National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (N.Y.) issued a statement Saturday in which he said that he had informed Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) of allegations of improper contacts between then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and at least one former male page, contradicting earlier statements from Hastert.
GOP sources said Reynolds told Hastert earlier in 2006, shortly after the February GOP leadership elections. Hastert's response to Reynolds' warning remains unclear.
Mark Foley is a sexual predator, so he deserves to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. If found guilty, he would have to comply with the sex offender laws he helped craft. The irony reinforces the seriousness of the crime. Foley is no different from Debra Lafave, unless the double standard just got trumped for a member of Congress.
Now for the politics of it, which would be secondary, except that House Republicans seemed to have helped hide the crime.
What did House Speaker Dennis Hastert know and when did he know it?
For that matter, what did House Republicans know and when did they know it?
But why were Republicans willing to give Mark Foley a pass?
The resignation rocked the Capitol, and especially Foley's GOP colleagues, as lawmakers were rushing to adjourn for at least six weeks. House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of inappropriate “contact” between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he then told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Boehner later contacted The Post and said he could not remember whether he talked to Hastert.
It was not immediately clear what actions Hastert took. His spokesman had said earlier that the speaker did not know of the sexually charged online exchanges between Foley and the boy.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) took the House floor last night to demand an investigation into the Foley matter. But Boehner headed her off, calling on the House to refer the matter to the ethics committee, which the House promptly voted unanimously to do. …
I may not have a degree in psychology, but I have researched the sex trade for over 15 years, more than most “experts”, so I'm no novice on the subject. Where there is one incident of this type of behavior there is usually two, especially when you're dealing with an adult. Let's also understand that people in power can only do this type of thing if they have cover. The proof is here, here and here, and Lord knows where else. Oh, right, here and here.
Got oversight?
The page system of Capitol Hill is a remarkable opportunity for young people. But only if the system of oversight is in place to protect the youthful kid who is hoping to be exposed, er… touch on… ho-boy… have a chance of a real opportunity to gain invaluable experience. We all know that Republicans have no respect for oversight. They also protect their own at all costs. The breach of trust is overwhelming in this instance, because you are not dealing with a page who is of the age of consent.
There is nothing more serious than a young girl or boy being put in the line of fire of a person who has no self control. Teens rarely can resist the attention of an adult, especially one with power. Luckily for him, Mark Foley's target thought he was simply “sick…sick….sick…sick…sick,” etc., etc. to the power of 13. Foley's apology is not nearly enough.
The House Republicans have forsaken all responsibility and ignored the charge of policing their own. They are a disgrace.
Again I ask, what did House Speaker Dennis Hastert know and when did he know it? And why were Republicans willing to cover up for a sexual predator?
I offer the Debra Lafave video above to illustrate that people who prey on underage kids are dangerous. Lafave was said to be “bipolar”. Nice try. She is a sexual predator, a sex offender, but also a brilliant and manipulative genius who preyed on an underage boy, then by force of her manipulation and beauty, got off scott-free. Mark Foley is no different. Disguised as a teacher or mentor, these perverts use their authority to plot. Sexual predators have no impulse control. They are sociopaths that murder the innocence of the underage. But the people who offer them cover are nothing less than complicit in the crime.
The analogy of Iraq being another Vietnam has been uttered for years now.
For me, George W. Bush is the Republicans' Vietnam, something from which it will take decades to recover. But with the entrance of Henry Kissinger the obvious hits you in the face.
… The president met privately with Kissinger every couple of months, making him the most regular and frequent outside adviser to Bush on foreign affairs.
Kissinger sensed wobbliness everywhere on Iraq, and he increasingly saw the situation through the prism of the Vietnam War. For Kissinger, the overriding lesson of Vietnam is to stick it out.
In his writing, speeches and private comments, Kissinger claimed that the United States had essentially won the war in 1972, only to lose it because of the weakened resolve of the public and Congress.
In a column in The Washington Post on Aug. 12, 2005, titled "Lessons for an Exit Strategy," Kissinger wrote, "Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy."
He delivered the same message directly to Bush, Cheney and Hadley at the White House.
Victory had to be the goal, he told all. Don't let it happen again. Don't give an inch, or else the media, the Congress and the American culture of avoiding hardship will walk you back.
He said the eventual outcome in Iraq was more important than Vietnam had been. A radical Islamic or Taliban-style government in Iraq would be a model that could challenge the internal stability of key countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Kissinger told Rice that in Vietnam they didn't have the time, focus, energy or support at home to get the politics in place. That's why it had collapsed like a house of cards. He urged that the Bush administration get the politics right, both in Iraq and on the home front. Partially withdrawing troops had its own dangers. Even entertaining the idea of withdrawing any troops could create momentum for an exit that was less than victory.
In a meeting with presidential speechwriter Michael Gerson in early September 2005, Kissinger was more explicit: Bush needed to resist the pressure to withdraw American troops. He repeated his axiom that the only meaningful exit strategy was victory.
"The president can't be talking about troop reductions as a centerpiece," Kissinger said. "You may want to reduce troops," but troop reduction should not be the objective. "This is not where you put the emphasis."
To emphasize his point, he gave Gerson a copy of a memo he had written to President Richard M. Nixon, dated Sept. 10, 1969.
"Withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public; the more U.S. troops come home, the more will be demanded," he wrote.
The policy of "Vietnamization," turning the fight over to the South Vietnamese military, Kissinger wrote, might increase pressure to end the war because the American public wanted a quick resolution. Troop withdrawals would only encourage the enemy. "It will become harder and harder to maintain the morale of those who remain, not to speak of their mothers."
Two months after Gerson's meeting, the administration issued a 35-page "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq." It was right out of the Kissinger playbook. The only meaningful exit strategy would be victory.
Echoes of Vietnam … … …
STATE OF DENIAL Behind Public Optimism on Iraq, Administration Had Doubts
Swiftboating Joe Sestak hasn't worked, so get prepared for Crazy Curt to go over the top.
Rep. Curt Weldon has already gone after former Admiral Joe Sestak's daughter, when she was fighting a malignant brain tumor.
He went after Sestak when he was showing his support for fallen veterans.
Crazy Curt simply can't pass up an opportunity to swiftboat his opponent. And I know quite a bit about swiftboating, because I cover it regularly.
But now that Sestak is dead even — one point ahead in one poll — you can bet it's only going to get worse.
Sestak is leading Weldon 44-43 in a Franklin & Marshall College Keystone Poll that will be released today, falling well within the 4.7-percent margin of error. The poll of 430 voters refutes a recent Republican poll that showed Weldon leading by 19 points.
Democrats greeted the numbers as proof that Sestak has begun to have an impact on the electorate through nonstop campaigning and his first TV ad that hit the district two weeks ago.
“No one campaigns harder than Joe Sestak,” said his senior campaign adviser, David Landau. “I just don’t know when he sleeps. He has more energy and more drive than any candidate I have ever worked for.”
However, Curt Weldon has a problem. After almost two decades in the House not even his own Republican Party trusts him with any authority. Maybe it's because he goes off half cocked all the time; like when he wanted to take his shovel and go dig for WMDs in Iraq.
Or maybe it was his tin foil hat theory about Able Danger, which has now been completely and thoroughly debunked by the DOD's Inspector General. Nice that Curt made the U.S. taxpayers pay for a hearing and an investigation. Here's what military analyst Bill Arkin had to say about Curt Weldon's shenanigans.
… The IG (Inspector General) found no evidence that Able Danger or any other government entity had identified Mohamed Atta or other terrorist cells involved in the attackes of Sept. 11, period. “None of the Able Danger team members, who were in a far better position to describe Able Danger findings” than Shaffer or Weldon, including the Air Force commander of the unit, agree that Mohamed Atta or other Sept. 11 hijackers were ever identified, the IG says. They found not only inconsistent statements from Shaffer and other witnesses who previously have spoken up in the media and in conversations and testimony before Weldon, but also witnesses who later changed their statements and disavowed memories and stories attributed to them by Shaffer and Weldon.
For offenses that are redacted from the IG report on privacy grounds, Shaffer’s security clearance was revoked by the Defense Department in February 2006. Some will take this to mean that Shaffer is an honorable whistleblower whose life and career is being ruined by the system. My sense, after reporting on the Able Danger story for over a year is that if anyone is to be blamed, it is Congressman Weldon: he cynically has used Shaffer & co. to pursue a fantasist political agenda. He is indefensible. …
Laura Rozen has a piece out in the American Prospect that is equally critical.
A case in point: Last year, with Weldon’s support, an Italian-led consortium, AgustaWestland-Lockheed, won a $1.6 billion Navy contract to build the next generation of presidential helicopters over a U.S.-led consortium. As part of its bid, AgustaWestland, the helicopter subsidiary of Italian defense giant Finmeccanica, expanded its Philadelphia plant operations.
But there was more to the deal than jobs for his district. According to Harper’s magazine reporter Ken Silverstein, AgustaWestland hired another Weldon daughter, Kim, to work in its public-relations department. Furthermore, another Finmeccanica subsidiary, Oto Melara, hired the real-estate agent, Cecelia Grimes, as its lobbyist. Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense says Weldon promoted Grimes’ lobbying clients in other ways. “Her clients were being profiled at congressional hearings that [Weldon] ran,” Ashdown recalls.
Observers say Weldon is a perfect reflection of the political machine he has represented over the years. “Delaware County is, if not the most powerful, then one of the oldest and most successful political machines in the United States,” says former Weldon opponent Dave Landau. “And Weldon is only a functionary of the machine.”
Anger Management, by Laura Rozen The House’s most erratic member, Curt Weldon, may finally hit a wall.
I've been studying Weldon ever since he started swiftboating Joe Sestak. But when Rocco Polidoro of Republicans for Sestak asked why Weldon never served his country, it really peaked my interest. We still don't have answers on Curt Weldon's shifting stories on that one.
So now that the race is a dead heat, with Joe Sestak actually ahead in one poll, hold on to your seats, because Crazy Curt is in a fight for his political life.
Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., is considering resigning from the House in the wake of questions about e-mails he wrote to a former Capitol page, congressional officials said Friday.
These officials said a decision appeared imminent.
The Washington Post ran the story earlier, but now CNN just reported that Mark Foley will not run for re-election. Evidently, emailing a 16 year old boy isn't considered part of the “family values” package.
Another seat to go Democratic? I don't think they have time to replace him on the ballot. Stay tuned…
THIS JUST IN… It looks like it's official:
Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) planned to resign today, hours after ABC questioned him about sexually explicit internet messages with current and former Congressional pages under the age of 18.
A spokesman for Foley, the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, said the congressman submitted his resignation in a letter late this afternoon to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.
UPDATE II (1:30 p.m.): CREW has the email exchanges here, with their complaint here (pdf files).
UPDATE (12:55 p.m.): Now let's go through memory lane… There was this pedophile, who actually ran Operation Predator… and this one… and who can forget Brian Doyle? As someone who has researched the sex industry I've got to say Mark Foley was made for NBC's Predator series. I would also like to add that he should be charged with a cyber crime, because the kid he approached was freaked out.
The man just doesn't care. Nothing can reach through his thick, stubborn skull. Coming on four years in Iraq, Mr. Bush still doesn't understand that stay the course isn't a plan and is just getting people killed. Hey, but as long as he doesn't have to fight the fight he'll be happy. If only Laura and Barney support him, he's in.
Well, if Bush is going to ignore a PDB stating BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO ATTACK INSIDE U.S., it's unlikely he's going to give two hoots in Texas hell about an Iraq warning.
Yesterday is gone. The heat is on. Now we learn that 2007 will be worse in Iraq than this year.
Evidently, Bush and Cheney knew it was going to lay Iraq out so this time they wouldn't sit for their old friend Bob.
This book is long overdue, especially since Woodward has been kissing the king's ring for years. The evisceration he took over the Plame event obviously went deep and he decided he had to do something other the let the Administration cherry pick the facts. If he didn't, his Watergate reputation would be gone forever. It's not something I'd give up easily, especially for this crowd.
From what's been written about in papers so far, Cheney comes off as part of the tin foil crowd. Picture his aid in his pajamas calling the chief weapons inspector very late at night.
Mr. Cheney was involved in the details of the hunt for illicit weapons, the book says. One night, Mr. Woodward wrote, Mr. Kay was awakened at 3 a.m. by an aide who told him Mr. Cheney’s office was on the phone. It says Mr. Kay was told that Mr. Cheney wanted to make sure he had read a highly classified communications intercept picked up from Syria indicating a possible location for chemical weapons.
Desperation drips from the few tidbits leaking out about the book. The New York Times bought an advance copy to get an early look (and evidently beat the Washington Post on their own story). The article travels a different path from FIASCO and COBRA II, but with Woodward at the wheel the outreach should be massive.
As for weapons, they knew in 2003 it was a bust.
The fruitless search for unconventional weapons caused tension between Vice President Cheney’s office, the C.I.A. and officials in Iraq. Mr. Woodward wrote that Mr. Kay, the chief weapons inspector in Iraq, e-mailed top C.I.A. officials directly in the summer of 2003 with his most important early findings.
At one point, when Mr. Kay warned that it was possible the Iraqis might have had the capability to make such weapons but did not actually produce them, waiting instead until they were needed, the book says he was told by John McLaughlin, the C.I.A.’s deputy director: “Don’t tell anyone this. This could be upsetting. Be very careful. We can’t let this out until we’re sure.”
Finally, Condi the Incompetent just might get what she deserves. I say “finally,” because like Bush, she has gotten a pass on her national security failings, which are so monumental as to possibly convince people that women can't handle security issues. Let's face it, if she were a man she would have gotten the Medal of Freedom and been shuffled off to a wingnut think tank long ago.
The 537-page book describes tensions among senior officials from the very beginning of the administration. Mr. Woodward writes that in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Tenet believed that Mr. Rumsfeld was impeding the effort to develop a coherent strategy to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. Mr. Rumsfeld questioned the electronic signals from terrorism suspects that the National Security Agency had been intercepting, wondering whether they might be part of an elaborate deception plan by Al Qaeda.
On July 10, 2001, the book says, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, met with Ms. Rice at the White House to impress upon her the seriousness of the intelligence the agency was collecting about an impending attack. But both men came away from the meeting feeling that Ms. Rice had not taken the warnings seriously.
It is certain that Republicans and Bush will try to slam Woodward. But considering they've been kissing his ass with access for years, there isn't much to complain about.
The Republicans can't afford to talk about Iraq… so let's talk about it, shall we?
The video above was taken one year ago. It's frightening. Today's video from Iraq, if we had one, would be even worse. Unfortunately, there's only the valiant Michael Ware from CNN, and Richard Engel from NBC, among a very few others (if any), who can't really cover anything because it's become too dangerous. So what does the corporate media do? They don't cover the Iraq war at all. So, no matter what you think about Chris Matthews, he's one of the people, besides today's Edward R. Murrow, Keith Olbermann, who dares to confront the chaos. As for the Anbar province, Richard Engel says it's now called Jihadistan.
I can hardly wait to hear what Bob Woodward has to say on Sunday. Because if 2007 is going to be worse than 2006, boy are we in trouble.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are signing off on a border fence, while letting their wealthy corporate paymasters get off clean. What these bozos don't realize is that if there are jobs they will come. But let's face it. Homeland and national security is a political tool for them. Government doesn't have a purpose in people's lives, as far as Republicans are concerned. It's only something they use around election time.
As for Iraq, Republicans have a simple plan that underlies stay the course. We're sending our troops over there so they can take a bullet for you and me over here. After all, why travel to the United States when you can kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq. It's like shooting heroes in a barrel? That Bush, he's just so smart. Never mind that it's costing us around $2 BILLION a week, because Bush never pays for his financial failings. This is the Republican plan for Iraq and they're sticking to it, no matter how many soldiers have to die to carry it off. As Bush said recently, according to cable news reports, he doesn't care if only Laura and Barney believe in what he's doing, he's not changing course in Iraq.
But the leaked NIE judgments on terrorism still leaves me wondering what the secret Iraq NIE says. But Republicans won't release it until after the election. It's likely stamped “draft” so they don't have to. Clever. Craven, but clever. Better to keep the truth from the people or there could be real trouble.
In fact, though, you don't need an NIE to demonstrate the most controversial judgment — that the war in Iraq has worsened the terrorist threat. The official coordinated evaluation by Britain's domestic security and foreign intelligence services noted that “the conflict in Iraq has exacerbated the threat from international terrorism and will continue to have an impact in the long term.” This conclusion is echoed by interior ministries, law enforcement agencies and intelligence services in every part of the world.
Since the United States invaded Iraq, there has been a significant increase in the number of people committed to the jihadist cause. …
As for Iraq, there is one big reason we're in trouble. George W. Bush didn't have the experience or the foresight to realize that Osama bin Laden was baiting him, taunting him to invade and occupy another country in the Middle East. Bin Laden had a plan that went far beyond 9/11 and included getting the United States bogged down in a country just like what happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan. He thought it might even be Afghanistan, but that worked out really well for bin Laden because he slipped out right under the noses of the three stooges, Bush, Rummy and Franks. But bin Laden never dreamed he'd get so lucky as to seduce The Cowboy to taking on Iraq.
The two other categories of recruits are centered in Iraq itself. One consists of the foreign fighters, who, it turns out, are not the remnants of al-Qaeda that the administration believed would flock to their doom in Iraq. According to both Saudi and Israeli scholars who have studied the biographies of foreign fighters killed in Iraq, very few had prior experience of Islamic radicalism. They were drawn by their perception that the indignity of Iraqi occupation had to be fought.
The final category is Iraqi jihadists. There were virtually none in Iraq before the invasion. Now Sunni insurgent organizations espousing jihadism are dominated by Iraqis, who number in the thousands. As the NIE judgments suggest, those groups, which have already carried out bombings in Jordan, are likely to look for more targets outside Iraq.
The terrorists are increasing not only in numbers but also in lethality. …
No doubt the United States would have had a serious struggle against radical Islam after Sept. 11 under any circumstances. But the occupation of Iraq, by appearing to confirm bin Laden's arguments about America's antipathy toward the Muslim world, has had an incendiary effect and made matters dramatically worse. (source)
Now, whether bin Laden is dead or alive, he's won the game against Bush and the Republicans, but also America, under their “leadership”. Not only did he get them to invade Iraq and stay the course, but bin Laden also scared the chickenhawks so badly, with nary a veteran among them, they've now changed America into a shadow of her former self. Republicans have made torture the law of this land. Screw the courts. This from the rule of law crowd who couldn't keep their eyes off of Clinton's crotch.
Terry Schiavo, Katrina and torture, that's today's Republican party.
Oh, and to top it off, Bush and the Republicans have grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory in Afghanistan.
The Republicans and Bush haven't done much of anything else, oh, except one thing. Handed over Iraq to religious fanatics and thugs, creating a boon for jihadists.
If bin Laden is dead, it's likely he died with a smile.
As for me, I have never been prouder to be a Democrat. The majority of us fought hard. Our senators gave some of the most important speeches in support of our democratic republic and to honor our Constitution ever, and they did it knowing they would lose. We aren't a majority, so we couldn't hold back the Republican pro-torture line.
There isn't a “cut and run” Democrat among those Senators who stood up and fought back. Here's how it ended up on both sides of the pro-torture debate:
Democrats for torture: Carper (Del.), Johnson (S.D.), Landrieu (La.), Lautenberg (N.J.), Lieberman (Conn.), Menendez (N.J), Pryor (Ark.), Rockefeller (W. Va.), Salazar (Co.), Stabenow (Mich.), Nelson (Fla.), Nelson (Neb.)
Republicans against torture: Chafee (R.I.)
Independents against torture: Jeffords
Colleen Rowley says it all, with Matt Stoller adding an important point, which I've been making all week: if we'd had more Democrats in Congress we wouldn't have legalized torture in this country.
Hope you can join me on my radio show, 6-7 p.m. eastern – 3-4 p.m. pacific.
I'm ready and loaded for Bush, so to speak. A lot to talk about today.
UPDATE (4:20 p.m.): One of the things I covered on the show today was that Zarqawi's replacement, al-Masri, is now recruiting nuclear scientists. …Oh, and did I mention that Iraq now costs $2 BILLION per week?
The fugitive terror chief said experts in the fields of “chemistry, physics, electronics, media and all other sciences — especially nuclear scientists and explosives experts” should join his group's jihad, or holy war, against the West.
“We are in dire need of you,” said the speaker, who identified himself as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir — also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri. “The field of jihad can satisfy your scientific ambitions, and the large American bases (in Iraq) are good places to test your unconventional weapons, whether biological or dirty, as they call them.”
The 20-minute audio was posted to a Web site that frequently airs al-Qaida messages. The voice could not be independently identified, but it was thought to be al-Masri's. He is believed to have succeeded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who died in a U.S. airstrike north of Baghdad in June, as head of the al-Qaida-linked organization. … …
It seems everyone wants absolution these days. The latest is none other than Bob no one told me squat about Valerie Plame Woodward. But this time Bob's talking about Iraq, and “60 Minutes” has got him.
According to Bob Woodward, intelligence experts are saying in private that in 2007 the level of violence in Iraq will get worse.
“Kissinger is fighting the Vietnam War again,” says Woodward. For those of you too young to remember, that's a really bad thing. As I've got quite a few veterans, including Vietnam vets, that read this site, I just hope your heads didn't just explode. (Duster, you okay out there?)
Stay the course is Kissinger's playbook for Iraq, and Bush has bought into it completely, the failures of Vietnam paying forward.
The situation is getting much worse, says Woodward, despite what the White House and the Pentagon are saying in public. “The truth is that the assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse and, in public, you have the president and you have the Pentagon [saying], 'Oh, no, things are going to get better,'” he tells Wallace. “Now there’s public, and then there’s private. But what did they do with the private? They stamp it secret. No one is supposed to know,” says Woodward.
“The insurgents know what they are doing. They know the level of violence and how effective they are. Who doesn't know? The American public,” Woodward tells Wallace.
Woodward also reports that the president and vice president often meet with Henry Kissinger, who was President Richard Nixon’s secretary of state, as an adviser. Says Woodward, “Now what’s Kissinger’s advice? In Iraq, he declared very simply, ‘Victory is the only meaningful exit strategy.'” Woodward adds. “This is so fascinating. Kissinger’s fighting the Vietnam War again because, in his view, the problem in Vietnam was we lost our will.”
The NIE on terrorism was bad enough, but this is a whole new level.
Rep. Harman's revelation about an Iraq NIE, then her insistence that it be produced immediately, should now not just be a suggestion, but a demand from everyone in Congress.
Republicans are not only for torture, but they're against habeas corpus. You know, that little bitty right in the Constitution that grants people due process. Senator Specter offered an amendment, but the Republicans voted it down, 51 – 48.
Senator Kerry said it succinctly today. Feingold was brilliant as well. But you evidently have to be a Democrat to appreciate the Constitution these days.
I can't be any clearer: if you want to change the course this country is on the only hope we have is to elect Democrats in November. Period.
Today's Senate vote on President Bush's detainee legislation, after House approval yesterday, marks a defining moment for this nation.
How far from our historic and Constitutional values are we willing to stray? How mercilessly are we willing to treat those we suspect to be our enemies? How much raw, unchecked power are we willing to hand over to the executive?
The legislation before the Senate today would ban torture, but let Bush define it; would allow the president to imprison indefinitely anyone he decides falls under a wide-ranging new definition of unlawful combatant; would suspend the Great Writ of habeas corpus; would immunize retroactively those who may have engaged in torture. And that's just for starters.
It's a red-letter day for the country. It's also a telling day for our political system.
The people have lost confidence in their president. Despite that small recent uptick in the polls, Bush remains deeply unpopular with the American public, mistrusted by a majority, widely considered out of touch with the nation's real priorities.
But he's still got Congress wrapped around his little finger.
Today's vote will show more clearly than ever before that, when push comes to shove, the Republicans who control Congress are in lock step behind the president, and the Democrats — who could block him, if they chose to do so — are too afraid to put up a real fight.
The kind of emotionless, he-said-she-said news coverage, lacking analysis and obsessed with incremental developments and political posturing — in short, much of modern political journalism — just doesn't do this story justice. …
UPDATE (7:55 a.m.):Senator Feingold is speaking against the Republican Torture Act. Senator Kerry is also against the detainee bill and will speak out on the Senate floor, as well as in a speech remarks at Johns Hopkins today. Those remarks appear below. Christy has more quotes.
We must start treating our moral authority as a precious national asset that does not limit our power but magnifies our influence. That seems obvious, but this Administration still doesn’t get it. Right now – today — they are trying to rush a bill through Congress that will fundamentally undermine our moral authority, put our troops at greater risk, and make our country less safe.
Let me be clear about something—something that it seems few people are willing to say. This bill permits torture. It gives the President the discretion to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions. No matter how much well-intended United States Senators would like to believe otherwise, it gives an Administration that lobbied for torture just what it wanted.
The only guarantee we have that these provisions really will prohibit torture is the word of the President. But we have seen in Iraq the consequences of simply accepting the word of this Administration. No, we cannot just accept the word of this Administration that they will not engage in torture given that everything they’ve already done and said on this most basic question has already put our troops at greater risk and undermined the very moral authority needed to win the war on terror.
Rep. Jane Harman called the White House on it and Negroponte blinked. Now Fran Townsend is doing damage control, but she needs a bigger shovel. Tony Snowjob lost his yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Baghdad police academy is such a total wreck it has to be destroyed. Hey, but by all means let's talk about legalizing torture.
Frankly, the White House NIE message spin is falling so flat, no one can fix it. It's no offense to Franny, who isn't at fault, but has to do with the congenital liars who write her checks. There's a short hand script for what's going on. It has to do with the Republicans wanting to torture the Democrats during the 2006 election cycle. It's the Marque de Sade of political campaigns. The women are just window dressing.
But the pile of stinking Texas cow paddies piling up around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is now high enough to make a pig faint. However, the Republicans need all the cover they can get so they just keep adding more on.
… According to White House adviser Fran Townsend, the report is expected to take six months to produce. “Most NIEs are substantial research and writing projects that can take as much as a year,” she said yesterday. The six-month timeframe for the Iraq NIE is “still quicker than most NIEs get done.
“The timing has got nothing to do with the election,” she added.
Townsend appears to have stretched the truth to the point of snapping. According to a 2004 Senate intelligence committee report, it generally takes between two weeks and two months to produce an NIE. That means that with an Aug. 4 start date, President Bush should have expected a report on his desk around Oct. 4.
What's more, most U.S. intelligence agencies have been grappling with Iraq almost full-time since the invasion, many providing direct warfighter support. This is hardly an obscure intellectual issue for them, nor one that is particularly fuzzy. This may be one of the few reports whose conclusions are widely known before a word is put to paper.
In prognosticating what the upcoming Iraq NIE would say, Newsweek's Mark Hosenball reported two weeks ago that Defense officials briefing lawmakers were “paint[ing] a scenario in which Iraq could dissolve into civil war if Iraqi security forces don't soon get their act together.”
Seeing those conclusions leaked to the media — that's an October surprise the White House would likely hope to avoid.
It doesn't matter what anyone says about the NIE. The hell with torture: sunset it, wait until January, just keep your eye on Iraq.
Our charge is to win back Congress.
Any goal less will only make matters worse, turning our current nightmare into more real life bondage, free speech ball-gag included. Besides, only 34 Democrats in the House voted to legalize torture, with 219 “family values” Republicans opting for electrodes.
As for Republicans real goal, they don't care about Iraq, keeping us safe or what legalizing torture means to this country. They just want to win. To save our democracy we have to catch that wave.
VOTE REPUBLICAN in '06! REPUBLICANS 219 for TORTURE (7 against) DEMOCRATS: 34 for TORTURE (160 AGAINST)
Republicans for torture unite! Vote Republican in '06!
Nice.
How very democratic.
How very Christian.
How very un-American.
WHY ISN'T ANYONE COVERING THE IRAQ WAR?
Listen to my radio show from 6-7 pm eastern – 3-4 p.m. pacific. (By the way, here's the link to the Olbermann story I covered on my show. h/t)
Torture is one topic, but the main issue is still the NIE for me, as well as Bush's goal to keep the Iraq NIE quiet until after the 2006 elections.
But I can't let the moment go without talking about the Democrats' position on the Military Commissions Act Republican Torture Act, which has JB out swinging. Yes, it's the Republicans pushing this one, because the Democrats aren't in charge of squat.
… This bill is simply outrageous. I doubt whether many Democratic Senators or staffs have read the bill or understand what is in it. Instead, they seem to be scrambling over themselves to vote for it out of a fear that the American public will think them weak and soft on terror.
The reason why the Democrats have not been doing very well on these issues, however, is that the public does not believe that they stand for anything other than echoing what the Republicans have been doing with a bit less conviction. If the Republicans are now the Party of Torture, the Democrats are now the Party of “Torture? Yeah, I guess so.” Not exactly the moral high ground from which to seek office.
The Democrats may think that if they let this pass, they are guaranteed to pick up more seats in the House and Senate. But they will actually win less seats this way. For they will have proved to the American people that they are spineless and opportunistic– that, when faced with a genuine choice and a genuine challenge, they can keep neither our country nor our values safe.
The current bill, if passed, will give the Executive far more dictatorial powers to detain, prosecute, judge and punish than it ever enjoyed before. Over the last 48 hours, it has been modified in a hundred different ways to increase executive power at the expense of judicial review, due process, and oversight. And what is more, the bill's most outrageous provisions on torture, definition of enemy combatants, secret procedures, and habeas stripping, are completely unnecessary to keep Americans safe. Rather, they are the work of an Executive branch that has proven itself as untrustworthy as it is greedy: always pushing the legal and constitutional envelope, always seeking more power and less accountability. …
If you want to know see torture in action, all you had to do was watch the White House press gaggle this morning. Tony Snowjob was at his obfuscating best, except for one thing. The press wouldn't let up.
Now come to find out, the White House is releasing Republican talking points on the NIE Key Judgments that were released yesterday entitled “The Rest of the Story”. Puh-leaze, when has George W. Bush or anyone connected with the Administration ever wanted us to get the full story? EmptyWheel has more.
The Honorable John Negroponte Director of National Intelligence New Executive Office Building 725 Seventeenth Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20511
Dear Director Negroponte:
I received your letter of September 26, in which you confirmed that the National Intelligence Council (NIC) is writing a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq. Though you promised that the NIE would be completed “in a timely manner,” senior White House officials have indicated publicly that the report may not be completed until January 2007.
This timetable is unacceptable. Sectarian violence, which has reached record levels and continues to grow, is putting our troops – not to mention millions of Iraqis – at grave risk. Furthermore, the proven ineffectiveness of U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces, an absence of effective infrastructure reconstruction, and political crises that threaten the fragile new polity have made it clear that we need a new strategy in Iraq.
NIEs have been produced in as little as several weeks, as in the case of the 2002 report on Iraqi WMD. While I understand the desire to be thorough, events in Iraq make it urgent that the Intelligence Community produce this NIE immediately. If your intention is to delay this report until after the November elections, I do not think that is appropriate given that U.S. troops are at risk at this moment.
U.S. policymakers need the Intelligence Community’s insights to determine how to defend our troops and our interests in Iraq. I urge you to expedite completion of the NIE and to release it in both classified and publicly releasable unclassified forms.
The leaked NIE is giving way to many questions about Iraq, but especially the “war on terror”. The biggest one is why George W. Bush, even knowing what the NIE said, went on and on and on for months about how things in Iraq were moving forward. Denial doesn't begin to describe his delusion.
However, probably the most ridiculous question of all came today from David Ignatius, a sober man, who evidently just awoke in the middle of this nightmare without realizing every sad moment before it. He wishes Democrats weren't playing “gotcha,” but instead were asking a question that goes like this…
I wish Democrats (and Republicans, for that matter) were asking this question: How do we prevent Iraq from becoming a failed state? Many critics of the war would argue that the worst has already happened — Iraq has unraveled. Unfortunately, as bad as things are, they could get considerably worse. Following a rapid American pullout, Iraq could descend into a full-blown civil war, with Sunni-Shiite violence spreading throughout the region. In this chaos, oil supplies could be threatened, sending prices well above $100 a barrel. Turkey, Iran and Jordan would intervene to protect their interests. James Fallows titled his collection of prescient essays warning about the Iraq war “Blind Into Baghdad.” We shouldn't compound the error by being “blind out of Baghdad,” too.
The leaked NIE is only one piece of the who the hell knows what's going on in Iraq? puzzle. Few journalists can report out of Anbar province. We have no clue the real dangers inside the Iraqi government police units, with Maliki a total unknown at this point.
It's a little late and very wrong headed to expect Democrats to have an idea about keeping Iraq from becoming a failed state when the Senate wasn't even given the latest NIE, which was finished in April 2006, until someone who obviously was freaked out about it finally leaked it to the press. Kristen Breitweiser and I talked about that yesterday; how the free press is all we've got to keep us from tipping over into an anti-democratic republic that is a shadow of what our Founders created. Bush whines about the leaks, but if it weren't for the leaks we'd be kept in the dark yet again until the election was over. That's what happened with the Senate Intel Report – Phase II during the 2004 presidential election.
I'm all for asking questions of the Democrats, but first we have to find out what's really going on. The only way to do that is to get control of Congress. There's no other way out of Iraq. Because there's no way to keep it from becoming a failed state with the Republicans in charge, because their only plan is to stay the course, which most certainly will cause failure sooner rather than later.
The other part of the puzzle is the NIE on Iraq, which Rep. Jane Harman is trying to get released. Until we know what it says all answers to Mr. Ignatius's question are uninformed at best.
Lots of things to talk about today on my radio show, including the latest news on the NIE. The declassifed “key” findings have been released. Of course, I can't resist talking about Condi the Incompetent getting all indignant about President Clinton slamming her. This is classic.
NY Post: Senator Clinton, do you have any reaction to what Condi Rice said about your husband?
HRC: Well as I said yesterday, I think my husband did a great job in demonstrating that Democrats are not going to take these attacks. All you have to do is read the 9/11 Commission to know what he and his Administration did to protect Americans and prevent terrorist attacks against our country. You know, and I'm certain, that if my husband and his National Security team had been shown a classified report entitled “Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United States” he would have taken it more seriously than history suggests it was taken by our current President and his National Security team.
A “Significant” terrorist incident is one in which a person was killed, wounded or kidnapped (or there was property damage in excess of $10,000). The statistics tell a very clear and simple story (I bet someone who can read My Pet Goat can figure it out).
The total number of international terrorist incidents, both significant and non-significant, declined until 2002.
The number of significant incidents increased steadily starting in 1992.
Most of the significant incidents were caused by radical Islamic extremists.
2004 marked the single, largest increase in terrorist activity ever recorded since the CIA started keeping records dating back to 1968.
The four fold increase in significant terrorist incidents (attacks in which people were killed and wounded) was a direct consequence of the war in Iraq. All you have to do is look at the attacks recorded and the people killed and wounded in those attacks. Iraq and India were the big targets in 2004.
I also interview Kristen Breitweiser in the second segment of the show about her new book “Wake-up Call”. I went to her publisher's website to get Kristen's book tour schedule for you, but couldn't find one. I'll ask her where she's headed on her book tour during the interview and get a link for you. As an aside, I get unsolicited books from publishers all the time to review. I've even covered conservative writers from time to time, when the book is good. But Warner Books, the parent company of Hachette, Kristen's publisher, didn't send me a copy of her book. I don't take it personally, but it seems they'd want everyone to review the book.
Kristen's book is quite a read, especially the substance sections. I thought I'd share just one with you, which I'll post in a little while, but will talk about during my show. Stay tuned.
As for terrorist attacks being up, here's a graphic that says it all.
UPDATED (4:15 p.m.): While I was on the air, Senator Harry Reid released his statement, which he gave earlier. All I can say is give 'em hell, Harry.
REID: THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE PROVES WE MUST CHANGE COURSE IN IRAQ
“The declassified findings contained in the National Intelligence Estimate confirm what the American people have long believed – the Bush Administration's failed policies in Iraq are fueling global terrorism and making America less safe. These results are the unfortunate consequences of the Administration's decision to cherry pick pre-war intelligence, ignore our senior military leaders, and completely fail to plan for the post-Saddam occupation. With such a devastating and authoritative analysis of the Bush Administration's failures in Iraq, the President and the Republican-controlled Congress now have a choice to make. Will they stubbornly follow a failed stay the course strategy that America's intelligence community has concluded makes America less safe, or will they finally admit their mistakes and change course? On behalf of our troops and the security of the American people, it is time to change course. We need a new direction in Iraq so that America can finally win the war on terror.”
I was on a conference call earlier with Leader Pelosi when Rep. Jane Harman's revelation about a second report was brought up. We were talking about the NIE, as well as the “secret session” Pelosi and the Democrats called today over the just leaked NIE. First Harman…
“I have also learned that there is a [National Intelligence Estimate] on Iraq — specifically on Iraq — that has been left in draft form at the National Intelligence Council. That is because some of our leaders don't want us to see it until after the election. It should be clear five years after 9/11 that we need accurate and actionable intelligence — actionable in real time — and we need our leaders to read that intelligence and cite it accurately. Sadly, we're doing better on the first piece; we're not doing better on the second piece.”
The Democrats have been all over the NIE report, which is why Bush decided to declassify the executive summary. No doubt they're rewriting it like mad, in order to sanitize the truth, which is that Iraq is making terrorism worse.
Pelosi's secret sessionproposal didn't come easily and from what I'm hearing the Republicans were shocked. She also said in the conference call that “someone is not telling the truth” about the NIE. Pelosi gets applause for calling the secret session.
“Media reports last weekend disclosed a consensus judgment of senior officers from across the intelligence community that the war in Iraq was having a serious negative impact on our efforts against terrorism. Rather than reducing the number of terrorists worldwide and destroying the worldwide terrorist network, the war in Iraq is having precisely the opposite effect.
“These conclusions are reportedly contained in a National Intelligence Estimate published last April. They are precisely the professional judgments that should have informed our debate through the spring and summer on the situation in Iraq and the best way forward. Sadly, they did not, and President Bush has left the public with a false impression about the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism.
“We did not invade Iraq to fight terrorism, as the President would now have us believe. Instead, we are less safe today because the war in Iraq has hindered our ability to make progress in combating terrorism. The reported NIE makes that case clearly.
“As the House prepares to debate critical funding bills for the Department of Defense this week, we need to consider fully the assessments of our intelligence agencies on terrorism. That is why I offered the motion to have the House go into secret session – it is our responsibility, as part of our duty to conduct oversight over the war in Iraq.”
Democratic Minority Leader in the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi
Evidently, Republicans don't want to know the truth and they don't want us to know it either.
“I don't know how anyone could vote against it,” Pelosi told reporters in a conference call immediately after the vote. “What they're saying by voting against this is, 'Spare me the facts, spare me the truth.'” – Rep. Nancy Pelosi
Yesterday, Joe Lieberman gave a speech targeting Ned Lamont, while also misrepresenting the Kerry-Feingold resolution, which was supported by a dozen or so other Democrats. Instead of representing the facts he offered abject lies.
Here\’s Kerry\’s statement:
Senator John Kerry on Connecticut’s Iraq Debate
\”Iraq has been a national security disaster and a terrible set-back in the war on terror. As Robert Kennedy said of Vietnam, there is enough blame to go around. We must all accept our responsibility to change course. We don\’t need misleading speeches. We don\’t need slogans. We need leaders who will tell it straight and stand up to this administration and say it’s time to change course. Ned Lamont is providing that kind of leadership.
Senator Lieberman and I disagree deeply and profoundly on Iraq. No matter how much Senator Lieberman pretends otherwise, as we were debating a Senate resolution to change course on Iraq, our intelligence agencies were telling this Administration that America is less safe and more endangered by terrorists because of the failed stay-the-course policies in Iraq. There\’s just no excuse for continuing the old line that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror when in fact we know Iraq is a recruiting poster for terrorists while the real war on terror in Afghanistan spirals downwards.
The maxim that we\’ll stand down as Iraqis stand up is a myth. We need a deadline for the redeployment of American troops to force Iraqis to stand up for Iraq. Aimless talk of stay the course is making things worse. Every time the Administration says we\’ll stay as long as it takes is an excuse for Iraqis to take as long as they want. We are stuck in a growing civil war that sets us back in the war on terror. It does a disservice to our troops to stick with a broken policy over and over again and expect different results. We need leadership with the courage to change course.\”
It's not at all uncommon for a declassified version of an NIE to be released to the public. Just go back to October 2002. The Iraq WMD NIE was provided to the senate intel committee on October 1st. A declassified summary was released to the public on October 5th. And still more of the NIE was released on October 9th.
There's another dimension to that episode as well. As became clear a year later, in the declassification process, the White House made certain that most of the qualifications and questions about Iraq WMD were removed. So the public version of the NIE seemed far more powerful than the actual classified version. It was another effort to trick the public and it prevented senators who'd seen the report from discussing those parts of the report the White House had kept behind the veil of classification.
That's well worth keeping in mind in this case since I understand there's already been some earlier fiddling with this one.
Now senators want a briefing. It's amazing that all these months after it was completed our own senators don't even know what the hell it says.
Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) this morning will ask for a briefing on the April 2006 Iraq National Intelligence Estimate from Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte.
The “estimate,” a document representing the official opinion of the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus, reportedly concludes that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has made the United States less secure by increasing the danger of terrorist attacks.
A press release on the announcement says they will also “discuss statements made by Vice President Cheney and other Administration officials that appear to be misleading given the revelation in the April NIE as described by press accounts.”
… … Thus was it left for the previous president to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack:
You did not try.
You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor.
You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people.
Then, you blamed your predecessor.
That would be a textbook definition, Mr. Bush, of cowardice.
To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past.
That was one of the great mechanical realities Eric Blair—writing as George Orwell—gave us in the book “1984.”
The great philosophical reality he gave us, Mr. Bush, may sound as familiar to you, as it has lately begun to sound familiar to me.
“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power…
“Power is not a means; it is an end.
“One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
“The object of persecution, is persecution. The object of torture, is torture. The object of power… is power.”
Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the Fox ambush, speaking in the far different context of the closing session of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted Abraham Lincoln’s State of the Union address from 1862.
“We must disenthrall ourselves.”
Mr. Clinton did not quote the rest of Mr. Lincoln’s sentence.
He might well have.
“We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country.”
And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date, to save our country.
The “free pass” has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush.
You did not act to prevent 9/11.
We do not know what you have done to prevent another 9/11.
You have failed us—then leveraged that failure, to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11.
You have failed us anew in Afghanistan.
And you have now tried to hide your failures, by blaming your predecessor.
And now you exploit your failure, to rationalize brazen torture which doesn’t work anyway; which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding; which only humiliates our country further in the world; and which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.
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