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How To Win Friends And Influence People

The earthquake in Pakistan is yet one more unspeakably awful natural disaster in, what?, a year plus of horrific tragedies: the tsunami (which was about an order of magnitude more deadly than the Pakistan quake), Katrina, Rita, a horrific mudslide in Guatemala and numerous more that may have slipped from mind on a Sunday morning but are permanently engraved in the memories of the afflicted and their loved ones all over the world. We all know what to do: Find a relief organization we respect and once more open our wallets to aid the victims.

Our donations will surely be joined by others. Indeed, the people of northwest Pakistan can expect one man to be exceedingly generous with his financial aid and with the assistance of his numerous organizations. That man is Osama bin Laden. Remember him? He’s the guy Bush “truly” isn’t that concerned about. Alas, being a New Yorker, with a brand new terrorist threat to deal with, my family does not have that luxury.

Now, bin Laden as we all know is one ruthless, vicious sonofabitch. The stories I’ve come across of how he compels obedience within al Qaeda and from his hapless neighbors are truly revolting – the New Yorker printed a few back in 2002/03, I believe, and there’s no reason to doubt them. But there’s another way bin Laden protects his interests. He buys his safety. And he pays top rupee.

The story of how bin Laden built a major highway in Sudan is well known (by the way, the link is a fascinating interview of UBL from 1996 conducted by Robert Fisk). But that only touches the surface of bin Laden’s “philanthropy.”* Bin Laden and groups he’s funded have built Muslim hospitals, schools, and other buildings. The NY Times Magazine published this description of how bin Laden ensured his escape from Tora Bora:

As the crowd began to shout ”Zindibad [Long live] Osama,” the leader of Al Qaeda moved through the banquet hall dispensing white envelopes, some bulky, some thin, the thickness proportionate to the number of extended families under each leader’s command. Lesser chieftains, according to those present, received the equivalent of $300 in Pakistani rupees; leaders of larger clans, up to $10,000.

Bin Laden really didn’t have to buy the loyalty of the Pashtun tribal chiefs; they were already devoted to him. He was, after all, the only non-Afghan Muslim of any consequence in the past half-century who had stood with the Afghans. But on that November afternoon, and on the nights that followed it, as bin Laden began to lay the groundwork for his escape from the Tora Bora caves, the elusive Qaeda leader was determined to be absolutely sure.

In other words, dear friends, I think it’s quite likely that right now one of the larger donors of aid to the sad people of northwest Pakistan is one of our worst enemies, who by “generously helping out” at this time will further cement the loyalty of those protecting him.

And this brings up some rather important issues for we Americans. With a sensible government, the US would, as a matter of course, immediately open up both its heart and its wallet big time to come to the aid of some of the most beleagured people on earth. Sure, it would be to some extent a political calculation, but the offer to help would be also sincere and instinctive. Emergency aid workers, familiar with both the people and the terrain of rural Pakistan, who could speak their language, would be rapidly dispatched whose purpose would be to save lives, rapidly repair infrastructure and just as rapidly, leave. **

Putting aside all the karma calculations that altruism generates and looking at such aid in the cold light of foreign policy strategy, the amount of goodwill America would receive would be absolutely priceless. Surely, America can easily outspend anyone, even a crazy man with Saudi petrodollars behind him.

There’s just one problem with this scenario. We don’t have a sensible government and therefore, the US simply can’t afford to open its heart in the way the situation deserves. And that’s because the present administration – unlike, or at the very least, more than most – sorely lacks three things: money, brains, and most importantly, a basic sense of human decency (no matter how often compromised) which enables an American government to think wisely, and spend wisely.

Now one would hope, in fact, expect the Bush administration to pony up more than the $100,000 they’ve currently offered, plus helicopters and other supplies. I am sure they will. (And I’m also sure they’ll screw it all up. Remember these are the clowns who dumped peanut butter, for crissakes, onto Afghanistan, the “world’s biggest minefield’ during the first Bush war. )

But the US doesn’t have the cash to spare for large-scale humanitarian efforts anymore. Why? Well, there’s Katrina for one, Rita for another, and let’s not forget all the money given to the tsunami victims. There’s also been another huge money pit for the US recently, can’t exactly remember what it could be…No, not the taxcuts for the rich, something else. Something sucking $200 billion out of our economy. Help me out here, folks: where are we spending all that money again? And exactly why, again?

But while we’re trying to remember where that money went in the past few years, we can contemplate the simple nastiness that’s undermined the nation’s image as a generous one. The poverty of spirit that led the leader of the House to blame the tsunami’s destruction on the failure of its victims to worship God in a proper manner – proper according to him and his cronies, of course. And there are many such examples, DeLay hardly stands alone in his xenophobia.

And so it goes. And it is so pathetic. A great nation, the greatest ever in so many ways, unable to do something as relatively straightforward as earn the goodwill of an abject, demoralized people. A great nation whose leaders can’t even understand why, in a battle for hearts and minds (which is precisely the kind of war bin Laden actually is waging) it is necessary to obtain that goodwill, the price of which is dirt cheap compared to the death of a single soldier or the rage caused by the death of a loved one due to American force.

Enough. It’s time once again to ignore the Bush administration and simply open our wallets, and hearts. Yeah, I’ve donated way too much already, like so many of you folks. But it’s the right thing to do, dammit, so it’s gotta be done.

*Note to rightwingnuts: You may already know this, but in case you don’t: It’s a sad fact that many of you have reading comprehension disorders. That plus some severe cognitive…issues… cause you to read what I’ve written and come to the bizarre conclusion that a tolerant liberal like myself would actually “side with” a religious fanatic like, say, Osama bin Laden, or Randall Terry. These problems aren’t your fault, of course. God, for whatever inscrutable reasons, has endowed many of us with commonsense and logic, and the rest, sadly, are doomed to become, well, rightwingnuts like yourselves. So, let me make this crystal clear, to save you the hassle of typing outraged, but stupidly misdirected vitriol my way: I really don’t need you to tell me what bin Laden’s largesse is actually worth and what it actually means or is intended to do. Got that?

**Obviously, the situation is more complex than even the longest blogpost could address. Some random questions: What nationality would the aid workers be? How would American dollars and help get to people who have been threatened with the torture of their relatives if they “collaborate” with Americans? But that the US should take a heavily proactive role in global emergency disaster assistance -certainly heavier than the Bush administration thinks it should have- is patently obvious, for moral and strategic reasons. The details will be devilish. But they are worth grappling with.

Bush Ratings Hit New Low, But…

for no good reason at all, 37 % of the American people still approve of Bush. Incredible how many people remain duped.

BTW, there are some folks who think Bush is a goner, that he’s been abandoned by his own party, that he’s headed for the duck pond. Not so fast, friends. Presstitutes imagines a plausible scenario by which he could quickly rebound. And as Digby himself noted below, the Miers nomination may be criticized by many on the right who were praying like crazy for Son of Bork, but it is all of a piece with the Bush strategy to maintain Republican hegemony well beyond 2008. After all, it’s best to have a rabid Republican loyalist in place when the inevitable criminal cases directed at the top of the Bush administration comes to the Supreme Court than someone whose loyalty is in doubt.

Party Like It’s 1925!

Hi, everyone! I’m very honored to be posting here on Digby’s blog. And it will be kind of fun to be back in the saddle posting on a regular basis. So without any further ado, here goes.

I’ve been following “Scopes 2,” aka, the Pandas Trial, aka Kitzmiller v. Dover. This is an ACLU-supported challenge to the Dover (Pennsylvania) Area School Board moves to include “intelligent design” in public school science classes. I hope I don’t jinx anything by saying that things are looking very good. The scientific witnesses have been very strong and the defense’s arguments are very, very feeble. You can find a running blog covering the trial here and they link to trial transcripts. I haven’t gone through them all yet, but I would certainly recommend Barbara Forrest’s testimony. She is the co-author of the absolutely indispensable Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design, a definitive survey of the IDiots, as I’ve nicknamed them. I reviewed Forrest’s book here.

Incredibly, some of the smartest people I know are quite confused over “intelligent design.” A few years ago, my wife and I were having lunch with some friends, two enormously gifted investigative reporters for two Major Metropolitan Newspapers here in New York, folks whose bylines often appear on the front page. The subject turned to the evolution debate and John (name changed to protect the guilty) said, “Actually, I really think ‘intelligent design’ should be taught in science class.” I was absolutely shocked, He had no idea what the actual issues are. Similarly, last week, we were having dinner with a philosopher of science and his wife. They, too, didn’t quite understand why “intelligent design” does not belong in biology classes. So, in case any of you find it unclear, here’s the skinny:

1. The theory of evolution proposed by Darwin and elaborated over the past 140 years or so is as close to proven fact as anything in science.

2. Despite an incredibly expensive marketing campaign to convince an unsuspecting public, and its lawmakers, otherwise, there has been no original research in “intelligent design” published in respected science journals. That’s because none of the IDiots has done a stitch of science that can withstand peer review.*

3. “Intelligent Design” clearly is nothing more than creationism with big hair and thick lipstick, tarted up to look like science. In fact,, in a new edition of an infamous creationist textbook, “the word “creationism had been replaced by ‘intelligent design,’ and ‘creationist’ simply replaced by ‘intelligent design proponent.’ “. Also, see here.

4. Therefore, since there is no science to “intelligent design,” and since it is clearly a religious belief, there is no reason under the sun why it should be taught in public school science classes. It would make more sense to teach astrology.

I’ll be writing more on the subject later. I think it is important not only to defeat this recent attempt to undermine science by defending real science against creationism, but to go after the “intelligent design” advocates on their own turf. In other words, I’m suggesting that not only is “intelligent design” bad science, but also bad theology.

By the way, to those who want to argue in favor of IDiocy, first go to Pharyngula and argue with PZ Meyers, an expert on the subject of evolution. When you convince him that there is actually something scientific in “intelligent design”, feel free to come back here and I’ll be delighted to discuss it with you.

*A few minor articles, like literature reviews have occasionally been snuck past an editor, but they have been quickly debunked.)

Judy, Pinch and a Boy Named Scooter

In a furious bout of post-prison housecleaning, Judy Miller just “happened” to find notes today from June 2003 when she spoke with Scooter Libby about Joe Wilson.

Of all the amazing discoveries. She’s the fucking Indiana Jones of dust bunnies, that one.

I keep coming back to the September 15 letter (PDF) from Scooter Libby to Judy Miller, kind of like a scab you just can’t help picking at.

Consider:

1. In Patrick Fitzgerald’s “leaked” letter of September 12, 2005 (PDF) to Libby’s lawyer, Joseph Tate, he runs down the facts as told to him by Libby:

Mr. Libby has discussed a meeting with Ms. Miller on July 8 2003, at the St. Regis Hotel and a later conversation between Mr. Libby and Ms. Miller by telephone in the late afternoon of July 12, 2003. Mr. Libby has described his recollection of the substance of those two conversations, without limitation.

Libby was most probably quoting the party line that everyone else was testifying to — namely, that whatever was done to Joe Wilson came in response to his July 6, 2003 editorial in the New York Times entitled What I Didn’t Find in Africa. They weren’t trying to smear him, doncha know — they were just providing appropriate counterbalance to what he was saying, trying to helpfully provide the press with some mitigating factors.

Thus began the Rove as Whistleblower meme we all remember with so much fondness.

2. Joe Wilson, in his book and elsewhere, has long maintained that the White House Iraq Group — whose notes and records Fitzgerald has subpoenaed — did a workup of him in March, before his editorial was ever published. As early as his October 13, 2002 article in the San Jose Mercury News, Wilson was calling ’em all a bunch of hosebags. He had been flying in their radar for a while.

3. When Libby wrote his sodden mash note to Judy it seems to me that he was quite obviously trying to hip her to the fact that it was okay to talk about anything that happened in July:

The Special Counsel identified every reporter with whom I had spoken about anything in July 2003, including you. My counsel then called counsel for each of the reporters, including yours, and confirmed that my waiver was voluntary.

Translation: It’s okay for you to talk about July meetings but nothing else.

Judy Miller was sitting in fucking prison on tenterhooks. She’s had plenty of time to think about each and every time she met with poor lovestruck Aspen-riddled Scooter, and what the implications were of each and every one of those meetings along the way. She didn’t fucking “forget” an entire month there looped on pruno. Scooter let her know what she could say. And she probably complied.

4. If Libby was lying, he did not believe that there was anything provided to Fitzgerald that was going to contradict what he had to say, like — oh — the minutes of the White House Iraq Group, or the testimony of those in WHIG, including Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, Condi Rice, Stephen Hadley, James Wilkinson and Nicholas Cailo, in addition to the Rove man himself.

5. On Thursday, September 29, when Judy agrees to testify, Fitzgerald goes to the slam and spends a little quality time with her, just to get her story down before she goes and has a steak with Pinch. (Does she have a thing for men with awful names or what?)

That night, Fitzgerald calls up Joe Wilson, and confirms what he probably already knew one way or another — Judy and Scooter were talking as early as June, contrary to what both were saying.

(Emptywheel has penned a nifty little dramatization of this particular sequence of events. Highly recommended, Oscar-caliber stuff. Considering the skeevy characters involved, we applaud her for leaving out the sex scenes.)

6. Suddenly Judy REMEMBERS her earlier “notes” and meeting with Scooter. I’m guessing the dog didn’t just barf ’em up — her attorney probably got a helpful memory-prodding phonecall from Fitzgerald, who probably knew Judy was going to lie her lying face off all along.

7. Suddenly — VOILA! — a SLEW of people want to come in and spend quality time with Fitzgerald and the grand jury again. They are VOLUNTEERING. Because, as you know, testifying before Fitzgerald’s grand jury is all the rage in DC these days, and everyone needs a hobby.

I will leap to the presumption that the “we were just reacting to Joe Wilson’s editorial” group bullshit is falling apart faster than a cheap thong in a hot dryer. It’s hard to know just how much sleight-of-hand went into perpetuating this particular lie, but I will wager no small amount.

Note to self: do not EVER play poker with Patrick Fitzgerald.

(cross-posted at firedoglake)

Like He Cared

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told President Bush and others that he never engaged in an effort to disclose a CIA operative’s identity to discredit her husband’s criticism of the administration’s Iraq policy, according to people with knowledge of Rove’s account in the investigation.

[…]

They said Bush asked Rove to assure him he was not involved in an effort to divulge Plame’s identity and punish Wilson, and the longtime confidant assured him so. He answered similarly when White House press secretary Scott McClellan asked a similar question.

Sure. Uh huh. Rove’s just another White House employee and big boss Junior called him in and asked asked him for “reassurance” that he wasn’t involved and Karl said “no sir.” Yeah. That’s believable.

Either somebody thinks it’s finally time to cover the Preznit’s ass or this is the most beautiful prosecutorial mindfuck ever. Or both. Even Turdblossom has to be impressed with the threat to prosecute for lying to the president. That’s downright Shakespearean.

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The Enigma

Remember, there is one guy who knows for sure who leaked what and would have very likely been in on any subsequent cover-up — The King of the Undead, Count Novakula.

He didn’t pull a Judy so it’s assumed he cooperated. He quite blatantly changed his story publicly from “I didn’t dig it out, they gave it to me” to ” I don’t know nothin’ bout’ namin’ no operatives.”

I sure hope he didn’t make the mistake of fibbing to the Fibbies about any of this…

Wassup with Bob?

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Who Needs Me?

Lucky Duckies. The inimitable Jane at firedoglake has also agreed to guest post here for a few days so that you can all keep up with your necessary Fitz fits and Plamey goodness (among other things.)

Play nice — or she’ll kick your ass.

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Drive By

In case anyone’s wondering what is the real reason that Porter Goss is refusing to make public the CIA IG report, here’s a little clue:

George Tenet is not going to let himself become the fall guy for the September 11 intelligence failures, according to a former intelligence officer and a source friendly to Mr. Tenet.

A scathing report by Inspector General John Helgerson criticized the former CIA director and a score of other agency personnel for their failure to develop a strategy against al Qaeda. The report, delivered to Congress this week, recommends punitive sanctions for Mr. Tenet, former Deputy Director of Operations James L. Pavitt and former counter-terrorist center head J. Cofer Black. Mr. Tenet’s response to the report is a 20-page, tightly knitted rebuttal of responsibility prepared with the aid of a lawyer, according to the friendly source.

Mr. Tenet’s decision to defend himself against the charges in the report poses a potential crisis for the White House. According to a former clandestine services officer, theformerCIAdirector turned down a publisher’s $4.5 million book offer because he didn’t want to embarrass the White House by rehashing the failure to prevent September 11 and the flawed intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Tenet, according to a knowledgeable source, had a “wink and a nod” understanding with the White House that he wouldn’t be scapegoated for intelligence failings. The deal, one source says, was sealed with the award of the Presidential Freedom Medal.

Now that deal may be off. Mr. Tenet’s rebuttal to the report is detailed and explicit. In defending his integrity as CIA director, Mr. Tenet treads perilously close to affirming the account of Richard Clarke, the former NSC terrorism official whose public disclosure of the Bush administration’s delay in adopting a strategy against al Qaeda stirred controversy last summer.

The IG report is the result of a 17-month investigation by a team of 11 CIA officials. The Senate and House intelligence oversight committees requested the report, which follows in a CIA tradition of analyses of past mistakes in order to prevent recurrences. After double-agent Aldrich Ames was unmasked, the CIA inspector general produced a detailed account of the agency’s failure to protect its Soviet spies. That report, which was made public, prompted sweeping changes in CIA counterintelligence practices.

In contrast, the IG report and Mr. Tenet’s 20-page rebuttal are classified. This is a departure from past CIA practice. There is much about the IG report that is unusual. It was completed, according to multiple intelligence sources, by July 2004. Acting CIA Director John McLaughlin passed this hot potato to his successor, Porter Goss. As chairman of the House intelligence committee, Mr. Goss had lead the joint congressional inquiry into September 11 and called for the inspector general’s report.

[…]

Under normal conditions, Karl Rove would already be taking pre-emptive action. But he is neutralized until the Valerie Plame leak probe ends. That leaves it to the president’s allies on Capitol Hill to keep Mr. Tenet’s rebuttal under wraps. With the families of September 11 victims demanding disclosure, this will not be easy.

CIA Director Goss is between a rock and a hard place. He will be criticized for covering up if he does nothing. But if he follows the IG’s recommendation to convene formal hearings as a prelude to sanctions, Mr. Tenet himself may go public to defend his reputation. The $4.5 million book offer may soon be back on the table, and this time Mr. Tenet might take it.

As a commenter on the Newshour said last night — “it will come out, it always does.”

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She’ll Do As She’s Told

Remember when I said Harry Miers was a Republican machine justice?

Check out this from last night’s conference call to conservatives (via IsThatLegal):

One of the things that someone as a sixth-generation Texan that I want to add to this call and that is this: The two things that are probably … there are two virtues that are valued as highly as any virtue can be valued in the Texas culture, and those two virtues are courage and loyalty. Courage and loyalty. And this President, he knows that Harriet Miers is also a Texan, and, with a degree of understanding that would never have to be articulated, he and she both understand that if she were to get on the Court and she were to rule in ways that were contrary to the ways that the president would want her to approach her role as a justice it would be a deep personal betrayal and would be perceived as such by both by him and by her.

That’s from Richard Land of the Southern Bapist convention. There’s more. Like this one from Jay Sekulow:

I’m involved in three three cases at the Court this Term, and believe me: I want Harriet Meirs up there voting on these critical cases.

Bush vs Gore proved how crucial the Supreme Court is to the consolidation and maintenance of Republican power. It’s clear they learned their lesson well. They aren’t even trying to hide it.

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Very interesting prediction of how the case will go by commenter Sara at TPM cafe, followed by an equally interesting counter-theory by Ed Fitzgerald of Unfutz.

Thanks to Poputonian at KOTS and Dena