his central government.

Afterward, Bush was to meet with Sunni tribal leaders whose cooperation has made Anbar Province, a former al-Qaeda stronghold, significantly safer during the past year.

Aides said Bush would prod Maliki and other Shiite national leaders to support the local Sunni officials, whom the White House has praised for fostering political reconciliation that has proved elusive in most other parts of Iraq. Later, Bush was to make short remarks to about 750 U.S. troops and other guests.

“The president felt this is something he had to do in order to put himself in a position to make some important decisions,” National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said of the visit.”This will be the last big gathering of the president’s advisers and Iraqi leaders before the president makes his decisions on the way forward,” said Geoff Morrell, Pentagon spokesperson. “He’s assembled his war council, and they are all convening with Iraqi leaders to discuss the way forward.”

Very, very, very bad idea. Bush should not be allowed to meet with the locals:

Several of Bush’s top advisers believe that the president’s view of postwar Iraq was significantly affected by his meeting with three Iraqi exiles in the Oval Office several months before the 2003 invasion, Draper reports.

He writes that all three exiles agreed without qualification that “Iraq would greet American forces with enthusiasm. Ethnic and religious tensions would dissolve with the collapse of Saddam’s regime. And democracy would spring forth with little effort — particularly in light of Bush’s commitment to rebuild the country.”

Bush has strapped on his codpiece and he’s strutting around the desert “makin’ assessments.” Not good. As we’ve seen he has a comic book mentality and when he meets with “tribal leaders” he’s liable to make some serious mistakes in judgment. But hey, what’s the difference? It’s the new fall line in warmongering. The surge part two is already in production.

I’m sure that in rarefied Big Money Republican circles there is a lot of soul searching going on about what went wrong. They are looking at Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and others and they are wondering which decisions and wrong turns were the ones that made the difference. But if they really want to know what the truly worst decision was they need look no further than the mirror. They foisted this fool on the world when they all went down to Texas and decided that it didn’t matter that he was completely unqualified by experience, temperament or intelligence — he could be president anyway.

I think most people believed until recently that Republicans were pretty good at running things. They are the captains of industry, after all. But that they could meet this man-child and think it was a good idea for him to be president of the United States is such an epic error in judgment that they have destroyed their reputation for a generation.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Double Fantasy

By Dennis Hartley

Sometimes, for the sake of your own sanity, you’ve just gotta tear yourself away from watching the Apocalypse unfold on CNN and hitch a ride on trolley trolley (and since I don’t drink or shoot up, my tendency is to reach for a movie at such times). This week I thought we’d run for the shelter of two new fantasy films, one currently in theatres and the other just out on DVD.

First up is a film that slipped into theaters with surprisingly little fanfare. Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, cross-dressing pirates return to your multiplex in Matthew Vaughn’s new fantasy-adventure-comedy-romance, “Stardust”.

Vaughn has tackled something completely different here for his second directorial effort (the follow-up to his auspicious 2004 debut, the Tarantino-influenced Brit Noir Layer Cake ). The result is a pleasant (albeit fluffy) surprise.

Co-scripted by the director along with Jane Goldman, and based on the Neil Gaiman novel, “Stardust” is a tale set in a mythical, sleepy little hamlet called Wall, which lies at the border between England and a “magic kingdom” called Stormhold, demarcated only by a stone wall. Just one solitary, wheezing relic of a man stands guard over a gaping, woefully under-maintained breach (hmmm, border security issues, crumbling infrastructure, people working well past retirement age…are we sure this is a ‘fantasy’?).

Enter our hero, Tristan (Charlie Cox), a bumbling “shop boy” who is hopelessly smitten by a shallow but popular local beauty named Victoria (Sienna Miller). After the couple witness a falling star one evening, Tristan vows to cross over the wall into the “forbidden” Stormhold to retrieve it for her, in order to prove his undying devotion (I’ll bet he says that to all the girls). Victoria gives him her bemused blessing and sends him on his merry way. Needless to say, he handily breezes past the “border patrol”.

Much to his chagrin, Tristan discovers he isn’t the only one lusting after that star power. Michelle Pfeiffer has a grand old time chomping scenery as an evil witch (there always has to be an evil witch, it’s a rule) who is racing the squabbling sons of a dying king (Peter O’Toole) to retrieve the star, each for their own nefarious reasons. Complicating things further is the fact that the “star” (an appropriately luminescent Clare Danes) has taken corporeal form, and would prefer not to take part in anyone’s “plans” for her, thank you very much. Madcap adventures (and the tricky travails of True Love) ensue.

“Enough with all the icky hugging and kissing stuff-what about the cross-dressing pirates that you promised to tell us about in the lead paragraph, Uncle Dennis?” I hear you saying. Actually, technically speaking, that would be ‘pirate’, singular, in the form of one Robert De Niro, who threatens to steal the show in his relatively limited screen time as the barely closeted Captain Shakespeare. Ricky Gervais (“Extras”) is another highlight, making the most of his cameo as the slippery wheeler-dealer, Ferdy the Fence.

The film may not boast the sharpest script, but the gags that do work, work quite well. For instance, the king of Stormhold’s numerous sons are named according to birth order-Primus, Secundus, Tertius, Quartus, etc.; for some inexplicable reason I couldn’t stop laughing at that (perhaps it recalls the classic “Biccus Diccus” gag from “Life of Brian”.)

If there is one potentially fatal flaw in the film, it lies in the casting of its leading man, Charlie Cox. While he appears to be an earnest young actor, the poor boy just doesn’t ooze much charisma (perhaps young women would beg to differ with me; or maybe he just tests well with focus groups?). Let’s just say, he’s no Errol Flynn. Luckily, his lackluster presence is somewhat compensated by the star power on hand (O’Toole, Pfeiffer and De Niro) and the genuinely winning turn from Clare Danes.

There seems to be a number of reviewers out there slagging this off as a “Princess Bride” wannabe, but you know what? That’s just lazy criticism. I went into the theatre, determined NOT to have that expectation rolling around in my head, and I found this to be quite charming and entertaining on its own terms, in a wantonly goofy “…forget your troubles c’mon get happy” kind of way. Sometimes, that’s all you require from a movie.

There’s more escapist fantasy awaiting you in the latest offering from the Japanese animation wizards at Studio Ghibli. “Tales From Earthsea” is the directing debut for Goro Miyazaki, son of the renowned anime master Hayao Miyazaki (“Uh-Dad? Can I have the keys to the studio?”)

The film is adapted from a fantasy series by Ursula K. Le Guin. I will admit I have not read the books, so I was a bit lost on the storyline at times. I can tell you that it involves a sudden, mysterious reappearance of dragons in the skies over the mythical Earthsea, an evil witch (See?! I told you!) who is (near as I can tell) depleting Earthsea of its life essence and hoarding it in an attempt to achieve immortality; a young hero (with a dark side) and a warrior/wizard/mentor who accompanies him on a quest into the kingdom’s heart of darkness to, er, terminate the witch’s command (with extreme prejudice).

The film definitely benefits from the Ghibli “look”-bringing trees, mountains, sea and sky vividly to life in typically stunning fashion. Unfortunately, however, it looks like the younger Miyazaki will need more work on breathing life into his characters; they come off rather flat (especially when contrasted against the expertly crafted backgrounds).

The story revels more in gloom and doom territory than the typical Studio Ghibli offering (not many moments of levity or soaring flights of fancy). There is a nod to the ecology theme that runs through many of the studio’s films, but it feels a bit “tacked on”. Still, even “lesser” Ghibli is better than most animated features out there, and worth a look.

Note: “Tales from Earthsea” is currently available only on Region 2 and 3 DVD editions; the version I rented and based this review on was a 2-disc Region 3 (South Asian) edition. I believe the Region 2 offers a dubbed English language soundtrack option; the version I viewed did not. No word yet on a U.S. release.

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Coup De Village

by digby

Does any of this remotely seem like a good idea? The mere fact that the US is so obviously running this thing automatically makes it an enormous mistake. And it’s not just because it’s so transparent that there can be no doubt that Allawi will be seen as a puppet. It’s a huge mistake because aside from looting the treasury and stealing elections, everything the Bush administration touches turns to shit. Aside from the embarrassingly blatant hypocrisy, does anyone believe they could pull this off and make it work?

Some see ‘coup’ as Iraq’s best hope

In the lobbies of luxury hotels and the apartments of exiles, an assortment of Iraqi politicians has been spending the summer vacation plotting a new Iraqi coup — a non-violent, parliamentary coup to be sure, but a coup nonetheless, that would oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, declare a state of emergency and install a new government.

At the forefront of these efforts is former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who was Washington’s first choice to lead Iraq after the U.S. occupation authority ended. He now is being presented by his followers as the best hope of saving Iraq from what they say is certain catastrophe.

But Allawi’s is by no means the only name in circulation. Another former prime minister, two current vice presidents, a former planning minister, an Iraqi general from the old regime and an independent Sunni parliamentarian are among those being mentioned as potential alternatives.

“Everyone is desperate to be prime minister,” said Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni politician who has thrown his support behind Allawi but who has also been mentioned as a potential candidate. “Iraq is producing prime ministers.”

The dream of dislodging the Shiite-led government by forming a coalition from a disparate assortment of disgruntled Sunnis, Shiites and secularists dates to the beginning of the year, when the plotting to replace al-Maliki began in earnest in the relative safety of Amman. But the effort was given new momentum by a statement from President Bush last week, in which he hinted for the first time that U.S. support for al-Maliki was waning.

“If the government doesn’t … respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government,” Bush said at a news conference in Quebec. “That’s up to the Iraqis to make that decision, not American politicians.”

[…]

“There’s been a definite change in tone from Washington, and the momentum and drive to support Allawi will increase,” said Jaafar al-Taie, a political analyst involved in the new coalition’s campaign. “It’s not only that Maliki must go, but that the whole system must go.”

According to Allawi’s published program, the parliamentarians would not only appoint a new government but also suspend the new constitution, declare a state of emergency and make the restoration of security its priority.

Whether the U.S. would countenance what amounts effectively to the unraveling of the entire political process built since its March 2003 invasion is unclear. The day after he seemed to endorse al-Maliki’s removal, Bush backtracked, reiterating his support for the prime minister and calling him a “good guy.”

But Allawi’s supporters are heartened by signs that Washington is coming round to the view that al-Maliki might not be a permanent figure.

Two days before Bush spoke, Allawi signed a $300,000 contract with the Washington lobbying firm of Barbour, Griffiths and Rogers to represent his interests, according to a copy of the contract obtained by the Web site Iraqslogger.com and confirmed by Allawi on CNN. The head of the firm’s international relations department is Robert Blackwill, a longtime adviser to Bush who served as his special envoy to Iraq.

“Even when Bush tried to modify what he said, he did not go so far,” said Izzat Shabandar, a strategist with the Allawi bloc. “We know that Bush from inside would like to replace Maliki, but he did not say it clearly. He chose to say it in a diplomatic way.”

Do read the rest to get an idea of how absurdly complicated this whole thing is. Just the fact that we all know about this and that American newspapers are printing this stuff is bizarre in itself. It’s a public coup — Americans and Iraqis alike are all reading about it and talking about it like it’s a TV show and we’re all waiting to see the finale.

The country needs to face what “pulling it off” means. They are planning to: “suspend the new constitution, declare a state of emergency and make the restoration of security its priority.” Too bad Saddam isn’t around to give them some pointers. Of course, they are allowing former Baathists in on this and Allawi knows his way around an execution, so his legacy will live on.

I just keep writing this every day and it just keeps unfolding. We are clearly attempting to stage a coup and put a strongman/puppet in charge of Iraq to “restore security.” For some reason nobody seems worried that this will fuel more terrorism and hatred against America around the world since we will be seen as pulling the strings. In fact, the administration seems to want the world to see that we are pulling the strings. Apparently, they still believe, even after throwing away all the good will built up over 50 years and proving themselves to be abject failures at occupying and reconstructing the country we invaded for no good reason, that it is a good idea for the United States to be throwing its weight around even more in the middle east.

Yesterday I heard David Frum saying we had to win to preserve American “prestige.” I was in the car and almost wrecked it I was laughing so hard. Prestige? These people threw out our prestige the minute that moron and his Robespierre in the White House decided to attack the wrong country and then screwed it up so royally that the United States of America now looks like a bumbling, useless giant who couldn’t hit the side of a barn with a daisy cutter. “Prestige” is completely beside the point. We have so much work to do to build back our reputation for even baseline competence and ability to reason that we are now actually in some danger that even more none too bright fanatics will decide that taking us on isn’t all that dangerous anymore.

So Bush is planning a coup to install our own totalitarian dictator. Fantastic. You’ll find this especially amusing: he’s given a bunch of interviews to a biographer telling him that his post presidency plans are to make a lot of money and run something he calls “‘a fantastic Freedom Institute’ promoting democracy around the world.”

You cannot make this stuff up.

Oh, and then there’s this. Seems they may very well be planning to shoot the moon:

They [the source’s institution] have “instructions” (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don’t think they’ll ever get majority support for this–they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is “plenty.”

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They’re Doing It Again

by digby

I was at Drinking Liberally not long ago, chattering with my pal D-Day about what long term political reform we would dedicate ourselves to if we had to choose. We both said getting rid of the electoral college, which I thought was quite interesting. It’s long been one of my bete noirs, even before the 2000 election atrocity and it was for him too. I think there are probably lots of liberal activists out there who feel the same way. It’s an anachronistic relic of an era long past that was the result of one of those undemocratic compromises that was necessary to get the smaller states to sign on to the Union. It’s completely unnecessary now and all it does is lead to mischief, dirty tricks and cheating — the specialty of the modern Republican party.

We know for a fact, it’s been demonstrated in living color, that it leads to undemocratic results. In 2000, Bush lost by half a million votes and yet “won” by 537, when the Supreme Court stepped in to stop the Florida vote count, granting all the electors to Bush. It is little wonder that no other country in the world has adopted our vaunted system of government. It’s got some serious problems.

There is one political faction in our country that is determined to win by any means necessary. They have had an ongoing voter suppression effort for decades, which has recently been both professionalized and authorized as a legitimate arm of the federal government under the Bush administration. That’s what the US Attorney scandal is all about — vote rigging and suppression.

And if that doesn’t work, they will not hesitate to challenge the vote in other ways. You remember this?

In the days before the Nov. 7 election, Republicans feared that Vice President Al Gore might win the Electoral College while Texas Gov. George W. Bush could win the national popular vote.

The expectation then was that Green Party candidate Ralph Nader might siphon off millions of votes from Gore nationwide, but not enough in key states to keep them out of Gore’s column.

That could allow Gore to amass the 270 electoral votes needed for winning the presidency while blocking a Gore plurality in the popular vote.

To stop Gore under those circumstances, advisers to the Bush campaign weighed the possibility of challenging the legitimacy of a popular-vote loser gaining the White House.

“The one thing we don’t do is roll over — we fight,” said a Bush aide, according to an article by Michael Kramer in the New York Daily News on Nov. 1, a week before the election.

The article reported that “the core of the emerging Bush strategy assumes a popular uprising, stoked by the Bushies themselves, of course. In league with the campaign — which is preparing talking points about the Electoral College’s essential unfairness — a massive talk-radio operation would be encouraged.”

“We’d have ads, too,” said a Bush aide, “and I think you can count on the media to fuel the thing big-time. Even papers that supported Gore might turn against him because the will of the people will have been thwarted.”

The Bush strategy to challenge the Electoral College went even further. “Local business leaders will be urged to lobby their customers, the clergy will be asked to speak up for the popular will and Team Bush will enlist as many Democrats as possible to scream as loud as they can,” the article said.

“You think ‘Democrats for Democracy’ would be a catchy term for them?” asked a Bush adviser.

The Bush strategy also would target the members of the Electoral College, the 538 electors who are picked by the campaigns and state party organizations to go to Washington for what is normally a ceremonial function. Many of the electors are not legally bound to a specific candidate.

They are always prepared to play it both ways. From partisan impeachments to off-year gerrymandering to the unprecedented California recall to the disputed 2000 election to the longterm efforts at voter suppression and the use of the department of Justice to influence elections with well timed indictments and bogus “vote fraud” investigations, the Republicans have shown that where they don’t cheat outright, they are willing to cast aside all convention, tradition and consensus beliefs that serve to honor the spirit of democracy in order to win at all costs. I don’t think that can be disputed. We’ve watched it unfold before our eyes for the past decade.

So, as far as I can tell very few people are surprised that the Republicans are once again trying to game the system to their advantage by putting another one of those big money initiatives on the California ballot to allocate the California electors according to the votes cast for each candidate instead of winner take all, as all but two states do today.

It’s very clever. If someone were to ask D-day and me, and most Californians, in the abstract, if we thought that was a more fair way to allocate the electoral college votes, we’d probably say yes. It would be. But, needless to say, it isn’t if only one state, particular one as large as ours, does it all by itself. It essentially turns California into two states, diluting its electoral clout, giving the Republicans more than 20 electoral votes they currently don’t have and denying the Democrats 20 they currently do. It is nothing more than typical GOP shenanigans to cheat or change the rules after the fact where they can’t win legitimately.

Everyone knows that electoral college reform cannot happen piecemeal. All the states must change together because to do otherwise will distort the process even more than it already is. We will have a much higher likelihood of more presidents taking office without winning the popular vote, and that just cannot continue to happen if anyone expects the United States government to maintain legitimacy. (After the partisan impeachment of 1998 and the stolen election of 2000, it’s hanging by thread as it is.)

This may just be a ploy to force democrats to spend money in California on an expensive education campaign to tell Democrats they need to vote in a traditionally low turn out election next June (the primary will have already been held months before) and also let them know that it’s an attempt to essentially rig the Presidential election in November 2008. They are very good at this. They do it all the time. It’s the reason we have a GOP cyborg today instead of a governor.

The Courage Campaign is working with other groups in California to try to beat this initiative. I haveno idea how seriously national Dems are taking this, but I would assume they know very well how devastating this could be and will pull out all the stops to ensure it doesn’t pass. but that’s not guarantee. These pernicious initiatives often pass in this state because they are cleverly misleading and they are on the ballot in low turnout elections. (It’s a huge problem for California generally.) This time it affects the whole country and it would be smart for everyone to get involved.

If you think it can’t happen just reflect back seven years to November 2000. Remember how you felt. Remember the intense frustration and anger when they stole that election and then smugly told us to “get over it.” They’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Our “post-partisan” Cyborgoverner says he doesn’t know what the initiative says. The fact that the people who drafted it are his former lawyers, is purely coincidence. The Courage Campaign has launched an initiative to ‘educate Arnold” by asking everyone to send Arnold a copy of the proposed initiative so he can read it and finally tell his constituents whether he supports this undemocratic act. I suspect he will. He got into office on a similar end-run around established tradition and precedent. He’d be quite the hypocrite standing up for Democratic values and following the rules of the game when his benefactors bought him his governorship with a similarly expensive recall initiative during the 9/11 GOP tide.

But still, he should be forced to tell the nation whether he’s going to help the dirty tricksters of his party steal another election. We have a right to know.

Go here to find out how to send the initiative to Governor Schwarzenegger. I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.

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