Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Duelling Pageants

by digby

It occurs to me that this election season is going to be characterized by two competing September pageants and whoever handles them most skillfully will have the edge in November.

We already know the Republicans are running on 9/11. They are undoubtedly gearing up for a five year anniversary commemoration in which the subtext, as always, will be portrayal of Republicans as being strong enough and tough enough to keep the country safe compared to the vacuous and naive Democratic ninnies.

The Republicans are counting on the fifth anniversary to remind people of Bush’s Bullhorn moment, which was sold as a moment of potent muscular leadership when in fact it was what he had been training for since his days on the sidelines at Andover prep:

We’ll see if the nation has finally seen through Karl Rove’s deft imagery to the callow little cheerleader that always lurked, like black and white pentimento, beneath the iconic picture.

That brings us to the other big pageant this fall. A few days before 9/11 we are going to memorialize another day of national horror: the death of a huge swathe of an American city, while the president and John McCain shared a few laughs over birthday cake:

Obviously the Democrats will shine the light on Katrina as the iconic example of Bush’s mismanagement but the question will be whether the white house can control the way the press reports it. My bet is the media will want to go back and show plenty of footage of themselves down in New Orleans. They were in the middle of the story for a few days reporting on the appalling conditions when the government seemed paralyzed. They are going to want to revisit their glory days.

They will also undoubtedly do a bunch of “where are they now” stories and investigations into what has happened in the past year. I believe it’s going to be very bad for the Republicans to be reminded of their lowest moment, just before the election.

But they are going to fight back, never fear, and they have a cunning plan. More on that in my next post…

Meanwhile, let’s not forget that the common denominator is all of this is Bush’s reflexive lying about everything:

Published on Wednesday, March 1, 2006 by the Associated Press

AP: Video Contradicts Bush Katrina Statements

by Margaret Ebrahim and John Solomon

Bush didn’t ask a single question during the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck on Aug. 29 but assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: “We are fully prepared”.

WASHINGTON — In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, risk lives in New Orleans’ Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage of the briefings.

Bush didn’t ask a single question during the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck on Aug. 29 but assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: “We are fully prepared.”

Six days of footage and transcripts obtained by The Associated Press show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Linked by secure video, Bush’s bravado on Aug. 29 starkly contrasts with the dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.

He was leading a cheer, not leading the government, and that has always been the fatal misunderstanding of the man’s presidency.

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Rotten Apple Strudel

by digby

The Haditha atrocity investigation is looking more and more like a funhouse mirror every day. TBOGG notices that the fine fellow who is suing John Murtha turns out to be suspiciously involved in the possible destruction of evidence in the case. And then there is this from ABB1, which is almost unbelievable:

August 18, Reuters:

Probe suggests Marines hid Haditha evidence: NYT
…
The defense officials were quoted as saying the report also found commanders had created a climate that minimized the importance of Iraqi lives, particularly in Haditha, where insurgent attacks were rampant, The New York Times said.

Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the new top Marine general in U.S. Central Command, is due to decide on whether charges are warranted, officials said this week.

February 4, 2005, CNN:

General: It’s ‘fun to shoot some people’

Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who commanded Marine expeditions in Afghanistan and Iraq, made the comments Tuesday during a panel discussion in San Diego, California.

“Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot,” Mattis said, prompting laughter from some military members in the audience. “It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like brawling.

“You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil,” Mattis said. “You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”

One of ABB1’s comenters points out:

I see he took command on Monday, one day before Bush’s recent “why don’t Iraqis appreciate everything we’ve done for them?” meeting at the Pentagon.

This is just in keeping with Bush administration policy that all the most outrageous of his commanders and failed advisors must be promoted and commended. Why just this month the most illustrious of all military fuck-ups, General Geoffrey Miller, retired from the Army with a Distinguished Service Medal,”for exceptionally commendable service in a position of great responsibility.” Hilzoy at Obsidion Wings commemorated the event back on August 2.

I have written about him extensively over the years. His role was never adequately examined in the press. He was an artillery officer with no experience in interrogation who was called in to do some leg-breaking in Guantanamo when the former commandant refused to torture the prisoners. And when he showed himself to be sufficiently capable of overseeing a torture regime there he was sent to Abu Ghraib to show them how it was done. For some unknown reason, he kept leaving rotten apples in his wake everywhere he went.

I have a sneaking suspicion that General Mattis will find that bad apples are spoiling his bushel too. And nobody will think a thing about the fact that the guy who declared that “it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them” is ruling on a report that found “commanders had created a climate that minimized the importance of Iraqi lives.” That’s just SOP in Bushworld.

Update: Hilzoy at Obsidion Wings has a long post up about General Mattis based upon Thomas Ricks’ description of Mattis in Fiasco, which I haven’t read. It indicates that Mattis, at the very least, is a much more complicated figure than Miller and probably doesn’t deserved to be lumped in with him. His comments are strange and inexplicable coming from the man whom Hilzoy describes. I can’t account for it.

But the point still stands, I think. For instance, let’s take a look at General Jerry Boykin from the Carpetbagger Report:

How can we forget our good friend Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence? As you may recall, eyebrows were raised around the world when NBC discovered that Bush had asked a man to coordinate our military intelligence in the war on terror who also happened to be an anti-Muslim religious zealot.

Among Boykin’s more colorful remarks, which were delivered in uniform, included the notion that our enemy isn’t Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden, but rather, “The enemy is a spiritual enemy. He’s called the principality of darkness. The enemy is a guy called Satan.” In explaining why terrorists hate us, Boykin said it’s because “we’re a Christian nation,” which will defeat our enemies “if we come against them in the name of Jesus.”

Boykin also recalled a Muslim soldier in Somalia who believed Allah would protect him in battle against the U.S. “Well, you know what I knew, that my God was bigger than his,” Boykin said. “I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.” When the Muslim soldier was eventually captured, Boykin claims to have told the man that he “underestimated our God.”

NBC also reported:

Boykin also routinely tells audiences that God, not the voters, chose President Bush: “Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.”

The good news is that George Felix Allen’s attempt to have him promoted again has been stalled out by John Warner. But he’s still the Pentagon’s deputy undersecretary for intelligence. When he retires he too will undoubtedly receive accolades and commendation despite the fact that he was found guilty of violating military guidelines and is cleqly nutty as a fruitcake. They certainly have no problem keeping him in a vital intelligence role despite the fact that he thinks George W. Bush was ordained by God and I find that very disturbing.

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Whatever

by digby

I know everyone will be shocked to find out that the woman who was detained yesterday for having explosive make-up in her purse wasn’t actually a terrorist and her make-up wasn’t actually explosive:

CEREDO, W. Va. — A West Virginia airport terminal was evacuated yesterday after two bottles of liquid found in a woman’s carry-on luggage twice tested positive for explosives residue, a Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman said.

Chemical tests later turned up no explosives in the bottles, said Captain Jack Chambers, head of the State Police Special Operations unit. The airport was reopened after nearly 10 hours.

A machine that security checkpoint screeners use to test for explosives registered positive results for two containers, and a canine team also got a positive indication, said TSA spokeswoman Amy von Walter.

The TSA screening looks for a range of explosives residue, some of which can be found on common household items, said TSA spokesman Darrin Kayser.

Airport manager Larry Salyers said he was told the woman was a 28-year-old of Pakistani descent who had moved to Huntington, W. Va., from Jackson, Mich. No charges were filed against the woman, who was taken from the airport by federal authorities at 5 p.m., Salyers said.

The woman was very cooperative, officials said.

Does anyone but me find it slightly questionable that two separate tests misread this woman’s make-up as being explosive? I think perhaps someone was intent upon seeing things that weren’t there, don’t you? In the end, this particular incident was not such a big deal. This woman was inconvenienced but they did finally recognize the truth.

But the press made a huge deal out of this all day yesterday, particularly FOX news, performing their designated role in the Bush travelling terrorist salvation show. I wonder, though, if there was even one person in the country who believed for a minute that this was a terrorist plot? I doubt it.

According to the latest Pew Poll, people seem to be “watching” the show now rather than feeling a part of it:

The news that British officials had stopped a terrorist plot to blow up planes flying to the U.S. drew higher public attention than have most other terror-related news stories since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Fully 54% say they followed this news story very closely, compared with 48% who tracked last summer’s London bombings very closely, and 34% who paid close attention to the Madrid rail bombings in 2004.

The extensive public attention did not result in a spike in concern about terrorism, however. In interviews conducted after the story broke (Aug. 10-13), a quarter of respondents said that they were “very worried” that there will soon be another terrorist attack on the United States. By comparison, 17% of respondents interviewed on Aug. 9 ­ before the announcement­ reported that level of concern.

The GWOT is just another a reality TV show.

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Quote Of The Day

by tristero

George Bush on the wiretap ruling:

I would say that those who herald this decision simply do not understand the nature of the world in which we live.

Let’s not forget that this expert on the true nature of the world once asked the president of Brazil whether he, too, had black people in his country.

Which wouldn’t be endearingly human in a “hey, I’m a just folks all American ignoramus” kind of a way even if his administration, and he himself, hadn’t been entirely wrong about the danger from bin Laden, the presence of WMD in Iraq, and the cakewalk of Iraq. And Katrina. And so on, so on, so on.

This isn’t funny, ladies and gentlemen and you, too, Republicans. It truly is hard to believe someone so ignorant and/or cynical commands the the most powerful military the world has ever seen. And he will accept no restraints whatsoever on his desire to do whatever he wishes.

Well, At Least We Got Turkey Beat

by tristero

Not surprising, but still…

Idea War

by poputonian

Iraqbodycount.net reports that more than forty thousand civilians have been killed since America launched its invasion. Dig into the database and you’ll get the gory details: civilians killed by 500 pound laser bombs; children riddled by machine gun fire; deaths by sectarian violence. It’s amazing the multiplicity of ways a civilian can die during an invasion. Recent newspaper reports in the US indicate almost 18,000 Iraqi civilian deaths in the first seven months of this year alone, including 3,500 in July. Ponder the numbers and weep.

It was only a few posts ago that our resident minder Jose commented: “The idea of freedom does not register with the Left.” Naturally, my reaction was, “The idea of genocide does not register with the Right.”

Glorified Firecrackers

by digby

I was thinking about all this talk of zero tolerance for gel-filled bras on airplanes and the like when I turned on Rhandi Rhodes today and she was talking about this. I’d forgotten all about it:

August 12th, 2005, OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A University of Oklahoma student was released on $10,000 bail Thursday after appearing in federal court to be formally accused of a felony for allegedly bringing a small explosive device into Will Rogers World Airport.

Federal agents arrested Charles Alfred Dreyling Jr., 24, on Wednesday at a security checkpoint after a Transportation Security Administration employee noticed something suspicious in his carryon luggage as it went through an X-ray machine about 9:30 a.m., FBI spokesman Gary Johnson said.

The device was described in an FBI affidavit as a carbon dioxide cartridge filled with gunpowder that could be detonated when connected to a power source such as the batteries Dreyling had in his electric razor and in his cell phone, which were also in his carryon bag.

An FBI bomb technician concluded the device could detonate with sufficient force to cause serious injury.

Dreyling faces a federal charge of trying to get on an aircraft with an explosive device. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

He was released to the custody of his mother, Vicki Dreyling. His terms of release include living at his parents’ home in north Oklahoma City and a 10 p.m. curfew.

Dreyling appeared in federal court wearing an orange Oklahoma County jail jumpsuit and orange flip-flops. About twenty friends and family members attended the hearing in a show of support for Dreyling.

Former Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys, who is Dreyling’s landlord and his longtime friend, also came to the hearing.

Humphreys said Dreyling had created a ”glorified firecracker” and then forgotten that it was in his luggage.

[…]

Dreyling told authorities that he had made the device and said it was ”basically a pipe bomb,” according to an affidavit. Dreyling said he built the device for entertainment value, never intending to hurt anyone, and forgot that it was in his carryon bag when he brought it to the airport, the affidavit said.

Dreyling said he learned as a teenager how to build homemade explosives from Web sites like ”The Anarchist’s Cook Book.” Dreyling said he has built and detonated several explosive devices for recreational purposes, according to the affidavit.

He also told authorities that he had a bag of gunpowder, an empty carbon dioxide cartridge, and several ignitors in his Norman residence, according to the affidavit.

”I know Charlie Dreyling quite well,” Humphreys said. ”I’ve known him since he was in the first grade. I appreciate what the authorities are doing making our airlines safe.

”I have every confidence that they’ll find out Charlie Dreyling is a fine young man and no terrorist.

”He had a little explosive device, and boys like to see things go bang. He took it down to an outing at the lake, left it in his bag, forgot it and went to the airport.”

His charges were reduced to a misdemeanor and he was let off with a fine. But then he is a good Republican white boy and shouldn’t have his life ruined over a little potential explosion on an airplane.

(Meanwhile, it’s getting to the point where everyone is going to have to fly naked. As Amato says, it gives new meaning to the phrase “snakes on a plane.”)

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Uppity Judge

by digby

“The President of the United States, a creature of the same Constitution which gave us these Amendments, has undisputedly violated the Fourth [Amendment] in failing to procure judicial orders as required by FISA, and accordingly has violated the First Amendment Rights of these Plaintiffs as well.”

And here I thought he was ordained by God and annointed by Rush. What is this constitution she speaks of?

Blitzer just characterized the ruling as having “serious implications for the War on Terror” rather than serious implications for the Bush administration. That Republican programming is something, isn’t it?

And is it common to immediately put up a picture and discuss the race and gender of judges who ruled in major cases? I don’t think I’ve seen it before. Usually they indicate whether or not a judge is a treasonous activist liberal by just indicating who appointed them. This time, we’ve got the designation “african american” every time the judge is mentioned. Now why would that be?

But then we are hearing an awful lot of macaca talk these days, aren’t we?

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Ungrateful Wretches

by digby

Bush is now caught in a trap of his own making:

“I sensed a frustration with the lack of progress on the bigger picture of Iraq generally — that we continue to lose a lot of lives, it continues to sap our budget,” said one person who attended the meeting. “The president wants the people in Iraq to get more on board to bring success.”

[…]

More generally, the participants said, the president expressed frustration that Iraqis had not come to appreciate the sacrifices the United States had made in Iraq, and was puzzled as to how a recent anti-American rally in support of Hezbollah in Baghdad could draw such a large crowd. “I do think he was frustrated about why 10,000 Shiites would go into the streets and demonstrate against the United States,” said another person who attended.

Damn Iraqis, sapping our budget and costing our lives like that. Why won’t they understand that we came in and killed them, occupied their country and indiscriminately threw thousands of them in jail for their own good?

Joseph Darby the Abu Ghraib whistleblower has a first person article in GQ this week. He made a comment in passing that I think is telling:

One of the things you have to understand is the mentality of where I grew up, in western Maryland. It’s a small town, and there’s not a lot of work. So most people are either in the military, in the Reserves, or they’re related to somebody who is. They’re good people, but I knew they weren’t going to look at the fact that these guys were beating up prisoners. They were going to look at the fact that an American soldier put other American soldiers in prison. For Iraqis. And to those people—who basically are patriotic, socially programmed people who believe whatever they’re told—the Iraqis are the enemy, and screw whatever happens to them.

Bush has always been trafficking in cognitive dissonance with his Iraq talk and it’s caught up with him. He tried to gloss over some fundamental illogic with slick PR and it didn’t work.

From the very beginning he framed his war on terror as being “with us or with the terrorists.” He then consciously conflated Iraq with 9/11 and sent many soldiers over there with the idea that they were fighting those who attacked us. But the facts never supported that and they knew it. Since we live in a world in which outright conquest is no longer acceptable, once his WMD rationale evaporated, he was forced to lean on the idea that we are there to help the Iraqi people and “spread democracy.” He obviously came to believe it.

He has tried to make distinctions between the good Iraqis who are “with us” and the bad ones who are “against us” — “terrorists” “bitter enders” “insurgents” — but many of the soldiers over there and their families back home and Bush’s racist supporters see the “enemy” as simply Iraqis — or just arabs or muslims. And I suspect that a whole lot of other Americans are just plain confused. It’s very hard to finesse all that and it’s one of the reasons why the occupation has been such a disaster. Nobody really knows what we’re doing there, not us, not them. Now Iraqis are boldly demonstrating in favor of terrorists and even Bush can no longer hide his own confusion and dismay.

In that sense, this war makes Vietnam a moment of foreign policy clarity. It was certainly a mistake to put so much importance on the idea that the US could not afford to fail in a small proxy war or risk communism taking over the far east. But at least everyone understood the premise and could either agree or disagree with it. This war in Iraq is totally incomprehensible to everyone. We invaded for dozens of disparate reasons none of which were entirely compelling and all of which have been proven to be mistaken. We are throwing away hundreds of billions and yet there are now many more terrorists in Iraq than there were before the invasion and many more all around the world because of it. Oil prices are sky high and rising. The middle east is more unstable than its been in many decades. Lots and lots of people are dying.

This is all because after 9/11 we had a leadership who ruthlessly exploited the crisis for political gain and an influential advisory cabal who had waited for 30 years to unleash their half-witted ideological experiments on the world. None of it ever made any sense and now that the fog of 9/11`has lifted, that much, at least, is starting to become clear to most people. The problem is that the mess they’ve left is so huge it’s virtually impossible to clean up. Damn, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a case of “sow the wind, reap the whirlwind” unfold so quickly and so starkly right before my very eyes.

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Am Not!

by digby

Overheard on The Corner this week — Andy McCarthy to J-Pod:

There is something disturbingly Leftist about your penchant for shrill, uninformed criticism that scorns the interlocutor rather than dealing in a mature way with the substance of his arguments. I am not mocking the President. I believe he is wrong, that the mistake he is making has tragic implications for our security, and I am saying so.

I know it’s confusing but get used to it. The Republicans are arguing among themselves now and are without the means to understand such disagreements without calling someone a commie, leftist, liberal or terrorist. That’s how their world is organized.

And anyway, as we all know, you cannot be wrong and be a conservative at the same time. (Certainly, no real conservative can be shrill, immature or uninformed.) Therefore, anyone who is wrong must be, by definition, a liberal-leftist-commie-terrorist. That’s just how it works.

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