I may not be the next big thing in the world of psychics, but I did say a couple of weeks ago that John Bolton the US ambassador to the UN was on a hiding to nothing. Ok, I admit it wasn’t foresight on my part — Bolton’s position was increasingly untenable with the change in the political landscape, and now his pro Israel vocal gaff a couple of weeks ago to the UN has become his swan song as he and his bad hair day wander off, Bush really has started his spring cleaning early — with a little help from his friends.
There is some news on politics in the environment with rumours that Bush plans to allow oil drilling in the US in areas of environmental significance and a story from the UK on the political use of law in the name of terror protection for civilians.
Off at a tangent, though political in the deeper sense — here is a link about God from an ex- priest with the agnostic point of view — the religious equivalent of the Liberal some would say in this increasingly politicised mystical element of our lives, where science and religion and different religious ethos are being pitched against each other in such a do or die fashion. The other link is about a book on religion from an atheist scientist’s point of view — The God Delusion. It’s selling like hot cakes in the UK apparently, should make for some interesting post xmas dinner debates!
God. Who knows?
The God delusion
And if you haven’t already, pop over to Psychsound and catch Steve Bergstein’s thoughts on the report last week that the US is carrying out terror risk assessments on passengers without their knowledge. I’m still upset myself over the other disclosure that new x-ray screens are being tested in airports that show graphic images of the outline of your body — like my Gran said you should always be wearing your best knickers when you leave the house — you never know what may happen.
So wots your terror rating darling?
Phoenix airport to test X-ray screening
Mel
John Bolton resigns as ambassador to U.N.
MSNBC
Dec. 4, 2006
Unable to win Senate confirmation, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton will step down when his temporary appointment expires within weeks, the White House said Monday.
Bolton’s nomination has languished in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for more than a year, blocked by Democrats and several Republicans. Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a moderate Republican who lost in the midterm elections Nov. 7 that swept Democrats to power in both houses of Congress, was adamantly opposed to Bolton.
Critics have questioned Bolton ’s brusque style and whether he could be an effective bureaucrat who could force reform at the U.N.
President Bush gave Bolton the job temporarily in August 2005, while Congress was in recess. Under that process, the appointment expires when Congress formally adjourns, no later than early January.
The White House resubmitted Bolton ’s nomination last month. But with Democrats capturing control of the next Congress, his chances of winning confirmation appeared slight. The incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, said he saw “no point in considering Mr. Bolton’s nomination again.”
While Bush could not give Bolton another recess appointment, the White House was believed to be exploring other ways of keeping him in the job, perhaps by giving him a title other than ambassador. But Bolton informed the White House he intended to leave when his current appointment expires, White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.
Bush planned to meet with Bolton and his wife later Monday in the Oval Office.
Bush loyal to the end
As late as last month, Bush, through his top aides, said he would not relent in his defense of Bolton, despite unwavering opposition from Democrats who view Bolton as too combative for international diplomacy.
Perino said that among Bolton ’s accomplishments, he assembled coalitions addressing North Korea’s nuclear activity, Iran ’s uranium enrichment and reprocessing work and the horrific violence in Darfur. She said he also made reform at the United Nations a top issue because the United States is searching for a more “credible” and more “effective.”
“Ambassador Bolton served his country with distinction and he achieved a great deal at the United Nations,” Perino said.
“Despite the support of a strong bipartisan majority of senators, Ambassdor Bolton’s confirmation was blocked by a Democratic filibuster, and this is a clear example of the breakdown in the Senate confirmation process,” she said. “Nominees deserve the opportunity for a clean up or down vote. Ambassador Bolton was never given that opportunity.”
Perino said Bush had reluctantly accepted Bolton ’s decision to leave when his current appointment expired. ++
Home Office mulls plan for dedicated terror judges
The Scotsman
Mon 4 Dec 2006
Britain could get dedicated “terror judges” to oversee court cases where intercepted phone calls would be used against people accused of terrorism. Creating “examining magistrates” like those who run cases in France and other continental countries would mark a fundamental change in British law.
It is one of two options understood to be being studied by a confidential Home Office review of “intercept” evidence, due to report to ministers by the end of the year. The final recommendations of the review group will help determine what proposals the government brings forward in its terrorism bill early next year.
Intercepted or “tapped” phone conversations cannot be legally admitted to court under current rules and the possible use of such material is intensely controversial within Whitehall.
Advocates say using the material could help secure more convictions against terrorists and reduce the need for control orders and other non-judicial penalties imposed on some suspects. Sceptics, including senior intelligence chiefs, worry the move could allow defence lawyers to request numerous transcripts of intercepted calls, placing an impossible administrative burden on the already over-stretched security agencies.
Almost every terrorist surveillance operation generates hundreds of hours of intercepted conversations, which some fear could be used in “fishing expeditions” by defence lawyers. However, John Reid, the Home Secretary, has appeared sceptical about the proposals. Last month he appeared to cast doubt on intercept evidence, telling MPs using wire-tap material would not be “a magic bullet” against terrorism. ++
Bush May End Drilling Ban in Alaskan Bay
Associated Press
Dec 2
President Bush is deciding whether to lift a ban on oil and gas drilling in federal waters off Alaska’s Bristol Bay , home to endangered whales and sea lions and the world’s largest sockeye salmon run.
Leasing in a portion of the area rich in oil and natural gas ended nearly two decades ago - while Bush’s father was president - in the outcry after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.
But with natural gas prices higher, the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service proposed reopening up the North Aleutian Basin. That includes Bristol Bay and part of southeastern Bering Sea.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel confirmed Saturday the president was considering taking that step.Environmentalists oppose drilling there because of the potential for oil spills and harm to wildlife. They have speculated in recent days that Bush might allow such drilling before Democrats regain control of Congress in January.
“If the Bush administration decides to allow drilling in Bristol Bay, it will simply illustrate the level to which they will sink to satisfy Big Oil,” Carl Pope, the Sierra Club’s executive director, said Saturday. “They are willing to risk a valuable, renewable resource like Bristol Bay’s salmon fisheries for limited, shortsighted drilling plans.”
Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass, a senior member of the House Resources Committee, said opening up Bristol Bay and expanding drilling off Florida’s coast - a goal of House Republicans before losing power to Democrats - would amount to “a last minute giveaway of public lands as an early Christmas present to the big oil companies.”
The Minerals Management Service said in its August proposal that reopening energy development in the basin’s federal waters, extending between three miles and 200 miles offshore, could produce $7.7 billion in oil and gas production and up to 11,500 jobs.
Some 200 million barrels of crude oil, about what the U.S. imports every 16 days, are thought to be there. The agency estimates the region could yield 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas - a quarter of all U.S. annual production.
Fourteen companies are said to be interested. The agency cited support among more than a dozen local and tribal governments nearby who believe the drilling would boost their economy. Lease payments go to the government.
Despite its fame among fishermen for its rich stocks of salmon, king crab and other seafood, the Bristol Bay fishing region has lost hundreds of millions of dollars over the past decade because of competition from less expensive farmed salmon.Alaska Native villages also depend on the annual sockeye and chinook salmon runs for protein in their diet.
The commercial fishing industry has plunged into a depression, giving more support to Royal Dutch Shell PLC and other oil companies that have lobbied the White House to lift the offshore drilling ban.
Environmentalists worry about the large populations of migratory seabirds and crab, the imperiled Steller’s sea lions and northern sea otters, or the North Pacific right whales - a population so decimated only about 100 are thought to still exist.
The Minerals Management Service said accidental spills could foul coastal water quality, and the noise and pollution from more ship traffic could disturb or kill seagoing creatures. It said even a large spill probably would harm only a small portion of the fish populations, but could pose a serious threat to marine mammals.
The Bering Sea Fishermen’s Association raised alarms about protecting the region, as did the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association, which said the drilling would threaten the salmon runs.On Friday, more than 30 people representing fishermen, native Alaskans and conservationists wrote Bush urging him not to lift the ban.
“These protections have been in place because of the great risk to Bristol Bay posed by oil and gas development,” wrote representatives of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, Alaska Wilderness League, Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund and others. “The presidential withdrawal now stands as the last line of defense for this irreplaceable resource.”
The southwest segment of Bristol Bay was last open for lease sales in 1988 when the federal government collected more than $95 million. The government bought back the leases after the Exxon Valdez coated Prince William Sound and the waters of south-central Alaska with 11 million gallons of crude.
Congressional protections put on the area in 1989 were lifted in 2003 at the behest of Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who said he had been acting at the request of constituents in the region.
Environmental groups said they are confident the new Democratic-controlled Congress would work to restore congressional protections on Bristol Bay. ++
UN chief tells of Iraq war sorrow
BBC
Monday, 4 December 2006
The situation in Iraq has become “much worse” than a civil war, the outgoing United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has told the BBC. Mr Annan, who leaves office after 10 years on 31 December, said life for the average Iraqi was now worse than under the regime of Saddam Hussein .
Expressing his sadness for being unable to prevent the war, he urged regional and international powers to help Iraq. But Mr Annan urged his successor, South Korean Ban Ki-moon, to “do it his way”.
Asked by the BBC’s Lyse Doucet whether the situation in Iraq could now be classified as a civil war, Mr Annan pointed to the level of “killing and bitterness” and the way forces in Iraq are now ranged against each other.
“A few years ago, when we had the strife in Lebanon and other places, we called that a civil war. This is much worse.
“We have a very worrisome situation in the broader Middle East ,” Mr Annan said, linking the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and tensions over Iran .
Tough situation
He admitted that the failure to prevent the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a major blow to the UN, one from which the organisation is only beginning to recover.
“It’s healing but we are not there yet, it hasn’t healed yet, and we feel the tension still in this organisation as a result of that.”
Mr Annan described the current situation in Iraq as “extremely dangerous” and empathised with the plight of ordinary Iraqis.
“If I were an average Iraqi obviously I would make the same comparison, that they had a dictator who was brutal but they had their streets, they could go out, their kids could go to school and come back home without a mother or father worrying, ‘Am I going to see my child again?’
“The society needs security and a secure environment for it to get on - without security not much can be done - not recovery or reconstruction.”
‘No will’
Mr Annan, a Ghanaian who joined the UN in 1962, became the first sub-Sahara African secretary-general at the start of 1997. The years before his appointment were marred by the genocide in Rwanda and ethnic cleansing during the wars in the former Yugoslavia.
Although the UN vowed “never again” in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and killings at Srebrenica, the organisation has been unable to end a three-year crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region, where more than 200,000 people are thought to have died.
“It is deeply, deeply disappointing and it’s tragic,” said Mr Annan. “But we do not have the resources or the will to confront the situation.”
He pledged to work towards a solution in Darfur , which Sudan’s government has refused to allow UN peacekeepers to enter, until his very last moment in office. And he was clear in his advice to Mr Ban, the South Korean diplomat who will pick up the reins at the UN’s New York headquarters on 1 January.
“He should do it his way. I did it my way, my predecessors did it their way and he should do it his way.” ++
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
December 4th, 2006
Bolton tendered his resignation today [rather than face the harangue of a newly inspired Congress] surprising the Dubby, who is said to be “bitter,” and proclaims himself “disappointed” — he also publicly blames a handful of Senators for their “stubborn obstructionism.”
It’s time for the public to review all those earlier articles that asked them to consider their president a victim of narcissistic personality disorder … cuz if this ain’t a first-class case of crazy, I don’t know what is — and Bush has lost the cover of his fellow crazies now … the emperor SURELY has no clothes now that the fawning admirers of his nekkidness have gone mute. It’s getting colder for our presidential streaker by the minute … and we should remember that there IS no treatment for narcissism; the Dub, as I’ve long suspected, appears hopeless. And … miracle of miracles … we’ve all noticed. All.
Like many presidents who served this country barking mad [Nixon and Reagan come to mind, and there have been others] while we all pretended they were fine, our current Oval resident continues to fiddle and burn … but this time we’re not running our old tapes, mindlessly accepting his authority without looking closely at his mental process — we’re watching the President of the United States howl at the moon and scratch behind his ear with his hind leg … and we’re hunting for the muzzle and leash [a few of us are looking for the cattle prod.] ‘Bout damned time we broke that old pattern … and Bolton’s demise couldn’t be more welcomed.
Here’s a great collection — Krugman and Rich and Froomkin, more … reality therapy for the day. REALity … what a concept!
Jude
John Bolton Resigns as U.S. Ambassador to U.N.
Peter Baker and William Branigin, WaPo
Monday, December 4, 2006
President Bush today accepted the resignation of John R. Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, expressing deep disappointment that “a handful” of senators had blocked his confirmation last year.
Bolton, 58, submitted a resignation letter Friday after it became clear that he was unlikely to win a new confirmation battle in the Senate, where Democrats won a narrow majority in the Nov. 7 midterm elections.
Bolton’s nomination had been blocked by a Democratic filibuster threat last year, prompting Bush to place him in the U.N. post through a recess appointment in August 2005. That appointment expires when the current Congress adjourns. Formal adjournment could come as soon as the end of this week, but no later than the beginning of January.
“It is with deep regret that I accept John Bolton’s decision to end his service in the administration as permanent representative of the United States to the United Nations when his commission expires,” Bush said in a statement released by the White House.
“I am deeply disappointed that a handful of United States Senators prevented Ambassador Bolton from receiving the up or down vote he deserved in the Senate,” Bush added. “They chose to obstruct his confirmation, even though he enjoys majority support in the Senate, and even though their tactics will disrupt our diplomatic work at a sensitive and important time. This stubborn obstructionism ill serves our country, and discourages men and women of talent from serving their nation.”
Bush nominated Bolton in March 2005 for the U.N. post, but the choice quickly ran into opposition from Democrats and a few Republicans over allegations that he tried to spin intelligence to support his political views and bullied subordinates who disagreed with him. Some critics also made an issue of his sometimes prickly personality, arguing that he was too combative for international diplomacy.
After opponents succeeded in blocking the nomination, Bush circumvented the confirmation process by appointing Bolton on a temporary basis during a congressional recess on Aug. 1, 2005.
With the appointment nearing its expiration, Bush resubmitted the nomination Nov. 9. But Democrats remained opposed to the choice, and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, labeled it a nonstarter. Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee ( R-R.I.), a moderate Republican who lost his reelection bid in the Nov. 7 elections, also expressed opposition to the new appointment.
Chafee’s opposition was key because without his vote on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Bolton nomination stood virtually no chance of winning committee approval and moving to a Senate floor vote in the current congressional lame-duck session. Republicans currently hold a 10-8 majority on the committee, but that will switch in favor of the Democrats when the new Congress convenes next month with a 51-49 Democratic majority and Biden assumes the chairmanship.
Another Republican on the committee, Sen. George V. Voinovich of Ohio, opposed the nomination last year. He changed his mind, however, and agreed to support Bolton after weighing his performance over the past 16 months. But his support was insufficient to move the nomination forward at this point.
“John Bolton has risen to the occasion and done a good job under the harshest of circumstances,” Voinovich said in a statement. “I’m extremely concerned with him leaving since he’s been so deeply involved with the situations in Iran, Syria, Lebanon and North Korea and has been working in concert with fellow ambassadors toward true U.N. reform.”
In announcing his acceptance of the resignation, Bush praised Bolton as an effective advocate for U.S. interests. He said he first appointed him “because I knew he would represent America’s values and effectively confront difficult problems at the United Nations.” Bush said Bolton “articulately advocated the positions and values of the United States and advanced the expansion of democracy and liberty.”
He said Bolton had led negotiations resulting in “unanimous Security Council resolutions regarding North Korea’s military and nuclear activities” and had “built consensus among our allies on the need for Iran to suspend the enrichment and reprocessing of uranium.” He also promoted peacekeeping efforts in Darfur and “made the case for United Nations reform,” Bush said.
“After careful consideration, I have concluded that my service in your administration should end when the current recess appointment expires,” Bolton wrote in a three-paragraph letter to Bush dated Dec. 1. He said he had been honored to serve in the administration for nearly six years, first as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security before moving to the U.N. post, and he praised Bush’s leadership as “critical in safeguarding America’s values and interests in a time of peril and challenge.”
As a strong advocate for U.N. reform, Bolton had developed an uneasy relationship with the U.N. Secretariat led by Secretary General Kofi Annan. He had called for top U.N. officials to resign in tandem with Annan, who did not seek a new term and is scheduled to leave office Dec. 31.
In New York, Annan offered a lukewarm assessment when asked his reaction to Bolton’s resignation.
“I think Ambassador Bolton did the job he was expected to do,” Annan told reporters. “He came at a time when we had lots of tough issues, from reform to issues on Iran and North Korea. I think as a representative of the U.S. government, he pressed ahead with the instructions he had been given and tried to work as effectively as he could.”
In an appeal for greater cooperation at the United Nations, Annan added, “It is important that the ambassadors work together,” and he urged envoys to realize “that to get concessions they have to make concessions.” He said he encouraged member states “to try to speak with one voice” whenever possible. ++
It’s time, yet again, to call bullshit on Bush
Ed Kociela
Dec 4 2006
In the wake of the resignation of John Bolton, now, thankfully the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, the president is laying it all at the feet of political obstruction instead of the fact that the Senate, for once, used good sense in not affirming his nominee for this delicate job.
According to an Associated Press report, the president is bitter, “deeply disappointed that a handful of United States senators prevented Ambassador Bolton from receiving the up or down vote he deserved in the Senate.”
“They chose to obstruct his confirmation, even though he enjoys majority support in the Senate…this stubborn obstructionism ill serves our country and discourages men and women of talent from serving their nation,” he said.
Bullshit.
Bolton was forced to cut and run, a victim of his own inability to function as a tactful and patient diplomat, a fact recognized by both parties who let his appointment as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations die on the vine and force his resignation.
Bolton, instead of infusing a world view, has consistently taken a Nikita Khrushchev-type route to diplomacy. He’s a hard-nosed predator who doesn’t believe in negotiations or talking out the differences between the United States and a growing number of nations across the planet, more willing to employ brawn than brain in the fragile arena of diplomatic relations.
This thug believes the United States should develop new nuclear weaponry, oust foreign leaders and overthrow governments that do not goosestep to this administration’s marching orders.
He is a member of the neocon Project for The New American Century — a dangerous, thoughtless think tank that pushes for America’s positioning as the sole superpower on the planet. Other PNAC members, past and present, include Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, William J. Bennett, Scooter Libby, Richard Perle, Dan Quayle, Jeb Bush and William Kristol, a ship of fools that will, with any luck, find berth alongside the Titanic.
So, another chicken hawk has fled the coop, and not a moment too soon. But, before we celebrate too hardily, we must take pause because God only knows who Bush’s daddy has waiting in the wings this time. ++
Has He Started Talking to the Walls?
Frank Rich, NYT
Sunday, December 3, 2006 by the New York Times
It turns out we’ve been reading the wrong Bob Woodward book to understand what’s going on with President Bush. The text we should be consulting instead is “The Final Days,” the Woodward-Bernstein account of Richard Nixon talking to the portraits on the White House walls while Watergate demolished his presidency. As Mr. Bush has ricocheted from Vietnam to Latvia to Jordan in recent weeks, we’ve witnessed the troubling behavior of a president who isn’t merely in a state of denial but is completely untethered from reality. It’s not that he can’t handle the truth about Iraq. He doesn’t know what the truth is.
The most startling example was his insistence that Al Qaeda is primarily responsible for the country’s spiraling violence. Only a week before Mr. Bush said this, the American military spokesman on the scene, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, called Al Qaeda “extremely disorganized” in Iraq, adding that “I would question at this point how effective they are at all at the state level.” Military intelligence estimates that Al Qaeda makes up only 2 percent to 3 percent of the enemy forces in Iraq, according to Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News. The bottom line: America has a commander in chief who can’t even identify some 97 percent to 98 percent of the combatants in a war that has gone on longer than our involvement in World War II.
But that’s not the half of it. Mr. Bush relentlessly refers to Iraq’s “unity government” though it is not unified and can only nominally govern. (In Henry Kissinger’s accurate recent formulation, Iraq is not even a nation “in the historic sense.”) After that pseudo-government’s prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, brushed him off in Amman, the president nonetheless declared him “the right guy for Iraq” the morning after. This came only a day after The Times’s revelation of a secret memo by Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, judging Mr. Maliki either “ignorant of what is going on” in his own country or disingenuous or insufficiently capable of running a government. Not that it matters what Mr. Hadley writes when his boss is impervious to facts.
In truth the president is so out of it he wasn’t even meeting with the right guy. No one doubts that the most powerful political leader in Iraq is the anti-American, pro-Hezbollah cleric Moktada al-Sadr, without whom Mr. Maliki would be on the scrap heap next to his short-lived predecessors, Ayad Allawi and Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Mr. Sadr’s militia is far more powerful than the official Iraqi army that we’ve been helping to “stand up” at hideous cost all these years. If we’re not going to take him out, as John McCain proposed this month, we might as well deal with him directly rather than with Mr. Maliki, his puppet. But our president shows few signs of recognizing Mr. Sadr’s existence.
In his classic study, “The Great War and Modern Memory,” Paul Fussell wrote of how World War I shattered and remade literature, for only a new language of irony could convey the trauma and waste. Under the auspices of Mr. Bush, the Iraq war is having a comparable, if different, linguistic impact: the more he loses his hold on reality, the more language is severed from its meaning altogether.
When the president persists in talking about staying until “the mission is complete” even though there is no definable military mission, let alone one that can be completed, he is indulging in pure absurdity. The same goes for his talk of “victory,” another concept robbed of any definition when the prime minister we are trying to prop up is allied with Mr. Sadr, a man who wants Americans dead and has many scalps to prove it. The newest hollowed-out Bush word to mask the endgame in Iraq is “phase,” as if the increasing violence were as transitional as the growing pains of a surly teenager. “Phase” is meant to drown out all the unsettling debate about two words the president doesn’t want to hear, “civil war.”
When news organizations, politicians and bloggers had their own civil war about the proper usage of that designation last week, it was highly instructive — but about America, not Iraq. The intensity of the squabble showed the corrosive effect the president’s subversion of language has had on our larger culture. Iraq arguably passed beyond civil war months ago into what might more accurately be termed ethnic cleansing or chaos. That we were fighting over “civil war” at this late date was a reminder that wittingly or not, we have all taken to following Mr. Bush’s lead in retreating from English as we once knew it.
It’s been a familiar pattern for the news media, politicians and the public alike in the Bush era. It took us far too long to acknowledge that the “abuses” at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere might be more accurately called torture. And that the “manipulation” of prewar intelligence might be more accurately called lying. Next up is “pullback,” the Iraq Study Group’s reported euphemism to stave off the word “retreat” (if not retreat itself).
In the case of “civil war,” it fell to a morning television anchor, Matt Lauer, to officially bless the term before the “Today” show moved on to such regular fare as an update on the Olsen twins. That juxtaposition of Iraq and post-pubescent eroticism was only too accurate a gauge of how much the word “war” itself has been drained of its meaning in America after years of waging a war that required no shared sacrifice. Whatever you want to label what’s happening in Iraq, it has never impeded our freedom to dote on the Olsen twins.
I have not been one to buy into the arguments that Mr. Bush is stupid or is the sum of his “Bushisms” or is, as feverish Internet speculation periodically has it, secretly drinking again. I still don’t. But I have believed he is a cynic — that he could always distinguish between truth and fiction even as he and Karl Rove sold us their fictions. That’s why, when the president said that “absolutely, we’re winning” in Iraq before the midterms, I just figured it was more of the same: another expedient lie to further his partisan political ends.
But that election has come and gone, and Mr. Bush is more isolated from the real world than ever. That’s scary. Neither he nor his party has anything to gain politically by pretending that Iraq is not in crisis. Yet Mr. Bush clings to his delusions with a near-rage — watch him seethe in his press conference with Mr. Maliki — that can’t be explained away by sheer stubbornness or misguided principles or a pat psychological theory. Whatever the reason, he is slipping into the same zone as Woodrow Wilson did when refusing to face the rejection of the League of Nations, as a sleepless L.B.J. did when micromanaging bombing missions in Vietnam, as Ronald Reagan did when checking out during Iran-Contra. You can understand why Jim Webb, the Virginia senator-elect with a son in Iraq, was tempted to slug the president at a White House reception for newly elected members of Congress. Mr. Bush asked “How’s your boy?” But when Mr. Webb replied, “I’d like to get them out of Iraq,” the president refused to so much as acknowledge the subject. Maybe a timely slug would have woken him up.
Or at least sounded an alarm. Some two years ago, I wrote that Iraq was Vietnam on speed, a quagmire for the MTV generation. Those jump cuts are accelerating now. The illusion that America can control events on the ground is just that: an illusion. As the list of theoretical silver bullets for Iraq grows longer (and more theoretical) by the day — special envoy, embedded military advisers, partition, outreach to Iran and Syria, Holbrooke, international conference, NATO — urgent decisions have to be made by a chief executive who is in touch with reality (or such is the minimal job description). Otherwise the events in Iraq will make the Decider’s decisions for him, as indeed they are doing already.
The joke, history may note, is that even as Mr. Bush deludes himself that he is bringing “democracy” to Iraq, he is flouting democracy at home. American voters could not have delivered a clearer mandate on the war than they did on Nov. 7, but apparently elections don’t register at the White House unless the voters dip their fingers in purple ink. Mr. Bush seems to think that the only decision he had to make was replacing Donald Rumsfeld and the mission of changing course would be accomplished.
Tell that to the Americans in Anbar Province. Back in August the chief of intelligence for the Marines filed a secret report — uncovered by Thomas Ricks of The Washington Post — concluding that American troops “are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency in al-Anbar.” That finding was confirmed in an intelligence update last month. Yet American troops are still being tossed into that maw, and at least 90 have been killed there since Labor Day, including five marines, ages 19 to 24, around Thanksgiving.
Civil war? Sectarian violence? A phase? This much is certain: The dead in Iraq don’t give a damn what we call it. ++
Two More Years
Paul Krugman, NYT
12/04/06
At a reception following the midterm election, President Bush approached Senator-elect James Webb.
“How’s your boy?” asked Mr. Bush.
“I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” replied Mr. Webb, whose son, a Marine lance corporal, is risking his life in Mr. Bush’s war of choice.
“That’s not what I asked you,” the president snapped. “How’s your boy?”
“That’s between me and my boy, Mr. President,” said Mr. Webb.
Good for him. We need people in Washington who are willing to stand up to the bully in chief. Unfortunately, and somewhat mysteriously, they’re still in short supply.
You can understand, if not condone, the way the political and media establishment let itself be browbeaten by Mr. Bush in his post-9/11 political prime. What’s amazing is the extent to which insiders still cringe before a lame duck with a 60 percent disapproval rating.
Look at what seems to have happened to the Iraq Study Group, whose mission statement says that it would provide an “independent assessment.” If press reports are correct, the group did nothing of the sort. Instead, it watered down its conclusions and recommendations, trying to come up with something Mr. Bush wouldn’t reject out of hand.
In particular, says Newsweek, the report “will set no timetables or call for any troop reductions.” All it will do is “suggest that the president could, not should, begin to withdraw forces in the vaguely defined future.”
And all this self-abasement is for naught. Senior Bush aides, Newsweek tells us, are “dismissive, even condescending” toward James Baker, the Bush family consigliere who is the dominant force in the study group, and the report. Of course they are. That’s how bullies always treat their hangers-on.
Even now, it seems, the wise men of Washington can’t bring themselves to face up to two glaringly obvious truths.
The first is that Americans are fighting and dying in Iraq for no reason.
It’s true that terrible things will happen when U.S. forces withdraw. Mr. Bush was attacking a straw man when he mocked those who think we can make a “graceful exit” from Iraq. Everyone I know realizes that the civil war will get even worse after we’re gone, and that there will probably be a bloody bout of ethnic cleansing that effectively partitions the country into hostile segments.
But nobody — not even Donald Rumsfeld, it turns out — thinks we’re making progress in Iraq. So the same terrible things that would happen if we withdrew soon will still happen if we delay that withdrawal for two, three or more years. The only difference is that we’ll sacrifice many more American lives along the way.
The second truth is that the war will go on all the same, unless something or someone forces Mr. Bush to change course.
During his recent trip to Vietnam, Mr. Bush was asked whether there were any lessons from that conflict for Iraq. His response: “We’ll succeed unless we quit.”
It was a bizarre answer given both the history of the Vietnam War and the facts on the ground in Iraq, but it makes perfect sense given what we know about Mr. Bush’s character. He has never been willing to own up to mistakes, however trivial. If he were to accept the failure of his adventure in Iraq, he would be admitting, at least implicitly, to having made the mother of all mistakes.
So Mr. Bush will keep sending other men’s children off to fight his war. And he’ll always insist that Iraq would have been a great victory if only his successors had shared his steely determination.
Does this mean that we’re doomed to at least two more years of bloody futility? Not necessarily. Last month the public delivered a huge vote of no confidence in Mr. Bush and his war. He’s still the commander in chief, but the new majority in Congress can put a lot of pressure on him to at least begin a withdrawal.
I’m worried, however, that Democrats may have counted on the Iraq Study Group to provide them with political cover. Now that the study group has apparently wimped out, will the Democrats do the same?
Well, here’s a question for those who might be tempted, yet again, to shy away from a confrontation with Mr. Bush over Iraq: How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a bully’s ego?
Bush is worse than “lame duck.” He’s pate’ de foie gras.
Who cares what the hell comes out of his pie hole anymore, as if anything that wasn’t lies and idiocy ever did. No respect. None whatsoever. The tsunamis of disrespect and deserved abuse are just beginning to roll in. Stand there, Georgie - watch the pretty ocean waves. ++
On Calling Bullshit
Dan Froomkin
Friday, December 1, 2006 by the Nieman Watchdog
Mainstream-media political journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy Central. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do.
What is it about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert that makes them so refreshing and attractive to a wide variety of viewers (including those so-important younger ones)? I would argue that, more than anything else, it is that they enthusiastically call bullshit.
Calling bullshit, of course, used to be central to journalism as well as to comedy. And we happen to be in a period in our history in which the substance in question is running particularly deep. The relentless spinning is enough to make anyone dizzy, and some of our most important political battles are about competing views of reality more than they are about policy choices. Calling bullshit has never been more vital to our democracy.
It also resonates with readers and viewers a lot more than passionless stenography. I’m convinced that my enthusiasm for calling bullshit is the main reason for the considerable success of my White House Briefing column, which has turned into a significant traffic-driver for The Washington Post’s Web site.
I’m not sure why calling bullshit has gone out of vogue in so many newsrooms — why, in fact, it’s so often consciously avoided. There are lots of possible reasons. There’s the increased corporate stultification of our industry, to the point where rocking the boat is seen as threatening rather than invigorating. There’s the intense pressure to maintain access to insider sources, even as those sources become ridiculously unrevealing and oversensitive. There’s the fear of being labeled partisan if one’s bullshit-calling isn’t meted out in precisely equal increments along the political spectrum.
The return of Democrats to political power and relevancy gives us the opportunity to call bullshit in a more bipartisan manner, which is certainly healthy. But there are different kinds of bullshit. Republican political leaders these past six years have built up a massive, unprecedented credibility deficit, such that even their most straightforward assertions invite close bullshit inspection. By contrast, Democratic bullshit tends to center more around hypocrisy and political cowardice. Trying to find equivalency between the two would still be a mistake – and could lead to catty, inside-baseball gotcha journalism rather than genuine bullshit-calling.
If mainstream-media political journalists don’t start calling bullshit more often, then we do risk losing our primacy — if not to the comedians then to the bloggers.
But here’s the good news for you newsroom managers wringing your hands over new technologies and the loss of younger audiences: Because the Internet so values calling bullshit, you are sitting on an as-yet largely untapped gold mine. I still believe that no one is fundamentally more capable of first-rate bullshit-calling than a well-informed beat reporter - whatever their beat. We just need to get the editors, or the corporate culture, or the self-censorship – or whatever it is – out of the way. ++
© 2006 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of Democracy will never go out as long as there’s one candle in your hand.
~ Bill Moyers
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
December 4th, 2006