MotherJones.com | MoJoBlog - Social Issues and Political Commentary: August 12, 2007

« August 5, 2007 - August 11, 2007 | Main | August 19, 2007 - August 25, 2007 »

August 18, 2007

More Wikipedia Fun (Waaaaah!)

So the Times has gotten around to a story on Wikiscanner, the new online tool that allows you to look up Wikipedia edits made from computers at various organizations, companies, etc. (Check out our favorite editing wars here, and our interview with Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales on politics 2.0 here.) It's got some choice tidbits—someone at the Gray Lady edited the entry for Condoleezza Rice to change "pianist" to "penis"—but overall, the BBC take a couple of days ago was more amusing (h/t to our own Cameron Scott). There's the CIA bit Bruce blogged on:

On the profile of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the tool indicates that a worker on the CIA network reportedly added the exclamation "Wahhhhhh!" before a section on the leader's plans for his presidency.

There's also this:

The site also indicates that a computer owned by the US Democratic Party was used to make changes to the site of right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

The changes brand Mr Limbaugh as "idiotic," a "racist", and a "bigot". An entry about his audience now reads: "Most of them are legally retarded."

[...]"We don't condone these sorts of activities and we take every precaution to ensure that our network is used in a responsible manner," Doug Thornell of the DCCC told the BBC News website.

And the list goes on... someone at Diebold removed a reference to the company chairman Walden O'Dell being a top Bush fundraiser... the Vatican edited an entry on Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams... But why let other people have all the fun. Try it yourself. (A "Mother Jones" search, sadly, finds no entries. But why is someone at the Republican Party editing the "Baking" entry to add a citation for "bottom broiler"?

August 17, 2007

Man Arrested For Holding "Impeach" Sign

Jonas Phillips, a native of Asheville, North Carolina, sometimes stands at an Interstate overpass near his workplace and holds a sign that reads Impeach Bush-Cheney. Wednesday morning, he'd been standing there about ten minutes when he was approached by one Russell Crisp of the Asheville Police Department. Crisp asked Phillips how long he intended to stay in his spot, and Philips said not long--he had to be at work shortly. The officer then asked Phillips for his ID. Phillips asked if he had done anything wrong, and Crisp said only that a sergeant was on the way.

Sergeant Randy Riddle then appeared, told Phillips to put his sign down and to place his hands behind his back. He then arrested and handcuffed Phillips, and—when asked—informed him that he was in violation of County Ordinance 16-2, and that he was obstructing the sidewalk. Phillips replied that Officer Crisp had witnessed a man walk by him and his sign and could therefore attest that the sidewalk had not been obstructed.

According to Phillips, Riddle then yelled "You were obstructing the sidewalk!" "I'm sick of this shit!" and "Here's your fifteen minutes of fame, buddy." (Do you think Crisp has a working knowledge of Warhol?)

Once at the jail, Phillips says he was repeatedly questioned about his memberships in particular groups—Veterans for Peace and the Southeast Convergence for Climate Action. He was then searched, photographed and given a court date.

Phillips reports that in Asheville, it is legal to stage a protest on a city sidewalk without a permit. According to his wife, he has contacted the American Civil Liberties Union for help. Also, the police are considering changing the charge to a state violation of endangering motorists. After all, he must be guilty of something.

Breaking: Tony Snow Resigning

After less than a year and a half as the White House spokesman, Tony Snow plans on leaving the gig. So says CNN. Props to them for throwing in this bit:

Snow told conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday that "financial reasons" may prevent him for serving the remainder of his boss's presidency.

"I'm not going to be able to go the distance, but that's primarily for financial reasons." Snow said. "I've told people when my money runs out, then I've got to go."

According to The Washington Post, Snow makes $168,000 as the White House spokesman.

Maybe this is all an elaborate ruse to get a raise...

Jenna Tidbit

From the NYT, almost too good to believe:

Jenna Bush recently finished a book based on her experience working with Unicef, called “Ana’s Story,” about a teenage single mother living with H.I.V. Ms. Bush is working on a children’s book with her mother about “a mischievous little boy who likes to do everything but read,” according to the publisher, HarperCollins.

Too many jokes...

Also getting married: Andrew Sullivan.

Clinton Leaving Obama in the Dust: New Cali Poll Results

Wow, the gap is worse than Obama's people might have feared. As Ryan Lizza wrote in GQ, back in the spring:

Obama's pollsters were finding alarming evidence that their candidate was vulnerable to the same phenomenon. When they compared the percentage of Democrats who said they strongly approved of Obama with the percentage who said they would vote for him, they found that the latter number was significantly lower than the former. Inside the campaign, aides dubbed this "the Gap." It was a sobering, hard number that quantified the difference between vague enthusiasm and actual votes. For Hillary Clinton, the gap is much smaller. The majority of voters who strongly approve of her also say they will vote for her.

And that seems to be borne out by some shocking new poll results (California only folks) today (via the SF Chron):

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, bolstered by an aggressive campaign organization in California, has amassed a whopping 30-point lead over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama — and enjoys more support among likely voters in the state Democratic primary than all of her Democratic presidential rivals combined, a Field Poll released today shows.

The poll solidifies Clinton's position as the clear front-runner in the nation's most populous state — and raises questions about Obama's effort in California, whose primary is Feb. 5. The Illinois senator has seen his support drop by one-third since the previous Field Poll taken in March....

Clinton's strengths in California include a crushing 4-1 lead among Latino voters, a more than 2-1 lead among women and African American voters, and at least a 2-1 lead in every geographic region in the state, the poll showed. She is also the overwhelming favorite in all age groups and ethnic groups and at every education level.

The robust poll findings, DiCamillo said, suggest Clinton may be putting to rest some of the commonly cited worries of Democrats regarding her campaign — that she could be too divisive and therefore less attractive to independent and swing voters.

"I was looking for hints of vulnerability... and it's not really there in the data," DiCamillo said. "One theory was she is going to do very poorly among Republicans ... (but) you don't really see any evidence to support that."

The poll showed that all three top Democratic candidates would defeat the four leading Republicans: former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson and Arizona Sen. John McCain.

But Clinton appears strongest in head-to-head matchups — leading all the GOP candidates by 15 to 20 percentage points.

Did Obama peak too early? Or is it too early to tell much from poll numbers? It's an impressive ground effort in California, that much seems clear.

More Recalls: Flaming Fords Back in the News

If you own one of the 3.6 million Ford cars and trucks now being recalled due to a cruise control mechanism that can spontaneously catch fire (full list of vehicles here), don't be surprised. Media outlets have been reporting on the faulty part for years now, and Ford has been recalling vehicles that include it in fits and starts. This last batch of cars and trucks brings the total vehicles recalled because of the part to 10 million.

Mother Jones is one of those news outlets that has reported on the issue. For more info on the recall, the faulty part, and the damage done to Ford's customers because of it, see "Flaming Fords" from our March/April 2006 issue.

Sometimes Fame Isn't Enough...

Two stories of mistaken identity:

Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu mistaken for a bag lady.
Writer Stephen King mistaken for a vandal.

'Mothballed' Russian Bombers Resume Long-Range Patrols

I wrote last week of a flight of Russian long-range bombers to the Pacific island of Guam. Well, the news today is that Putin has decided to make it a regular thing. From the BBC:

"We have decided to restore flights by Russian strategic aviation on a permanent basis," Mr Putin told reporters at joint military exercises with China and four Central Asian states in Russia's Ural mountains.

"In 1992, Russia unilaterally ended flights by its strategic aircraft to distant military patrol areas. Unfortunately, our example was not followed by everyone," Mr Putin said, in an apparent reference to the US.

"Flights by other countries' strategic aircraft continue and this creates certain problems for ensuring the security of the Russian Federation," he said.

In Washington, a state department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said Russia's decision was "interesting".

"If Russia feels as though they want to take some of these old aircraft out of mothballs and get them flying again, that's their decision," he told reporters.

One of the reasons Russia halted its flights 15 years ago was that it could no longer afford the fuel.

Today Moscow's coffers are stuffed full of oil money, says the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Moscow, and the Kremlin is determined to show it is still a military power to reckon with.

August 16, 2007

CARE Doesn't Want the U.S.' Money

CARE, an organization that combats poverty, will no longer accept $45 million a year in funding from the U.S. government. It's not often you hear about a charity walking away from that much money, but CARE's reasons are sound. It comes down to the fact that the U.S. food aid program is designed to suit American agricultural and shipping interests more than those of the world's poor. Jonathan Schwarz, in our upcoming issue (hitting the newsstands in early September), documents why this is happening and what Congress needs to do to change it. But lucky for you, you don't have to wait. Read the entire article here.

—Celia Perry

Court Denies FTC Injunction Against Whole Foods Merger

The proposed merger between Whole Foods and Wild Oats is back on the table as of today.

To learn more, continue reading this post on our science and health blog, The Blue Marble.

New Lawsuit: Michael Vick is Going to Need a Bigger Contract

Spotted on The Corner, the most interesting news story of the day. Reprinted in full:

An offbeat South Carolina prison inmate has filed a handwritten lawsuit seeking $63 quintillion from Michael Vick.

That's $63,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Or as Jonathan Lee Riches put it in his handwritten lawsuit, "$63,000,000,000 billion." The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Richmond on July 23.

Riches -- who has developed an Internet cult following for his propensity to file strange lawsuits naming multiple diverse defendants -- claims that Vick stole his pit bulls and sold them on eBay to "use the proceeds to purchase missiles from the Iran government."

In the complaint, Riches scrawls that "Michael Vick has to stop physically hurting my feelings and dashing my hopes."

If he wins the lawsuit, Riches says he wants the $63 quintillion delivered in gold and silver to the front gate of the Williamsburg Federal Correctional Facility in South Carolina, where he is housed as he serves a conviction for wire fraud.

In his previous lawsuits -- which have never actually made it to court -- Riches has sued politicians, entertainers, dead people, corporations and occasionally abstract concepts.

One week before he filed suit against Vick, Riches had filed a suit against three entities -- the Jewish Mossad, the Central Intelligence Agency and "Larry King Live." It was unclear why he was suing them.

In his most noteworthy suit, Riches submitted a 57-page list of defendants that included President Bush, Pope Benedict, actor Tony Danza, Fruit of the Loom, NASCAR, the Ming Dynasty, Skittles candy, the Philadelphia Eagles (2005 roster), the Doobie Brothers, the Congolese Army, the Magna Carta, "WKRP in Cincinnati," the King's Dominion amusement park in Virginia, the philosopher Plato, and the Liberty Bell.

He claimed they collectively owed him money.

First of all, shame on the news media for using a man who is clearly mentally disturbed to entertain their readers. Second of all, what could anyone have against the Magna Carta? Or Skittles?

Update: Found the pdf of Riches v. Bush, et al. The list of defendants is pure comic genius.

UPDATE Update: Found the handwritten Riches v. Vick.

TOO MANY UPDATES: Just a few days ago, Riches sued Barry Bonds, Bud Selig, and "Hank Aaron's Bat"! And look who's mixed up in their nefarious business [pdf]:

Mr. Selig has been secretly giving Barry Bonds steroids for over 9 years under the supervision of Sammy Sosa. Mr. Selig on 2 occations [sic] (Dec. 10th 2001, Feb 6th, 2003) met Mr. Bonds at the I-70 Steak N Shake, Booth #11, made an under the table cream exchange, needles, HGH, as Mr. Bonds provided Mr. Selig 22 thousand for his services. I planted a bug in booth #10, Robert Novak and Judith Miller have copies of the transcripts.

News Flash: Jose Padilla Found Guilty On All Counts

His attorneys were not allowed to mention the original "dirty bomb" allegations, nor the fact that he was held without an attorney for 3 1/2 years. AP story here.

More to come. Meanwhile read my previous blog post here. And our full archival coverage of the Padilla case here.

Update: Condemnation of the government's handling of the Padilla case is near universal today. From the normally conservative Washington Post editorial pages:

The months of trial in South Florida were remarkable for being relatively unremarkable.... What was extraordinary, and reprehensible, was how long Mr. Padilla had to wait for the kind of due process most Americans take for granted.

Mr. Padilla was detained in 2002 in Chicago on suspicion that he was trying to assemble a "dirty bomb." He was first designated a "material witness" and later an "enemy combatant" and held in federal detention cells or military brigs for years by a government intent on keeping him out of a federal court system where he would be endowed with rights -- including access to a lawyer. In this alternative universe, government interrogators, with no checks from any other authority, used sensory and sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and other forms of abuse to squeeze information from the prisoner. Mr. Padilla was, in short, "disappeared" into a system with methods we object to in the strongest terms when they are used in police states around the world.

From the New York Times:

On the way to this verdict, the government repeatedly trampled on the Constitution, and its prosecution of Mr. Padilla was so cynical and inept that the crime he was convicted of — conspiracy to commit terrorism overseas — bears no relation to the ambitious plot to wreak mass destruction inside the United States, which the Justice Department first loudly proclaimed. Even with the guilty verdict, this conviction remains a shining example of how not to prosecute terrorism cases.

Women Lagging Politically, Except for That Whole WH Contender Thing

Yesterday Salon picked up on a Wall Street Journal article titled: "Women's March Into Office Slows," which begins:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton could be elected president next year, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi would likely remain Speaker of the House assuming the Democrats retain control of Congress.

Yeah, that sounds like the women's march is screeching to a halt. Or, it sounds like women could grab the White House and maintain control of the highest ranking seat in the House. But, I guess that's neither here nor there.

What's important, says the WSJ, is that three governships held by women "face stiff competition." The article also uses the current Cook Political Report as evidence that the female gender's political dominance is slowing down. The article notes that 14 out of the 75 "vulnerable" House seats are women. But, if you look at that in terms of percentages, there's only about a six percent difference between the number of male and female vulnerable seats. And anyway, isn't it a bit early to be talking 2008 congressional races?

Jenna is Getting Hitched

Jenna Bush has just announced her engagement to former Karl Rove aid, Henry Hager. This gives her just enough time to plan a White House wedding before daddy gets the boot.

—Celia Perry

CIA Edits Wikipedia Entries

A 24-year-old graduate student at the California Institute of Technology named Virgil Griffith (hacker name: "Romanpoet") has created a program called "Wikipedia Scanner," which matches IP addresses of Wiki editors to the names of the individuals or groups to which those addresses are registered. So, yes, you can still edit your own profile (as so many people do), but prepare yourself for the humiliation of being outed...

Among those undercover editors already dragged into the light of day is the CIA. According to the BBC:

On the profile of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the tool indicates that a worker on the CIA network reportedly added the exclamation "Wahhhhhh!" before a section on the leader's plans for his presidency.

A warning on the profile of the anonymous editor reads: "You have recently vandalised a Wikipedia article, and you are now being asked to stop this type of behaviour."

Other changes that have been made are more innocuous, and include tweaks to the profile of former CIA chief Porter Goss and celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey.

When asked whether it could confirm whether the changes had been made by a person using a CIA computer, an agency spokesperson responded: "I cannot confirm that the traffic you cite came from agency computers.

"I'd like in any case to underscore a far larger and more significant point that no one should doubt or forget: The CIA has a vital mission in protecting the United States, and the focus of this agency is there, on that decisive work."

Wahhhhhh!

New Giuliani Flip-Flop: Immigration

This one's a doozy, maybe bigger than his flip-flops on the flat tax and on abortion.

Here's what Giuliani said in a 1996 speech at Harvard:

We're never, ever going to be able to totally control immigration to a country that is as large as ours, that has borders that are as diverse as the borders of the United States, and as a society that wants to be a country that values freedom -- that values freedom of movement, freedom to do business.

See video at TPM's Election Central. This is part of Giuliani's formerly understanding view of immigration and immigrants: Giuliani's New York gave many of the same benefits to citizens and illegal immigrants; Giuliani took strong measures to educate the children of illegal immigrants; he fought to keep illegal immigrants from being turned in by employers. Of conservativism's hardline anti-immigrant forces, Giuliani has said, "the anti-immigration movement now sweeping the country is no different than earlier anti-immigration movements that have surfaced periodically in American history. We need only look back at the 'Chinese Exclusionary Act' or especially at the 'Know-nothing' movement that swept America in the mid-19th century."

Kind of a good dude, right? Unfortunately, all this contrasts with Giuliani's views today. In a recent speech in South Carolina, Giuliani contradicted the Harvard speech, saying, "We can end illegal immigration. I promise you we can end illegal immigration." The former mayor now advocates building a physical fence between the U.S. and Mexico.

Willing to forgive what appears to be a simple change of heart? I understand. I wouldn't slam the man if he said, "I've seen new evidence since '96, illegal immigration has gotten much worse, we need to do something." But Giuliani's rhetoric on immigration these days is so extreme and xenophobic that the man deserves no harbor. Giuliani's plan, according to his own press release, includes a "tamper-proof Secure Authorized Foreign Entry Card (SAFE Card) for all foreign workers and students, a single national database of non-citizens to track their status, and tracking those who leave the country. In addition, Giuliani will encourage Americanization by requiring immigrants to truly read, write and speak English."

He wants a database of all foreigners in the United States! And he wants to somehow force-teach them all English! He is the Know-nothing he once derided!

This is a very different Rudy Giuliani than the one from ten years ago. Running for president will do that to a man.

Surging Toward Civil War, Part 2

I wrote yesterday about the truck bombings in northern Iraq. The death count has now risen to 500, making the attack the most deadly of the Iraq War.

Alleged White House-Petraeus Arm Wrestling Over September Report a Ruse?

Add me to the list of the puzzled. Many signs are from those advising Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus that he and his advisors think they have a strategy that they say is somewhat succeeding and don't want Congress to pull the plug. In other words, Petraeus and the White House are ostensibly pretty close in advocating a continued large scale US presence in Iraq for as long as possible.

So it's bizarre that the White House is apparently indicating that it wants to preempt his findings and hijack the Petraeus report from Petraeus, and confine Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker to testifying before Congress in closed session.

So puzzling that one is suspicious: is the White House ultimately going to "give in" to Congressional pressure and "let" Petraeus testify, only to have it revealed, that, what do you know, it turns out that the good general too thinks the surge has done wonders and, with time, might reduce violence to a degree that greater political reconciliation takes hold. He even forecasts that over the next year, he might be able to move troops out of the areas where violence has gone down, hinting at a lower US troop presence by next year, without offering too many specifics.

Of any reported White House effort to silence or sideline Petraeus, one of the general's close associates emails me, "I do not believe it."

I am not sure I do either. The only explanation that makes sense to me is that the White House is seeking to control the optics with Congressional Republican leaders anxious about how basically continuing a maximal US presence in Iraq will affect their '08 reelection prospects.

The Suppression of David Petraeus Continues

You know how Gen. David Petraeus was supposed to write that all-important September report, but won't? He's also the one who is supposed to present it to Congress and the public. But looks like he won't. Military officials are said to be "puzzled" that Condi Rice and Robert Gates will present the report, and that Gen. Petraeus won't be allowed to appear in public at all.

For a guy that the administration has endlessly hyped, he sure doesn't get much of a chance to show his talents to the world.

Update: The White House is now saying Petraeus will testify.

Iraqi Government Shake-Up to Pass US-Demanded Legislation

Yesterday, a report in Dubai-based Gulfnews forecast a Baghdad govenrment "shake-up":

Under pressure from the Congress, Arab states and Sunni Iraqi leaders, the US administration on Tuesday set the stage for "major" political changes in Iraq.

The changes will be in "the structure, nature and direction of the Iraqi state," a senior American official in Baghdad was quoted by AP as saying.

He did not give out details, but the plan is expected to be high on the agenda of a 'crisis summit' which would be attended by key Iraqi leaders who seek to save the crumbling national unity government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki.

Today, the AP reports, Iraqi leaders have formed a new majority alliance:

The Iraqi prime minister and president announced a new alliance of moderate Shiites and Kurds in a push to save the crumbing government Thursday, saying a key Sunni bloc refused to join but the door remained open to them. ...

At the news conference announcing the political accord, President Jalal Talabani and al-Maliki were flanked by the leader of the northern autonomous Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, and Shiite Vice President Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi.

The four men signed a three-page agreement they said ensures them a majority in the 275-member parliament that would allow action on legislation demanded by the U.S.

A cynical observer might predict: a rush of legislation being passed by the reengineered Iraqi parliament just in time before the September non-Petraeus Petraeus report, fulfilling several of the Congressionally-mandated benchmarks.

August 15, 2007

A Different Casualty of War: Army Suicide Rate Skyrockets

The Associated Press got a hold of new Pentagon report out tomorrow detailing the latest stats on suicides within the already-beleaguered Army. Last year 99 soldiers committed suicide, up from 88 the year before, and the rate of 17.3 troops per 100,000 taking their own lives is the highest in 26 years (and nearly double the all-time low of 9.1 per 100,000 in 2001). The 99 suicides included 28 soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and 71 who were out-of-theater, the report says. And about twice as many women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan committed suicide as did women not sent to war.

Not included in any of these Pentagon tallies, I am almost sure, are the suicides (and attempts) of troops home, out of the army, reservists, guardsmen and women, all dealing with PTSD, job losses and the like. Suicides, depression, rage, PTSD, the range of mental health issues is already exacting a heavy, if relatively silent, toll. Expect it to only get worse, a lot worse.

Headless Walruses Appear in Droves on Alaskan Shores

Dozens of decapitated walruses have washed up on the beaches of western Alaska this summer, but a particular surge in Norton Sound, a bay of the Bering Sea, has called for a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service investigation. To hear why this is happening, continue reading this post on our science and health blog, The Blue Marble.

Chevron to Stand Trial in San Francisco for Human Rights Abuses in Nigeria

After nearly ten years of legal wrangling, a group of nine Nigerians from the impoverished Niger Delta has been given the green light by a federal judge in San Francisco to go to trial against Chevron. Attorneys for the plaintiffs allege that Nigerian police, paid by Chevron and using Chevron helicopters and boats, tortured and shot people and destroyed two villages that were allegedly opposed to Chevron's oil Delta oil developments. A jury trial in the case is expected within the year.

Another case involving Chevron and human rights abuses was, the last time I checked, also winding its way through the San Francisco federal courts. But that case, involving four aggrieved women from the Ecuadorian rain forest, was actually welcomed by Chevron. Or at least Chevron did nothing to encourage it to be remanded to Ecuador. Why the different approach? Ecuador has been cracking down on oil company abuses while Nigeria is happy to pocket their money. In between these global poles of quasi-socialism and kleptocracy lies San Francisco. Looks like we'll soon find out whether Chevron finds a jury of its Bay Area peers to be a favorable middle ground.

U.S. to Use Spy Satellites for Domestic Surveillance

Frightening, as per the usual:

The United States is moving to expand the use of spy satellites for domestic surveillance, turning its "eyes in sky" inward to counter terrorism and eventually for law enforcement, a US official said Wednesday.

The director of national intelligence, Michael McConnell, expanded the range of federal and local agencies that can tap into imagery from spy satellites...

White House to Write Petraeus' Report on Success/Failure of Surge

So these past several months when President Bush has deflected questions about progress in Iraq with statements like, "I'm going to wait for... David Petraeus to come back and give us the report on what he sees," he's been bluffing us. David Petraeus isn't writing any reports — the much-ballyhooed September report that will give America an update on the situation on the ground in Iraq will be written by propoganda artists sitting in offices in Washington DC, likely in the White House itself.

Should this bother us? I know, telling the public one thing and doing the other is standard fare for this administration, but now that we know this is the procedure, I wonder if all important reports about Iraq have been written from the White House, regardless of their official offices of origin. It feels so cynical to say, "Of course!" But it feels that with the Bushies, the most cynical answer is almost always the right one.

Rumsfeld Resigned Before the Elections

Check this out, from Reuters.

Rove Love Hits Rhetorical Peak

Lots of Rove coverage on MoJoBlog the last few days, I know. But this had to be pointed out.

Laura blogged yesterday about Jay Rosen's very good and very complex take on why the national press slobbers over Karl Rove. Sometimes, though, it's simple: the writer is a party hack, Rove is the great god of party hacks, enough said. For the best example we're going to get in this post-resignation bubble, check out this take from Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard (via The Plank):

Rove is the greatest political mind of his generation and probably of any generation.

That sounds about right, Freddy boy. In reverse order, here are my top ten. See if you agree.

10. St. Thomas Aquinas
9. Karl Marx
8. Thomas Hobbes
7. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
6. Plato
5. Machiavelli
4. Thomas Jefferson
3. John Locke
2. Aristotle
1. Karl Rove

Not making the list: John Rawls, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, and Confucius.

But Karl Rove, definitely number one.

Surging Toward Civil War

At least 200 people were killed yesterday when powerful truck bombs exploded in two villages adjacent to Iraq's northern Kurdish region along the Syrian border. The victims were members of the Yizidi community, a minority religious sect that local Muslims consider to be "devil worshipers." At least one of the villages was virtually destroyed in the blast, as most of its dwellings were made of clay. Bodies littered the ground, and more than 200 wounded were rushed to six area hospitals. The attack was among the deadliest in Iraq this year.

A spokesman for the Kurdish regional government told reporters that the Kurdish peshmerga might have been able to prevent the bombings, but is forbidden from operating in the Yizidi area by the central government in Baghdad. According to the BBC:

Tensions between the Yazidi sect and local Muslims have grown since a Yazidi girl was reportedly stoned by her community in April for converting to Islam.

The sect is due to vote later alongside other Kurds outside the Kurdish autonomous region in a referendum on joining the grouping.

Correspondents say the planned referendum makes northern Iraq's Kurds a target for politically-motivated attacks.

Sunni extremists are thought to be responsible for yesterday's bombings. From Juan Cole's Informed Comment:

The operation resembled the horrific bombing of the Shiite Turkmen of Armili on July 2. Note that first Shiite Turkmen were targeted and now Kurdish Yazidis. They have in common not being Sunni Arabs. My suspicion is that these bombings are not just an attempt to spread fear and intimidation, but are actually part of a struggle for control of territory. The Sunni Arab guerrillas face powerful challenges from Kurds and Shiites with regard to the future of provinces such as Ninevah, Diyala and Kirkuk. A lot of Kurdish police and troops have been deployed in Mosul not far from Tuesday's bombings, and they are seen as among the deadliest enemies by the Sunni Arab guerrillas. Sooner or later, my guess is that the Sunni Arabs will wage a major war with the Kurds over the oil fields of Kirkuk.

Attacks like this one in northern Iraq only strengthen the Kurds' conviction that there is little to be gained from associating themselves with Iraq's central government... and perhaps even more to be lost by doing so. The chaos and violence that reigns in Baghdad appears to be spreading to previously quiet areas. The "surge" is responsible for at least some of this. Rather than packing it in under increased U.S. pressure, insurgent groups have begun to select easier targets in other parts of the country. After all, what better way to antagonize the Kurds into fighting a civil war than to attack them on their own ground?

Speaking of the surge, here's Time's Matthew Yeomans:

The U.S. Army Chief of Staff says the troop surge is working, however. Gen. George Casey—who is a former U.S. commander in Iraq—told reporters yesterday he saw clear "progress on the security front" during his weekend visit to Iraq. "As complex and as difficult and as confusing as you may find Iraq ... we can succeed there," he said. "And we will succeed there if we demonstrate patience and will." But he said he didn't know when the Army might be able to cut soldiers' tours of duty back to 12 months from 15.

What he did say, though, was that deployments longer than the current 15 months would "put our soldiers at a level of stress and a level of risk that I'm right now not comfortable with." The surge can only be maintained by extending tours to 18 months. So, it looks like no matter what happens in the political debate over a potential drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq, the soldiers are going to start coming home no matter what.

Rove's Departure Unlikely to End Investigation Into His Activities

Karl Rove's politicalization of the federal government became so wide-ranging and so bald earlier this year that the Republican apparatchik at the head of the Office of Special Counsel decided to investigate him. If you were wondering if that investigation will end with Rove's resignation (MoJo's thoughts on the departure here and here), have no fear. According to an Office of Special Counsel spokesman, the inquiries will continue.

That could be spin, of course, and we'll have to wait to see if any real results come out of the OSC, but at least it's spin in the right direction.

August 14, 2007

Gonzo and the Reauthorization of the Patriot Act, Part II

Guess which beleaguered public official is poised to grab even more power—Alberto Gonzales. A hidden provision in the reauthorization of the Patriot Act allows states to opt in to a program aimed at expediting the federal appeals process for death row inmates. This provision gives the attorney general the authority to deny an appeal before it even reaches federal court for review. The attorney general's job is to present such a case before the court, not to decide it.

Sound familiar? There was another provision that was quietly slipped into the reauthorization of the Patriot Act granting Gonzales excess power. You know, the one that allowed him to appoint interim U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation? Shouldn't we be scouring that bill for more sneaky power-granting amendments?

And it's not difficult to predict what Gonzales will do with this newfound control over capital litigation. As gubernatorial counsel to Bush for three years in Texas, Gonzales advised him on 57 executions. Clemency was denied in all of them.

—Celia Perry

Why is Hastert Leaving?

What a week. First Rove, now Dennis Hastert, who, until last year, was the most powerful man in Congress. As recently as January, the former Speaker of the House had emphatically denied that he was thinking about calling it quits. "I just think that was wishful thinking on the part of some people," the Illinois Congressman had told the local CBS station in Chicago. But now CBS says its sources "expect Hastert to announce he will not seek reelection next year."

It's too early to say why Hastert is calling it quits, and we'll probably never know for sure (I'll bet, like Rove, he'll be wanting to get in some quality time with the family). I'd guess Hastert might be tired of hearing about how he helped squander the Republican majority with his botched handling of the Congressional page sex scandal. And it probably hasn't helped that the scandal refuses to go away: the Rev. KA Paul, who was widely discredited even before Hastert discussed the page woes with him last year in a private meeting, was recently arrested in a Beverly Hills hotel on suspicion of "lewd and lascivious acts with a minor." Still, many in Illinois will be sad to see Hastert go, if for no other reason than his ability to bring home giant slabs of pork. While it's true that Speaker Pelosi is also sprinkling some bacon bits these days, at least she hasn't been accused of self-dealing. Hastert won an earmark for a freeway through the middle of nowhere, driving up the value of an adjacent property that he owned, which he then sold at a profit.

"Hastert was one of the key players in rewriting how business on the floor of the House of Representatives is done," says John Laesch, a Navy veteran who ran against Hastert last year and came closer to winning than anyone had thought possible. "The pay-to-play system that he and Tom DeLay created puts the people's business behind closed doors. I think that is probably ultimately what he will be remembered for in Washington, D.C." Laesch is one of three Democrats making a bid for the seat this year in the Illinois primary. What would he do differently if he gets elected? "Well," he says, pausing to think for a moment. "Everything."

Buh-Bye Hastert: Another Pathetic Legacy

When we live-blogged the glorious 2006 midterm elections, we posted a blog saying buh-bye to each nefarious member of the Republican delegation as they fell. Santorum and George Allen were particular favorites. Today, we've got a headstart on 2008. Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert will announce that he is retiring. It is unclear if his retirement is effective immediately or at the end of this session of Congress.

As the man who presided over the Republican House when it (1) whole-heartedly supported one of the greatest foreign policy debacles in our country's history, and (2) swung widely out of control in terms of corruption, graft, ethics abuses, and preying on congressional pages, Hastert leaves with a legacy tarnished. Awfully common these days.

Newark Gets It Together in Response to Homicides; New Orleans, Not So Much

The Newark mayor’s office has raised more than $3 million for a state-of-the-art surveillance system within days of the slaying of three college students. The homicides, which brought the 2007 citywide total up to 60, inspired political foes to make friends and corporations to make donations, all in the name of mitigating the alarming levels of violence in their city.

Meanwhile, no such strides have been made in New Orleans, where in the first four days of this year, seven people were murdered. By Saint Patrick’s Day, 37. With less than half of the city’s population around, the odds of getting killed in New Orleans made it the deadliest city in America.

A few months after I moved out of New Orleans last year, someone was shot with an assault rifle on the very corner on which I stood waiting for the bus every day. Hopefully the situation in Newark will inspire a certain mayor’s office on the Gulf Coast, too, in a city in which there have been twice as many murders—literally, 120 so far this year—among a population less tens of thousands. Hopefully it’ll happen soon, before more good and desperately needed New Orleanians, evacuating from a different kind of threat, move out.

Development Statistics Geeks of the World, Unite!

Behold, another super-cool gadget from Google. It's called Gapminder World, and it was developed by the Gapminder Foundation, which describes itself as "a non-profit venture for development and provision of free software that visualise human development." You can track almost any country in the world on a chart where you can make the x- and y-axes any one of more than a dozen development indicators. You can color the points differently based on region, or resize them based on population. You can see which countries are making progress and which are lagging behind. You can scale data logarithmically. Basically, it's the coolest thing I've found on Google in a while. That's saying something.

Just check it out.

— Nick Baumann

Muhammad al-Corleone: New Trouble in Iraq

Yet another problem for General Petraeus and the American military to worry about: the Italian mafia is selling weapons to insurgent factions in Iraq. It just got caught trafficking "100,000 sophisticated machine guns." Wonder if that's in the vaunted counterinsurgency manual...

Mitt Romney Loves Iran, Sudan, Cigarettes, Other Bad Things

Mitt Romney is rich. So rich that his wealth is estimated to be between $190 million and $250 million. Want to know how he made all that money? Here are some of his current and former investments:

An Italian oil company doing business in Iran. (former)
A Chinese oil company doing business in Sudan. (current)
Philip Morris U.S.A., the world's largest cigarette manufacturer. (current)
A half dozen casino companies. (former)
Wal-Mart. (current)

There's enough in there to anger both the right and the left, particularly because Evangelicals are getting all worked up about Darfur these days. Mo' money, mo' problems, I guess.

Rove and the National Press

Worth reading: Jay Rosen on how Karl Rove figured out that the national press would never cover the extent of his extremism and tactics. Rosen cites from Joshua Green's 2004 Atlantic Monthly profile of Rove:

He seems to understand—indeed, to count on—the media’s unwillingness or inability, whether from squeamishness, laziness, or professional caution, ever to give a full estimate of him or his work. It is ultimately not just Rove’s skill but his character that allows him to perform on an entirely different plane. Along with remarkable strategic skills, he has both an understanding of the media’s unstated self-limitations and a willingness to fight in territory where conscience forbids most others.

Meantime, the Weekly Standard is now playing Joseph McCarthy. Figuring in the same way as Rove that the press and polite establishment will never call them on the depths of their extremism and propaganda. (Remember "Case Closed"?) Which is why, as he relentlessly mocks and exposes this absurd and dangerous state of affairs, Atrios is right, a wise man, if not a Very Serious Person.

August 13, 2007

Baghdad Beautifies Its Blast Walls

Dozens of Iraqi artists have been painting murals along miles of concrete blast walls throughout Baghdad, and the American military is paying a portion of the bill. To learn more, read this post on Mother Jones' arts and culture blog, The Riff.

Jose Padilla Trial: Dirty Bomb, What Dirty Bomb?

The government concluded its case against Jose Padilla today. Gone is any real talk of the dirty bomb that Attorney General John Ashcroft made such a splash with just as the administration was taking heat from the 9/11 Commission for ignoring the warnings of Coleen Rowley and others (go to our Iraq War Timeline and look at June 2002). After spending 3 1/2 years in solitary confinement without access to an attorney, Padilla's been charged with attending an Al Qaeda terror camp, and thus being part of a conspiracy to murder. Via Reuters:

The main evidence against Padilla is what the government calls an al Qaeda application form bearing his fingerprints, birthdate and similar background. It was recovered in Afghanistan and says the author speaks English, Spanish and Arabic, graduated from high school and trained as a carpenter, as Padilla did.

It used a name prosecutors contend was Padilla's alias, and lists as his sponsor a man whose name was in Padilla's address book when he was arrested.

Padilla's defense is expected to argue his fingerprints could have got on the form when investigators handed it to him to examine after his arrest.

Attention trilingual journeymen carpenters everywhere: Watch your back! Now Padilla may have been an Al Qaeda wannabe or even the real deal. But it seems unlikely we'll ever get to the bottom of that given that

Padilla was held without charge for 3-1/2 years before being indicted in a civilian court in November 2005 on charges that do not mention any bomb plot. The bomb allegations came from alleged al Qaeda operatives who have said they were tortured during interrogation before being sent to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Anything Padilla might have told interrogators in the military brig about such a plot would be inadmissible because he was denied access to an attorney for most of the time he was there.

Just an update from the war on terror. You can find all of Mother Jones' extensive coverage of the Padilla case here.

Rove a Genius? Please

In light of the big retirement announcement, the media has spent the day gushing over Karl Rove. But it's worth asking some tough questions. Besides the fact that he got an intellectual lightweight with no particular qualifications for the office elected to the presidency, what has Karl Rove done? That is, what will he be remembered for post-2000? Andrew Sullivan takes a crack:

The man's legacy is a conservative movement largely discredited and disunited, a president with lower consistent approval ratings than any in modern history, a generational shift to the Democrats, a resurgent al Qaeda, an endless catastrophe in Iraq, a long hard struggle in Afghanistan, a fiscal legacy that means bankrupting America within a decade, and the poisoning of American religion with politics and vice-versa.

Too much blame? One could argue that Rove always got too much credit, and this is simply the flip side of the coin. Regardless, there's no way to spin this man's legacy as a success. Sullivan's not done. "Rove is one of the worst political strategists in recent times," he writes. "He took a chance to realign the country and to unite it in a war — and threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency." Conservatism is not entrenched in the American identity, as Rove had intended. It is a dying breed in many parts of the country, and increasingly unpopular even in its former strongholds.

Dan Froomkin of the Post agrees, writing that Rove "leaves his party in worse shape than he found it, with his boss profoundly discredited in the eyes of the American people." Froomkin also writes that part of the blame for this failed administration will "accrue to Rove for choosing to use national security as a wedge issue."

And that's the key point. Rove, a campaigner, was handed the keys to the White House car in every instance. Remember when faith-based initiatives czar John DiIulio resigned in disgust and said, "What you've got is everything and I mean everything being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis"? When you actually govern with the exclusive aim of building partisan advantage, you are inevitably headed for disaster. The United States of America's priorities are not the same as the GOP's priorities, and while the goal of the presidency is to further the former, this administration was always interested in the latter. Throw in hubris, incompetency, and an obstinate unwillingness to hear outside views, and you've got one of the worst presidencies in the history of the Republic. Quite a genius, that Karl.

Photo courtesy of Time, where they've captured Rove through the ages.

Late update: Not surprisingly, Harold Meyerson agrees with me.

[Rove] and Bush overlooked the epochal growth of economic insecurity in America. They refused to see that the very economic changes they celebrated had made Americans understandably nervous and pessimistic to an unprecedented extent about the nation's long-term economic prospects. And so, as employers were abandoning their provision of retirement benefits to employees, Bush and Rove called for abandoning the government's commitment as well. At a time when ordinary Americans' incomes were stagnating, and when growing numbers of Americans understood that they were in some nebulous competition with millions of lower-paid workers in other lands that the government seemed powerless to mitigate, Bush and Rove proposed legalizing the undocumented immigrants who had flowed across the border.

Could there have been a more profound misreading of the American temper?

Istanbul Collision Foreshadows Worse to Come

According to news reports (here and here), a Turkish passenger ferry has collided with a Ukrainian-flagged cargo ship in the Marmara Sea, off the coast of Istanbul. Passengers sustained minor injuries, and according to Turkish authorities, maritime traffic in the nearby Bosporus Straight was unaffected. End of story? Not quite.

I traveled to Istanbul in 2005, in part to investigate the growing weight of international maritime shipping through the Bosporus, which runs through the heart of the city and divides it between Europe and Asia. Whatever might be said of today's accident in the Marmara, we should expect worse.

The Bosporus, which connects the Marmara Sea in the south to the Black Sea in the north, is among the most difficult stretches of water in the world for ship captains to navigate. During any given passage, they must execute about a dozen significant changes of course to avoid slamming into Istanbul’s heavily populated shores. Strong and unpredictable currents can push and pull ships off course. Sudden dense fog and blinding rains are common.

The tankers that face these hazards are some of the oldest and worst maintained currently afloat. Recent oil spills off the coasts of France and Spain have caused European countries to tighten their controls. Many of the older ships that cannot meet the new standards have been shunted off to poorer, less developed countries, like those that line the shores of the Black Sea. The average oil tanker based there is now over twenty years old, more than twice the average age of similar vessels working out of European and American ports.

As these tankers pass the Bosporus, they are forced to play dangerous games of chicken with countless numbers of smaller merchant ships, passenger ferries, commercial fishing boats, naval and coast guard vessels, and leisure craft that crowd the Bosporus on a typical day. To many of the people of Istanbul, the constant presence of crude-laden tankers just offshore is barely worth a second thought. To be sure, there are occasional protests, including an annual demonstration by local environmental groups that fills the strait with small boats and prevents tankers from passing for a few hours. But overall, the city seems fairly resigned to its fate, placing its trust in the hands of foreign captains working for foreign companies under foreign flags. To visitors, too, the ships are less objects of concern than part of Istanbul’s exotic charm, a constant reminder of the city’s unique place in the world.

But tankers are not decorations; they are complex machines, and like all such things, they are prone to failure, often catastrophic failure. They explode. They run aground. They collide with other ships. They lose their steering and strike businesses and houses on the tightly crowded shore, killing or maiming the people inside. Or they do some combination of these things. The list of possible failures doubles as a virtual catalogue of accidents that have actually occurred on the Bosporus in recent years. As traffic grows more intense, so too does the risk of more and perhaps more serious accidents.

The Turks have taken steps to manage the flow. In 1994, after a nighttime collision between two oil tankers killed 26 crew members and closed the strait for five days, the Turkish government began imposing a series of new rules and regulations. A new traffic-separation scheme divided the strait like a highway; Ships longer than 200 meters (e.g. tankers) were forbidden to pass at night; The strait was closed to oncoming traffic while ships carrying hazardous cargoes were underway; Modern radar towers were built to monitor and regulate vessel positions. The Turkish government also encouraged all ships passing the Bosporus to take a Turkish pilot aboard, someone familiar with the strait’s geography and weather, and whose presence on deck would presumably lessen the risk of accident. Indeed, only about fifteen percent of all accidents on the Bosporus involve ships with pilots, but still, more than half of all ships, including virtually all of Russia’s merchant fleet, continue to refuse any help. The reason for this is not economic as much as it is political, part of a centuries-old struggle for regional power and influence. Simply put, the Russians think the Bosporus is rightfully theirs and bristle at any suggestion to the contrary.

One of the inevitable side effects of stricter regulation has been to slow the rate of traffic, leading to long cues of ships waiting at either end of the strait for their turn to get underway. If you drive along Istanbul’s coastal highway, on any day of the year you’ll see them lined up for miles, hundreds of them. Tankers, bulk carriers, and container ships—the workhorses of the world’s economy all at a stand still. The cost of all this inactivity is significant. Simply to earn back the cost of their construction, oil tankers must be in constant motion, delivering their loads to meet the furious (and ever-growing) pace of world oil consumption. For every day that one of them sits idly at the mouth of the Bosporus, its owner loses upwards of $30,000. And delays of up to twenty days are not unheard of, particularly in the winter months when the weather worsens and demand for fossil fuels soars.

It’s not surprising then that the world’s major oil companies want to by-pass the Bosporus altogether, primarily by means of expensive new pipeline projects. Perhaps dozens of ideas have been floated over the years only to be discarded for various reasons. Eight remain under consideration, and one—the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which will carry one million barrels of Caspian oil a day overland from Azerbaijan to a deepwater port on Turkey’s southern Mediterranean coast—has already opened for business. Turkey (with the enthusiastic support of the United States) hopes that the new pipeline will help form a “western route” for energy resources and effectively end Russia’s status as the indispensable nation through which all Caspian oil must transit to reach foreign buyers.

Some of the larger oil companies have balked at the prospect of shifting their oil transport methods away from more traditional routes. The Russians, too, have refused to participate, mainly for reasons of principle. But the very economics of the pipeline are perhaps its greatest weakness. According to a 1999 study, the cost of moving a barrels-worth of oil by pipeline will likely be somewhere in the area of one or two dollars, whereas the cost of the moving the same amount by tanker through the Bosporus was at the time of the study only twenty cents. So, unless delays on the strait are severe enough to merit the increased costs, it seems likely that oil tankers will be a continuing presence on the Bosporus for many years to come, as will the inherent risks they bring with them.

[Note: For an excerpt from my reporters' notebook about my trip through the Bosporus on an oil tanker, click here.]

Mugabe Cites U.S. Wiretapping as Justification for Oppression

We are a shining city on a hill.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday signed into law the controversial Interception of Communications Bill, which gives his government the authority to eavesdrop on phone and Internet communications and read physical mail...

Communications Minister Christopher Mushowe said Zimbabwe is not unique in the world in passing such legislation, citing electronic eavesdropping programs in the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa, among other countries.

When the brutal dictator of a failed state cites you as inspiration, you've really lived up to your ideals, wouldn't you say?

(H/T Think Progress)

Dress Like a Dictator

It gives new meaning to the term "power suit." The son of former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet has announced that he will be selling his late father's suits. A tailor's shop in central Santiago will handle the sales of several vintage suits worn by the leader of Chile's military junta from the 1980s until his death last year at the age of 91. They will retail for about $2,000 each. For those of you thinking the suits might useful for, say, reviewing a parade of tanks and missiles on your town's Main Street, think again. The dicator's son, Augusto Pinochet Hiriart, says the suits are meant for everyday use. As he told a reporter from Chile's La Tercera newspaper, "They are the best, modern suits that [my father] used at home or to go out for special activities, though not for special ceremonies."

What Will Bush's Brain Do Next?

It shouldn't come as any great surprise that Karl Rove is leaving the administration. His job is all about winning, and with Bush, there's nothing left to be won. (Though even on his way out the door, Rove can't keep himself from spinning, predicting that we'll turn a corner in Iraq and Bush's poll numbers will rise. But that's a sucker's game, and Rove himself wants no part of it.)

Rove has said he's going back to Texas to spend more time with his family. Awww, that's nice. But then what? I wouldn't expect him to stay out of politics for long. One only has to read a few sentences into "Revenge of the Nerds," our piece on high school policy debaters, to realize how deep and long standing is Rove's love of playing hardball:

It would have been the spring of 1969, the Vietnam War in full swing, when a scrawny 18-year-old in a suit and tie and horn-rimmed glasses pushed a handcart stacked with 10 boxes into a classroom at Olympus High School, on the outskirts of Salt Lake City. Each shoebox was stuffed with four-by-six notecards pasted with evidence clipped from newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals. As the young man and his partner unpacked their evidence on a small table at the front of the room, members of the other policy debate team looked on in horror. They'd only brought one shoebox.

What they didn't know was that 99 percent of the notecards in the Olympus team's 10 shoeboxes were just props. Even at 18, the scrawny kid with the horn-rims understood the power of intimidation."Rove didn't just want to win," James Moore and Wayne Slater write in their book Rove Exposed: How Bush's Brain Fooled America. "He wanted the opponents destroyed. His worldview was clear even then. There was his team and the other team, and he would make the other team pay."

This isn't a man that's going to be content going back to Texas and raising chickens. And though the 2006 rout of the RNC may taken the bloom off Rove's rose somewhat, "the architect" has still got to be a highly sought-after campaign consultant. Provided he can modernize his direct mail data mining/smear expertise to dovetail with the whole cell phone/social networking/video wave of the future. But let's assume he can.

So any bets as to where Rove will pop up? Fred Thompson seems to be running as the "most like Bush" candidate; could that strategy include Rove? Will Rove sit this election out entirely, perhaps scouting the next feckless son of a prominent politician?

Cheney Warns of Iraq Quagmire ... in 1994

Via Editor & Publisher, a video surfaces of Cheney warning at the American Enterprise Institute in 1994 of the consequences of a U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Transcript:

Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?

A: No.

Q: Why not?

A: Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it -- eastern Iraq -- the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families -- it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?

Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.

More echoes of Brent Scowcroft's line to the New Yorker two years ago: "I consider Cheney a good friend—I’ve known him for thirty years. But Dick Cheney I don’t know anymore.”

Straw Poll Roundup: Man Down, Man Down!

Talking of quitters... We've now got a second candidate out of the Republican presidential race. Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore was the first to go (he dropped out in mid-July) and yesterday Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson followed him.

Thompson had more or less wagered everything on Iowa, and after finishing sixth in Saturday's straw poll he decided to call it quits. Here are the full results of the straw poll, which I remind you, aren't worth much. But nevertheless, take a good look at John McCain's numbers. He didn't campaign in the poll (nor did Giuliani or Fred Thompson), but heavens to Betsy:

- Mitt Romney 32% (bought his victory)
- Mike Huckabee 18% (he's funny!)
- Sam Brownback 15%
- Tom Tancredo 14%
- Ron Paul 9%
- Tommy Thompson 7% (see ya!)
- Fred Thompson 1% (now the lone Thompson)
- Rudy Giuliani 1%
- Duncan Hunter 1%
- John McCain <1% (101 of 14,302 votes cast)
- John Cox <1%

Karl Rove to Resign

Yes, you read that right.

August 12, 2007

Romney Wins Joke Contest in Iowa

Blah blah Romney wins Iowa straw poll blah blah.

August 18, 2007

August 17, 2007

August 16, 2007

August 15, 2007

August 14, 2007

August 13, 2007

August 12, 2007

RECENT ENTRIES

ARCHIVE

RECENT COMMENTS

SEARCH MOTHER JONES

TODAY ON...

BLOG LINKS

IN PRINT

DONATE TODAY