Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Good Argument For Gun Control

by digby

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Americans mistakenly worried the
United Nations is plotting to take away their guns on July 4 — U.S. Independence Day — are flooding the world body with angry letters and postcards, the chairman of a U.N. conference on the illegal small arms trade said on Wednesday.

“I myself have received over 100,000 letters from the U.S. public, criticizing me personally, saying, ‘You are having this conference on the 4th of July, you are not going to get our guns on that day,”‘ said Prasad Kariyawasam, Sri Lanka’s U.N. ambassador.

“That is a total misconception as far as we are concerned,” Kariyawasam told reporters ahead of the two-week meeting opening on Monday.

For one, July 4 is a holiday at U.N. headquarters and the world body’s staff will be watching a fireworks display from the U.N. lawn rather than attending any meetings, he said.

For another, the U.N. conference will look only at illegal arms and “does not in any way address legal possession,” a matter left to national governments to regulate rather than the United Nations, he added.

The campaign is largely the work of the U.S. National Rifle Association, whose executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, warns on an NRA Web site (http://www.stopungunban.org/) of a July 4 plot “to finalize a U.N. treaty that would strip all citizens of all nations of their right to self-protection.”

Sweet Jesus this country has a lot of stupid people in it.

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I Beg Your Pardon

by digby

I think it’s fairly obvious that this trial balloon over the week-end to pardon Scooter Libby is for real and we should all take it quite seriously. It wasn’t just Mr Joe DiToensing who said it, it was none other than William Kristol on Fox news:

[Fitzgerald] indicted one person, not for any underlying crime, but for allegedly mis-remembering a couple of conversations with reporters when talking about them to the grand jury — these were conversations that went nowhere. No one thinks Scooter Libby actually leaked Valerie Plame’s name, even if that were a crime, which is isn’t.

Bush should pardon Scooter Libby and get the whole thing over with…I am blaming Ashcroft for recusing himself. And the CIA was out to get people in the White House at that point. And Bush should pardon Scooter Libby.

Here’s a little reminder of our friend Kristol from a few years back:

What Republicans now need is the nerve to fight. They must stand for, to quote Helprin again, “the rejection of intimidation, the rejection of lies, the rejection of manipulation, the rejection of disingenuous pretense, and a revulsion for the sordid crimes and infractions the president has brought to his office.” (Weekly Standard, May 25, 1998, page 18.)

I guess it all depends on the gravity of the crime. Clinton as we know, was accused of lying in a civil case and covering up an extra-marital affair — by a flamboyantly partisan prosecutor who selectively leaked like a sieve. Libby, on the other hand, is accused of lying about whether he leaked the name of a CIA officer to the press — by a non-partisan, tight-lipped prosecutor who has been very conservative in developing this case (something for which Karl Rove should thank his lucky stars.) I’m not even going to make the argument as to why one is more deserving of approbation and legal consequence. It’s obvious.

As for a pardon, I realize that the administration believes in pre-emption, but this is ridiculous. As Elizabeth Edwards, writing today on her blog over at One America Committee pointed out:

Is there some greater benefit here to a pardon or some mitigating circumstances that make a pardon acceptable? The prosecution was not political; the defendant was knowledgeable about the law and the offense; the prosecution itself will not be disruptive to our national interest and in fact might give other potential leakers some pause before they use damaging information for political purposes. I think the only rationale for a pardon is that the inner political chicanery of the administration could be revealed during the trial of Libby.

Well, here’s a message: the country already knows. All a pardon does is confirm the perception that in addition to being a White House where the powerful think they can do what they want regardless of what is right or lawful, it is also a White House where responsibility and accountability (remember, those things they wanted from fourth grade public school teachers?) are nowhere to be found.

Thank you.

I wouldn’t put it past them to pardon Libby. After all, they’ve gotten away with pardoning themselves for their crimes for the past 30 years. Indeed, the precedent for this was set when Poppy pardoned Cap Weinberger et al on Christmas eve as he was leaving office. And nobody said a peep.

As Robert Parry wrote in this prescient piece:

In marked contrast to the continuing Republican investigations of President Clinton, the Democrats eight years ago cooperated with Republicans in shutting down substantive inquiries that implicated President George H.W. Bush in a variety of geopolitical scandals.

At that time, the Democrats apparently felt that pursuing those inquiries into Bush’s role in secret contacts with Iran – both in 1980 and during the Iran-contra affair – and getting to the bottom of alleged CIA military support for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the mid-1980s would distract from the domestic policy goals at the start of the Clinton presidency.

That judgment, however, has come back to haunt the Democrats. Clearing George H.W. Bush in 1993 ironically set the stage both for the Republican scandal-mongering against Clinton and for the restoration of the Bush family dynasty in 2000.

Certainly, the Democratic gestures of bipartisanship were not reciprocated by the Republicans. They opted for a pattern of aggressive politics that challenged the Clinton administration from its first days and has continued through the 2000 Election and into the new round of investigations of ex-President Clinton.

The Democrats have found themselves constantly on the defensive, sputtering about the unfairness of it all.

[…]

Beyond obscuring these important chapters of recent history and thus adding to the confusion of the American people, the Democrats discovered that their deferential strategy gained them nothing from the Republicans. If anything, the Democratic behavior was taken as a sign of weakness.

After the Democrats folded the Reagan-Bush investigations, the Republicans simply swept their easy winnings off the table and raised the stakes.

No kidding. These zombie Republicans just keep coming back, more crooked and more blatant about it every time. They just sweep their winnings off the table and raise the stakes.

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When The Troops Come Home And Not before

by digby

There has been quite a debate in blogging circles about the “amnesty for insurgents” bill that was defeated in the Senate yesterday and I’m a little surprised that there is even a discussion about it. As you probably know, the administration has been supportive of an idea by the fragile Iraqi government to give amnesty to killers of American troops in exchange for their laying down their weapons. A lot of people think this is a good idea.

I don’t. I really, really don’t. Amnesty is something you grant when hostilities are over as part of a settlement. Until troops are off the ground, or a very serious cease fire has been called at the least, the mere idea of this is just nuts in my book.

Our troops are sitting ducks over there as it is. Many are slowly losing their minds, as this stunning post by Arthur Silber illustrates. The war is ill-defined and unwinnable. And yet they remain in grave danger with many, many thousands of them maimed or killed for reasons that we all know are spurious. It’s cruel to do this to them on top of all that.

Alternet printed a letter today from a soldier serving in Iraq who makes a very eloquent argument, from his perspective, as to why this is wrong:

I am one of the soldiers that these proposals are dishonoring.

Did any of these men ever serve??? Have to go through memorial service after memorial service day after day for comrades they knew and loved???

Have they had to live in fear every moment of every unchanging, horrible day, waiting for a never-seen rocket or a mortar to kill them–or worse, kill those to whom they are close???

Have they bore body armor in 120 degree heat in the face of an unrecognizable enemy, one who uses terrified civilians as shields?

Have they seen the remains of tanks, HMMWVs, BODIES!!! that were rent asunder by invisible bombs, planted by fanatical zealots???

Have they truly seen the shatter[ed] lives of Iraqis, these lives broken by the very people they propose to grant amnesty?

Have they had to pull the trigger with the aim of killing another human being, someone you have never met or seen before, never knowing if the target was truly an enemy?

Do these gentlemen wrestle at night with the nightmares of guilt and second-guessing?

Every IED that injures or kills an American soldier exacerbates the normal soldiers’ attitude toward those who he is sent to help and protect. Every sniper shot hardens our hearts.

Propose accolades for those who have lived through this hell, not for those who have opposed them in the shadows, in the dark.

When an insurgent–a terrorist–an enemy combatant–call them what you will–strikes at an American, he attacks Iraq.

When these “right, honorable” gentlemen realize that we are in a war we should have never entered–one where our very presence provokes and increases the enemy’s resolve and recruitment–perhaps then I will consider their words.

But until then, tell these paper warriors to go to Walter Reed, to Landstuhl, to Sam Houston and face the soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen whose lives have been drastically altered or ended.

Tell them to face the families of the fallen and propose their accolades to our foes.

Instead of resolutions that honor those who are trying to kill us, these senators, these congressmen should devote their efforts, their words, their very lives to try and figure out how we can extricate ourselves from this war.

Perhaps then they can look themselves in the eye and admit Iraq was a mistake and commit all our energies to saving American lives, instead of worrying about mollifying our enemies’ rage.

Sean Frerking, a soldier serving in Iraq

There’s a lot there that I might not feel comfortable with as a civilian living in a nice safe environment in california. But I get where this guy must be coming from. And I appreciate his ability to see the bigger picture.

19 Senators voted for this amnesty yesterday. All Republicans. No Democrats. Those are the “right and honorable” men to whom this soldier is referring. And they aren’t just any Republicans. They are the leading national figures of the party, including John McCain.

The fact is that we are not leaving Iraq until 2009, at the earliest. Bush has said it, he means it, he will not be the man who “lost Iraq.” Until American troops are off the ground — or at least a cease fire is in effect — amnesty makes little sense. It rewards killings of the past and prevents none in the future. Amnesty is a valuable card you play as part of a comprehensive settlement. Bush is simply trying to prop up the rickity Iraqi government and like all the rest of his ploys to save face and assert his authority, it comes at the expense of the military.

We should take that soldier’s argument and ram it down the Republican party’s throats. Here we had a day when two poor American schmucks were just found tortured and killed. We have no moral authority left with which to even condemn the torture — after all, we’ve made torture cool again. And yet 19 Republican senators voted for amnesty for their killers. I ask you to contemplate what the Republicans would do to us if the shoe were reversed — regardless of the merits. You don’t have to think very long do you?

Politically, this should have been Dubai all over again, a media firestorm, forcing the Republican rank and file to see what was being done in their name. Rove is going to run on the patriot card again, calling us cowards for wantin’ to cun ‘n run, and here they are proposing to forgive the killers of 2500 Americans while we still have 140,000 more of them sitting over there like sitting ducks for no good reason. We should hang this around the Republican Party’s neck and light it afire.

Here’s the list of the Amnesty 19.

Wayne Allard of Colorado Kit Bond of Missouri Jim Bunning of Kentucky Conrad Burns of Montana Tom Coburn of Oklahoma Thad Cochran of Mississippi John Cornyn of Texas Jim DeMint of South Carolina Mike Enzi of Wyoming Lindsey Graham of South Carolina Chuck Hagel of Nebraska Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma Jon Kyl (R-AZ) Trent Lott of Mississippi John McCain of Arizona Jeff Sessions of Alabama Ted Stevens of Alaska Craig Thomas of Wyoming John Warner of Virginia

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The Good Husbands

by digby

Steve Benen of the Carpetbagger Report has an interesting piece in the latest issue of The Washington Monthly, noting that three of the top potential Republican candidates are admitted adulterers.

Until relatively recently, a self-confessed adulterer had never sought the presidency. Certainly, other candidates have been dogged by sex scandals. In the 1828 presidential election, John Quincy Adams questioned whether Andrew Jackson’s wife was legitimately divorced from her first husband before she married Old Hickory. Grover Cleveland, who was single, fathered a child out of wedlock, a fact that sparked national headlines during the 1884 election (though he managed to win anyway). There have been presidential candidates who had affairs that the press decided not to write about, like Wendell Wilkie, FDR, and John F. Kennedy. And there have been candidates whose infidelities have been uncovered during the course of a campaign: Gary Hart’s indiscretions ultimately derailed his 1988 bid, and in 1992, during the course of his campaign, Bill Clinton was forced to make the euphemistic admission that he “caused pain” in his marriage. But it wasn’t until 2000 that McCain, possibly emboldened by Clinton’s survival of his scandals, became the first confessed adulterer to have the nerve to run. Now, just a few years after infidelity was considered a dealbreaker for a presidential candidate, the party that presents itself as the arbiter of virtue may field an unprecedented two-timing trifecta. McCain was still married and living with his wife in 1979 while, according to The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof, “aggressively courting a 25-year-old woman who was as beautiful as she was rich.” McCain divorced his wife, who had raised their three children while he was imprisoned in Vietnam, then launched his political career with his new wife’s family money. In 2000, McCain managed to deflect media questioning about his first marriage with a deft admission of responsibility for its failure. It’s possible that the age of the offense and McCain’s charmed relationship with the press will pull him through again, but Giuliani and Gingrich may face a more difficult challenge. Both conducted well-documented affairs in the last decade–while still in public office. Giuliani informed his second wife, Donna Hanover, of his intention to seek a separation in a 2000 press conference. The announcement was precipitated by a tabloid frenzy after Giuliani marched with his then-mistress, Judith Nathan, in New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, an acknowledgement of infidelity so audacious that Daily News columnist Jim Dwyer compared it with “groping in the window at Macy’s.” In the acrid divorce proceedings that followed, Hanover accused Giuliani of serial adultery, alleging that Nathan was just the latest in a string of mistresses, following an affair the mayor had had with his former communications director. But the most notorious of them all is undoubtedly Gingrich, who ran for Congress in 1978 on the slogan, “Let Our Family Represent Your Family.” (He was reportedly cheating on his first wife at the time). In 1995, an alleged mistress from that period, Anne Manning, told Vanity Fair’s Gail Sheehy: “We had oral sex. He prefers that modus operandi because then he can say, ‘I never slept with her.'” Gingrich obtained his first divorce in 1981, after forcing his wife, who had helped put him through graduate school, to haggle over the terms while in the hospital, as she recovered from uterine cancer surgery. In 1999, he was disgraced again, having been caught in an affair with a 33-year-old congressional aide while spearheading the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton

Benen wonders, in light of the recent page one above the fold NT Times’ dishy speculation about the Clintons’ sex lives, whether the press will follow up when the Republican primaries begin in earnest. I frankly doubt it. The CW seems to be that Clinton rules only apply to Democrats. Republicans are allowed to hypocrites because, well… just because. But there is one little fly in the ointment for the GOP, whether Modo and Lil’ Russ apply certain standards to their moral behavior or not:

But if GOP operatives dangle the infidelity bait, and the press fails to bite, its importance to Christian conservatives won’t be so easy to ignore. Since the press awoke to the phenomenon of evangelicals in 2000 and so-called “values voters” in 2004, reporters have become fond of gaming out every possible permutation of evangelicals’ political concerns. Evangelicals’ attitudes towards the marital problems of McCain, Giuliani and Gingrich might actually deserve such an inquiry. In 2000, for example, James Dobson issued a personal press release specifically to “clarify his lack of support for Senator McCain.” “The Senator is being touted by the media as a man of principle, yet he was involved with other women while married to his first wife,” Dobson said. These remarks received little attention in 2000, possibly because reporters hadn’t yet grasped the extent of Dobson’s influence, but Carrie Gordon Earll, a spokesperson for Dobson’s Focus on the Family, recently made it clear that the adultery issue hasn’t lost any of its toxicity among evangelicals. “If you have a politician, an elected official, and they can’t be trusted in their own marriage, how can I trust them with the budget? How can I trust them with national security?” she asked me. Although Earll was reluctant to discuss specific politicians, she noted that a candidate who “had an affair and then moved on and restored that marriage” might find forgiveness with Christian conservatives, but someone “who had an affair and then left his wife” would not.

Now, I find that interesting, don’t you? There is only one politician among all the adulterous sinners of ’08 who could possibly meet Dobson’s criteria for forgiveness: Bill Clinton. I think we can all feel fairly confident that the religious right will not embrace a Hillary candidacy anyway. But I happen to think that McCain is the most formidable challenge to the Democrats in 2008. He’s the guy Junior pretended to be — and the maverick-who-has-always-been-his-own-man the Republicans would love to be able to throw up there as big Daddy who’s gonna fix everything. If he can get past James Dobson he’s going to be tough to beat, I think. How can the religious right come to terms with this? (I ask that only rhetorically. We know that they are hypocrites coming and going.) But this could be a successful wedge issue that forces the religious right to either cop to their true permissiveness on an issue they use as a cudgel to beat liberals over the head, namely the sanctity of marriage. Or it will expose them as the rigid, unrealistic tight-asses they really are, and perhaps brand the GOP further as the party of … unrealistic tight-asses. It’s worth thinking about a little bit. Benen’s article also mentions that if the press decides to run its usual double standard that bloggers are prepared to take up the slack. I think I can speak for everyone here tonight when I say, “damn right.” I have never been as appalled in my life as when the Republicans and the DC media establishment freakshow decidedduring the lewinsky scandal to hold a national hen party on what constituted a proper marriage. It was the most unctuous, hypocritical, sanctimonious display of phony piety I have ever had the misfortune to witness. These high powered celebrities all wringing their delicate hands over sexual indiscretions as if all of them hadn’t been witness to or participants in countless examples of marital foibles and error. Yet, they all pretended to be pure as novitiates, delicate and easily startled by the notion that marriage, particularly long term modern marriage, is a little bit more complicated than a romance novel plot line. Indeed, if I didn’t know better, I would have assumed that the Republican party, the religious right and the DC press corps were conspiring to destroy the institution of marriage within their lifetimes. Gay people wanting to participate isn’t the problem; they are buying into the great old creaky thing, strengthening it for all. What threatens it is this idea that strangers can intrude on this most deep, complex and intimate of relationships and shine a harsh spotlight on all the things we do to keep it going over years of compromise, adjustment, excitmement, boredom and love — and then cast judgment on our choices. If you want to destroy marriage, force everyone to submit to James Dobson, Chris Matthews and Cokie Roberts sitting at the end of their beds running a scorecard on whether their union is acceptable. I’m against delving into people’s private lives. In fact, it makes me sick. But, when we start to see this happen (and I think the New York Times and the Washington Post have made it quite clear that they are going to fall right back into Clinton rules the minute they get the chance) we are going to have to fight back. If they are going to use it against Democrats, the adulterous sinners of the GOP are going to get a taste of this medicine and see how much they like it. The three amigos seem ripe for the picking to me.

x-posted at FDL for Jane and Kobe

Knight In Shining Armor

by digby

I’m busy today so I won’t have time until later tonight to write about a couple of things that are on my mind, so I thought I’d entertain you with this stirring defense of Ann Coulter from Wingnut Ted, who sends me these e-mails all the time, looking for a link and an argument. They never fail to give me a chuckle.

He calls it “Defending Ann Coulter:”

Key Facts:

1) She is a graduate of an Ivy League College and top rated law school and so is perhaps 10 times more intelligent than most of her critics.

2) Her latest book, which caused the “9/11 widows controversy” is 300 solid pages of sophisticated arguments befitting a sophisticated lawyer, that virtually all of those who hate her can’t understand, let alone respond to except with obscenity or silly, childlike ranting.

3) She describes herself as a controversialist which I think is accurate. Others describes her as a satirist; also accurate. This means she exaggerates to attract attention. She doesn’t exaggerate facts or arguments but rather the environment around the facts and arguments.

4) She is also very pretty, sexy, and aggressive which attracts even more attention because, when combined with her intelligence, it makes for a very unusual and interesting combination.

5) She adds to her mystique by smiling and laughing a lot as she displays her absolute contempt for the absolute stupidity of Democrats. It makes you doubt that she is just a pugnacious lawyer who fights as a professional or as a personality type, and might be a caring person trying bravely to save civilization from the Democrats.

6) Shakespeare said people come to their fame by accident, talent, or hard work. Ann came to hers by all three I think, while the “9/11 widows” came to theirs primarily by accident. But, to start an argument that challenges the logic or truth of what people say based on how they got to be in a position to say something, is an intellectually fruitless dead end. If, though, such an argument can create a controversy that sells books that help defeat Democrats it is perhaps worth the somewhat tainted effort, certainly to Ms. Coulter and her publisher anyway, and probably to the nation.

7) If you said to someone 10 years ago that in 10 years the Republicans will have cheerleading allies like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fox News, Billy O’Reilly, Michael Savich, Ann Coulter, and dozens of others, with a weekly audience of perhaps 50 million adults you’d be sure the Democrats were about to disappear. That the Democrats stand to become the majority in the next election may indicate that nobody is listening at all, or perhaps not.

8) No one can really explain why it is that criticizing four 9/11 widows for statements that seemingly reflect little more than the irrational mumbling of four grief stricken widows is more controversial than the serious and detailed accusation, in the book, that liberals naturally enable pedophiles, rapists, and murderers?

The most obvious explanation is that Democrats (Sheldon Silver being the very best example) do love criminals because they are the natural product of the foul country they hate so much. The more vicious the criminal the more Democrats know they are right about America. Rudeness toward four grieving widows can then be seen as the greater offense because genuine criminality is not really criminality to a Democrat, it is vindication.

In fairness, one has to mention that hatred of America isn’t the only reason Democrats prefer criminals. Money seems to be the other motivation. Lawyers are the greatest contributors to Democrats. The Democratic defense bar would suffer tremendously under the simple Republican regime of mandatory minimums and throwing away the key.

9) Republican intellectuals like Ms. Coulter have to be largely forgiven because there are very few good targets around these days. Does Sheldon Silver go on TV in our supposed democracy to explain his position on pedophilia? Does Ted Kennedy go on TV to explain is love of socialism after seeing it in Nazi Germany, The Soviet Union, Communist China, and Cuba? Democrats prefer abortion to love, treason or surrender to national defense, failed public schools to successful private ones, looting of public pensions to safe, secure, and extremely profitable private pensions, divorce to marriage, crime to punishment, inflation to monetarism, gov’t monopoly to efficient competition, 50 Cent to Pat Boone,labor unions that mass produce unemployment to companies that produce sustainable jobs, and France to America.

The Democrats don’t dare defend the indefensible so what is a Republican to do? Sometimes they end up in a duel with 9/11 widows and others the Democrats use as human shields.

10) Oddly, and quite tragically most intellectuals are Democrats? In fact, some believe the rise of liberalism actually represents little more than the failure of the Ivy League, which, many would argue, sets the entire world’s political agenda. But these liberal Ivy League intellectuals won’t defend the indefensible either. They are no where to be seen. So how did this happen? Its simple really: they are against America the way a doctor is against cancer. If America weren’t a cancer to them they would have little value any more than a medical doctor would have value to someone without cancer. They would have to get real jobs.

For a time, after The Communist Manifesto and after the Depression, there was a some legitimate debate that did need to be resolved. Much to the surprise of the neglected Ivy League it was largely resolved by Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and their lingering friend, Castro. Nowadays they live on in what must be a left wing schizophrenic hell, pretending to be intellectual and radical thinkers with a bold new transformative prescription for America, when in reality they are deathly afraid to come out of their ivory towers where the long discredited anti-Americanism to which they so desperately cling, if only by default, would be exposed by the likes of an of Ann Coulter.

11) So how do the Democrats do so well electorally while being AWOL from our Democracy? They dumb down the electorate. They started Air America Radio whose daytime line up features three comedians: Jerry Springier, Al Frankin and Jeanine Garafalo. They register convicted felons and everyone conceivable through the “make every vote count” initiative, no matter what their qualifications. They produce slick 30 second TV commercials. They buy every vote they get with their tax and spend philosophy (really tax and buy votes subversion). They promise that they are more caring than Republicans. In short, they do everything possible to steal votes and everything possible to avoid a very American democratic debate. They hate Ann Coulter because her very presence serves notice on them that they are intellectually bankrupt, too cowardly for debate, and shamefully reduced to silence or sexual/scatological imprecations.

I think Ted needs to join the wingnut welfare queens over at NRO, don’t you? He’s better than K-Lo.

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Frothy Junior

by digby

Yee Haw! The Codpiece is back with a vengeance! And guess who can’t keep his grubby little hands away from it. You guessed it: Joe Klein.

Via John Amato:

“I was up there in the cockpit of that airplane coming into Baghdad,” the President told the press corps assembled on the White House lawn after his dash into and out of the war zone last week. “It was an unbelievable, unbelievable feeling.” In fact, George W. Bush’s body language—let’s call it the full jaunty—was reminiscent of his last, infamous cockpit trip, onto the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in May 2003 to announce the “end” of major combat operations in Iraq, beneath a mission accomplished sign. His public language is more cautious than it used to be, but he seemed downright frothy in a private session with the congressional leadership after his press conference.

He called the new Iraqi Defense Minister an “interesting cat” and Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the deceased al-Qaeda leader, “a dangerous dude.” Bush had reason, finally, to strut. The al-Zarqawi raid had netted valuable intelligence data that were enabling U.S. and Iraqi forces to roll up al-Qaeda cells—the best haul since the capture of Saddam Hussein, which made it possible for U.S. forces to disable much of the dictator’s inner circle in early 2004. What’s more, the first elected Iraqi government was finally fully in place. Back home, Karl Rove was officially unindicted in the CIA leak case, and the Democrats were busy being Democrats-divided, defensive and confused about the war, with Bush’s favorite punching bag, Senator John Kerry, leading the charge..

That’s right. Bush is stuck in the mid-30’s, his brain narrowly escaped indictment and he had to mount the most top secret trip since Kissinger went to China (someone left the cakewalk in the rain) yet Klein is drooling and panting over the president’s pants again, getting all hot and bothered when the frat-boy in chief calls the Iraq defense Minister an “interesting cat” and al-Zarqawi a “dangerous dude.” Why it’s almost as if Joe got invited to a kegger with the BMOC’s and got to hang with them and “rap” all night about “chicks” (or “dangerous dudes”, whatever.)

Perhaps someone can explain to me the strange male attraction to George W. Bush. I have never encountered anything quite like it. From day one, DC nerds like Klein have had massive man-crushes on Junior, describing him as “loose-hipped” and “swaggering” and showing all manner of strange obsession with his masculine body language. Klein seems to barely be able to contain his squeal as he writes about Bush’s “strut” and his “full jaunty” (which sounds suspiciously like “full monty” — giving full rise, as it were, to speculation about what Klein was thinking about when he came up with it.) But, can someone please tell me what in the hell he’s talking about when says that Bush was “downright frothy?” What in god’s name was Klein doing while he wrote this column? (Don’t go there…)

Seriously, this has been a huge problem since the beginning of the Bush administration. And it tracks quite handily with the opposite reactions among the chattering geeks during the Clinton years. Bubba was female friendly (if you know what I mean) and was the object of a great deal of derisive coverage for his tomcat vibe by the priggish DC press. What worked in his favor out in the country — his smarts ‘n sexual charisma — made the Washington media squirm like a bunch of little old ladies caught by accident at a Marilyn Manson concert. And then along came the codpiece and they all fell in love. Wassup with that?

On the substance of Klein’s column, such as it is, after he extolls the vitues of Bush’s manly manliness for two paragraphs he points out that his policies are all wrong and that Karl Rove is a lying sack of manure — but that Democrats are icky so we need to stay the course. John Kerry says we should leave by the end of the year and that’s crazy Democratic defeatist talk. Hawkish, man’s man Klein, on the other hand, thinks we shouldn’t get out for another six months. You do the math.

It’s a typically shallow analysis that could have been written in his sleep, but the first two paragraphs are carefully crafted observations of the president’s confidence, demeanor and manly assurance. (How many people can manage to get past the first paragraph of any Joe Klein column, do you think?) It’s the image of Bush as some sort of cowboy hero that kept him propped up for so long (if you’ll excuse the expression) and which the press corps has been dying to get another lingering look at. They love their man when he’s all sweaty and swaggering. Preferably in a tight jumpsuit.

But this will do too.

Joe’s screensaver:

Pay no attention to the transmitter on his back.

Filling in for Jane, I crossed posted this on FDL tonight

Bitchy Little Dork

by digby

Here’s Iowa Republican congressman Steve King on al-Zarqawi:

“There probably are not 72 virgins in the hell he’s at,” King said. “And if there are, they probably all look like Helen Thomas.”

He sounds like a pretty funny guy, eh? A real towel-snapping frat boy. Catnip with the ladies, I’m sure.

Think you’re fooling anyone with that rug, Steverino?

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Fogies and Hippies

by digby

Atrios wonders today why everybody is so derisive about the (incorrect) idea that the left blogosphere (or Jon Stewart’s audience) consists of a bunch of college kids when it would be a benefit to have college kids reading papers and being informed etc.

I’m pretty sure it’s because the right’s narrative hasn’t changed since the 1960’s — the Democrats are held hostage a bunch of radical students who know nothing of how the world really works but are dangerously trying to destroy capitalism and civilized society. Listen to Rush. You can’t tell much difference between what he says and what my Dad used to blather on about at the dinner table in 1970’s on the subject. The “crazy teenagers vs the grown-ups” paradigm still persists.

Doesn’t it seem that this tired, old-fashioned trope, which bears no relationship to reality anymore, if it ever did, is ripe for the dustbin? How is it possible that it persists after all these years?

This is one of those fundamental, ingrained images that undergirds the conservative narrative and we have not even tried to counter it except by having our politicians act like fogies — which hasn’t changed a thing. Isn’t it past time to unveil a new set of images that are actually relevant to the new millenium? Any ideas?

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Iraqi Nervous Breakdown

by digby

Al Kamen:

Hours before President Bush left on a surprise trip last Monday to the Green Zone in Baghdad for an upbeat assessment of the situation there, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq painted a starkly different portrait of increasing danger and hardship faced by its Iraqi employees. This cable, marked “sensitive” and obtained by The Washington Post, outlines in spare prose the daily-worsening conditions for those who live outside the heavily guarded international zone: harassment, threats and the employees’ constant fears that their neighbors will discover they work for the U.S. government.

Here’s the cable(pdf)

In a very straighforward descriptive style, Khalilzad writes that Iraqis must hide the fact that they work for the US or face ostracism or worse. Women are being treated only slightly better than if they were living under the Taliban in 1999 — and they are being asked to wear clothing that Khalilzad admits was not even required by the most repressive Iranian Ayatollahs. They are losing their driving privileges and are considered suspicious if they use a cell phone — they might be calling a lover, you see. (This is your fundamentalist religion working to “free” women from the burden of being full citizens.)

People are being gouged for electricity, to which they barely have access anyway (in 115 degree heat!) They face kidnappings and violence every day of their lives. Sectarian divisions are showing up in all their social interactions, even among families. They must adopt separate customs, dress and manner of speaking to travel freely through various neighborhoods in Baghdad or risk violence. They cannot trust the security forces, who seem to be getting more hostile to the population, especially those who work for the US. Their anxiety is palpable as they feel their lives are hurling out of control.

Did I mention that the people he is talking about in this cable are all employees of the US embassy in Baghdad? That’s right. These are the highly privileged, educated elite who work inside the Green Zone. Imagine what it’s like out in the hinterlands.

He does touch upon this with one very disturbing observation:

One colleague beseeched us to weigh in to help a woman who was uprooted in may from her home after 30 years on the pretext of some application of a long-disused lawy that allows owners to evict tenents after 14 years. The woman, who is gayli Kurd, says she has nowhere to go, no other home, but the courts give them no recourse to this new assertion of power. Such uprooting may be a response by new Shiite government authorities to similar actions against Arabs by Kurds in other parts of Iraq. (Note: an arab newspaper editor told us he is preparing an extensive survey of ethnic cleansing, which he said is taking place in almost every Iraqi province, as political parties and their militias are seemingly engaged in tit-for-tat reprisals all over Iraq. One editor told us that the KDP is planning to set up tent cities in Irbil, to house Kurds being evicted from Bagdad.)

The country has obviously already spiraled into a state of civil war. It’s not surprising that it’s taken on this character of secret informants, ethnic cleansing, paranoia and neighborhood militias because the whole society was shaped by an authoritarian police state. But civil war it is, and from the sound of this cable, it’s happening on a far more fundamental level than we knew. The whole society is breaking down from inside out.

Although out staff maintain a professional demeanor, strains are apparent. We see that their personal fears are reinforcing divisive sectarian or ethnic channels, despite talk of reconciliation by officials. Employees are apprehensive enough that we fear they may exagerrate developments or steer us toward news that comports with their own worldview. Objectivity, civility and logic that make for a functional workplace may falter if social pressures outside the Green Zone don’t abate.

He pretty much says that he doesn’t know if he can trust his own employees much longer because they are being driven a little bit crazy by fear and paranoia. Heckuva job, there, Uncle Sammy.

This seems like a pretty interesting document. I have to wonder why it was merely linked by pdf in a throwaway paragraph in Al Kamen’s Sunday column. Khalilzad is, after all, the ambassador to Iraq. You’d think that his thoughts on the deterioration of the social fabric of Iraq would be of interest. Apparently not so much.

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Gore’s Moral Imperative

by tristero

I finally saw An Inconvenient Truth and I simply can’t stress enough how important it is for as many people as possible to see it. Not only because it is a superb, sobering description of an imminent environmental catastrophe. Something even more important is on display.

An Inconvenient Truth depicts a genuine American politics of engagement and character. Or more precisely, the untapped potential for it. In the film, Gore says several times that tackling head-on the serious problems that global warming causes is an urgent moral duty. He’s right, of course. But the film makes abundantly clear Gore himself has a moral imperative. And that is to return to electoral politics as soon as possible. Man oh man, does this country need more like him.

Should Gore run for president again? Hell, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat. Gladly, juat as I did in 2000. [Update: As per suggestion in comments, here’s a link to a draft Gore site.] But Somerby has a good point. The mainstream press loathes Gore and that makes it exceedingly difficult to determine how much of a chance he has. That said, a Gore campaign conducted at the political and intellectual level of the film would be so inspiring it could just motivate considerable interest and commitment by young people which could help counter that kind of assault.

In contrast, the latest bundle of snoozers packaged into an “agenda” by the Democratic party’s utterly inept national political consultants is a major league embarassment. It’s almost as if the party consultants concluded that since the world is facing an energy crisis, the Democratic party should set an example and not have any.

The modern Al Gore, however, points the way towards a seriously exciting Democratic politics, one that can see a deeply important problem clearly, find ways to tackle it, and inspire the political will to do so. We need that kind, and how.

If the presidency is closed to him, there is the Senate again or a governorship. Why not? But relegating a person like Gore to permanent outsider status in national electoral politics is a waste of a precious natural resource that this country simply can’t afford, even in the best of times. And these are not the best of times.