Bush: The Optimist-in-Chief as GOP mopes on upcoming elections

I found this through The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 — The capital is filled with Republicans convinced that they will lose the House and maybe the Senate. So last week, the White House and party leaders convened a “friends and allies” teleconference to dispute what Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, considers flawed conventional wisdom.

For 20 minutes, Mr. Mehlman and the White House political director, Sara Taylor, tried to lift the cloak of gloom that has descended on the top ranks of Republican strategists, using what one of the dozens of lobbyists, donors, party aides and other supporters who listened in later called “happy talk.”

President Bush and his political strategists may be the most outwardly optimistic Republicans in Washington these days, and perhaps the only ones. They are doing their best to fend off the sense of impending doom within their party that they fear will become a self-fulfilling prophecy on Nov. 7.

[....]

Mr. Bush has been saying for months that he believes Republicans will keep control of the House and the Senate, and he is not changing his tune now, even if it means taking the rare step of rebuking his own father.

[....]

The president’s professed certainty, shared with outside friends and advisers, is a source of fascination among even his staunchest allies. In lobbying shops and strategy firms around town, the latest Republican parlor game is divining whether the White House optimism is staged, or whether Mr. Bush and his political team really believe what they are saying.

There are hints that the mood is not so upbeat or unremittingly confident in the West Wing. Mr. Bush and his inner circle, people in regular contact with them say, are well aware of the Democratic surge recorded by polls, and of the stakes for the final two years of an administration already burdened with troubles like the deteriorating situation in Iraq.

A strategist close to the White House said Mr. Bush’s own political team had polling that showed as many as 14 House seats were probably already lost to Democrats, just one shy of the 15 seats they need to gain to win control.

Though White House aides said that account was exaggerated, they acknowledged that polls have shown at least that many races with Democrats leading Republicans. “Their attitude is, ‘We’ve got our backs against the wall, but we know how to fight our way out of this,’ ” said Charles Black, a Republican strategist who has been in regular contact with Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s senior adviser. “They’re not unrealistic, but they’re optimistic that we can still win.”

This story brings up a huge question that I have for the Bush administration. Is the President so confident that the Republican Party can maintain control of Congress--by even projecting that they will maintain control of the House by one seat? Or has the situation at the White House gotten so bad that the president and his top advisors are living in a fantasy world at the White House--a world where they can so manipulate the polling data to show that the Republicans are winning? A fantasy world where even the lower-level White House aids are not willing to become the bearer of bad political news to the president?

This is frickin' wild--The Pinker Tones "Karma Hunters"

I found this off Dependable Renegade, and it is just frickin' wild. It is rather amusing, crazy, strange, and the music will stay in your head like a broken record playing over and over again.

I sort of wonder what would happen if the Republicans ever adopted this type of campaign commercial in their midterm election-year strategy? Or if the Democrats ever put this video in their own campaign commercials? One thing is for sure, it would certainly bring back the "fun" in political campaigning.

So this is from YouTube:

Approval of Republicans at record low: poll

I found this story through Simply Left Behind, and so I went to the Reuters source:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With congressional elections less than three weeks away, the Republican party's approval ratings are at an all-time low, with approval of the Republican-led Congress at its lowest point in 14 years, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Wednesday.

Forty-seven percent of respondents said they were less in favor of keeping Republicans in control of Congress, compared to 14 percent who were more in favor of maintaining the current congressional makeup, according to the poll.

Only 16 percent of respondents approve of the job Congress is doing, the lowest level since 1992, NBC said.

In October 1994, when Democrats held congressional majorities, Congress had a 24 percent job approval, NBC said. Democrats lost 52 House and 8 Senate seats in the 1994 midterm elections.

Only 16 percent of respondents approve of the job Congress is doing. Just when you thought it couldn't get any lower, we find ourselves reading another new low for another new poll.

Now I do find the next paragraph interesting. In the 1994 elections, the Democratic Congress had a 24 percent job approval rating. In the 94 midterm elections, the Democrats lost 52 House and 8 Senate seats. Fast-forward to 2006 and we've got a Republican Congress with a 16 percent approval rating--and all the House seats are up for re-election. Now I've seen a few numbers being tossed out in the mainstream media as to how many seats the Democrats will pick up in both the House and Senate. I don't know how valid these estimates are. But this NBC News poll does show an interesting comparison here. When Congress' job approval rating drops down in the low 20s, you can expect the political party in control of Congress will be removed from power.

We'll have to see what happens in two weeks.

Iraq, Iraq, Iraq

This is from The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 — The acknowledgment by the United States Army spokesman in Iraq that the latest plan to secure Baghdad has faltered leaves President Bush with some of the ugliest choices he has yet faced in the war.

He can once again order a rearrangement of American forces inside the country, as he did in August, when American commanders declared that newly trained Iraqi forces would “clear and hold” neighborhoods with backup support from redeployed American forces. That strategy collapsed within a month, frequently forcing the Americans to take the lead, making them prime targets.

There is no assurance, though, that another redeployment of those forces will reduce the casualty rate, which has been unusually high in recent weeks, senior military and administration officials say. The toll comes just before midterm elections, in which even many of his own party have given up arguing that progress is being made or that the killing will soon slow.

Or Mr. Bush can reassess the strategy itself, perhaps listening to those advisers — including some members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, the advisory commission charged with coming up with new strategies for Iraq — who say that he needs to redefine the “victory” that he again on Thursday declared was his goal.

One official providing advice to the president noted on Thursday that while Mr. Bush still insists his goal is an Iraq that “can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself,” he has already dropped most references to creating a flourishing democracy in the heart of the Middle East.

Or, he could take the advice of Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is expected to run to replace him in two years, who argues in favor of pouring more troops into Iraq, an option one senior administration official said recently might make sense but could “cause the bottom to fall out” of public support.

But whatever choices he makes — probably not until after the Nov. 7 election, and perhaps not until the bipartisan group issues its report — they will be forced by a series of events, in Iraq and at home, that now seems largely out of Mr. Bush’s control, in Iraq and at home.

Okay, so the New York Times is calling Iraq a failure. The Bush administration's "Stay-the-course" strategy isn't working anymore. Then again, "stay-the-course" wasn't a strategy--it was a marketing plan! So however you define the Bush administration's plan, it has been a complete disaster. And now President Bush is stuck doing the real hard work of trying to figure out how to get the U.S. out of Iraq. And this work could be made even tougher if the Democrats take control of Congress.

Guess what? It is not just the New York Times that is calling Bush's strategy a failure. How about this story from The Washington Post:

The growing doubts among GOP lawmakers about the administration's Iraq strategy, coupled with the prospect of Democratic wins in next month's midterm elections, will soon force the Bush administration to abandon its open-ended commitment to the war, according to lawmakers in both parties, foreign policy experts and others involved in policymaking.

Senior figures in both parties are coming to the conclusion that the Bush administration will be unable to achieve its goal of a stable, democratic Iraq within a politically feasible time frame. Agitation is growing in Congress for alternatives to the administration's strategy of keeping Iraq in one piece and getting its security forces up and running while 140,000 U.S. troops try to keep a lid on rapidly spreading sectarian violence.

On the campaign trail, Democratic candidates are hammering Republican candidates for backing a failed Iraq policy, and GOP defense of the war is growing muted. A new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll released this week showed that voters are more confident in Democrats' ability to handle the Iraq war than the Republicans' -- a reversal from the last election.

And here's McClatchy's Washington Bureau:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S-led campaign to curb violence in Baghdad neighborhood by neighborhood has failed, and American officials are looking for a new strategy, a top U.S. military official said Thursday.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said that instead of quelling violence, the campaign, code-named Operation Forward Together, had contributed to a spike in U.S. military deaths.

The operation "has not met our overall expectations of sustaining a reduction in the levels of violence," Caldwell said. "We are working very closely with the government of Iraq to determine how best to refocus our efforts."

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros called Caldwell's assessment "accurate and candid."

Bush administration policy has been built on two assumptions: that American troops would be able to shed some security responsibilities as the numbers of trained Iraqi police officers and soldiers grew, and that the elected government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki would be able to assert control over Shiite Muslim militias aligned with its political supporters.

Neither assumption has proved true. Violence has continued to surge, even as tens of thousands of U.S.-trained police officers and soldiers have been added to the Iraqi security forces, and al-Maliki's government has yet to present a program to disarm the militias.

President Bush doesn't have a clue as to how to resolve Iraq. The Bush White House has been built up as a marketing and sales office, designed to sell a preconceived neoconservative foreign policy and an extreme pro-corporate economic policy. The administration does not formulate or analyze public policy. If you want to know what the Bush administration's policy is on Iraq, then look at the marketing statements--stay the course! As Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down! Iraq has become the central front in the war on terror! We will stay in Iraq as long as we are needed, and not a day longer. Without U.S. troops, Iraq would be chaos. The Bush administration's Iraq policy was defined by marketing statements--not by a serious policy analysis with clearly definable benchmarks for the success or failure of that policy, a timetable for how long this policy should take place, and options to consider if this policy has failed. With two weeks left to go before the elections, the Bush administration's continuing failure in Iraq may just hand the Democrats control of Congress. And with the Democrats in control of Congress, it will be almost impossible for the Bush administration to not just continue its current open-ended policy in Iraq, but also to defend against any radical course changes of U.S. policy in Iraq. This Bush administration does not have the policy analysis skills needed to resolve this complex problem, created by this same Bush administration four years ago.

Friday Fun Stuff--Some Fall Photos

For today's Friday Fun Stuff, I thought I'd include some news photos showing the wonderful fall weather we are having.

A shed and the colors of turning trees are reflected in a pond in Phillipston, Massachusetts October 10, 2006. REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi (United States)

I think this is Fall Fashion here:

Spectators wearing the hats of French designer Louise Terteraeu attend the Arc de Triomphe horse race at Longchamp horse track near Paris, October 1, 2006. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol (FRANCE)

A church tower is seen at a foggy autumn morning in Dornbirn, about 20 km (12.4 miles) from lake Constance, in front of the eastern Switzerland' Saentis Massif in the background September 22, 2006. REUTERS/Miro Kuzmanovic (AUSTRIA)

I don't think this is how you make tomato juice:

An Israeli girl floats in a pool of tomatoes during a tomato festival in the southern Israeli village of Yevul, next to the Egyptian border Thursday Oct. 12, 2006. The two-day annual tomato festival takes place during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

And winter is just around the corner....

Brutus, a Labrador retriever owned by Tom and Lisa Burton, struggles in the deep snow after a major snowstorm in Clarence, N.Y., a suburb of Buffalo, Friday, Oct. 13, 2006. A rare early October snowstorm left parts of the Great Lakes and Midwest blanketed with 2 feet (60 centimeters) of snow Friday morning, prompting widespread blackouts, closing schools and halting traffic. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

Exclusive: Former House Clerk's Testimony

How about a Double Feature of Foley's Follies? This is off ABC News--The Blotter:

The former clerk of the House of Representatives, Jeff Trandahl, who testified for more than four hours before the House Ethics Committee today, is believed to have testified that a top aide to House Speaker Dennis Hastert was informed of "all issues dealing with the page program," according to a Republican familiar with the investigation.

The Republican source said Trandahl planned to name Ted Van Der Meid, the speaker's counsel and floor manager, as the person who was briefed on a regular basis about any issue that arose in the page program, including a "problem group of members and staff who spent too much time socializing with pages outside of official duties." One of whom was Mark Foley.

Trandahl's testimony before the House Ethics Committee could provide additional evidence that key members of the speaker's staff were aware of problems involving the page program for years.

Van Der Meid declined to comment to ABC News, but a source close to Van Der Meid says he expects to be called to testify before the House Ethics Committee next week and plans to answer all questions.

Last week, Foley's former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, testified before the Ethics Committee about his public allegations that the speaker's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, was told about problems with Foley at least three years ago.

Palmer has said that Fordham's version of events "never happened."

What I find amazing here with this story is that the congressional staff members are now contradicting themselves--perhaps even under oath before the House Ethics Committee. Foley's former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, testified that he told House Speaker Dennis Hastert's chief of staff Scott Palmer about Foley at least three years ago. Palmer denies that this conversation with Fordham ever happened. Now we have this former clerk to the House, Jeff Trandahl, testifying that a top aid to Hastert was informed of all issues regarding the page program, which could also be a reference to Foley. Trandahl plans to name Hastert's counsel Ted Van Der Meid, as to being informed on the page program and Foley. You can bet that the House Ethics Committee will be calling on Van Der Meid soon to determine whether Palmer or Hastert knew beforehand about Foley. The end result is that not only are the Republican congressmen refusing to fall on their swords for the good of the GOP, but their staff members are refusing to fall on their own swords for the good of the party in this Foley cover-up fiasco.

More to come.

G.O.P. Urges Calif. Candidate to Exit Race

This is off The New York Times:

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (AP) -- Orange County Republican leaders on Thursday called for the withdrawal of a GOP congressional candidate they believe sent a letter threatening Hispanic immigrant voters with arrest.

Tan D. Nguyen denied knowing anything about the letter in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press but said he fired a campaign staffer who may have been responsible for it.

County Republican Chairman Scott Baugh, however, said that after speaking with state investigators and the company that distributed the mailer, he believes Nguyen had direct knowledge of ''obnoxious and reprehensible'' letter. He told the AP that the party's executive committee voted unanimously to urge Nguyen to drop out of the race against Democratic U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez.

''I learned information that allows me to draw the conclusion that not only was Mr. Nguyen's campaign involved in this, but that Mr. Nguyen was personally involved in expediting the mailer,'' Baugh said in a telephone interview.

State and federal officials were investigating the letter, which was written in Spanish and mailed to an estimated 14,000 Democratic voters in central Orange County. It warns, ''You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal election is a crime that could result in jail time.''

Immigrants who are adult naturalized citizens are eligible to vote.

Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant whose opposition to illegal immigration has figured heavily in his underdog campaign, was not immediately available to react to the committee's vote. A staffer at his campaign headquarters said he was meeting with investigators.

Earlier Thursday, he said in an interview, ''I did not do this. I did not approve of any letter.''

Nguyen said he has fired an employee in his office who he believes might have used his campaign's voter data base to send the letter without his knowledge. He said he was cooperating with authorities and planned to continue his campaign.

Orange County is an immigration battleground. One founder of the Minuteman civilian border patrol group ran for Congress here and cities have debated issues such as the value of public centers for day laborers and the use of local police to arrest illegal immigrants.

Complaints about the letters this week prompted a state probe, and a spokesman for California's attorney general said investigators had been questioning people in Orange County. U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson said the department's civil rights division was investigating in coordination with the state attorney general's office.

A couple things about this story. First, the damage has already been done once these emails have been sent out to the Democratic households. This is an obvious suppress the vote scheme by the Nguyen campaign headquarters to try to keep Hispanic Democratic voters away from the polls. What is even more important is that these voters were specifically targeted in a battleground district, where immigration is at the forefront of the issues. Second, Nguyen has pretty much gotten away with this vote suppression, so far. Yes, Nguyen has denied knowing of this suppression. And he has fired a campaign staffer as a result of this revelation. But Nguyen is still in the race. We've got plausible deniability on Nguyen's part. Third is the GOP's reaction as a result of the scandal. Yes, Orange County Republican officials are calling for Nguyen to exit from the race. But do you really expect Nguyen to withdrawal? This is pretty much spin control on the Republicans part to limit the political damage as a result of another scandal being exposed. So we get some big-name Republicans, such as the Governator, expressing shock and disgust at Nguyen--but nothing will be done about it until after the elections, when the state and U.S. Justice Department investigations get underway.

Of course, the bad news for the Republicans is that this vote suppression scandal came out just over two weeks before the congressional midterm elections. This revelation just reinforces the notion of the GOP's "culture of corruption" within its own political party.

Priest Acknowledges Intimate Contact With Foley

I found this off The Washington Post:

A retired priest from Malta acknowledged today that he had intimate contact with a youthful Mark Foley that involved nudity and -- on at least one occasion -- "light touching," but denied that he and Foley had "sexual intercourse."

Yes, it is another exciting edition of Foley's Follies. Continuing with the WaPost article:

The Rev. Anthony Mercieca, in a telephone interview with The Washington Post from the Maltese island of Gozo, said he was surprised that his long-ago interaction with Foley had become linked to the scandal that erupted last month and cost the former congressman his job.

Foley, who served as an altar boy at the Sacred Heart Catholic church in Lake Worth, Fla., when Mercieca was assigned there in the mid-1960s, resigned from Congress after reports about sexually intimate electronic messages he had sent to Congressional pages. Following his resignation, Foley entered alcohol rehabilitation, said he was gay, and alleged that he had been sexually abused by a member of the clergy as a youth.

This morning the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, citing confidential sources close to Foley's family, identified Mercieca as the priest in question. Though Mercieca confirmed his past ties to Foley to the Herald-Tribune and in the Post interview, the Post could not confirm that Foley was referring to Mercieca in his allegations, or whether there may be another priest involved.

So I guess Mark Foley isn't responsible for his actions in engaging in sexually explicit IMs with a 16-year-old page because Mark Foley was sexually abused by a Catholic priest.

You've got to love the spin on this.

But my interest here isn't just about Mark Foley. Foley's career as a public official is pretty much finished. What I do find interesting here is that the Foley scandal has split into two tracks. The first tracks is obviously the personal details of the Foley sex scandal--the publishing of the explicit emails, the resignation, Foley's entering into rehab, and now a sexual abuse connection between Foley and the Catholic Church. A sitting congressman was sexually abused by a Catholic priest--time for an investigation! This latest revelation is keeping the scandal fresh in the news media. And with just over two weeks before the election, the more that Mark Foley remains on the front page, the worst it is going to be for the GOP.

But we have a second track here on the Mark Foley scandal. This second track has been the GOP cover-up of the Foley scandal. This story is also on the WaPost:

WASHINGTON -- House Majority Leader John Boehner testified before the House ethics committee Thursday, indicating afterward that he repeated his statements that he had told Speaker Dennis Hastert of Rep. Mark Foley's overly friendly e-mails to a former male page.

Boehner, R-Ohio, would not say what he specifically told the committee behind closed doors, but has publicly quoted Hastert as telling him the complaint "had been taken care of."

[....]

He appeared after the former clerk of the House testified about his actions regarding Foley's inappropriate conduct with male pages.

Hastert has said he doesn't recall the conversation with Boehner.

Boehner also issued a written statement, saying, "The despicable conduct from Mark Foley outraged all members who have great respect for this institution. Had anyone known about it, we would have moved to expel him from our ranks immediately."

Former House Clerk Jeff Trandahl did not answer reporters' questions as he left the panel's offices after several hours of testimony. His appearance was central to the case, though, since he shouldered day-to-day responsibility for the page program and had confronted Foley last fall about inappropriate e-mails.

[....]

At issue in the ethics committee investigation is how the office of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., dealt with the knowledge that Foley, a Florida Republican, was sending inappropriate e-mails to teenage congressional pages. The answers could affect not just Hastert but the prospects for control of the House when voters cast ballots in the Nov. 7 midterm elections.

In an internal report released by Hastert, his aides contend that they first learned about Foley's conduct in the fall of 2005, when they became aware of overly friendly e-mails to a former Louisiana page. However, Foley's former top aide said he told Hastert's chief of staff about Foley's conduct in 2002 or 2003.

House Majority Leader John Boehner, who also was to testify Thursday, told a Cincinnati radio station earlier this month that when he approached Hastert about Foley last spring, the speaker told him "it had been taken care of."

With polls showing the Foley scandal could hurt Republicans in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, Trandahl's testimony could be damaging if he contradicts Hastert's account and says Republican leaders lacked the urgency required to protect the teenage pages. Hastert has fended off calls for his resignation and said he believes he and his staff acted properly.

Trandahl was the official who likely would have known about any problems involving the page program, including improper conduct by pages or improper approaches from lawmakers or House employees. He supervised the program and was on its controlling group, the House Page Board, which consists of three lawmakers, the House clerk and the sergeant at arms.

This track is even more damaging to the Republicans. Because what we have here is really a circular firing squad among the top Republican leaders in the House--Boehner, Hastert, NRCC chairman Tom Reynolds, John Shimkus, and Rodney Alexander. With everyone contradicting everyone else's version of events, you've got a CYA cover-up on an issue that the top Republican leadership wanted to ignore until after the congressional midterm elections. Because that is what this cover-up is all about. How can the Republicans maintain control of the House of Representatives--and Congress--in the 2006 midterm elections. The Republicans thought that they could keep this scandal quiet until after November--until after Foley was re-elected. If the scandal broke after the elections, Foley could resign and the House seat would remain vacant--no change in party control in the House. The Republicans gambled they could keep this quiet. They were wrong. And now with just over two weeks to go, this track is also making the news as the top Republican leaders contradict each other--each refusing to fall on their own swords for the good of the Republican Party. What is even worst is that both of these Foley scandal tracts complement each other in keeping this scandal fresh in the news media.

Pass the popcorn.

Judge Orders Release of WH Logs Sought By 'Wash Post'

I found this off Americablog, so I went back to the source of the information. The original source is Editor and Publisher:

WASHINGTON A federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to release information about who visited Vice President Dick Cheney's office and personal residence, an order that could spark a late election season debate over lobbyists' White House access.

The Washington Post asked for two years of White House visitor logs in June but the Secret Service refused to process the request. Government attorneys called it "a fishing expedition into the most sensitive details of the vice presidency."

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina ruled Wednesday that, by the end of next week, the Secret Service must produce the records or at least identity them and justify why they are being withheld.

The newspaper sought logs for anyone visiting Cheney, his legal counsel, chief spokesman and other top aides and advisers.

The Secret Service had no comment on the ruling Thursday. In court documents, government attorneys said releasing the documents would infringe on Cheney's ability to seek advice.

"This case is about protecting the effective functioning of the vice presidency under the Constitution," attorneys wrote.

A lawsuit over similar records revealed last month that Republican activists Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, key figures in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal landed more than 100 meetings inside the Bush White House.

The Post cited those records, which were released to the Democratic Party and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, as evidence that the documents should be released.

It is interesting how the Bush administration is continuing their claims that visitor logs must remain secret because they "infringe on Cheney's ability to seek advice." This administration exists in a veil of secrecy--we're not supposed to know who talked to the top leaders and policymakers in the Bush administration. We're not supposed to know who talked to Vice President Cheney, or President Bush. We're certainly not supposed to know what discussed in these secret meetings--Remember Cheney's secretive Energy Task Force? And yet while we're not suppose to know who said what to whom in this administration, we're suppose to accept whatever policies and actions this administration takes for the benefit of this country and our own protection.

I will say this. I'm curious to see what is in those logs.

Another Special Comment by Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann just slammed another home run against President Bush in his Special Comment on Countdown. This time Olbermann talks about President Bush's signing of the Military Commissions Act and how this act has killed habeas corpus. We've certainly handed a blank check of all our freedoms to this president.

Crooks and Liars has the video here.

Here is the YouTube link:



Here is the transcript of Olbermann's Special Comment on Countdown's website:

We have lived as if in a trance.

We have lived as people in fear.

And now—our rights and our freedoms in peril—we slowly awaken to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing.

Therefore, tonight have we truly become the inheritors of our American legacy.

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

We have been here before—and we have been here before, led here by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.

We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use those acts to jail newspaper editors.

American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote about America.

We have been here when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.

American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said about America.

And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9066 was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that order to imprison and pauperize 110,000 Americans while his man in charge, General DeWitt, told Congress: “It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen—he is still a Japanese.”

American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did, but for the choices they or their ancestors had made about coming to America.

Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And each was a betrayal of that for which the president who advocated them claimed to be fighting.

Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased.

Many of the very people Wilson silenced survived him, and one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900,000 votes, though his presidential campaign was conducted entirely from his jail cell.

And Roosevelt’s internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States to the citizens of the United States whose lives it ruined.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

In times of fright, we have been only human.

We have let Roosevelt’s “fear of fear itself” overtake us.

We have listened to the little voice inside that has said, “the wolf is at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too shall pass.”

We have accepted that the only way to stop the terrorists is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.

Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets was to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.

Or substitute the Japanese.

Or the Germans.

Or the Socialists.

Or the Anarchists.

Or the Immigrants.

Or the British.

Or the Aliens.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And, always, always wrong.

“With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?”

Wise words.

And ironic ones, Mr. Bush.

Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act.

You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.

Sadly—of course—the distance of history will recognize that the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously was you.

We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

But even within this history we have not before codified the poisoning of habeas corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.

You, sir, have now befouled that spring.

You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.

You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that “the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values” and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “unlawful enemy combatants” and ship them somewhere—anywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “unlawful enemy combatant” and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.

And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant”—exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this attorney general is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope he has not lied about how he intends to use it nor who he intends to use it against?

“These military commissions will provide a fair trial,” you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush, “in which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney and can hear all the evidence against them.”

"Presumed innocent," Mr. Bush?

The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain “serious mental and physical trauma” in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.

"Access to an attorney," Mr. Bush?

Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.

"Hearing all the evidence," Mr. Bush?

The Military Commissions Act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.

Your words are lies, Sir.

They are lies that imperil us all.

“One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,” you told us yesterday, “said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America.”

That terrorist, sir, could only hope.

Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.

Habeas corpus? Gone.

The Geneva Conventions? Optional.

The moral force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.

These things you have done, Mr. Bush, they would be “the beginning of the end of America.”

And did it even occur to you once, sir — somewhere in amidst those eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors of 9/11 -- that with only a little further shift in this world we now know—just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our patriots died --- did it ever occur to you once that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future president and a “competent tribunal” of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of “unlawful enemy combatant” for -- and convene a Military Commission to try -- not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And doubtless, Sir, all of them—as always—wrong.

A Whole New Blog Here--3 Columns

What do you think? I haven't been posting for this past week since I've been so busy developing a new template for my blog here. I have always liked the appearance of the 3-column blogs, since it allows you to place sidebar content on both sides of your postings-if you have a large amount of sidebar content in your blog. I've originally
wanted to try to adapt the Blogger Rounders template to 3-column, but there were some serious problems when viewing a 3-column Rounders template in Internet Explorer--the right hand sidebar dropped down to the bottom corner. And adjusting the margins of the sidebars is almost impossible because the Rounders templates uses gif images to round out the corners, and those images are stored on the Google servers. If Google ever creates a 3-column Rounders template, I'd certainly look into it.

So I had to search for another template. I found a 3-column Minima template off of Hackoshpere, which worked in both Firefox and IE Explorer. Then it is customization time with background, text and link colors, adding all the feeds and weblinks, and making sure everything balances out. I'm currently using Blogger Beta, which has some good points and bad points about it. I do like the new labels for postings, although I do wish I could go in and adapt and customize the labels, as you can in Daily Kos. However, Blogger Beta uses XHTML and widgets. The widgets are useful in moving sections of your blog around the page. For example, I could move the News and Information Websites section from the right sidebar to the left sidebar with a simple click of the mouse. However, I cannot edit the URLs located in this News and Information Websites widget, since the data on this widget is located on the Google servers. And if you radically change templates, you can possibly lose the data in these widgets. I've had to go through all the News, Political Blogs, and Interesting Blogs and re-enter those links in through the Google Page Layout program by hand--about three times now. And finally, since this was an extended HTML file, I couldn't do any editing of the template in my Front Page program, since my version of Front Page doesn't supportXHTML.

What fun we can have in editing templates.

On the left sidebar, I’ve placed the Blog Archive, Labels, Feed Links and advertisements. The right sidebar has my profile, News and Information Websites, Political Blogs, Interesting Blogs, a new heading named Conservative Blogs, and the Policy Institutes. I have even added some more links to Oh Well. In the News and Information section, I've added links to some international news sites. You can now access the BBC News, London Times, DerSpiegel, and Financial Times. I've also included some more regional news sites of The Dallas Morning News, Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Daily News, and even the Moonie paper Washington Times. I've added Anderson Cooper's 360 blog, the McClatchy Washington Bureau, Alternet, and CNet News. On the Political Blogs, you can find Brad DeLong, Buzz Flash, Carpetbagger Report, Daou Report, David Sirota, Matt Ygelsias, Progressive Blog Digest, Tom Pain's Common Sense, and YouTube. In the Interesting Blogs, I've added Alas A Blog, All SpinZone, Bitch Ph.D., Brad Blog, Crooked Timber, DC Media Girl, NTodd, Fat Cat Politics, Happy Furry Puppy Story Time (What a mouthful!), Lawyers Guns and Money, T Rex, Two Glasses, Wampum, and Whiskey Bar. And finally, I've created a new section highlighting the Conservative Blogs. I'll admit that I sometimes head over to the Conservative blogs to see what the Right Wing is talking about. If I wanted to go over and see what the conservatives were saying, I usually went through theTTLB Ecosytem, which listed the top conservative blogs that I could link to. Well, I figured it was time to link those blogs to Oh Well. So you'll find Andrew Sullivan, Captain's Quarters, Powerline, Hugh Hewitt, Drudge, Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, and Red State here--let's hope you have the stomach to enter into these sites this close to Halloween.

That's pretty much it. Hope you enjoy reading this blog. Now it is time for me to get back into the news and start posting again. Time to have some more fun here.

Eric A Hopp

Friday Fun Stuff Part Deux--Friday the 13th

I just realized that today is Friday the 13th. And so to commemorate this Friday the 13th's day of bad luck, here's a little scarefest from YouTube:



How would you like to cross paths with such evilness?

Friday Fun Stuff--This is how you score a goal in soccer

I found this off YouTube, and this is just hilarious. This is how you score a goal in soccer--for the opposing team! From YouTube:

Report Says Nonprofits Sold Influence to Abramoff

I'd say we're going to have a double feature here for The Jack Abramoff show! This is also off The Washington Post:

Five conservative nonprofit organizations, including one run by prominent Republican Grover Norquist, "appear to have perpetrated a fraud" on taxpayers by selling their clout to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Senate investigators said in a report issued yesterday.

The report includes previously unreleased e-mails between the now-disgraced lobbyist and officers of the nonprofit groups, showing that Abramoff funneled money from his clients to the groups. In exchange, the groups, among other things, produced ostensibly independent newspaper op-ed columns or news releases that favored the clients' positions.

Officers of the groups "were generally available to carry out Mr. Abramoff's requests for help with his clients in exchange for cash payments," said the report, issued by the Senate Finance Committee. The report was written by the Democratic staff after a yearlong investigation and authorized by the Republican chairman, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa).

[....]

The Senate report released yesterday states that the nonprofit groups probably violated their tax-exempt status "by laundering payments and then disbursing funds at Mr. Abramoff's direction; taking payments in exchange for writing newspaper columns or press releases that put Mr. Abramoff's clients in a favorable light; introducing Mr. Abramoff's clients to government officials in exchange for payment; and agreeing to act as a front organization for congressional trips paid for by Mr. Abramoff's clients."

The report bolstered earlier revelations that Abramoff laundered money through the nonprofits to pay for congressional trips and paid Norquist to arrange meetings for Abramoff's clients with government officials including White House senior adviser Karl Rove.

The groups named in the report are Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform; the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, which was co-founded by Norquist and Gale Norton before she became secretary of the interior; Citizens Against Government Waste; the National Center for Public Policy Research, a spinoff of the Heritage Foundation; and Toward Tradition, a Seattle-based religious group founded by Rabbi Daniel Lapin.

E-mails released by the committee show that Abramoff, often with the knowledge of the groups' leaders, exploited the tax-exempt status and leveraged the stature of the organizations to build support among conservatives for legislation or government action sought by clients including Microsoft Corp., mutual fund company DH2 Inc., Primedia Inc.'s Channel One Network, and Brown-Forman, maker of Jack Daniel's whiskey.

So what does this mean? Abramoff was taking money from his clients, and then sending it to these conservative non-profit groups. In exchange for Abramoff's money, the conservative non-profits were writing news releases, opinion-editorials that favored Abramoff's clients. And while the conservative non-profits were producing these materials which supported Abramoff's clients, Abramoff could then lobby the Republican lawmakers, while using these same news releases and opinion-editorials to support his position. Talk about a self-generating marketing scheme to sell favorable legislation to your clients here.

Continuing with some of the details in the WaPost article:

Abramoff traded on Norquist's cachet, at one point referring to him in an e-mail as a "hard-won asset" of his lobbying empire. In exchange for Norquist's opposition to taxes on Brown-Forman products, Norquist recommended that a $50,000 donation be made to Americans for Tax Reform, according to an Abramoff e-mail.

"What is most important, however, is that this matter is kept discreet," Abramoff wrote to a colleague at the Preston, Gates & Ellis law firm. "We do not want the opponents to think that we are trying to buy the taxpayer movement."

The e-mails show that Abramoff and Norquist explicitly discussed client donations to Norquist's group in exchange for Norquist's support. The group's advocacy "appears indistinguishable from lobbying undertaken by for-profit, taxable firms," the report said.

Among those who agreed to donate money for an opinion piece was DH2, which in 2004 pushed for tax breaks for its customers.

E-mails show that DH2 understood that Norquist's help came with a price tag. The tab was sent to DH2's managing director, Robert S. Rubin.

"I told Rubin he needs to round up some $$$ for ATR," wrote lobbyist Michael E. Williams to his boss, Abramoff.

"Get the money from Rubin in hand," Abramoff replied, "and then we'll call Grover."

How much, Williams asked.

"50K," Abramoff wrote.

Abramoff e-mailed Norquist on Feb. 10, 2004: "I have sent over a $50K contribution from DH2 (the mutual fund client). Any sense as to where we are on the op-ed placement?"

Replied Norquist: "The Wash Times told me they were running the piece. . . . I will nudge again."

The Washington Times has published about 50 Norquist op-eds since 1993 but apparently none on mutual funds. Norquist did write a letter in April 2004 to a congressman praising him for sponsoring "legislation that would finally allow mutual fund shareholders to defer their capital gains tax" and pledging that his group "is committed to helping you pass this legislation."

Norquist wrote an op-ed piece, published in the Washington Times, as part of an extensive Abramoff campaign for Channel One, which broadcasts educational programming and advertising into public school classrooms. An Abramoff e-mail to Norquist offered him $1,500 for an op-ed, and another e-mail exchange suggested up to $3,000 to buy an "economic analysis."

This is damning evidence that shows just how deep the Republican corruption has gotten here. This was a relationship congressional legislation benefited corporate interests while in exchange; Republican congressmen received money from the corporate interests which translated into power for the Republican Party. The conduit between these relationships was Jack Abramoff, while the conservative non-profits generated the marketing materials, on Abramoff's behalf, to help "convince" the Republican lawmakers in passing the legislation benefiting the corporate interests. This was how the game was played.

In other Abramoff News: There has been some other Abramoff news over the past two weeks that I haven't had a chance to look over or comment on. The first is this Washington Post story, dated October 7, 2004:

A top aide to White House strategist Karl Rove resigned yesterday after disclosures that she accepted gifts from and passed information to now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, becoming the first official in the West Wing to lose a job in the influence-peddling scandal.

Susan B. Ralston submitted her resignation to avoid causing political damage to President Bush a month before the midterm elections, officials said. "She did not want to be a distraction to the White House at this important time," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

A congressional report showed last week that Ralston accepted sometimes-pricey tickets to nine sports and entertainment events from Abramoff while she provided him with inside White House information. The bipartisan report said there is no evidence that Rove knew of or approved of Ralston's actions, and sources said yesterday that the White House was surprised by the report's revelations.

As right hand to the president's most important adviser, Ralston was closer to the center of the Bush operation. She was a key organizer of presidential events, coordinating with White House political, scheduling, advance and public liaison offices. "She will be missed because she solves problems, and finding people in government who solve problems" is rare, a colleague said.

As a former Abramoff assistant, Ralston played intermediary between the lobbyist and Rove. The congressional report found 66 Abramoff contacts with the White House, more than half of them with Ralston. In addition, Abramoff's lobbying colleagues contacted Ralston 69 times.

So Abramoff had a contact with Sue Ralson in the White House that he was also using in an attempt to lobby his clients. And he was giving gifts to Ralston. But I'm not sure how effective Ralston was in providing White House favors for Abramoff. According to the WaPost:

More often, Abramoff fell short at the White House. Abramoff contacted Ralston to get Rove to place a close ally, Mark Zachares, as head of the Interior Department's Office of Insular Affairs. Ralston rebuffed a meeting with Rove for Zachares, saying it was unnecessary because Rove was on their side. But Zachares did not get the position.

In November and December 2003, Abramoff e-mailed Ralston about Iraqi bonds apparently issued by one of his clients, American Bondholders Foundation, the House committee said. In response, Ralston indicated that the National Security Council had not "gotten back to me yet." Six days later, she had an answer. "The NSC is very suspect of this proposal," she wrote. "The White House will not support it."

What this story does show is that Abramoff was certainly interested in using the White House to lobby for his clients. Of course, if Abramoff could get to Ralston, then you also have to wonder who else in the White House could Abramoff get to?

Then there is this September 29, 2006 Washington Post story:

Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his colleagues billed their clients for more than 400 contacts with White House officials between 2001 and 2004, according to a report released yesterday by the House Government Reform Committee. The report did not determine how many of those contacts -- referenced in e-mails and Abramoff's often falsified client bills -- actually occurred.

The 93-page report was jointly issued by the committee's chairman, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), and its ranking Democrat, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.). They wrote that their investigation found the current reporting requirements "failed to protect public officials from the ethical undertow generated by Abramoff's claims of access to executive branch deliberations, particularly at the White House."

The report, based on 14,000 e-mails and other documents, conveys many assertions by Abramoff and his team about their efforts to lobby White House officials on matters affecting their Indian tribal clients.

Abramoff's team offered officials tickets to 19 sporting events and concerts, the report states, but "in many instances the documents do not indicate whether the White House officials requested or attended the events." One who did accept tickets, the report said, was Susan Ralston, executive assistant to White House presidential adviser Karl Rove.

The report also cites documents suggesting that former White House political director Ken Mehlman, now chairman of the Republican National Committee, may have helped Abramoff's team get money for a tribal client from the Justice Department. But the committee did not corroborate the claim.

[....]

The committee subpoenaed Abramoff's client billing records and other documents from Greenberg Traurig LLP, his former firm. The report said the Abramoff team billed clients for $23,981 in meals and drinks with White House officials. But the report said it could not determine how many of those meals took place or whether White House officials paid their own way.

One exchange of e-mails cited in the report suggests that former Abramoff lobbying team member Tony C. Rudy succeeded in getting Mehlman to press reluctant Justice Department appointees to release millions of dollars in congressionally earmarked funds for a new jail for the Mississippi Choctaw tribe, an Abramoff client. Rudy wrote Abramoff in November 2001 e-mails that Mehlman said he would "take care of" the funding holdup at Justice after learning from Rudy that the tribe made large donations to the GOP.

Abramoff was certainly persistent in his lobbying the Bush White House. I'm not sure what to say about Mehlman's connection with Abramoff--he certainly helped provide the funds to build a new jail for the Mississippi Choctaw tribe. And he may have taken care of it after learning that the tribe made a large contribution to the GOP. This certainly is suspicious. I would be curious to see if there are more examples of Mehlman giving away government favors to Abramoff clients in exchange for GOP campaign contributions.

Rep. Bob Ney pleads guilty of bribery in Abramoff scandal

It is time for another exciting episode of The Jack Abramoff Show! This is off The Washington Post:

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Bob Ney pleaded guilty Friday in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling investigation, the first lawmaker to confess to crimes in an election-year scandal that has stained the Republican-controlled Congress and the Bush administration.

Standing before Judge Ellen S. Huvelle, Ney pleaded guilty to conspiracy and making false statements. He acknowledged taking money, gifts and favors in return for official actions on behalf of Abramoff and his clients.

Ney did not immediately resign from Congress, and within minutes, Republican and Democratic leaders vowed to expel him unless he steps down.

[....]

The 52-year-old lawmaker faces a maximum of 10 years in prison. Huvelle said prosecutors had agreed to recommend a term of 27 months, and said federal guidelines suggest a fine of between $5,000 and $60,000.

Ney did not resign his seat. Several officials have said the congressman is financially strapped and needs his $165,200 annual paycheck and benefits as long as he can continue to receive them.

You've got to love that last paragraph--Bob Ney is so financially strapped so we have to allow him to collect his congressional paycheck until he goes into prison. If Ney was working for a private company, he would have been gone--Period.

Of course, this is another big problem for the Republicans here. Ney is the first lawmaker to be convicted in the Abramoff scandal. And since Ney will probably cooperate with the feds for a reduced sentence, you can bet that other Republican Party lawmakers will start feeling some heat. And it also doesn't look good for the Republicans that Ney is refusing to step down from Congress--even as he's pleaded guilty. With Ney refusing to resign his seat, this revives the Abramoff scandal and shows how the Republicans are so intent on maintaining their control of Congress just four weeks before the election. It also doesn't help the Republicans that Ney's involvement in the Abramoff scandal is competing for space with the Foley sex scandal--again less than four weeks before the election. Talk about insanity here.

Pass the popcorn please?

Wicked political campaign commercial....

This is just wicked. I've also found this ad on Americablog, The Daily Kos, and Shakespeare's Sister.



Now Kos says that this ad will be aired on CNN in the about a dozen congressional districts, and that the tests of this ad in suburban/exurban Philadelphia Pennsylvania and Columbus Ohio gave a strong positive result among infrequent Democratic and swing voters. I'd say that you can throw ad out nationwide and get an especially strong result among all the Democratic and swing voters, and perhaps even among the centrist Republican voters as well. This is a devastating ad.

Coundown Exclusive: Book says Bush just using Christians

I found this through Shakespeare's Sister, so I went to the source at Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Countdown will air an exclusive story from a new book "Tempting Faith," which shows how the Bush administration was using the Evangelical Christians and the Faith-Based initiatives for pure political gain. It is devastating. Here's the story off MSNBC:

More than five years after President Bush created the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, the former second-in-command of that office is going public with an insider’s tell-all account that portrays an office used almost exclusively to win political points with both evangelical Christians and traditionally Democratic minorities.

Entitled “Tempting Faith,” the book is not scheduled for release until Oct. 16, but MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” has obtained a copy.

“Tempting Faith’s” author is David Kuo, who served as special assistant to the president from 2001 to 2003. A self-described conservative Christian, Kuo’s previous experience includes work for prominent conservatives including former Education Secretary and federal drug czar Bill Bennett and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

He says some of the nation’s most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as “the nuts.”

“National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as ‘ridiculous,’ ‘out of control,’ and just plain ‘goofy,’” Kuo writes.

More seriously, Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly “nonpartisan” events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races.

According to Kuo, “Ken loved the idea and gave us our marching orders.”

Among those marching orders, Kuo says, was Mehlman’s mandate to conceal the true nature of the events.

Kuo quotes Mehlman as saying, “… (I)t can’t come from the campaigns. That would make it look too political. It needs to come from the congressional offices. We’ll take care of that by having our guys call the office [of faith-based initiatives] to request the visit.”

Nineteen out of the 20 targeted races were won by Republicans, Kuo reports. The outreach was so extensive and so powerful in motivating not just conservative evangelicals, but also traditionally Democratic minorities, that Kuo attributes Bush’s 2004 Ohio victory “at least partially … to the conferences we had launched two years before.”

With the exception of one reporter from the Washington Post, Kuo says the media were oblivious to the political nature and impact of his office’s events, in part because so much of the debate centered on issues of separation of church and state.

Crooks and Liars has a video of Olbermann's story here.

This is just another devastating scandal coming out--four weeks before an election. What is even worst is that this book shows how the Bush administration played the Religious Right as fools who could be bought off for their votes--President Bush and the Republican Party even got away with it.

But now President Bush and the Republican Party need the Religious Right's vote if they are to maintain control of Congress. The Mark Foley sex scandal and the disastrous Republican Party cover-up may just have alienated the Evangelical vote that Karl Rove so painstakingly built up between 2000--2004. The Evangelicals may just stay home this November out of disgust for the hypocrisy coming out of the Bush White House and Republican congressional leadership these days. The details of this book show not just the hypocrisy the Republican Party had for the Religious Right, but also their contempt--it is certainly not good when Karl Rove calls the Evangelical Christian leaders "the nuts." But then again, we've seen this type of contempt and hypocrisy the Republican Party has for its Religious Right constituents before under the Reagan administration. Ronald Reagan was a master at courting the emerging Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christian political power in the 1980s. Reagan knew the right words and images to push the issue buttons of abortion and school prayer on the Fundamentalists and Evangelicals of those days. And yet, while Reagan would recite those words towards adoring religious fans, you knew that what Reagan was saying was all talk--he would never shift too far to the right in governing to anger the centrist Democrats. But now we have George W. Bush, an Evangelical Christian--one of their own in the White House! And yet instead of embracing the Religious Right's political views by using the federal government to adopt those views, the Bush political machine has snubbed them.

It is going to be interesting to see how this book plays out over the next four weeks.

Bush Faults Clinton Policy, But the Debate is Complex

Here we go again--Let's blame Bill Clinton! This is from The Washington Post:

President Bush asserted yesterday that the administration's strategy on North Korea is superior to the one pursued by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, because Clinton reached a bilateral agreement that failed, while the current administration is trying to end North Korea's nuclear programs through multi-nation talks.

"In order to solve this diplomatically, the United States and our partners must have a strong diplomatic hand," Bush said at a news conference. "And you have a better diplomatic hand with others, sending the message, than you do when you're alone."

I guess Bill Clinton is to be blamed for North Korea's testing of its nuclear weapon. And the Bush administration had nothing to do with this. But now look at what else the WaPost reports:

Bush's current policy, in fact, envisions direct, bilateral negotiations with North Korea on certain issues in the six-nation talks, such as missile proliferation and normalizing relations. That commitment to direct talks is enshrined in the agreement of principles guiding future negotiations that was reached in Beijing in September 2005. Indeed, Rice was prepared to authorize her chief negotiator to travel to Pyongyang in November 2005, provided that North Korea shut down its nuclear reactor as a sign of good faith. It refused that condition, and the trip was scrubbed.

By the same token, it is not fully accurate to describe the negotiations that led to a 1994 agreement between the United States and North Korea as purely the result of one-on-one negotiations. During talks that produced the Agreed Framework, in which North Korea said it would freeze its nuclear program, U.S. negotiators briefed Japanese and South Korean officials every day. South Korea and Japan agreed to bankroll much of the cost of the light-water reactors that were to be provided to North Korea under the deal.

Robert L. Gallucci, the chief negotiator of the accord and now dean of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, said it is a "ludicrous thing" to say that the Clinton agreement failed. For eight years, the Agreed Framework kept North Korea's five-megawatt plutonium reactor frozen and under international inspection, while North Korea did not build planned 50- and 200-megawatt reactors. If those reactors had been built and running, he said, North Korea would now have enough plutonium for more than 100 nuclear weapons.

By Gallucci's account, North Korea may have produced a small amount of plutonium for one or two weapons before Clinton came into office -- during the administration of Bush's father -- but "no more material was created on his watch." When Clinton left office, officials saw signs that North Korea may have been attempting to create a clandestine uranium enrichment program, but nothing was definitive.

Such a program would violate the Agreed Framework. When the Bush administration decided it had conclusive proof of that enrichment in July 2002, it confronted North Korea and terminated fuel oil deliveries promised under the Agreed Framework. In response, North Korea evicted the inspectors, restarted the reactor and retrieved weapons-grade plutonium from 8,000 fuel rods that had been kept in a cooling pond. Intelligence analysts now think that, before Monday's apparent nuclear test, North Korea had enough plutonium for as many as a dozen weapons.

So Clinton's Agreed Framework had kept North Korea's plutonium program pretty much frozen for eight years. And while there were reports of North Korea cheating on the framework by enriching uranium, there was no conclusive proof. The program worked. Now the Bush administration comes into office and what do they do? They confront the North Koreans, terminating fuel oil deliveries as promised under the Agreed Framework. The North Koreans kick out the inspectors and restart their nuclear weapons production program. And for four years they have been happily producing plutonium for their new weapons stockpile.

The Bush administration calls former President Clinton's Agreed Framework agreement a failure? President Bush calls his own confrontational policy on North Korea a success?

But now check this little bit of information from the Post:

Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell pressed China to host three-way discussions because it was clear that Bush was opposed to direct talks, according to the new book "Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell," by Washington Post Associate Editor Karen DeYoung. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld adamantly opposed any dialogue, arguing in a series of memos that the goal should be the collapse of North Korea's government, the book says.

Now this is interesting. Rumsfeld opposed any dialogue because he believes that the Bush administration's goal should be the collapse of North Korea's government. I wonder if this type of thinking is prevalent throughout the Bush administration.

Of course, the tie-in between Rumsfeld’s desire to force a collapse of the North Korean government and the Bush administration’s confrontational-style policies against North Korea fits nicely together. If you want to force the North Korean government to fall, the last thing you would want is to provide North Korea with economic aid in exchange for the North Koreans promise not to continue their plutonium production program. You force a confrontation, break the Agreed Framework, and impose your worthless economic embargo against the North Koreans—who, of course, go back to building their bomb.

When will the neocons learn? We've tried to isolate and economically blockade both North Korea and Cuba for decades, hoping to cause both of these nations' governments to collapse. I don't see either government falling for a long while.

This is a complete mess.

Top economists call for U.S. minimum wage increase

Now this is an interesting story. From Yahoo News:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hundreds of leading economists urged Congress on Wednesday to boost the U.S. minimum wage, which has been stuck at $5.15 an hour for a decade.

The group recommended a $1 to $2.50 hourly increase and argued that future boosts should be indexed to inflation to protect workers purchasing power from rising prices.

Dismissing the argument that better pay would burden employers and stifle job creation, these experts said a higher minimum wage was necessary to ensure a decent standard of living for low-income Americans.

"We believe a modest increase in the minimum wage would improve the well-being of low-wage workers and would not have the adverse effects that critics have claimed," the group including renowned academics for top U.S. universities said in a statement disseminated by the Economic Policy Institute.

Debate has been heated in Washington over the issue.

Back in August, an attempt to raise the minimum wage ran into trouble after Republicans attempted to link the increase to a permanent cut in estate taxes paid by the very rich. Democrats then decided to block the measure.

Some states have made some headway in ensuring better pay for low-income workers, by circumventing national legislation and passing increases of their own. California lifted the minimum wage to $8 an hour this summer, the highest level in the nation.

I can just imagine how the Bush administration, or the Republican Party will respond to these hundreds of top economists.

Army: Troops to Stay in Iraq Until 2010

This is off The Washington Post:

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army has plans to keep the current level of soldiers in Iraq through 2010, the top Army officer said Wednesday, a later date than Bush administration or Pentagon officials have mentioned thus far.

The Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, cautioned against reading too much into the planning, saying troops levels could be adjusted to actual conditions in Iraq. He said it is easier to hold back forces scheduled to go there than to prepare and deploy units at the last minute.

"This is not a prediction that things are going poorly or better," Schoomaker told reporters. "It's just that I have to have enough ammo in the magazine that I can continue to shoot as long as they want us to shoot."

You've got to love Schoomaker's comment here--he's got enough ammo in the magazine to shoot Iraqi insurgents until 2010. So General, what happens after 2010 when the magazine is empty? Fixed bayonets?

Of course, Schoomaker's timing here is couldn't be any better here. According to the WaPost article:

Schoomaker's comments come less than four weeks before congressional elections, in which the unpopular war in Iraq and the Bush administration's policies there are a major campaign issue.

In recent months the Army has shown signs of strain, as Pentagon officials have had to extend the Iraq deployments of two brigades in order to bolster security in Baghdad and allow units heading into the country to have at least one year at home before redeploying.

Schoomaker said he has received no new guidance from commanders in Iraq as to when the U.S. will be able to begin reducing the number of troops there. Last year officials had hoped to be down to about 100,000 by the end of this year, but escalating violence and sectarian tensions have prompted military leaders to increase forces.

He also said the Army will have to rely on the National Guard and Reserves to maintain the current level of deployments. When asked about concerns that reserve units are struggling to get the training and equipment they need before going back to Iraq, Schoomaker said that no troops would be sent into war without needed resources.

You just have to love how the Army is being politicized here by the Bush administration--keep the troops in Iraq until well after the 2008 election, but then announce this new long-term Army deployment just four weeks before the congressional midterm elections. And yet, while Schoomaker claims that the Army has to stay in Iraq until 2010, that very Army is slowly being ground up by declining enlistment numbers, the constantly extended tours of Army soldiers, and the increasing use of National Guard troops being deployed in Iraq. By 2010, there probably wont be an Army left in the U.S.

Politics as usual here.