Bush the helpless meets Maliki the unwilling

I liked this op-ed in the Palm Beach Post so much I'm puttin' up the whole thing:

[Today in Jordan, President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will try to pass off a charade as a vital summit meeting.

Mr. Bush will pretend that he has some control over events in Iraq and that the United States and Mr. Maliki can work together to pacify the country. Mr. Maliki will pretend that he has some control over events in Iraq and that he cares about pacifying the country in the way that Mr. Bush wants.

From the Bush administration and Congress - and some Shiite and Sunni politicians - come grumbling that Mr. Maliki isn't the strong, unifying leader Iraq needs. Problem is, the Bush administration and Congress said just seven months ago that Mr. Maliki was the strong, unifying leader Iraq needs. That was after he replaced the unsatisfactory Ibrahim al-Jafari, who was designated prime minister but never could form a government.

Under Mr. Maliki, Iraq has a government - one that is inefficient, corrupt and increasingly linked to the militias that control much of the country. Mr. Maliki can't or won't crack down on the militias because the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr not only leads one of the militias but is part of the government and provides the support that put Mr. Maliki in office. If Mr. Maliki stopped the Shiite militias, he no longer would be prime minister.

Since Mr. Bush can't say that in public, he falls back on his standard lines, as he did Tuesday: "We will continue to be flexible, and we'll make the changes necessary to succeed. But there's one thing I'm not going to do. I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete." He pouts because news organizations are calling the conflict in Iraq what it is - a Shiite-Sunni civil war.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post broke news Tuesday of an assessment by the Marines that the Americans and Iraqis can't defeat the insurgency in Anbar, the sprawling, western province that is home to 1.5 million people. As the Sunnis of Anbar see it, Iran-linked Shiites are taking over, and only Sunni-led Al-Qaeda in Iraq offers any hope of security. Also on Tuesday, The New York Times reported an American intelligence official's belief that Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based, Iran-financed Shiite terrorist group, is helping to train Sadr's fighters.

The important meeting about Iraq may have taken place last weekend, when Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to Saudi Arabia. Since the Bush administration's failure in Iraq is evident, the White House must ask neighboring countries for help - if only because a collapsed state would threaten the region.

Oh, and President Bush wants more help from NATO in subduing Afghanistan. That was the job he abandoned for the misadventure in Iraq. Mr. Bush needs help in Iraq, but it won't come from Mr. Maliki.]

I think that sums it up about as neatly as I've seen.

"Moderate" theocrats? Can you spell "oxymoron"?

The wingnuts have their knickers in a twist over Andrew Sullivan's use of the word "Christianists" to describe theocrats exactly as the word "Islamist" is used. Damn good post at Pandagon:

Via Avedon Carol, I found that Glenn Greenwald is fucking up Ann Althouse's and Glenn Reynolds' entire worldviews. It's pretty amusing, the sort of thing that makes a blogger bust out the popcorn, pull up a chair and watch the show.

In the true blogosphere fashion, the entire dust-up begins because Andrew Sullivan is touchingly naive. He has taken to using the word "Christianist" (which Avedon points out was probably coined by David Neiwert) to describe Christian theocrats. The word is obviously derived from the word "Islamist", a right wing favorite that is purportedly used to distinguish between mainstream Muslims and fanatical theocrats. Sullivan's mistake is in taking the excuse of the word seriously and assuming that the same suffix could be used to distinguish between Christian theocrats and mainstream Christians

I find the whole dust-up interesting because it is just the gold standard in demonstrating what sleazy liars Althouse and Reynolds are. Oh, they want to give off the incorrect impression that they are independent thinkers, she a "moderate" and he a "libertarian", but they have been in Rote Wingnuttery mode for so long that they automatically defend violent Christian theocrats who wish to dismantle the Constitution and impose their interpretation of the Bible on the rest of us with government force. And why? Because these "non-partisans" know that the Republicans can't win without the religious fanatics.

Bust out the popcorn, pull up a chair and watch the show. More links than you can shake a stick at. Enjoy.

I think "Christianist" is a damn fine word for fundies who wish to impose their idiotic views on the rest of us by whatever means they see fit.

More Gore

Vidal, that is. Robert Scheer interviews Mr. Vidal at Truthdig. Video as well.

Scheer:

[laughs] Now you've been - you've seen a lot of scoundrels in your time. You've been in, you know, you've been through some periods when we've been ruled by liars. You've exposed a number of those lies...

Vidal:

There's a difference between that and having, uh, and having systemic lying - which is the only way these people know how to govern. The president says, "Look, look in New Orleans in no time at all, everything's gonna be cleaned up and, uh, [imitating Bush] I've given orders, and when I told you, last time I was here in, uh, whatever square this is ... it's got a church here, isn't it? It's a cathedral square! I told - what I told you then, I meant. And that's what your gonna get." He was telling the truth. They got nothing, and they got nothing the second time around. Everybody knows that about him. There are a few crazies who want to cheer the flag and this yappy little terrier as though he were a real president. Well, he's not a real president. He's a thing, a chimera who was put together by the Supreme Court, first time around, and reelected by, uh, Diebold, Sequoia and some other interested parties. Everybody knows he isn't there. Or what is there isn't for us - it's not our president. We do have a real, uh, a shadow president in Vice President Cheney, whose wife is a famous novelist given to tales of unnatural love... . But Lynne, more power to you. She's my kind of novelist.

Much, much more. Enjoy.

Webb "tempted to slug" Bush

Think Progress

At a recent private reception, President Bush asked Sen.-elect Jim Webb (D-VA), "How's your boy?" referring to Webb's son Jimmy, who is serving in Iraq. Webb answered, "I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," to which Bush responded, "That's not what I asked you." Webb "coldly" shot back, "That's between me and my boy, Mr. President." Webb later confessed that he was "tempted to slug" Bush.

Note to Jim Webb: stifling temptation can be bad for your health. Besides, if you had knocked the dogshit out of that little sonofabitch you could have run for President and won as far as I'm concerned.

The Scariest Guy in Town

An article in Time that will warm the cockles of your heart.

In the altered landscape that is Washington, there's a new contender for the title of Scariest Guy in Town. He stands 5 ft. 5, speaks softly and has all the panache of your parents' dentist. But when it comes to putting powerful people on the hot seat, there's no one tougher and more tenacious than veteran California Congressman Henry Waxman. In the Democrats' wilderness years, Waxman fashioned himself as his party's chief inquisitor. Working with one of the most highly regarded staffs on Capitol Hill, he has spent the past eight years churning out some 2,000 headline-grabbing reports, blasting the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress on everything from faulty prewar intelligence and flaws in missile defense to the flu-vaccine shortage and arsenic in drinking water.

Come January, however, the man that the liberal Nation magazine once called the "Eliot Ness of the Democrats" can do even more, thanks to the two words that strike fear in the heart of every government official: subpoena power. As the new chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, Waxman will have free rein to investigate, as he puts it, "everything that the government is involved with." And the funny thing is, Waxman can thank the Republicans for the unique set of levers he will hold. Under a rules change they put through in the days when they used the panel to make Bill Clinton's life miserable, the leader of Government Reform is the only chairman who can issue subpoenas without a committee vote. [...]

[...] While Waxman promises what he calls oversight, the Republicans say it'll be more like a witch hunt, and the Administration is promising to fight him all the way to the Supreme Court to protect itself against what it expects to be a frontal assault on Executive power. Waxman says the G.O.P. should take comfort in the fact that he has historical perspective. "I've seen a good example of overreaching," he says, referring to the committee's treatment of Clinton. "It's not the way to behave."

It's easy to overreach when you're investigating a blow job or a Christmas card list. It's somewhat harder to overreach when you're investigating wholesale theft, abuse of power, subversion of the Constitution, and war crimes.

Go get 'em, Hank!

Two more years

Dr. Attaturk (podiatrist to the stars) has a short essay up that probably calls it correctly:

Right now, I think the next two years are clear.

Iraq is Bush's legacy -- a monumental strategic disaster that relegates him to historical infamy -- along with his enablers and they are legion. From the neocons like Wolfowitz & Feith, Laurie Myolrie, John Bolton and William Kristol; to American imperialists like Dick Cheney, John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Donald Rumsfeld; to those who fall into the cult of Bush like Rove, Rice & Hadley. And finally, the media punditry which falls between the camps from the establishment like Broder, to liberal imperialists like Peter Beinart and finally the entire right-wing blogosphere who set a new standard for cheerleading the cheerleader.

...

Regardless of the Dem takeover, regardless of the investigations promised, Bush will not change course in Iraq unless Congress actively takes steps to stop it. That being tightening the purse strings. That probably won't happen because all of them are scared of 'not supporting the troops'. They won't give the Rethugs that talking point. Unfortunately, it looks as if we'll have another two years of deaths and casualties, Iraqi and American, until we elect a new President who has the foreign policy credentials to work a way out of this mess.

Taj Mahal

Good article in the EssEffChron about bluesman Taj Mahal.

Hank Jr., Taj says, told him he and the band like to listen to Taj on their private jet's sound system, flying between shows. "I always liked country music, too," Taj says. "It ain't nothin' but the blues coming up another way."

Now that's an open mind! Or some really good cheeb...

Now 64, Taj is old enough to have studied at the feet of the masters -- not only the country blues guys like Mississippi John Hurt, Sleepy John Estes or Lightnin' Hopkins, but the Chicago blues crowd -- Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy, or, the king of them all, Howlin' Wolf.

"I was also real crazy about Brian Jones," he says of the late Rolling Stones guitarist. "Those guys jumped over the Elvis syndrome.

"In the United States, because of the politics of race and class, this whole thing about white boys dancing and playing the blues, everybody got stuck at Elvis. The Brits didn't get stuck at Elvis. They jumped over Elvis and said 'Your name is Elmore James and you play slide guitar -- cracking.' And that's where they went. But this is where his source was.

"And they were an island culture and they were already stretched out. Hey, you have a different kind of headspace. Everything's coming in from everywhere. Those guys did good."

Enjoy.

Cheney gets a summons

Think Progress

Last weekend, Vice President Cheney traveled to Saudi Arabia in a visit that "was originally portrayed as U.S. outreach to its oil-rich Arab ally." Cheney made the trip purportedly to discuss a "range of regional issues," Cheney's spokeswoman said. The Associated Press reported that Cheney was "seen as a US diplomatic push to stem surging violence in Iraq."

But today's Washington Post reports that the push for the meeting came from the Saudis, not the other way around:

Saudi Arabia is so concerned about the damage that the conflict in Iraq is doing across the region that it basically summoned Vice President Cheney for talks over the weekend, according to U.S. officials and foreign diplomats.

What does it say about the nature of U.S.-Saudi relations when the Vice President can be "summoned" by the Saudi Crown Prince?

It says that Saudi subjects - not citizens - may be getting restless and the ruling family is worried about an internal uprising, as it should be, and that Bush's policies may be fucking with the oil bidness.

So they called their boy in for a "moment of prayer", aka an ass-chewing.

Bringing Bush To Court, because we're all Kitty Genovese's neighbors

Elizabeth de la Vega at TomDispatch:

TomIntro:

"I'd like to draft an indictment of President Bush and his senior aides, and present the case for prewar intelligence fraud to a grand jury, just as if it were an actual case of mine, using the evidence we already have in the public record. That's the book I'd like to do."

With those three decades of publishing experience, I never doubted that this was an idea whose time should come -- and now it has. De la Vega has drawn up that indictment -- a "hypothetical" one, she hastens to add -- convened that grand jury, and held seven days of testimony. Yes, it's a grand jury directly out of her fertile brain and the federal agents who testify are fictional, but all the facts are true. She understands the case against the Bush administration down to the last detail; and she's produced, to my mind, the book of the post-election, investigative season: United States v. George W. Bush et al.

It's a Tomdispatch.com book project, produced in conjunction with Seven Stories Press, a superb independent publisher, and officially published on December 1st. I think it's simply sensational. It makes a "slam dunk" case for the way we were defrauded into war; despite the grim subject matter, it's a beautifully designed little book, a pleasure to hold in your hand; and, because de la Vega is a natural as a writer, it's also thoroughly enjoyable reading. With genuine pride, I'll be turning the Tomdispatch.com website over to excerpts from the book this week, beginning with the posting of De la Vega's introduction on the Enronization of American foreign policy today. The actual "indictment" will be posted on Wednesday; the first day of grand jury testimony on Thursday.

I assure you, this is must-read event; no less important, this is a must-buy book that must be given over the holiday season to friends, relatives, those who politically disagree with you, and even perhaps sent to Congressional representatives. Please get the investigative ball rolling by purchasing the book at Amazon.com or, if you want to give all involved a few extra cents, directly at the Seven Stories website.

Today, United States v. George W. Bush et al remains in the realm of fiction, but tomorrow, if you lend a hand… who knows? Tom

Ms. de la Vega:

After analyzing this evidence in light of the applicable law, I've determined that we already have more than enough information to allow a reasonable person to conclude that the President conducted a wide-ranging effort to deceive the American people and Congress into supporting a war against Iraq. In other words, in legal terms, there is probable cause to believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Powell violated Title 18, United States Code, Section 371, which prohibits conspiracies to defraud the United States. Probable cause is the standard of proof required for a grand jury to return an indictment. Consequently, we have more than sufficient evidence to warrant indictment of the President and his advisers.

Do I expect someone to promptly indict the President and his aides? No. I am aware of the political impediments and constitutional issues relating to the indictment of a sitting president. Do those impediments make this merely an empty exercise? Absolutely not.

My third goal is to send the message home -- to whomever will listen. And this is it:

The President has committed fraud.

It is a crime in the legal, not merely the colloquial, sense.

It is far worse than Enron.

It is not a victimless crime.

We cannot shrug our shoulders and walk away.

Why? Because We Are All Kitty Genovese's Neighbors.

As Malcolm Gladwell recounts in his book The Tipping Point, Kitty Genovese was viciously assaulted, stabbed three times, and finally killed, on the way to her Queens, New York, home one night in 1964. Thirty-eight neighbors heard or watched her ordeal, but no one called the police until the attack was essentially over. The murder was universally seen as a horrifying example of modern-day indifference to the plight of others. But, Gladwell explains, psychologists Bibb Latane and John Darley conducted experiments that led to a far different explanation: "When people are in a group . . . responsibility for acting is diffused. They assume that someone else will make the call, or they assume that because no one else is acting, the apparent problem . . . is not really a problem." Ironically, then, it was not that no one called to help Kitty Genovese "despite the fact that thirty-eight people heard her scream; it's that no one called because thirty-eight people heard her scream."

For over a year now, polls have shown that the majority of Americans believe President Bush deliberately misrepresented prewar intelligence. Executive branch officials who deliberately mislead Congress and the public intending to influence congressional action have committed a federal crime. That means that roughly 100 million Americans believe Bush has committed a crime, yet most, like Kitty Genovese's neighbors, are just passive bystanders--although not, I believe, due to indifference.

Indeed, many of us are just watching it happen because we feel powerless to stop it. Hundreds of thousands of people have, in effect, called 911, but not even Democrats in Congress have been willing to answer the phone. It is not that they don't have enough information; it is, our Democratic representatives say, because it is not good political strategy.

The proposition that it is not good political strategy to insist that government officials obey the law is highly debatable. More important, strategizing in the face of an ongoing crime is wrong. Ask any legislator whether he would strategize about possible political fallout before intervening to stop a crime that was occurring in front of his eyes and the response would be, "Of course not." But that is exactly what's happening right now.

Go read Part One. Take a lunch. Then stay tuned for the rest. This gal knows her shit.

Psychotics 4 Bush!

Shakey's Sis at AlterNet:

To be filed under duh:

[Christopher Lohse], a social work master's student at Southern Connecticut State University, says he has proven what many progressives have probably suspected for years: a direct link between mental illness and support for President Bush.

None of this is actually new information. That liberal voters tend to be much better informed as a group and tend to reject authoritarianism is well documented, from both the chicken came first angle and the egg came first angle. But it's nonetheless amusing to have further evidence that the people constantly calling progressives unhinged lunatics are, you know, way more likely to be nutzoid than the targets of their gleeful finger-pointing.

Via Tom Tomorrow, who dryly notes: "Anyone who's spent any time reading right wing blogs already understood this to be true." Indeed.

I'm very relieved by this. It wasn't just me.

Resumed?

I don't believe the Chimp ever stopped drinking. I can't think of one sober thing he's done since he took office.

Where I work

A continuing series ...

She's Baaaack..........

Lessons I learned:

As much as I loathe alot of technology,a DVD player in the vehicle with a pre teen? Priceless.

Sunscreen is a must for long motorcycle trips. My face is fried. And peeling. Windburn and Sunburn,together as one. There goes my shot at prom queen,again.

Key West is a hoot,but I don't think I'd take a kid there. And even though it's a really gay friendly place,the homophobes just can't help themselves and have to be assholes. Though it was rather funny to see a drag queen kick a frat boy's ass. Heh.

Next time,bring cash and NO credit cards. That's all I'm sayin'.

Bikers are the coolest people in the world.

The ties on a hooded sweatshirt will beat the crap out of you while riding a motorcycle. Bumblebees hitting you in the face doing 70mph are not funny either.

Next long distance bike trip,there will be a pillow for my ass to sit on. Ouch.

Hauling a bike on a trailer reduces a pickup truck's gas mileage by about 30 percent. Ouch. Again.

The Florida turnpike is now named after Ronald Reagan. Which happened in 1998,but I never noticed til last week. Oh,and if you happen to die in a wreck down there,they'll put a little official marker in the spot you died a horrible death with your name on it. Billboards also warn you FL residents have the right to shoot your ass if they have a mind to,with a picture of a huge gun for emphasis. I'm not sure how that blends with billboards telling you to bring the family down to Disney,but there ya go.

Cracker Barrel has THE NASTIEST food I've ever eaten. ((((shudder))))

It got down to 60 degrees at night in the Keys. All the restaurants had signs inviting people in to get out of the cold and little outside fireplaces lit. Pussies.

There's no place like home.

Tommorrow I have to balance our bank accounts and pick up the cats from the vet,put gas in my car,take the kid to school,and figure out how to live on about 30 dollars between now and payday. Then,once I'm done weeping,lol,I'll be back. Hope you all had plenty of fun,frolic and turkey. I didn't watch the news,read a paper or anything like that while we were gone,so I have some catching up to do. Geeze,I leave for a week and Iraq is now offically in a civil war(haven't we been saying this for like a year at least?),I can't turn my back on these people for a minute,can I?

Quote of the Day

Commander Huber:

...

So stand by for more palaver about how we should stick with Stay the Course or whatever Son of Stay the Course turns out to be. But mark my words: if we keep our troops in the middle of whatever synonym for "disaster" you care to describe the situation in Iraq with, they'll either help one side commit genocide on the other or get ground into grit in the middle of it.

...

Trigger happy ...

Amadou Diallo revisited. NYPD killed one unarmed man and wounded two others. While I won't comment on the case yet, there are too many unanswered questions, I just want to know who trains the NYPD in firearms discipline. They fired 50 shots at these guys and only one of them is dead? That scares me more than the fact they might have made a mistake.

As the Reverend Al Sharpton said. "It took them 50 shots to realize nobody was shooting back?"

Yeah, I feel safe. Good thing this happened in the wee hours or we'd be hearing about a lot of collateral damage.

Eeeeedeeots

Personally, I wouldn't buy a house in a neighborhood with a 'homoeowners' association'. Generally, it gives regular people too much power and, as we see with the last crop of elected officials, most turn into tyrannical organizations. I lived in a place like that in Connecticut, when I was doing my Reserve time, and it was a sobering experience, especiallly when I parked a truck in the driveway one late Friday night. Oy! But this takes the cake:

DENVER - A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan.

...

I pay how much for property taxes and services and you're gonna tell me what I can do in my own yard? You're gonna try and fine me? Suck my big, hairy, white ass.

Pic of the offending wreath and article here.

Home again...

I don't know whether it was just Haloscan or an iffy connection that prevented this from getting through, but all I have to say today is:

Happy Anniversary, Fixers!

Blogwhoring

Chapter 7 of my novel The Captains is up at The Practical Press. Also, while you're there, Dave K has a fable that'll make you think.

Epiphanies

Now it's a civil war. Via Skippy, the NYT calls it right ... for once:

...

Though the Bush administration continues to insist that it is not, a growing number of American and Iraqi scholars, leaders and policy analysts say the fighting in Iraq meets the standard definition of civil war.

...

The Times, through Judy Miller and others, were some of the biggest cheerleaders for this war. I hope they got what they wanted.

Show me da money 2

The thing that revolutionaries, or other types of insurgents, need more than anything is money. Most uprisings fizzle because things are done on a shoestring and government, or opposing, forces have far more bread with which to buy new, and more state of the art, equipment and expertise. Seems the Iraqi insurgency has become self-sustaining.

BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 - The insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, connivance by corrupt Islamic charities and other crimes that the Iraqi government and its American patrons have been largely unable to prevent, a classified United States government report has concluded.

The report, obtained by The New York Times, estimates that groups responsible for many insurgent and terrorist attacks are raising $70 million to $200 million a year from illegal activities. It says $25 million to $100 million of that comes from oil smuggling and other criminal activity involving the state-owned oil industry, aided by "corrupt and complicit" Iraqi officials. [my em]

...

With that kind of bread, I could stage a takeover of the U.S. government ... and win.

Tip o' the Brain to Atrios.