Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Crazed Neocon On The Loose

Yesterday I wrote that I thought this might just validate those Capital Hill Blue stories about Bush being on drugs.

Laura Rozen says, “This administration is insane. I have no words.”

Kevin Drum thinks “it’s really pretty bizarre.”

Matthew Yglesias calls his post on the topic “The Horror, The Horror.”

This has to be the work of “The Mouth That Roared” John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security (a title that this man could hold only in Bizarro world.) Ostensibly he works for Colin Powell, but as with everything else, Powell has been competely ineffectual in controlling him.

This is a very stupid thing for Junior’s administration to do and I think that Kerry could make some news with it. Based upon nothing more than a gut feeling, I think that the American people would find it extremely odd that the American government is against nuclear inspections. Maybe I’m wrong and they all think it’s some sort of black helicopter UN plot to take over the world, but I doubt it. People are a little bit more tuned in than they used to be to this stuff and I think they would at least find it questionable.

And, regardless of the political merits, the policy itself is completely wrongheaded.

Leftwing Latenight

Here’s some good news for night owls and the TIVOed:

Franken radio show to be on cable TV

Beginning Sept. 7, “The Al Franken Show,” heard live each weekday from noon to 3 p.m. Eastern on Air America Radio, will go on display in a one-hour edition on Sundance each night at 11:30 p.m. and 2:30 a.m., executives at both networks told The Associated Press on Monday.

The “Franken” TV hour is currently scheduled through the November election, but all parties voiced hope the show would continue on Sundance indefinitely.

It will help to fill that lonely time after The Daily Show when you just want to keep the high going for a little while longer.

Moralist Misogyny

I just love these sex toy bans, which apparently are “springing up” all over the country. It isn’t sex-toys per se that they are banning. It’s “vibrators and other products meant to stimulate the sex organs.”

So, according to the morals police, women are not supposed to have premarital sex, the courts decide when they do and don’t own their own bodies and they should be coerced by the government into staying in marriages with men who treat them like shit for the sake of the children.

Women should make all these sacrifices in the name of “family values” and now they won’t even let the poor gals buy a vibrator? Jesus, what’s next? Female circumcision?

You notice the flabby old men who wrote the law didn’t outlaw Viagra.

Poll-eaxed

Donkey Rising has the analysis of this Gallup poll showing Kerry actually losing ground even though he scored significantly higher on all of the specific questions. It seems that the numbers fell significantly on Saturday for reasons unknown. I thought Saturday was an especially slow news day and blogged a couple of navel gazing posts because of it. I have no idea why this might be, and it’s likely some sort of statistical glitch. But it is now conventional wisdom that Kerry didn’t get a bounce and that means it’s likely to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. You can liken it to the debate coverage in 2000. Immediately after the first debate most people believed that Gore had won it without difficulty. But, once the spin took hold the numbers turned around and Bush was declared the winner.

From what I gather, however, the Kerry camp isn’t worried about this. It seems that they are gearing up for a tight race and that’s probably smart. Turn-out is key and for us turn out will be enhanced by the propect of another stolen election if the polls show it’s close. I don’t think they are going to worry too much unless Bush gets some serious traction or Kerry slips too far behind. It’s not that it wouldn’t be nice to have a handsome lead, but it’s only the beginning of August and a lot can happen between now and November.

Fitzgerald Hauls Powell Before Grand Jury:

Secretary of State Colin Powell recently testified before a federal grand jury investigating the leak of the identity of CIA covert officer Valerie Plame, NEWSWEEK has learned. Powell’s appearance on July 16 is the latest sign the probe being conducted by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is highly active and broader than has been publicly known. Sources close to the case say prosecutors were interested in discussions Powell had while with President George W. Bush on a trip to Africa in July 2003, just before Plame’s identity was leaked to columnist Robert Novak. A senior State Department official confirmed that, while on the trip, Powell had a department intelligence report on whether Iraq had sought uranium from Niger — a claim Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson, discounted after a trip to Niger on behalf of the CIA. The report stated that Wilson’s wife had attended a meeting at the CIA where the decision was made to send Wilson to Niger, but it did not mention her last name or undercover status. At the time, White House officials were seeking to discredit Wilson, who had become a public critic of the Bush administration. There’s no indication Powell is a subject of the probe; the department official said the secretary never talked to Novak about the Plame matter. Still, sources say the decision to question Powell shows the thoroughness with which Fitzgerald is conducting the probe?and that knowledge about Plame was circulated at the highest levels of the administration.

Gosh, what ever happened to the roving band of legal analysts on cable TV 24/7 babbling like magpies about the legal ramifications of cigars and birthday ties? Those were the days, man. The press left no stone left unturned when it came to Monica’s wardrobe or big Bill’s allegedly curved penis. There would have been screaming headlines if the Secretary of State had been called before the Grand Jury and everyone from Geraldo to C. Boyden Gray would have weighed in on the significance of it.

This is an investigation into matters of political dirty tricks concerning national security that appears that it may involve the president of the United States and nobody gives a shit. This isn’t some third rate burglary — but, wtf. It looks like the only way anyone will pay attention to this story is if Plame goes on Larry King and has a wardrobe malfunction.

Tax Bomb

Atrios posts that Bush has launched a trial balloon about abolishing the IRS. He explains various reasons why this is a problem, but what I’d like to see is how they plan to tell all the people who’ve put billions of dollars of retirement money into Roths and IRAs and 401Ks that all those tax incentives are no longer operative. Wall Street, particularly the mutual fund industry, might just have some reservations about this little plan.

I have a little feeling that this zeppelin is going nowhere — just like their last “big” idea, a manned mission to Mars. (Now, if the Democrats were inclined to employ a little of that Rovian bitchiness, I’d say that Mars speech would make quite a fine sound bite in a commercial.)

Republican Outreach

Here’s an interesting story in the NY Times that links domestic militia groups with Islamic terrorists. According to yet another whistleblower, the FBI refused to investigate:

…officials with knowledge of the case said the investigation took place in the Tampa, Fla., area and centered on an informant’s tip about a meeting between suspected associates of a domestic militia-type group and a major but unidentified Islamic terrorist organization, who were considering joining forces. A tape recording of the meeting appeared to lend credence to the report, one official said.

Law enforcement officials have become increasingly concerned that militant domestic groups could seek to collaborate with foreign-based terrorist groups like Al Qaeda because of a shared hatred of the American government. This has become a particular concern in prisons.

The Tampa case is not known to have produced any arrests. But Mr. German, in an April 29 letter to several members of Congress, warned that “the investigations involved in my complaint concern very active terrorist groups that currently pose significant threats to national security.”

He also wrote, “Opportunities to initiate proactive investigations that might prevent terrorist acts before they occur, which is purported to be the F.B.I.’s number one priority, continue to be lost, yet no one is held accountable.”

Well, it’s understandable. The white supremecist militia groups are part of the president of the United States’s base. Allowing the FBI to arrest them could negatively affect Republican turn-out.

South African Terrorists?

Sara, one my most astute commenters, points out in the comments section that some “chatter” that may or may not be related to the latest terrorist threat is actually right out there for anyone to see:

Actually you can track some of the chatter if you regularly use Google News to track articles on al-Qaeda in the World Press. And something is going on.

The arrest of the Tanzanian last sunday which broke in the US on Thursday just before Kerry’s speech, involved a 14 hour gun battle in Gugera, with follow up arrests in four other cities — I think a total of 17. Apparently all had South African Passports — some good, others frauds. The Pakistani’s found that over 60 local police were involved with hiding these al-Qaeda linked persons, most of whom had recently left Waziristan — the police have been fired and arrested.

Additional arrests were made in neighboring towns after the gunfight, and then two days ago an attempt was made on the newly designated Prime Minister’s life — Suicide Bomber, and many were killed.

South African papers are full of material on their investigations subsequent to the identification of the passports. Turns out someone in the passport office was part of a syndicate stealing and selling SA passports to al-Qaeda. This apparently also ties to recent arrests in Italy, which also involved people with SA passports. Then last weekend in McAllan Texas a woman with a modified SA passport was arrested who had walked over from Nexico, and was trying to board a plane for NYC. Her passport tracks back to the SA syndicate. She was carrying a large amount of money.

The South African connection here is to the Muslim-Asian population in the Cape area of S. Africa, a population decended from Muslim-Indians brought in the mid 19th century by the British for indentured servant work. Apparently al-Qaeda has been successful in recent years recruiting from this group.

It may all be related to Ridge’s warnings — may not be, but it is a breaking story in several parts of the world right now, and worth following.

This is interesting because Ridge was asked directly if the woman arrested in McAllen had anything to do with this and he denied it. (He gave Pakistan, however, high praise.) But, obviously others are on this same wavelength. As Sara says, this may not be related, but it is certainly a big al-Qaeda story that is breaking right now.

One of the more interesting aspects of this is the South Africa connection, which I hadn’t known about. (Yet another group to get hysterically frightened of when they go to the bathroom in an airplane.)

Personally, I’m not worried one bit about this. Zell Miller told Little Russ this morning that we are fighting all the terrorists in Iraq so we don’t have to fight them here. Tom Ridge must be talking about something else.

Here are a few links. There are many more:

SA woman held in US ‘not al-Qaeda’

New twist in al-Qaeda arrests

SA men in Pakistan face battle

What were SA men doing in Pakistan?

Gujrat raid for Qaeda: South Africa wants access to held nationals

S. African Detained in Texas May Have Terrorist Ties

Back To Iraq

I have heard stories about Iraq’s child prisoners and we all know that there is a story out there of some horrible video footage of child rapes, but this story in the Sunday Herald is the first I’ve seen that puts all the details of what is publicly known together, from UNICEF, the ICRC, Amnesty International and others. It’s very disturbing.

I had not, for instance, heard about this:

The [UNICEF]report also states: “A detention centre for children was established in Baghdad, where according to ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) a significant number of children were detained. Unicef was informed that the coalition forces were planning to transfer all children in adult facilities to this ‘specialised’ child detention centre. In July 2003, Unicef requested a visit to the centre but access was denied. Poor security in the area of the detention centre has prevented visits by independent observers like the ICRC since last December.

Another jail — for kids? The article goes on to note an obvious problem with this strategy. Young muslim males are not exactly the smartest group to send to a prison to be radicalized:

“The perceived unjust detention of Iraqi males, including youths, for suspected activities against the occupying forces has become one of the leading causes for the mounting frustration among Iraqi youths and the potential for radicalisation of this population group.”

The article points out that we have no jurisdiction anymore to be holding anyone, really, but it seems that we are and juveniles are among them. The credibility of the military on these matters being what it is, the following must be taken with a grain of salt. And surely, by now, we should have learned that these processes must be transparent. Apparently not.

High-placed officials in the Pentagon and Centcom told the Sunday Herald that children as young as 14 were being held by US forces. “We do have juveniles detained,” a source said. “They have been detained as they are deemed to be a threat or because they have acted against the coalition or Iraqis.”

Officially, the Pentagon says it is holding “around 60 juvenile detainees primarily aged 16 and 17”, although when it was pointed out that the Red Cross estimate is substantially higher, a source admitted “numbers may have gone up, we might have detained more kids”.

Officials would not comment about children under the age of 16 being held prisoner. Sources said: ‘‘It’s a real challenge ascertaining their ages. Unlike the UK or the US, they don’t have IDs or birth certificates.” The Sunday Herald has been told, however, that at least five children aged under 16 are being kept at Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca.

A highly placed source in the Pentagon said: “We have done investigations into accusations of juveniles being abused and raped and can’t find anything that resembles that.”

The Pentagon’s official policy is to segregate juvenile prisoners from the rest of the prison population, and allow young inmates to join family members also being detained. “Our main concern is that they are not abused or harassed by older detainees. We know they need special treatment,” an official said.

With the political season upon us, it’s easy for me to forget the horror of what we did in these Iraqi prisons and how utterly stupid it was in terms of the threat of islamic fundamentalism. But, as Yglesias pointed out today, this story is so over just as Karl and Dick knew it would be once we passed the magic meaningless date they set forth as the crucible. The media are pulling their people out. It is now like Afghanistan — one of those foreign hotspots that boring ugly people on PBS are always yammering about.

But, GI’s are still getting picked off daily, ever bigger car bombs are exploding and kids are mouldering in jails and nobody knows or cares about it. It’s as if the Iraq war was one of those summer shark stories.

Bouncing and Spinning

Following up my post below, here’s an interesting analysis from the LA Times:

Kerry Campaign Isn’t Banking on a ‘Bounce’

Observers on both sides predict a tight contest that will not be decided until late in the game.

Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry can expect at least a modest bounce in popularity following his star-studded convention, where the most serious hitch was a balky balloon drop. But now he faces an important question: Can he keep his momentum going until November?

The initial signs Friday were favorable for the Massachusetts senator: strong Nielsen ratings for his acceptance speech; a wave of generally positive news coverage; a record-breaking day of fundraising that pulled in more than $5 million on the Internet; and a poll that suggested support for President Bush may be slipping.

But Kerry’s strategists warn that the contest is tight, focused on a dozen or so of “battleground” states and a relatively small number of undecided voters who are unlikely to settle on a choice until the fall.

“We never expected great movement in the horse race” to result from the convention, Kerry strategist Tad Devine said. “We just expected to build here, not to end the race.”

Neutral analysts said that Kerry largely succeeded at the tasks he set for himself at the convention: introducing himself to millions of voters who had not tuned into the presidential race before and conveying a message that a Kerry administration would be strong on defense in the struggle against terrorism.

“I think Kerry comes out [of the convention] having unified his Democratic base,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of a nonpartisan political newsletter. “Maybe he didn’t close the deal, but he moved the ball down the field. I still expect a close race,” he said. “Kerry should get a two- to four-point bounce [in the poll numbers] and then, unless the Republicans mess up, they’ll get a two- to four-point bounce from their convention” in early September.

The actual increase in support Kerry reaps from the convention — especially from having his message showcased in news coverage — won’t be known until next week. But every presidential candidate in recent history has benefited from at least a modest bounce, with the exception of George S. McGovern, the 1972 Democratic nominee, whose acceptance speech was delayed by convention chaos until after 2 a.m. and was seen live by few voters.

Kerry’s speech Thursday evening was seen by an estimated 24.4 million viewers, according to Nielsen — compared with the 21.1 million who watched Democratic nominee Al Gore in 2000.

In another rough index of the convention’s potential effect, the Kerry campaign said it had raised $5.2 million on the Internet on Thursday, breaking its own record of $3 million set the day before.

Equally important, news coverage amplified the convention’s core messages: that Kerry volunteered for military service in Vietnam, that he will not shrink from military action now and that he believes the Bush administration has needlessly divided the nation.

[…]

A Zogby poll released early Friday — based on surveys performed before Kerry gave his acceptance speech at the convention — found that the percentage of voters who said they planned to vote for the Democrat was unchanged at 48%. But that the percentage of respondents who said they planned to vote for Bush had slipped from 46% to 43% when compared to a similar poll taken two weeks earlier.

That confirmed the most basic finding of other recent “horse race” polls: The contest is tight, but discontent with Bush has given Kerry a slowly growing chance to win.

“It’s a competitive race with a narrow advantage to Kerry,” Rothenberg said. “Most of the dynamics appear to favor the challenger … [but] it’s still a question of what events will move late-breaking voters. There are a lot of scenarios that are possible,” he added. “I’ve kind of thrown out the book. Historical analogies don’t work in an election like this.”

“We’re in uncharted territory,” Republican pollster Bill McInturff agreed. “We’re looking at a list of things we haven’t seen before in this generation of American politics, so we should be modest about making predictions.” Among the new factors, he said, was the stubbornness of voters on both sides of the partisan divide, which has kept Bush’s job approval rating — and his likely vote in November — hovering near the 50% mark.

In the six most recent elections that included an incumbent president as one of the candidates, the three who lost their jobs — Gerald R. Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992 — all had slipped well below the halfway point.

“By historic standards, Bush does not look like the three winners, but he doesn’t look like the three losers either,” McInturff said. “He’s in between, in a new category. And a campaign with these numbers is not like any of the last six campaigns.” The number of undecided voters in the electorate is unusually small this year, he added, meaning the contest is unlikely to shift dramatically in either direction.

“You’re talking about 88% to 90% who say they’re locked in,” he said. As a result, both sides will campaign furiously throughout August, traditionally a lull before the Labor Day kickoff.

And both are focusing intently on the battleground states that probably will decide the contest in the electoral college — most notably Ohio, where Kerry and Bush will be campaigning today.

During his current coast-to-coast tour, which will end in Seattle, Kerry plans to fill out a policy agenda that he only hinted at during the convention, focusing on four issues: economic and tax policy, healthcare, energy independence and national security.

[…]

The question, Rothenberg said, is whether the GOP convention will have “a single, appealing message that can both mobilize the [traditional] base and reach out to swing voters.”

“The Democrats managed to do that,” he said. “They often talked in platitudes, they didn’t put a lot of meat on the bones, but they avoided the danger of sounding angry and bitter.”

[…]

“The biggest problem for Democrats is that some sort of event could happen that allows the president to present himself as a strong, decisive leader,” Rothenberg said. “We’re all prisoners of events, and that includes the campaigns.”

So, the lack of a significant bounce is predictable in this current climate. However, after building up the expectations, the GOP has the much better hand and will spin it, as David Brock notes, as a sign that the American people reject the Democrats for being “out of the mainstream” as Bush launches his new (gack) “Heart and Soul of America” Tour. (Picture Judy Woodruff and Bill Schneider tomorrow…)

Since this election has no historical analogies, perhaps the old saw about “new voters” really will come to pass this time. As I wrote below, we should all make it our business to get at least one of our apolitical friends to vote this time. It’s not asking too much of anyone.