Perfect!

Glenzilla (Glen Greenwald) strikes again. I could not help but notice the right-wing talking heads lately rushing to Hillary's defense, dispensing all this heartfelt advice to her on how to beat Barack. You know it is a load of crap, but Greenwald comes up, as usual, with the perfect hypocrisy, in quotes, to show how the game is being played. (He is the king of Lexus-Nexus.) Hilarious.

Karl Rove, The Financial Times, December 2, 2007: "Memo to Obama":

First, stop acting like a vitamin-deficient Adlai Stevenson. Striking a pose of being high-minded and too pure will not work. Americans want to see you scrapping and fighting for the job, not in a mean or ugly way but in a forceful and straightforward way.

Hillary may come over as calculating and shifty but she looks in control. You, on the other hand, often come over as weak and ineffectual. In some debates, you do not even look at her when disagreeing with her, making it look as if you are afraid of her. She offers you openings time and again but you do not take advantage of them. Sharpen your attacks and make them more precise.

Karl Rove, Newsweek, May 5, 2008: "Dear Senator Obama":

Stop the attacks. They undermine your claim to a post-partisan new politics. You soared when you seemed above politics, lost altitude when you did what you criticize. Attacks are momentarily satisfying but ultimately corrode your appeal.

So absurdly, both the political and media class -- including many Democrats -- insist on taking seriously Republican assertions like this about Democratic candidates, as though they're engaged in some good faith, generous, honest effort to critically evaluate them and are trying to help Democrats decide who the better candidate is. Is there anything less relevant than what Karl Rove thinks about the Democratic candidates and what his "advice" is for how they could be better? The fact that he offers completely contradictory "advice" to Obama in a matter of a few months ought to reveal what he is about....

None of this is to be taken seriously. Karl Rove's army, including those in the media who revere him, aren't objectively evaluating each Democratic candidate to decide which one is strongest, which one is best, what they ought to do to win, etc. Their goal, instead, is to demonize and weaken whomever the nominee is going to be. There's a preexisting media narrative that will be fulfilled no matter who the nominee is; it's the same one that is applied in every national election.

What Is the Matter with these People?

Condi sticks her foot in her mouth for no good reason. Arrogance x stupidity = disaster. This is really smart:

"I know he's sitting in Iran," Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr's latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. "I guess it's all-out war for anybody but him," Rice said. "I guess that's the message; his followers can go to their deaths and he's in Iran."

Of course, George is on the front-lines in Iraq himself, and Condi issued this taunt from the fortified green zone that she sneaked into.

Network Journalism: No More

The blockbuster NYT report on the corrupt military experts the networks and cable stations constantly trot out is summarized well here. There is some question that this Pentagon project is even legal (improperly funded propaganda), but it is certainly deceptive and dishonest on the part of the ex-officers and, probably, by the news organizations; they had to know. Note that none have even responded to or mentioned the story, circling the wagons of course. Nobody should be surprised at this mainpulation of the press, it that it is clearly and inarguable documented now. Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex. We have now advanced to the military-industrial-media complex, practically the definition of fascism:

The article has at least three tracks: One, the Pentagon deploying the analysts (some 75 in number) and the TV outlets happy to run with them; two, the analysts' further conflict-of-interest in being tied to defense contractors with billions of dollars invested in the war effort; three, the complete lack of interest by the TV outlets in either of the first two connections, or ignoring what they did know. In fact, the networks raised no objections to the Pentagon paying for trips by the analysts.

The Three "Terrible Traditions" of Attack Politics

Robert Reich, a member of the Clinton Cabinet, is endorsing Obama. But what is especially insightful is his reasoning, which is that Hillary has adopted the methods of the Republican attack machine:

So what's changed? I asked Reich.

"I saw the ads" — the negative man-on-street commercials that the Clinton campaign put up in Pennsylvania in the wake of Obama's bitter/cling comments a week ago — "and I was appalled, frankly. I thought it represented the nadir of mean-spirited, negative politics. And also of the politics of distraction, of gotcha politics. It's the worst of all worlds. We have three terrible traditions that we've developed in American campaigns. One is outright meanness and negativity. The second is taking out of context something your opponent said, maybe inartfully, and blowing it up into something your opponent doesn't possibly believe and doesn't possibly represent. And third is a kind of tradition of distraction, of getting off the big subject with sideshows that have nothing to do with what matters. And these three aspects of the old politics I've seen growing in Hillary's campaign. And I've come to the point, after seeing those ads, where I can't in good conscience not say out loud what I believe about who should be president. Those ads are nothing but Republicanism. They're lending legitimacy to a Republican message that's wrong to begin with, and they harken back to the past twenty years of demagoguery on guns and religion. It's old politics at its worst — and old Republican politics, not even old Democratic politics. It's just so deeply cynical."

A Perspective on Obama and Wright

Lanny Davis wrote an op-ed in the WSJ of all places picking at the scab of the Wright controversy and took a lot of criticism for it. Here, however, Davis highlights a letter he got from a black lawyer in response to the op-ed that puts the black church experience into some perspective. Well done.

I think much of the debate over Rev. Wright and his statements overlooks the unique role of the black church in the black community. I’ve never been to Trinity in Chicago, but I’ve been to many churches like Trinity. Historically, the black church is the one place for blacks free of any white influence, something blacks can call all their own. It’s the fraternity, the funeral director, the marriage counselor, the lawyer, the tax preparer, the therapist, the AA anonymous. Black churches such as Trinity are often the center of the black community, the one place where people of different economic classes come together to see each other, worship God, engage in community service and outreach, and it is about much more than the pastor....

In the course of my own life, I have encountered many very militant and angry elements of the black community, much of them as formative for me as the large corporate law firm in which I am now a partner, the Clinton Administration, or growing up in Wappingers Falls, New York. But, it would be an act of sheer hypocrisy for me to try to renounce any of this. For example, at Morehouse many educated teachers and invited speakers blasted the white man, black men who acted like the white man, and condemned our whole society as fatally racist.

When I graduated in 1979, Louis Farrakhan was our baccalaureate speaker and Joshua Nkomo, leader of the armed struggle to liberate Zimbabwe, was our commencement speaker. With Coretta Scott King sitting near the front row, I vividly recall Nkomo preaching “the only thing the white man understands is the barrel of a gun.” I certainly didn’t agree with that then, and I don’t now. But I love Morehouse and would rather quit all involvement in public affairs before I had to sever my ties of support to the school. Morehouse is part of what makes me a proud African-American.

A good friend to me from my parent’s generation, a retired ivy-league professor who is like an uncle to me, was branded a dangerous radical and subversive by our government in the 1960s. J. Edgar Hoover wiretapped his conversations with Dr. King. But, if someone combed his books and found something he wrote with which I disagreed, I’d rather disassociate myself from my right arm than publicly renounce this man.

The reality is this: Those of us who participate in both the white and African-American experiences will very likely have a Jeremiah Wright in our lives - it could be our teacher, our uncle, our brother, our father, or our pastor. It is simply part of the American experience.

But, here I am, a patriot who - I can honestly say - harbors no “anger” or racial animosity toward anybody, including my white law partners, my white neighbors, or my white family members. I can’t guarantee much about anything in life, but I can guarantee, from what I know about Barack Obama, that he feels the same in his heart and soul.

Juan Cole is Ticked

Juan Cole makes the obvious, but generally unobserved, point that Bush has allowed the US to become largely a military government. He rubber stamps whatever Petraeus wants. Which one is the Chief Executive?

War turns Republics into dictatorships. The logic is actually quite simple. The Constitution says that the Congress is responsible for declaring war. But in 2002 Congress turned that responsibility over to Bush, gutting the constitution and allowing the American Right to start referring to him not as president but as 'commander in chief' (that is a function of the civilian presidency, not a title.)

Now Bush has now turned over the decision-making about the course of the Iraq War to Gen. David Petraeus.

So Congress abdicated to Bush. Bush has abdicated to the generals in the field.

That is not a Republic. That is a military dictatorship achieved not by coup but by moral laziness.

Ironically, what officers like Petraeus need from Bush is not deference but vigorous leadership in the political realm. Bush needs to intervene to work for political reconciliation in Iraq if Petraeus's military achievements are to bear fruit. But Bush seems incapable of actually conducting policy, as opposed to starting wars. Bush happened to Iraq just as he happened to New Orleans. He cannot do the hard work of patiently addressing disasters and ameliorating them. He just wants to set people to fighting. Crush the Sadr Movement, perhaps the most popular political movement in Iraq? He's all for it. Risk provoking a wider conflagration in the Middle East by worsening relations with Iran? Sounds like a great idea to him. Bush campaigned on being a 'uniter not a divider' in 2000. In fact, he is the ultimate Divider, and leaves burning buildings, millions of refugees, and hundreds of thousands of cadavers in his wake. He is not Iraq's Brownie. He is Iraq's Katrina itself.

Just as New Orleans's Ninth Ward will still be a moonscape when Bush goes out of office, so will Iraq.

Eugene Robinson nails it: "It's time to acknowledge that Bush has run out the clock. The nation's only recourse is the ballot box."

65% of Americans either want US troops out of Iraq immediately or sometime in 2009, up from 61% in February of this year. Only 31% want to keep them there 'as long as it takes,' and that percentage declined in the past couple of months from 34%. In other words, whatever the success of the troop escalation and COIN techniques in the past year, they have had no impact on the rapid decline in the popularity with the American public of the US presence in Iraq. Most Americans don't seem to care whether the situation is better or worse in Iraq, they just want out.

In part these statistics show you don't need a degree in economics to figure out that the Iraq War is having a negative impact on the US economy. Americans are being hurt where it hurts.

Oh Oh. Waistline Target: 33.5"

OK everybody, tighten up. In Japan, more than talk about obesity.

The War Has an Expiration Date

I did not understand why the Bushies have been pushing for a long term security agreement with Iraq. This op-ed explains why:

U.S. military intervention is authorized under the second prong of the 2002 resolution. This authorizes the president to "enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq." This has allowed the Bush administration to satisfy American law by obtaining a series of resolutions authorizing the United States to serve as the head of the multinational force in Iraq.

But here's the rub. The most recent U.N. resolution expires on Dec. 31, and the administration has announced that it will not seek one for 2009. Instead, it is now negotiating a bilateral agreement with the Iraqi government to replace the U.N. mandate.

Whatever this agreement contains, it will not fill the legal vacuum. That's because the administration is not planning to submit this new agreement to Congress for its explicit approval. Since the Constitution gives the power to "declare war" to Congress, the president can't ignore the conditions imposed on him in 2002 without returning for a new grant of authority. He cannot substitute the consent of the Iraqi government for the consent of the U.S. Congress.

There's always a slippery angle with these people.

Bush Era Performance

I have been seeking actual performance measures under the Boy George administration and hit the jackpot finally. Here's a documented summary from the Democratic Caucus.


Here's another from Academy Computer Services.


Here's a final twist from Krugman on the same jobs data above:

The Bush jobs record

Changes in nonfarm employment since inauguration under the last two administrations:

Feel the boom!

Points to notice:

1. The official recession may have been short, but the employment recession of 2001-2003 was anything but

2. The administration’s habit of counting job gains since August 2003 is revealed for the cheap trick it is

3. Even during the good years, job growth under Bush was slower than the average under Clinton

Add: I may have been unclear: this is the total number of jobs added, in thousands, since January 1993 and January 2001 respectively. So the Clinton years ended with a net gain of about 23 million jobs, whereas the Bush years so far have seen a net gain of about 5 million. That’s not to say that either president deserves credit/blame for everything that happened on his watch; it’s just about the real facts of the case.

Let the numbers speak!

A Useful List to Start

Slate ran a series of articles this past week asking various experts to prescribe what they think ought to be done to clean up the many piles of crap the Bushies have left. I don't find some the solutions proposed very impressive (How smart is it to reduce the mortgage deduction at a time when housing prices are in free fall?), but the cumulative magnitude of the many disasters that must be addressed is beyond sobering.

I Wish I'd Said That

This post crystallizes the thoughts and sense I have of the presidential election. If I were going to set down my analysis, this would be it, if I would have done it well. Thanks to Mike Lux; he has saved me the tough job of writing it all down with clarity and brevity. I think it's going to be a blowout for the Dems, but it can be screwed up by the final candidate or the party. And the press is in the tank, so far, for McCain. On the other hand, how can the country possibly vote in for four more the party that has completely screwed up for eight years?

With the economy in the toilet, the situation in Iraq flaring up again, 81% of Americans thinking we're on the wrong track, a dispirited and uninspired Republican base, and with only a quarter of the country willing to call themselves a Republican, McCain should be easy to beat.

Of course!

The Shocking Incompetence and Dishonesty of the Yoo Memo

Looseheadprop of Firedoglake has just begun to critique the Yoo memo on torture, but in this introductory posting, he makes a series of cutting comments based on the simple, basic principles of how to write a legal briefing. Yoo doesn't even come close to meeting the standards and, in fact, is deliberately misleading. For example:

Last item for this post: citation placement. When you place a footnote at the end of a sentence, the reader is meant to assume that the footnote supports the ENTIRE sentence. If you have two clauses in the sentence (or several examples listed in a sentence) then you are required to place your footnote at the point in the sentence where the clause you are supporting ends. If your footnote only supports the second half of a two clause sentence, the wording of your footnote should make that clear, so the reader will be alerted that the first part of your sentence lacks support.

In the Yoo memo, there are repeated examples of multi clause (or multi item) sentences in which the first part of the sentence contains a statement that is unremarkable and clearly well settled law, but the second half is an outrageous claim, yet the footnote appears at the end of the sentence falsely implying that the entire sentence actually has support.

Here's an example out of the Yoo memo:

"It is well settled that the President may seize and detain enemy combatants, at least for the duration of the conflict, and the laws of war make clear that prisoners may be interrogated for information concerning the enemy, its strength and its plans" footnote 9"

This is what footnote 9 says:

Although Article 17 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, August 12, 1949, 6 U.S.T. 3517, places restrictions on interrogations of enemy combatants, members of al Qaeda and the Taliban militia are not legally entitiled to the status of prisoners of war under the Convention. See generally memeorandum for Alberto R.Gonzales, Counsel to the President and William J. Hayes, III, General Counsel, Department of Defense, from Jay S. Baybee Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Re: Application of Treaties and Laws to al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees (Jan 22, 2002) ("Treaties and Laws Memorandum")

This is what the entirety of Article 17 of the Geneva Conventions says:

Every prisoner of war, when questioned on the subject, is bound to give only his surname, first names and rank, date of birth, and army, regimental, personal or serial number, or failing this, equivalent information.

If he willfully infringes this rule, he may render himself liable to a restriction of the privileges accorded to his rank or status.

Each Party to a conflict is required to furnish the persons under its jurisdiction who are liable to become prisoners of war, with an identity card showing the owner's surname, first names, rank, army, regimental, personal or serial number or equivalent information, and date of birth. The identity card may, furthermore, bear the signature or the fingerprints, or both, of the owner, and may bear, as well, any other information the Party to the conflict may wish to add concerning persons belonging to its armed forces. As far as possible the card shall measure 6.5 x 10 cm. and shall be issued in duplicate. The identity card shall be shown by the prisoner of war upon demand, but may in no case be taken away from him.

No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind. Prisoners of war who, owing to their physical or mental condition, are unable to state their identity, shall be handed over to the medical service. The identity of such prisoners shall be established by all possible means, subject to the provisions of the preceding paragraph.

The questioning of prisoners of war shall be carried out in a language which they understand.

So, the legal authority Yoo is citing to support his stunning assertion "that the laws of war make clear that prisoners may be interrogated for information concerning the enemy, its strength and its plans" not only DOESN'T SAY YOU ARE ALLOWED TO ASK FOR THAT INFORMATION, IT SAYS THE EXACT OPPOSITE. Sorry, didn't mean to shout. What Article 17 says is that you can only ask for name, rank/regiment, birthdate and serial number, period.

Oh yeah, and it also says specifically that you can't torture.