Silencing the Dissenters

Via The Tattered Coat:

Months ago, in response to a post I wrote about the military blogger Colby Buzzell, Kate of Broken Windows told me to pay attention to Daniel Goetz, a soldier writing a blog called All the King's Horses.
Regrettably, I never followed her advice. And now, as Lizzy, Fred, and Navyswan tell us, it is too late.

It is too late because Daniel has been silenced, against his will. And not only has he been silenced - he has been forced to publicly declare himself "a supporter of the administration and of her policies."

Freedom of speech, my ass. Go read his blog before they make him pull the whole damn thing down.

The Fed

Via the Alternate Brain Mail Bag from Jesse Lee, the Stakeholder looks at Mr. Andrea Mitchell's replacement.

Heh . . .

You gotta go see Ed.

Poor Baby

From the NY Daily News:

Bushies feeling
the boss' wrath

..."He's like the lion in winter," observed a political friend of Bush. "He's frustrated. He remains quite confident in the decisions he has made. But this is a guy who wanted to do big things in a second term. Given his nature, there's no way he'd be happy about the way things have gone."

Bush usually reserves his celebrated temper for senior aides because he knows they can take it. Lately, however, some junior staffers have also faced the boss' wrath.

"This is not some manager at McDonald's chewing out the help," said a source with close ties to the White House when told about these outbursts. "This is the President of the United States, and it's not a pleasant sight."

The specter of losing Rove, his only truly irreplaceable assistant, lies at the heart of Bush's distress. But a string of political reversals, including growing opposition to the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina's aftermath and Harriet Miers' bungled Supreme Court nomination, have also exacted a personal toll.

Presidential advisers and friends say Bush is a mass of contradictions: cheerful and serene, peevish and melancholy, occasionally lapsing into what he once derided as the "blame game." They describe him as beset but unbowed, convinced that history will vindicate the major decisions of his presidency even if they damage him and his party in the 2006 and 2008 elections.

At the same time, these sources say Bush, who has a long history of keeping staffers in their place, has lashed out at aides as his political woes have mounted.

"The President is just unhappy in general and casting blame all about," said one Bush insider. "Andy [Card, the chief of staff] gets his share. Karl gets his share. Even Cheney gets his share. And the press gets a big share."

The vice president remains Bush's most trusted political confidant. Even so, the Daily News has learned Bush has told associates Cheney was overly involved in intelligence issues in the runup to the Iraq war that have been seized on by Bush critics.

Bush is so dismayed that "the only person escaping blame is the President himself," said a sympathetic official, who delicately termed such self-exoneration "illogical."

Full article is at the link above. Tsk, tsk, ain't life a bitch?

Bombing Reporters, an Insider's View

From Christopher Allbritton's Back to Iraq:

Three car bombs in Baghdad

BAGHDAD - There are reports of a mortar attack and two large car bombs at the Sheraton Hotel, home of Fox News and, next door in the Palestine, the Associated Press. There has been a third car bomb attack on the al-Sadeer Hotel up the road from me.

[UPDATE 10/24/05 6:03:43 PM: Now it appears it's three car bombs at the Palestine/Sheraton compound instead of mortar... No attack on al-Sadeer as near as I can tell. CNN's footage is chilling; two smaller explosions in front of AP cameras on the Palestine Hotel, and then a third huge explosion. As you watch, you can see a tanker truck cement mixer enter the compound before exploding in a massive cloud of fire, dust and smoke.

This means they knew where the cameras are. They know how to get into the compound. And there's a good chance the first two explosions were designed to get journalists' attention, draw them to the windows and then explode the third one.

[No good word on casulaties yet. Nothing reliable.]

Things are confusing right now and we're unsure what has happened, but that's the latest. The blasts rattled my windows and I'm three or so kilometers away.

Note: emphasis mine.

Pulling Out?

Dem Vet asks the burning question:

If the 1600 Crew pulls out the Miers nomination, is that SCOTUS Interruptus?

Heh.

Must be a lot of red ink...

Cleek reports the following:

Yahoo (via BoingBoing) reports that the tattoo business in New Orleans is booming, as people rush to get some kind of Katrina reminder injected into their skin. This reminds me... When Mrs Cleek and I went to the tattoo place last weekend (in Raleigh, NC), the guy who was doing her tattoo said that he'd had two different people from New Orleans come in to get tattoos in the past week, and each had paid with their FEMA money cards.

Amazing.

What's this blog worth?

Via Maurinsky:

My blog is worth $86,939.16.
How much is your blog worth?

Hey, Gord; how about we sell this sucker and build us a Bonneville car? Heh.

Texan God-botherer

Following up on Fixer's post,The Guardian weighs in on Karen Hughes:

To anyone from this side of the Atlantic, with the possible exception of Tony Blair, the notion that we are represented diplomatically and publicly in the Middle East by an Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy who's a Texan God-botherer and has presumably been responsible for Bush's many displays of crassness and illiteracy, is not good news. She managed to raise eyebrows and blood pressure readings with a remark comparing Osama Bin Laden's terrorists to the US pro-abortion lobby in their 'lack of respect for human life'.

Them Limeys seem somehow to have gotten a good grasp on the English language. Go read.

When Divas Collide

Alexander Cockburn writes on the catfight going on at the NYTimes. He must have read my post.

Would you pay $49.95 to watch women wrestling in mud? I did this morning, and it was well worth the expense. I get the New York Times Online and until a couple of weeks ago all the features were free. Then, as some of you have no doubt discovered, the NYT's columnists started to have only their opening sentences on free display. To get the full columns of Krugman, Rich, Dowd and the others you have to pony up $49.95 a year's subscription to Times Select.

I held off until today when the Times nailed the sale with Dowd's column titled, "Woman of Mass Destruction" and her ominous opening sentence, "I've always liked Judy Miller".

Miller has been the sport of a million stories and there was nothing much by way of startling revelations in what Dowd wrote, but in operatic terms it was as though Maria Callas had suddenly rushed onto the stage and slugged Elizabeth Schwartzkopf.

Moral: Don't ever take Maureen Dowd's chair at a White House briefing.

Lightweight stuff, but entertaining as all get out to this old fart!

Update:

More on this scintillating subject from TPM Cafe:

Maureen Dowd's remarkable column ("Woman of Mass Destruction") takes us into the far reaches of the sausage factory, offering up the rare sight of one Times staff member all but calling another a liar in public. Dowd's tale of being bounced from her rightful seat in the White House briefing room by a big-footing Miller is sure to elicit leering shouts of "cat fight!" from the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. (Note to Geraldo: Judy didn't nudge Maureen; she made a firmly worded request.) But her main point is deadly serious. At the end of the day, all a newspaper has to sell is its credibility. Any reporter who can't or won't play straight with her colleagues, her editors, her publisher or the public shouldn't be allowed to work at The New York Times.

Then they go and get all serious on us. Make some good points, though.

Bunker Mentality? Archie or Edith?

William Rivers Pitt

I wrote to Ambassador Joseph Wilson last week to ask how he and his wife were bearing up, and to remind them that they had a lot of friends. "The outpouring of support has been of great comfort to us these past two years," he wrote back. "The stakes are enormous. This is all about whether our government can take us to war on lies without any fear of being held to account, and whether our democracy can survive the coalition of fascist forces that have seized control of the levers of power."

Psssst ... Joe Wilson is right. They are fascists, and this is what fascists do. They make people afraid. They turn a populace against an outsider while at the same time denying that populace information or even hope of a peaceful resolution. They mobilize for attack through intimidation and scare-tactics. Ask Herman Goering, who explained during the Nuremburg trials, "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

Welcome to the bunker mentality, courtesy of George W. Bush and the folks who brought you the catastrophic invasion of Iraq, the escape and continued freedom of Osama bin Laden, the annihilation of faith in the business community by way of Enron, the annihilation of any sense of personal security by way of Katrina, the annihilation of our standing on the international stage, the big lie about weapons of mass destruction, and an awful lot of dead American soldiers. They used September 11 against you to get these things, or to get away with these things, depending on the need at hand. The result is a proud, great nation on its knees.

This whole situation with Fitzgerald and Plame and Wilson and Libby and Rove and the rest is but a symptom of the larger disease we endure. This White House bunkered itself in way back in 2001, relying only upon ideologically-vetted yes-men who all agreed upon a singular course of action. If Ms. Hutchison's performance is any indication, and it is, the walls of the bunker are closing in all around them.

Their failure to deal with straightforward facts, their reliance upon the idea that political ideology and political goals can render straightforward facts malleable and subject to change, their deliberate decision to run the government and manage the people by way of a Cold War mentality that uses fear as the prime motivator, their desire to control information through aspirations of absolute authority, has delivered the rest of us into the bunker with them.

It did not used to be this way. It does not have to be this way.

We're workin' on it, Bill.

Novak was the first

Ha! The big, pussy-ass coward rolled over right off. Gave up his pals without a thought. So much for having principles of any kind.

[. . .]

A critical early success for Fitzgerald was winning the cooperation of Robert D. Novak, the Chicago Sun-Times columnist who named Plame in a July 2003 story and attributed key information to "two senior administration officials." Legal sources said Novak avoided a fight and quietly helped the special counsel's inquiry, although neither the columnist nor his attorney have said so publicly. [my em]

[. . .]

No wonder he wouldn't say anything. The Repubs would have shut off his access. Creep.

Great thanks: Gillard

Apropos of nothing

But I've made reference to the little town in Germany where my family lives (everybody but me). Well, they've finally joined the 21st Century. They got themselves a website (My family got their first telephone about 20 years ago. Things change slowly here.)

Welcome to Hauenstein, one of my favorite places in the world:

Hey, I can see my house from here

Slave labor and cronyism

The Small Business Administration is denying over 90% of the loan applications to Louisiana businesses destroyed or disrupted by Katrina. Same for home loans to Katrina victims.

After Hurricane Charlie struck Florida last year, the SBA approved 42% of all loan applications . . . .

It's very, very disheartening to think that of the HUNDREDS of business owners who went on a wild goose chase for SBA application hints and info, only about 10% of us will be deemed "worthy" of assistance (unlike our favored neighbors in Florida and, presumably, Tejas).

Go see the King.

Miers

... When you've made both Dianne Feinstein and Sam Brownback edgy, you are seriously tanking...

Oh, Timmeh

Digby:

Surprise, suprise. Nobody asked (and he didn't offer) an explanation about his own role in the Plame affair this morning despite discussing it in great depth during the program. Apparently, there is nothing even remotely relevant about the fact that his only public statement sounds like he's covering his ass from here to next Tuesday:

[. . .]

I wish Frank Rich woulda squeezed his nuts a bit this morning.

Update:

Joe at AMERICAblog has more thoughts on the subject:

...Um, Tim, great drama there. But of all the people on the show, only you really know the answer to that question. YOU know the answer...and you've known it for two years. Let AMERICAblog refresh your memory:...

Update:

I heard the Repub whore Kay Bailey Hutchinson say this on Timmeh today and I forgot about it:

"I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars."

Sniff, sniff. What's that I smell? Could it be the stench of hypocrisy?

Thanks: Taegan Goddard

Bullshit on parade

Propaganda Kommissar Karen Hughes (whom the Alternate Brain designates as the most unfuckable woman in the world) is still trying to spread the Chimp administration's bullshit throughout the Islamic world. Ain't working:

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Karen Hughes, who has faced a rocky road since being named Washington's public relations chief, answered tough questions Friday about the invasion of Iraq and wrongly stated that Saddam Hussein gassed to death "hundreds of thousands" of his people.

Although the U.S. undersecretary for public diplomacy twice repeated the claim after being challenged by journalists, Gordon Johndroe, a State Department official traveling with Hughes, later called The Associated Press to say she misspoke.

[. . .]

When is the chimpette gonna realize, the rest of the world ain't like the U.S.; people don't believe shit just because you say it's so.

[. . .]

One student said the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States should be taken as a warning to America for interfering in the affairs of other countries. Another compared Bush to Hitler.

"Your policies are creating hostilities among Muslims," student Lailatul Qadar told Hughes. "It's Bush in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and maybe it's going to be in Indonesia, I don't know. Who's the terrorist? Bush or us Muslims?"

[. . .]

Yep, sure winning those hearts and minds, aren't ya.

Hat tip: Maru

Karl and Scooter's Excellent Adventure

Frank Rich cuts through the shit on the "why" of Bush's War that may come out due to the Traitorgate invesigation.

There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no collaboration between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda on 9/11. There was scant Pentagon planning for securing the peace should bad stuff happen after America invaded. Why, exactly, did we go to war in Iraq?

Maybe. But the leak investigation now reaching its climax in Washington continues to offer big clues. We don't yet know whether Lewis (Scooter) Libby or Karl Rove has committed a crime, but the more we learn about their desperate efforts to take down a bit player like Joseph Wilson, the more we learn about the real secret they wanted to protect: the "why" of the war.

For Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush to get what they wanted most, slam-dunk midterm election victories, and for Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney to get what they wanted most, a war in Iraq for reasons predating 9/11, their real whys for going to war had to be replaced by fictional, more salable ones. We wouldn't be invading Iraq to further Rovian domestic politics or neocon ideology; we'd be doing so instead because there was a direct connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda and because Saddam was on the verge of attacking America with nuclear weapons. The facts and intelligence had to be fixed to create these whys; any contradictory evidence had to be dismissed or suppressed.

Daddy Frank rolls this one into a tight, plausible ball. Go read.

Woman of Mass Destruction

Maureen Dowd on Judy Miller

Once when I was covering the first Bush White House, I was in The Times' seat in the crowded White House press room, listening to an administration official's background briefing. Judy had moved on from her tempestuous tenure as a Washington editor to be a reporter based in New York, but she showed up at this national security affairs briefing.

At first she leaned against the wall near where I was sitting, but I noticed that she seemed agitated about something. Midway through the briefing, she came over and whispered to me, "I think I should be sitting in the Times seat."

It was such an outrageous move, I could only laugh. I got up and stood in the back of the room, while Judy claimed what she felt was her rightful power perch.

She never knew when to quit. That was her talent and her flaw. Sorely in need of a tight editorial leash, she was kept on no leash at all, and that has hurt this paper and its trust with readers. She more than earned her sobriquet "Miss Run Amok."

Judy's stories about WMD fit too perfectly with the White House's case for war. She was close to Ahmad Chalabi, the con man who was conning the neocons to knock out Saddam so he could get his hands on Iraq, and I worried that she was playing a leading role in the dangerous echo chamber that former Senator Bob Graham dubbed "incestuous amplification." Using Iraqi defectors and exiles, Mr. Chalabi planted bogus stories with Judy and other credulous journalists.

Even last April, when I wrote a column critical of Mr. Chalabi, she fired off e-mail to me defending him.

Judy told The Times that she plans to write a book and intends to return to the newsroom, hoping to cover "the same thing I've always covered - threats to our country." If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be the newspaper in your hands.

Go read my Wild Irish Rose.

Intelligence 'reform'

Yup, something else the Chimp touches goes to shit. Good read from David Ignatius via Laura Rozen.

[. . .]

The intelligence-reform impulse led President Bush, after some foot-dragging, to back the recommendations of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission by creating a director of national intelligence to oversee the nation's 15 spy agencies and appointing veteran diplomat John Negroponte to fill the post. But before the new structure was in place, the president tapped Republican Rep. Porter Goss as director of the CIA. Goss was accompanied by a team of right-wing congressional staffers, quickly dubbed the "Gosslings" at Langley, who set out to cuff the CIA's headstrong Directorate of Operations into line.

[. . .]

The aim was to revitalize U.S. intelligence. But rather than consolidate and streamline the overlapping agencies, the new system has added even more boxes to the organization chart. The result has been a further layering of the intelligence community's bureaucracy and further demoralization among career intelligence officers. "Adding more layers causes indecision and confusion in the ranks, and leads to a wait-and-see, risk-averse attitude," warns Richard Stoltz, a former head of the CIA's clandestine service.

[. . .]

The really dangerous problems, though, lie in the heart of the CIA -- the Directorate of Operations (DO), which recruits the spies and runs the covert actions. The Gosslings have made a real mess of things, driving out a half-dozen top officers, most recently the DO's No. 2 official, 35-year veteran Robert Richer. Why these inexperienced congressional staffers thought they had better judgment than career professionals, many of them former military officers, is beyond me. [my ems]

[. . .]

I wonder if we'll have any working infrastructure left by the time we get Chimpy out. If any of you remember, this is the same course the Agency took in the waning years of Vietnam, finally ending with their failure in predicting the fervor and consequences of the Fundamentalist Islamic revolution in Iran. We've made enemies of most of the Islamic world, the time we need the folks at Langley to be at peak effectiveness. The Chimp's policies have made them less effective and distracted. Way to go, idiots.

Update:

A somewhat related post at Steve's.

And BTW, Blogger sucks wet monkey ass this morning.