Glenn Dismantles the New "Tough Guy" Candidate

When Glenn Greenwald gets on a roll, he is a thing to behold. He goes back and gets the goods, the documentation. Nobody is better at using Google and Nexis to dig out what actually happened and what people actually said. In this case, Fred Thompson's posturing persona gets ripped... and Chris Matthews, the drooling clown, and the fawning Howard Fineman get baked too. It's fun.

Though Thompson does not mention it, he also has been -- for two decades -- what a 1996 profile in The Washington Monthly described as "a high-paid Washington lobbyist for both foreign and domestic interests." This folksy, down-home, regular guy has spent his entire adult life as a lawyer and lobbyist in Washington, except when he was an actor in Hollywood.

And -- like the vast, vast majority of Republican "tough guys" who play-act the role so arousingly for our media stars, from Rudy Giuliani to Newt Gingrich -- Thompson has no military service despite having been of prime fighting age during the Vietnam War (Thompson turned 20 in 1962, Gingrich in 1963, Giuliani in 1964). He was active in Republican politics as early as the mid-1960s, which means he almost certainly supported the war in which he did not fight.

Just Unbelievable

When you first read this, you think, no, this has got to be a gag out of The Onion. This is what happens when the executive branch is staffed by lobbyists and executives from the very industries being regulated. This example is especially ballsy and transparnet, but it also is excruciatingly anti-consumer. What consumer would support less testing for mad cow disease? Christy of Firedoglake (still the best blog name) unloads on this one. I have seldom been so disgusted with the Bushies as over this one.

The Bush administration said Tuesday it will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture tests less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. But Arkansas City-based Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test all of its cows.

Larger meat companies feared that move because, if Creekstone tested its meat and advertised it as safe, they might have to perform the expensive test, too.

A federal judge ruled in March that such tests must be allowed. The ruling was to take effect Friday, but the Agriculture Department said Tuesday it would appeal -- effectively delaying the testing until the court challenge plays out.

Regarding Lowering Expectations for Lifetime Earnings

This posting by the WSJ On-line lays out what we all have been sensing about the generation in their thirties being less well off than their parents' generation. Here are the bad news factoids:

American men in their 30s today are worse off than their fathers' generation, a reversal from just a decade ago, when sons generally were better off than their fathers, a new study finds.

In 2004, the median income for a man in his 30s, a good predictor of his lifetime earnings, was $35,010, the study says, 12% less than for men in their 30s in 1974 -- their fathers' generation -- adjusted for inflation. A decade ago, median income for men in their 30s was $32,901, 5% higher than 30 years earlier.

And the kicker, of course, affecting all is the direct result of the Bushie's policies to reward the rich and punish the poor:

The study, the first in a series on economic mobility undertaken by several prominent think tanks, also says the typical American family's income has lagged far behind productivity growth since 2000, a departure from most of the post-World War II period.

Of Course They're Not Going to Follow Us

This is the best and most comprehensive analysis I have seen to put the lie to Bush's lame, and eye-roll prompting, insistence that Al Qaida is going to follow our troops here if we pull out of Iraq. The argument is so manipulative and fact-free on its face that it hardly requires rebuttal, but he keeps saying it. It has become his mantra because no can prove the negative, that they will not follow us.

The topper, which he has recited several times before, is that if we fail in Iraq, the terrorists will follow us home. He uttered a few variations of the line this morning: "If we were to fail, they'd come and get us. … If we let up, we'll be attacked. … It's better to fight them there than here."

Clearly, this is nonsense, on three levels.

First, the vast majority of the insurgents have nothing to do with al-Qaida or its ideology. They're combatants in a sectarian conflict for power in Iraq, and they have neither the means nor the desire to threaten North America.

Second, to the extent that the true global terrorists could attack us at home, they could do so whether or not U.S. troops stay or win in Iraq. The one issue has nothing to do with the other.

Third, what kind of thing is this to say in front of the allies? If our main goal in bombing, strafing, and stomping through Iraq is to make sure we don't have to do so on our own territory, will any needy nation ever again seek our aid and cover? Or will they seek out a less blatantly selfish protector?

Hitchins RIPs Falwell

Christopher Hitchins used to be one of my favorite writers, but he has gone off the deep end at times in recent years, particularly in his support for the Iraq War. This video, however is classic, old-time Hitchins. He has remained a staunch secularist, never letting a chance go buy to excoriate the pious. He gets on a roll and is unstoppable by poor Anderson Cooper, who doesn't know how to dam the flood of damnation. It's really entertaining.

Lighten Up a Little

I came across a link to this scene from Boston Legal wherein the James Spader character has some sarcastic fun with the painfully criminal actions of our own government. I don't think he quite means it when he says, "Lighten up a little. We're in a war." It's only three minutes. Check it out.

An Obvious, but Disregarded, Point of Logic

This column in the Scientific American makes a couple of points about the illogic and psychological underpinnings of the sries of decisions that have painted us into a corner in Iraq. How many times have we heard Commander Guy say this:

As Bush explained in a speech delivered on July 4, 2006, at Fort Bragg, N.C.: "I'm not going to allow the sacrifice of 2,527 troops who have died in Iraq to be in vain by pulling out before the job is done."

We all make similarly irrational arguments about decisions in our lives: we hang on to losing stocks, unprofitable investments, failing businesses and unsuccessful relationships. If we were rational, we would just compute the odds of succeeding from this point forward and then decide if the investment warrants the potential payoff. But we are not rational--not in love or war or business--and this particular irrationality is what economists call the "sunk-cost fallacy."

Ignoring the fact that history cannot be changed (as in "throwing good money after bad") is a form of self-justification, as Schermer, the author, goes on to point out :

The psychology underneath this and other cognitive fallacies is brilliantly illuminated by psychologist Carol Tavris and University of California, Santa Cruz, psychology professor Elliot Aronson in their book Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) (Harcourt, 2007). Tavris and Aronson focus on so-called self-justification, which "allows people to convince themselves that what they did was the best thing they could have done." The passive voice of the telling phrase "mistakes were made" shows the rationalization process at work. "Mistakes were quite possibly made by the administrations in which I served," confessed Henry Kissinger about Vietnam, Cambodia and South America.

The engine driving self-justification is cognitive dissonance: "a state of tension that occurs whenever a person holds two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically inconsistent," Tavris and Aronson explain. "Dissonance produces mental discomfort, ranging from minor pangs to deep anguish; people don't rest easy until they find a way to reduce it."

John Brady Kiesling is More Deserving of the Medal of Honor than George Tenet.

Perhaps I'm late to this, but I just read US Diplomat John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation to Colin Powell in protest of the the buildup and promotion of the Iraq war. It reads like a prophetic, lone voice of sanity, particularly today. It is also a stark reminder of how far the US's moral standing and credibility has fallen.

Quote (note this was written in Feb. 2003): "Have we indeed become blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the Occupied Territories, to our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not the answer to terrorism? After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the shambles in Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms ranks with Micronesia to follow where we lead."

And who gets the million dollar book deal and medal of honor...?

Food for Thought

One of the bloggers from Firedoglake has put together "7 Tips to Build a Blog Community". It is more applicable to the blogs I link to than to this one because this blog has a much less grandiose purpose. I like the emphasis on brand (a point of view) and good writing. Check it out. By the way the purpose of this blog, and Eric, I think, would agree is to note particularly insightful or well-done posts or articles and to get off my chest the occasional rant against dishonor, lies, and willful ignorance.

Funny and Nutty

Mitt Romney is supposed to be the sane one out of the GOP presidential lineup, I believe. Check this out. He is nuttily wrong on so many counts here as to be completely laughable. Is he trying to earn his cred as a fact-free wingnut?

French-bashing has been so much fun so I don't know what Romney and the GOP will do now that the right wing Sarkozy has been elected president. Over the weekend Romney spoke at Regent university, aka Pat Robertson U., and used it as another opportunity play to bizarrely attack France.

"It seems that Europe leads Americans in this way of thinking," Romney told the crowd of more than 5,000. "In France, for instance, I'm told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past."

Yes, it's so frequent that I've never heard of it nor has anyone I know who is either married or has a PACS. At a minimum it's the best kept secret in France despite being "frequently contracted" though in reality it's just another lie by Romney who is so desperate to win he will say anything. I'm very curious how his religion views lies because he so often struggles with the truth.

Worthy of Another Smirk

The Bushies had this report in their hands when they came up with the ridiculous surge strategy. They KNEW they were wrecking the Army and the lives of many of those in service. They just don't care about the volunteer Army -- nothing but cannon fodder. "Support our troops" my butt.

The detailed mental health survey of troops in Iraq released by the Pentagon on Friday highlights a growing worry for the United States as it struggles to bring order to Baghdad: the high level of combat stress suffered during lengthy and repeated tours.

The fourth in a continuing series, the report suggested that extended tours and multiple deployments, among other policy decisions, could escalate anger and increase the likelihood that soldiers or marines lash out at civilians, or defy military ethics.

That is no small concern since the United States’ counterinsurgency doctrine emphasizes the importance of winning the trust and support of the local population.

The report was provided in November to Gen. George W. Casey Jr., then the senior American commander in Iraq.

Pentagon officials have not explained why the public release of the report was delayed, a move that kept the data out of the public debate as the Bush administration developed its plan to build up troops in Iraq and extend combat tours. Rear Adm. Richard R. Jeffries, a medical officer, told reporters on Friday that the timing was decided by civilian Pentagon officials.

The survey of 1,320 soldiers and 447 marines was conducted in August and September of 2006. The military’s report, which drew on that survey as well as interviews with commanders and focus groups, found that longer deployments increased the risk of psychological problems; that the levels of mental problems was highest — some 30 percent — among troops involved in close combat; that more than a third of troops endorsed torture in certain situations; and that most would not turn in fellow service members for mistreating a civilian.

“These are thoughts people are going to have when under this kind of stress, and soldiers will tell you that: you don’t know what’s it’s like until you’ve been there,” said Dr. Andy Morgan, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale University who has worked extensively with regular and Special Operations troops. “The question is whether you act on them.”

The Pentagon’s analysis also identified sources of anger besides lengthy and repeated deployments that could lead to ethics violations, which would not be apparent from the outside: eight-day rest breaks that involved four days of transit; long lines to get into recreation facilities, especially for those who perform missions outside the relative safety of base camps; and inconsistent dress-code rules.

Most of all, there were uncertainties about deployment: 40 percent of soldiers rated uncertain redeployment dates as a top concern.

The military has evaluated the emotional state of soldiers in the past, from the cases of shaking and partial paralysis known as shell shock after World War I, to the numb exhaustion identified as combat fatigue in World War II. The flashbacks and irritability reported in the years after the Vietnam War came to define another diagnosis: post-traumatic stress disorder.

But since the Persian Gulf war in 1991 the Pentagon’s efforts to track mental health have become far more sophisticated, and now provide a deeper X-ray into the day-to-day realities of life on the ground, in real time — a glimpse of how the stresses of both combat, and policy decisions, can affect the behavior of troops.

When the administration decided in January to send more troops to Baghdad to try to reverse the spiraling sectarian violence in Iraq, it sought to ease the strain on the armed forces by announcing its intention to expand the active duty Army and Marine forces by 92,000 troops.

But it takes years to recruit, train and equipment an expanded ground force, and the decision to increase the size of the military was made too late to relieve the stress on the forces now in Iraq.

To sustain the current elevated troop levels, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced in April that the Army was increasing combat tours to 15 months, rather than the traditional one-year tour.

“The Army is spread very thin, and we need it to be a larger force for the number of missions that we were being asked to address for our nation,” said Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, the Army’s acting surgeon general and head of the Army’s Medical Command, on Friday, as the report was released.

Bush on the Couch?

This op ed article in today's NYT offers an interesting "analysis" and parallel between Woodrow Wilson after WWI and Bush. Money Quote:

Wilson, Freud wrote, “repeatedly declared that mere facts had no significance for him.” “Noble intentions” were what counted. Thus, while Wilson came to France intent on bringing a “just and lasting peace” to Europe, he “put himself in the deplorable position of the benefactor who wishes to restore the eyesight of a patient but does not know the construction of the eye and has neglected to learn the necessary methods of operation.”