This Dog Won't Hunt....

_________________________________________________

Richard Clarke chief counterterrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush lays some serious smackdown on Georgie's current Iraq stratergery.....

By RICHARD CLARKE

Be Our Guest

Does the President think terrorists are puppy dogs? He keeps saying that terrorists will "follow us home" like lost dogs. This will only happen, however, he says, if we "lose" in Iraq.

The puppy dog theory is the corollary to earlier sloganeering that proved the President had never studied logic: "We are fighting terrorists in Iraq so that we will not have to face them and fight them in the streets of our own cities."

Remarkably, in his attempt to embrace the failed Iraqi adventure even more than the President, Sen. John McCain is now parroting the line. "We lose this war and come home, they'll follow us home," he says.

How is this odd terrorist puppy dog behavior supposed to work? The President must believe that terrorists are playing by some odd rules of chivalry. Would this be the "only one slaughter ground at a time" rule of terrorism?

Of course, nothing about our being "over there" in any way prevents terrorists from coming here. Quite the opposite, the evidence is overwhelming that our presence provides motivation for people throughout the Arab world to become anti-American terrorists.

Some 100,000 Iraqis, probably more, have been killed since our invasion. They have parents, children, cousins and fellow tribal clan members who have pledged revenge no matter how long it takes. For many, that revenge is focused on America.

At the same time, investing time, energy and resources in Iraq takes our eye off two far more urgent tasks at hand: one, guarding the homeland against terrorism much better than the pork-dispensing Department of Homeland Security currently does the job; and two, systematically dismantling Al Qaeda all over the world, from Canada to Asia to Africa. On both these fronts, the Bush administration's focus is sorely lacking.

Yet in the fantasyland of illogic in which the President dwells, shaped by slogans devised by spin doctors, America can "win" in Iraq. Then, we are to believe, the terrorists will be so demoralized that they will recant their beliefs and cease their terrorist ways.

In the real world, by choosing unnecessarily to go into Iraq, Bush not only diverted efforts from delivering a death blow to Al Qaeda, he gave that movement both a second chance and the best recruiting tool possible.

U.S. military raids in Iraq have uncovered evidence that Iraqis are planning attacks in America, perhaps to be carried out by terrorists with European Union passports that require no U.S. visas. But such attacks here over the next several years are likely now no matter what happens next in Iraq - and that is because of what Bush has already done, not because of any future course we choose in Iraq.

But we can be sure that when the next attacks come in the U.S., if Bush is down on the ranch cutting trees, he and whatever few followers he retains by then will blame his successor. You can almost hear them now: If only hissuccessor had left enough U.S. troops in the Iraqi shooting gallery to satisfy the blood lust of the enemy, as Bush did, then they wouldn't have come here.

The truth: If not for this administration's reckless steps to push America into war - and strategic blunder after strategic blunder that has satisfied the blood lust of the enemy - fewer evildoers would follow us home like the dogs that they are.

Clarke served as chief counterterrorism adviser on the U.S. National Security Council under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He is now chairman of Good Harbor Consulting.

That thing got a Hemi?

_________________________________________________

My, my. From Lee Iacocca;

"I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions."

Read it all here.

RIP David Halberstam

_________________________________________________

Killed in a traffic accident here in the Bay Area. Mr. Halberstam was the role model for what a thinking journalist should be. He will be missed.

From Glen Greenwald today;

David Halberstam's death yesterday is certain to prompt all sorts of homage from our media stars describing Halberstam as a superior journalist, someone who embodied what journalism ought to be. And it is true that he was exactly that.

But modern American journalists -- as Halberstam himself repeatedly emphasized -- have become the precise antithesis of those values. The functions Halberstam and the best journalists of his generation fulfilled are exactly those that have been so fundamentally abandoned, repudiated and scorned by our nation's most prominent and influential media stars. And most legitimate media criticisms today are grounded in exactly that gaping discrepancy.

Read the rest here.

Then set your TIVO to watch this Bill Moyers PBS special on how our mainstream media failed in it's duty leading up to the war in Iraq.

-UF

Searching for Leadership.....

_________________________________________________

As I've stated before, I think the American people are miles ahead of our political leadership and pundits. Look at the polls. They are done with Bush, his administration, and they are done with his war.

We have a huge mess to clean up, and America is looking for new leadership. I think this is what is driving the fascination with Obama.

Andrew Sullivan expounds on this.

The interest in the candidacy of Barack Obama is at fever-pitch for a reason. The United States confronts a crisis in leadership, a paralysis not seen since the waning days of Jimmy Carter. Then the paralysis stemmed from almost pathological passivity; now it springs from almost pathological reliance on violence without order to impose values that can only be chosen. It is long past time to retire the idea that physical force alone - from bombs and bullets to torture - can solve the crisis of global Islamist terror, an ominously shifting climate, and the collapse of America's moral standing in the world. Neither extreme of Carter-style passivity nor Bush-style aggression works; neither reflects the core character of America. And yet America remains the indispensable nation. Without America's force, moral leadership, engagement and diplomacy, evil will win, as it is winning in Iraq and in so many places right now. The president, moreover, is partly responsible for the enemy's success. He has divided a country when it desperately needs uniting; he has misused military power; he has permanently stained the moral tradition of this country by the indelible evil of torture. And in all this, he has made the United States far weaker than it was seven years ago. We can and should debate how this came to be the case - whether tragedy or accident or deceit or incompetence or arrogance or some hideous, toxic combination of them all. But the first thing we have to acknowledge in looking for a new leader is the bankruptcy of the current one.

I Want My Money.......Or Else.......

_________________________________________________

From Paul Krugman today:

There are two ways to describe the confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration over funding for the Iraq surge. You can pretend that it’s a normal political dispute. Or you can see it for what it really is: a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren’t met.

If this were a normal political dispute, Democrats in Congress would clearly hold the upper hand: by a huge margin, Americans say they want a timetable for withdrawal, and by a large margin they also say they trust Congress, not Mr. Bush, to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq.

But this isn’t a normal political dispute. Mr. Bush isn’t really trying to win the argument on the merits. He’s just betting that the people outside the barricade care more than he does about the fate of those innocent bystanders.

What’s at stake right now is the latest Iraq “supplemental.” Since the beginning, the administration has refused to put funding for the war in its regular budgets. Instead, it keeps saying, in effect: “Whoops! Whaddya know, we’re running out of money. Give us another $87 billion.”

At one level, this is like the behavior of an irresponsible adolescent who repeatedly runs through his allowance, each time calling his parents to tell them he’s broke and needs extra cash.

What I haven’t seen sufficiently emphasized, however, is the disdain this practice shows for the welfare of the troops, whom the administration puts in harm’s way without first ensuring that they’ll have the necessary resources.

Dumb Luck?

_________________________________________________

From Hullabaloo, this account of the idiot savant.......

by digby

In response to Steve Benen's post about Bush's rambling, incoherent answers at that Townhall yesterday, one of his commenters pithily replied:

Bush leveraged a national tragedy into reelection. He’s seeded the federal government with true believers, expanded executive authority while marginalizing Congress and appointing 2 radically conservative SC judges. He’s expanded government surveillance of our phones, e-mails, libraary borrowings, bank accounts and medicine cabinets. He’s stalled efforts to curb global warming, cut protections once provided by the EPA, FDA, and silenced scientists who dare refute the literal word of bible or the backward beliefs of those who claim to know the mind of the almighty. The US can now torture, imprision without providing cause and prosecute without allowing a reasonable defense. He’s built bases in the middle east, and fattened the bank accounts of those whose bank accounts were already obscene. The middle class — the masses — have not been so economically impotent in decades.

For such an idiot, this guy has been awfully successful.

That's worth thinking about. He's only been an epic failure in terms of keeping the nation secure, safeguarding our constitution and making America more prosperous and successful. When you look at it from Bush's perspective, however, he's done a heckuva job.

Boil the Frog Slowly

_________________________________________________

The phrase "boil the frog" comes from the old story of placing a frog in a pot and cooking him by turning up the heat slowly over time. The frog thinks he's got a nice hot tub going, and the one who controls the heat has dinner.....eventually.

That's the way Jack Balkin sees the recent Supreme Court ruling concerning the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. Slowly chipping away at Roe v. Wade, procedure by procedure, rather than getting it overturned on the whole, accomplishes three key things. It keeps moderates from leaving the Republican party, it provides fresh meat to the base, and it keeps the opposition from mounting a strong counterattack.

I still think "morning after" medical advancements will render this moot, but it's an interesting take on the subject.

A far more prudent strategy, and the one the President and his advisers will likely adopt, would be to appoint Justices who will preserve Roe but chip away at it slowly, for example, by devising new procedural rules that make it difficult to challenge abortion regulations in federal court, by upholding restrictions on particular medical procedures like partial birth abortion, and by further limiting abortions for minors and poor women. Moderates and independents may not like these changes, but such rulings will be much less likely to induce wholesale defections from the Republican coalition than wiping Roe v. Wade off the books. The latter is a simple, easy to understand result that people can get angry about and rally around. Procedural limitations on abortion, by contrast, are hard to explain to voters and therefore risk less political danger for the Republicans.

Chipping away at Roe slowly not only allows the party to keep moderates and independents from bolting, it also preserves a hated symbol for the party's base of religious conservatives to struggle against. As long as Roe remains law, religious conservatives can point to it as a example of what is wrong with America and with a liberal activist judiciary (which is, of course, increasingly staffed by conservative Republican Presidents!). Thus, the reverse litmus test not only holds the party's winning coalition together, it's also good practical politics.

Read the whole thing here.

-UF

Guns

_________________________________________________

Lt. Col. Bob Bateman is a frequent contributor to Eric Alterman's blog. He's done time in Iraq and Afghanistan and has an interesting perspective on current events from the eyes of a soldier. His post this morning, relating to the Va. Tech tragedy, caught my eye;

Name: Lt. Col. Bob Bateman
Hometown: Capitol Hill, Washington DC

I am sick of stories about guns, and how the blessed Founding Fathers wanted every little patriot baby to grow up with a Kentucky long-rifle over the mantle. It is a lie. It is a myth. The very idea is a concoction by people who want to believe something, regardless of the facts, and the fact that the lie has deep roots does not make it any more accurate.

I am sick of stories about people who claim that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Bullshit. You do not see 70+ people, or even 40, or 20 ... or, (you get the picture) randomly gunned down in any of the countries where the tools of violence are confined to the authorities.

I am sick of idiots with an agenda pretending that what happened at Virginia Tech is not because we have too many damned guns in this country. Muzzle-loading blackpowder rifles, single-shot breech-loading hunting rifles, and single-barrel breech-loading shotguns, and that is about it, are all that should be allowed. Those tools can be used, legitimately, to hunt. You want more, move. Leave the United States to those who know the difference between something that is useful for hunting, and something that replaces the manhood you never attained. If you want more, join the Army. If you can't do that, and if you still want something that reloads quickly and gives you plenty of shots, BUY A DAMNED BOW!

But what really puts me over the top is one particular brand of NRA stupidity. That is the myth of the Wild West. In other words, if I hear one more stupid gun-loving sonuvabitch talk about how, "Well, if they just had allowed all those students to have guns, this lunatic at Virginia Tech wouldn'ta got far," I am going to slap his dumb ass on the first plane smokin' for Iraq, where I would like to personally drop him off, with as many guns as he would like, in Dora (that's a particularly nasty South Baghdad neighborhood with which I am familiar).

Yes, Dora would be perfect. In my mind's eye I am imagining plopping said gun nut off outside the blue-painted major police sub-station, just about six or seven blocks from another walled-in compound which is now a police barracks (or, at least it was, last year.). As a microcosm, Dora should be the NRA's dream town, as it perfectly matches the NRA "Wild West" theory of what is needed in a society: honor is important to the individual; the family is the most important part of society; all of the inhabitants are very religious (except for when they are not); and absolutely everyone has at least one gun.

In fact, I would very much like to personally place the CEO of the NRA, Mr. Wayne LaPierre, there right now. What'ya say, Wayne? Want to experience a world where everyone has a gun?

Disconnected

_________________________________________________

It seems pretty clear to me that the general public is about a year ahead of our national political leaders and the pundits that spout the "conventional wisdom". Why is that? How are these guys missing the clear signs of the 2006 elections and the current polling?

Because they're not listening. They only talk among themselves and pat each other on the back. The Washington bubble, I believe it's called.

They do so at their own peril....

The majority of Americans are done with this war. They want out as soon as possible.
The majority of Americans are done with the Bush Administration. They want them out as soon as possible.
The majority of Americans want Congress to excercise their authority. They want this done as soon as possible.

Read the polling numbers and the hard facts from Glen Greenwald in another of his excellent posts on this subject.

-UF

Banana Republicans

_________________________________________________

Scott Horton explains the difference between Lincoln and Roosevelt and Bush and Rove.

I think this label will stick.

-UF

Wow, Time Flies.....

_____________________________________________________

My apologies to the 3 regular readers of this blog. Look, I've been busy. Plus, I said I would post more music and food stuff and less politics. Well, the truth is, politics is what's happening right now. The Democrats have been in control of Congress for about 10 minutes and it seems that every rock they turn over has an overwhelming amount of slime underneath. So it just keeps getting more interesting. So, while I will try to be a bit more diverse, political blogging will be what you get for the most part.

Onward and Upward.

-UF