Bush running on empty in the polls
Just in case the White House isn't getting the message about Americans' waning support for the war in Iraq, along come the results of a new Gallup poll to put the public's disapproval in clear terms again: Six in 10 Americans said the U.S. should withdraw some or all of its troops from Iraq. Fifty-six percent said they'd be "upset" if more troops are sent to Iraq.
Perhaps sensing a potential backlash against the party, some Republicans in Congress are changing their tune: Following Sunday's announcement that U.S. military casualties had passed the 1,700 mark, Sen. Lindsay Graham said that: "This war is going sour in terms of word of mouth from parents and grandparents ... if we don't adjust, public opinion is going to keep slipping away."
Even Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., who in 2003 was so much in favor of the administration's plans that he coined the term "freedom fries" to retaliate against France for opposing the invasion, reversed his position this weekend, saying, "I voted for the resolution to commit the troops, [but] I feel that we've done about as much as we can do." Jones also acknowledged that "primarily the neoconservatives" duped the country into supporting the war: "The reason of going in for weapons of mass destruction, the ability of the Iraqis to make a nuclear weapon, that's all been proven that it was never there."
It also appears that a majority of Americans could be starting to realize that there is a direct connection between their distaste for war in the Middle East and the nation's appetite for oil. Though it did not address the issue of the war, a recent Yale University poll found that an overwhelming 92 percent of respondents said they were worried about America's dependence on foreign oil. In order to reduce that dependency, 93 percent said they want the government to develop new energy technologies, and require the auto industry to make more fuel-efficient cars.
-- Page Rockwell
[15:29 EDT, June 13, 2005]
Doing double duty in Iraq
Reporting today on recent activity in Mahmudiya, Iraq, John Burns and Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times remind us of what we've already known for some time about Iraqi forces: They're a long way off from taking over security operations for their own country. "Despite the Bush administration's insistent optimism," write the Times reporters, "Americans working with the Iraqis in the field believe that it could be several years, at least, before the new Iraqi forces will be ready to stand alone against the insurgents."
One particularly discouraging bit from the account: "A few days before the Mahmudiya raids, Iraqi soldiers at a local checkpoint apparently fell asleep in the hours before dawn, and the checkpoint was ambushed by insurgents. They tossed a grenade into the building, then stormed in and executed those left alive, killing at least eight Iraqis, American soldiers said. Since the attack, American troops have been conducting nighttime patrols to make sure the Iraqis stay awake."
It's pretty obvious what this means for the prospect of U.S. forces getting out of harm's way and shipping home any time soon. "The American command has already created military transition teams of soldiers to work with Iraqi troops, and there are plans for up to 10,000 Americans to be attached to Iraqi units at every level from divisions down to battalions and companies, with up to 10 men at the battalion level, and 2 with each company," the report says. "'I just wish they'd start to pull their own weight without us having to come out and baby-sit them all the time,' said Sgt. Joshua Lower, a scout in the Third Brigade of the First Armored Division who has worked with the Iraqis. 'Some Iraqi special forces really know what they are doing, but there are some units that scatter like cockroaches with the lights on when there's an attack.'"
-- Mark Follman
[12:19 EDT, June 13, 2005]
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New York Times' Downing Street shuffle
Scrambling to play catch-up on the unfolding Downing Street memo story, today's New York Times latches onto a single phrase from a newly leaked eight-page briefing document in order to produce the Bush-friendly headline, "Prewar British Memo Says War Decision Wasn't Made." The truth is, the briefing document in question, dated July 21, as well as the previously leaked memo, dated July 23, both stress repeatedly how the Bush administration, despite its public rhetoric, appeared committed to war with Iraq. But thanks to today's Bush-friendly spin, New York Times readers are getting a very different story.
Here's how the paper, scooped by yesterday's Washington Post and Sunday Times of London, plays the release of the July 21 briefing document: "A memorandum written by Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet office in late July 2002 explicitly states that the Bush administration had made 'no political decisions' to invade Iraq, but that American military planning for the possibility was advanced." The Times adds, "The publication of the memorandum is significant because a previously leaked document, now known as the Downing Street Memo, appeared to suggest that a decision to go to war may have been made that summer."
What the Times is saying is that despite the controversy surrounding the original Downing Street memo and its implication that the U.S. had decided on war -- contrary to numerous Bush statements -- eight months prior to the invasion, the newly leaked briefing document throws all of that into question because British officials noted Washington had made "no political decisions" to invade. In other words, according to the Times, Tony Blair might be right in his public insistence, given with Bush at his side, that the two governments misled nobody during the run-up to war.
Set aside for the moment the fact that the Times' report completely ignores the portion of the briefing document that raises questions about the legality of going to war. The memo states, "Regime change per se is not a proper basis for military action under international law." According to the Sunday Times of London, "The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair's inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was 'necessary to create the conditions' which would make it legal."
Apparently the New York Times did not consider that to be newsworthy. Instead it focused on the notion that "no political decisions" had been made to invade Iraq. The problem here is that the briefing containing the phrase "no political decision" was written July 21, 2002, and the memo containing minutes from a senior meeting of British officials was written July 23, in which it was reported that Washington appeared bent on war. That is, the July 21 briefing paper was distributed to participants in preparation for the meeting two days later with Bush's closest intelligence advisors, where the updated details of war planning were then discussed -- and from which one conclusion reached by the Brits was: "Military action was now seen as inevitable."
-- Eric Boehlert
[11:43 EDT, June 13, 2005]
GOP lawmakers join call to close Gitmo
It appears that the debate over Gitmo is starting to shift in favor of shutting it down, with several Republican lawmakers now suggesting that the U.S. military prison in Cuba used in the war against terrorism is hurting more than it is helping the cause. On Friday, Florida Sen. Mel Martinez was the first prominent Republican to urge the facility's closing, saying, "it's become an icon for bad stories, and at some point you wonder the cost-benefit ratio. ... Is it serving the purposes you thought it would serve when initially you began it?"
Martinez was joined on Sunday by California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who acknowledged on "Fox News Sunday" that the administration was divided on the issue, with some officials taking the view that if the facility is shut down, "you shorten the [news] stories, you shorten the heated debate, and you get it off the table and you move on."
And on CNN's "Late Edition," Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a member of the Senate's Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees, said that Guantanamo is one reason the United States is "losing the image war" around the world. "It's identifiable with, for right or wrong, a part of America that people in the world believe is a power, an empire that pushes people around, we do it our way, we don't live up to our commitments to multilateral institutions," he said.
Even the vice president appears to be softening his stance, relatively speaking, on the issue. In an interview to be broadcast Monday on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes," Cheney said there was "no plan" to close the base, but echoed President Bush's comments late last week that options were reviewed "on a continuous basis."
Still, Cheney made sure to add: "The important thing to understand is that the people that are in Guantanamo are bad people."
Despite the rising bipartisan chorus in favor of closing the prison, the Pentagon, too, continued to play up its value. In a statement released Sunday, the Pentagon said the interrogations at the facility have "undoubtedly produced information that has saved the lives of U.S. and coalition forces in the field as well as thwarted threats posed to innocent citizens in this country and abroad."
At face value, that's a statement that's hard to argue with -- but as one former U.S. Army officer with expertise in anti-terrorism and intelligence matters argued recently, there's also plenty of reason not to believe the hype.
-- Mark Follman
[10:21 EDT, June 13, 2005]
The science of spin
The Bush White House gives meaning to hot air in more ways than one: Philip Cooney, chief of staff of the White House council on environmental quality, has resigned after evidence surfaced that he doctored official policy papers in an effort to downplay global warming -- though according to his employer in Washington, the onetime oil industry lobbyist had already been planning on an extended vacation anyway.
The White House said Cooney's departure was "completely unrelated" to last week's disclosure, according to the Guardian. "Mr. Cooney has long been considering his options following four years of service to the administration," said White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino. "He'd accumulated many weeks of leave, and decided to resign and take the summer off."
The administration didn't appear overly concerned that Cooney, a lawyer with no science background who previously worked for the American Petroleum Institute, had been cooking the books in favor of the oil industry. In one section of the documents assessing scientific evidence of a link between gas emissions and climate change, he inserted "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties." With another sentence stating "The attribution of the causes of biological and ecological changes to climate change or variability is difficult," Cooney included the word "extremely" before "difficult."
All the same, the White House insisted that the changes did not violate an administration pledge to rely on sound science, and defended Cooney's revisions as part of the normal review process.
You can discover more about the world of sound science under Bush & Co., here.
-- Mark Follman
[09:25 EDT, June 13, 2005]
The briefing before Downing Street
It took six weeks, but the other shoe has dropped regarding the Downing Street Memo. The thud came courtesy of the Sunday Times of London in its report Sunday on yet another damning, top-secret British government document prepared eight months before the war with Iraq. Like the previous unearthed memo published by the Times on May 1, the latest document paints not only a picture of a Bush administration that, despite its talk in 2002 of averting war, was bent on invading Iraq, but one that, according to close counterparts in the British government, was determined to wage war without thinking through the consequences.
The briefing paper was prepared for participants in advance of the now-famous July 23, 2002 meeting, held at Prime Minister Tony Blair's residence, 10 Downing Street in London. According to the Times report, the briefing paper confirms that Blair had actually signed off on Bush's plan to invade Iraq back in April, 2002, at a summit in Crawford Texas. The two men then spent the next 11 months working to formulate a justification for the invasion -- because, as the briefing paper stressed, it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make the invasion legal.
During the run-up to the invasion there was deep concern among Blair's senior advisors that an unprecedented, preemptive war of regime change would violate international law. According to the United Nations charter, there are only two reasons to legally wage war: self-defense (Article 51), and to restore international peace (Article 42). On the eve of the war with Iraq in 2003, Blair's Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith, working around the clock with a team of attorneys, stitched together a legal justification for the war. Based on the leaked memos, that justification now appears to have been formulated for the benefit of Blair's political needs.
The July 2002 briefing paper wasn't just about "creating the conditions" and circumventing the law, it was about how Bush's war planners had given "little thought" to the implications of an invasion. That's the angle the Washington Post played up on Sunday, based on excerpts of the leaked briefing paper it received and separately verified with British sources. "The eight-page memo, written in advance of a July 23, 2002, Downing Street meeting on Iraq, provides new insights into how senior British officials saw a Bush administration decision to go to war as inevitable, and realized more clearly than their American counterparts the potential for the post-invasion instability that continues to plague Iraq," wrote the Post's Walter Pincus. "In its introduction, the memo 'Iraq: Conditions for Military Action', notes that U.S. 'military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace,' but adds that 'little thought' has been given to, among other things, 'the aftermath and how to shape it.'"
The Post notes that some thought about post-war contingencies took place inside the Bush government, within the State Department -- but that the planning there was willfully ignored: "The Bush administration's failure to plan adequately for the postwar period has been well documented. The Pentagon, for example, ignored extensive State Department studies of how to achieve stability after an invasion, administer a postwar government and rebuild the country." This took place even though it was the view of Washington's closest ally, as the briefing paper stated, that "a post-war occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise."
"As already made clear," the briefing paper stressed, "the US military plans are virtually silent on this point."
-- Eric Boehlert
[08:28 EDT, June 13, 2005]
The Army's not-so-heroic damage control
The U.S. Army says it wasn't a coverup but rather "an administrative error" that led it to mislead the public about the death of onetime NFL star Pat Tillman, who was accidentally killed by his own comrades while fighting in Afghanistan in April 2004. A report released this week by Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones, who led an investigation into the matter, revealed that the Army knew almost immediately that Tillman had been killed by fellow soldiers rather than enemy fire.
Shortly after Tillman's death, the Army said he was killed while leading troops in battle, scaling a hill to ensure the safety of other U.S. soldiers following him. Days after his death, the Army awarded him the Silver Star, praising his courage under enemy fire. But a few weeks later, the Army changed directions, saying he probably died as a result of so-called friendly fire.
"The evidence from my investigation tells me that no one attempted to cover up or conceal anything in the course of this investigation," Jones said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times this week. On Thursday, Army officials issued a statement saying they stood by those findings. Jones also expressed sympathy for Tillman's family, who buried Tillman before they learned the truth about what had happened.
According to the Times, in briefings given this spring to Tillman's family and to Sen. John McCain, Jones told them that information pointing to friendly fire initially had been withheld by lower-level commanders in a well-meaning attempt to spare the family's feelings before all the facts were known. For his part, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, the head of Army public affairs, said that withholding the information amounted to "an administrative error."
The Army is fighting a number of P.R. battles these days, including over its recruiting shortfalls and practices -- and making the death of a former sports hero into a scandal doesn't seem like the best tactical strategy. Mary Tillman, the slain soldier's mother, isn't buying the Army's latest account, which she says differs from some of the information in the six volumes of its written investigation.
"What the military says in the briefing and what is in the report are two different things," she told the Times. "We're working on getting that document released under [the Freedom of Information Act] so the media can see it."
Jones did acknowledge that "Army regulations appear to be in conflict" over how to handle this kind of issue. "In my view," he added, "nothing has done more to create suspicion by the family as to the Army's intentions than failing to release that this was a potential fratricide as soon as that became known."
-- Mark Follman
[15:26 EDT, June 10, 2005]
Still battling over Bolton
Wondering what happened to that big-tempered guy with the bushy mustache? Senate Democrats and the Bush administration remain deadlocked this week on John Bolton's U.N. nomination, with Dems saying they'll prevent a final vote on Bolton's confirmation until the White House forks over classified documents related to Bolton's alleged monitoring of other U.S. officials. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said on Wednesday that intelligence czar John Negroponte -- who's apparently acting as go-between in negotiations -- had recently let him know that the administration was "done with" the Democrats' latest compromise overture. "They've said no to everything we've asked for," Dodd said.
But Democrats aren't flinching. "I haven't done a nose count here, but based on the reaction in the room I think there's a strong feeling to continue the position," Dodd said. "This is now beyond Mr. Bolton. It's a question of whether or not the Senate has the right to certain information pertaining to a nominee." And though Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is reportedly shopping for the votes he needs to end the Bolton block, he hasn't been confident enough to call a confirmation vote yet.
But even if Bolton doesn't get the chance to shave the U.N. down to size, House Republicans have come up with another way to rein in the U.N. The House International Relations Committee approved legislation on Wednesday that would withhold U.S. dues to the U.N. until the international body agrees to a bureaucratic overhaul and stringent internal monitoring from an independent oversight body. Since the U.S. is the U.N.'s largest source of funding -- providing 22 percent of its $1.1 billion operating budget, plus a projected $1 billion for peacekeeping in 2006 -- the House proposal is a serious sanction.
Compromise-minded House Democrats, noting that stripping the U.N. of funds could end up saddling the U.S. with even greater global peacekeeping duties, have proposed leaving the U.N. performance review and the option of dues withholding to the discretion of Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice. But the legislation's sponsor, Salon favorite Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Illinois, argues that stopping the U.N.'s allowance is the only effective route to reform: "You can't have reform if you don't withhold dues. You can wish. You can pray. You can do all sorts of things. But if you don't withhold the dues, it's an empty gesture.''
Not surprisingly, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay agrees. In fact, according to the Associated Press, DeLay suggested that Hyde's legislation could give Bolton -- should he squeeze his way through Senate confirmation -- even more power at the U.N.: "DeLay ... said it would be 'incredible' if a 'tough and strong man' like U.N. ambassador-designate John Bolton were to go to the United Nations armed with a mandate to promote the reforms outlined in Hyde's proposal."
-- Page Rockwell
[13:46 EDT, June 10, 2005]
The GOP war on PBS and NPR
It appears the GOP is moving in for the kill on public broadcasting. In a stunning vote yesterday in the House, Republicans opted to drastically cut back on what had already been dwindling funds dedicated to public radio and television.
According to the Washington Post's page 1 story today, "A House subcommittee voted yesterday to sharply reduce the federal government's financial support for public broadcasting, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help underwrite such popular children's educational programs as 'Sesame Street,' 'Reading Rainbow,' 'Arthur' and 'Postcards From Buster.'"
Even more dramatic was this move:
"In addition, the subcommittee acted to eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- which passes federal funds to public broadcasters -- starting with a 25 percent reduction in CPB's budget for next year, from $400 million to $300 million."
The CPB is an umbrella group created by Congress not only to promote public broadcasting in Washington, but also to function as a fundraiser to help produce programming. The CPB is especially important to smaller market radio and television outlets which cannot raise as much money from local donors.
If both the GOP cuts were enacted, it would mean the effective end to American public broadcasting as we have known it for the last 35 years. "The appropriation subcommittee zeroing out of public broadcasting funding is part of a GOP one-two punch to kill PBS and mortally wound NPR," Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy and a public broadcasting advocate, tells War Room.
Republicans insist the vote yesterday simply represented a belt-tightening move. But their fixation with public broadcasting comes against the backdrop of CPB boss Kenneth Tomlinson's ongoing personal crusade against what he says is liberal bias at PBS and NPR. Despite two rounds of polling paid for by the CPB which prove that allegation to be false, Tomlinson, instead of acting as public broadcasting's good will ambassador inside the Beltway, has been trash talking it for months. On Thursday, picking up on Tomlinson's attacks, Republican let public broadcasting have it. A spokeswoman for NPR, Andi Sporkin, laid the blame directly at the feet of Tomlinson, telling the Post, "We've never been sure of Mr. Tomlinson's intent but, with this news, we might be seeing his effect."
-- Eric Boehlert
[11:35 EDT, June 10, 2005]
"Kicking butt" at CNN?
In an interview timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of CNN, CNN chief Jon Klein has high praise for . . . CNN.
"We're rollicking, aggressive pursuers of facts," Klein tells MarketWatch.com. "No one else does that. Plenty of people talk about that. We're the only ones who go out and report the news. Our editorial chops are alive and well. We're kicking butt every day. The American people want serious news -- and they're not getting enough of it from cable."
Not to be rude, but does Klein actually watch CNN? Just off the top of our heads, we're thinking about the release of a certain memo from Downing Street that handed reporters, on a silver platter, an intriguing story about how Bush administration officials had decided to invade Iraq long before the bombs started dropping and were more concerned about justifying a war than preventing one.
For a solid month, CNN effectively boycotted the story. And even this week, when British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived at the White House and was asked about the telling memo, CNN continued with its allergic reaction to the story. Since the memo was leaked on May 1, CNN has broadcast approximately 984 hours of news, during which time the Downing memo was mentioned 13 times.
By contrast, when word got out that a young American woman vacationing in Aruba had gone missing, it was all hands on deck at CNN, which in just the last seven days has reported on the story more than 110 times.
So much for "kicking butt every day."
-- Eric Boehlert
[11:08 EDT, June 10, 2005]
Hillary Clinton and the L-word
The Gallup Poll shows that a majority of Americans still think her as "liberal," but that's not the L-word underlying the latest attack on Hillary Clinton. In his upcoming book, "The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President," Edward Klein will apparently stretch every inch of innuendo possible out of Clinton's friendships with -- gasp! -- lesbians.
Klein says that Clinton says she was heavily influenced by a "culture of lesbianism" when she was a student at Wellesley -- and that, at her 25th reunion, she even touched the buzz-cut hairdo of a woman who was "widely rumored" to be a lesbian! The New York Post today checks in with that woman, a classmate of Clinton's who is, in fact, gay. "Yes, I am a lesbian, but I wasn't at Wellesley or for 20 years afterward," Nancy Wanderer tells the Post's Page Six. "There was no lesbian culture there at the time. I couldn't have told you one person who was lesbian. If there was, it was underground." And yes, Wanderer says, Hillary might have touched her hair at a Wellesley reunion; just about everyone at her table did -- it was really short, and people thought it was interesting. (A hot tip for Klein: We can't be sure of this, but we think it's pretty likely that, sometime or other in the course of her 57 years on this planet, Sen. Clinton might have touched the belly of a pregnant woman. You should check it out.)
Now, someone told us once that Dick Cheney's daughter is gay, but we're pretty sure that doesn't make him a lesbian. By the right's standards, though, maybe it does. As Media Matters notes, Rush Limbaugh is all but breathless about Klein's book: "I've got some interesting, juicy details on this book on Hillary by Ed Klein, but I'm not going to be the first to mention them," Limbaugh told his listeners the other day. "It will come out eventually. It has to do with sexual orientation, and I'm not going to be the one."
-- Tim Grieve
[10:30 EDT, June 10, 2005]
George W. Bush, meet Charlie Company
George W. Bush says he's pleased with the progress in Iraq, and he singles out the training of Iraqi security forces as a particularly positive development. That's all well and good, but the next time the president makes one of those surprise turkey deliveries to the troops, perhaps he ought to talk with the U.S. soldiers who are trying to train the Iraq army's Charlie Company. That's what the Washington Post's Anthony Shadid and Steve Fainaru have done, and their report shines a harsh light on the chasm between Bush's optimism from Iraq's reality.
"Charlie Company disintegrated once after its commander was killed by a car bomb in December," Shadid and Fainaru write. "And members of the unit were threatening to quit en masse this week over complaints that ranged from dismal living conditions to insurgent threats. Across a vast cultural divide, language is just one impediment. Young Iraqi soldiers, ill-equipped and drawn from a disenchanted Sunni Arab minority, say they are not even sure what they are fighting for. They complain bitterly that their American mentors don't respect them.
"In fact, the Americans don't: Frustrated U.S. soldiers question the Iraqis' courage, discipline and dedication and wonder whether they will ever be able to fight on their own, much less reach the U.S. military's goal of operating independently by the fall."
Shadid and Fainaru chronicle three days spent with Charlie Company and the U.S. troops assigned to train the unit. They write of Iraqi soldiers who hide behind "black balaclavas and green scarves to mask their identities" from other Iraqis who might retaliate against them, soldiers whose antiquated weapons break down and leave them outgunned by the insurgency. One Iraqi soldier carries an aging AK-47, his strap a green shoestring.
But perhaps the most incredible thing about the Post report: The military chose the unit the reporters would spend a few days following. If Charlie Company is the kind of outfit the Pentagon wants to showcase, just how little progress has been made with other elements of the Iraqi army?
"I know the party line," says 1st Lt. Kenrick Cato, the executive officer of U.S. Army company training Charlie Company. "You know, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, five-star generals, four-star generals, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld: The Iraqis will be ready in whatever time period. But from the ground, I can say with certainty they won't be ready before I leave. And I know I'll be back in Iraq, probably in three or four years. And I don't think they'll be ready then."
-- Tim Grieve
[09:39 EDT, June 10, 2005]
Bush's days of malaise
Is it time for George W. Bush to make like Jimmy Carter and give a "crisis of confidence" speech? The latest AP/Ipsos poll suggests that things just might be that bad.
Bush's approval rating? Forty-three percent, the lowest it has been since the poll began in 2003. Forty-one percent approve of Bush's handling of Iraq, and only 37 percent approve of his handling of Social Security. Just 35 percent of the Americans polled think that their country is headed in the right direction, another new low.
"There's a bad mood in the country. People are out of sorts," Charles Jones, a senior fellow at Brookings, tells the AP. "Iraq news is daily bad news. The election in Iraq helped some, and the formation of the government helped some, but dead bodies trump the more positive news."
-- Tim Grieve
[08:46 EDT, June 10, 2005]
The big Gitmo debate
Former President Jimmy Carter said it's time to shut down the U.S. military prison in Cuba: "The U.S. continues to suffer terrible embarrassment and a blow to our reputation ... because of reports concerning abuses of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo."
Sen. Joe Biden said Guantanamo is "the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world," and agreed it should be closed.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said fat chance: "I know of no one in the U.S. government, in the executive branch, that is considering closing Guantanamo."
President Bush called allegations of abuse there "absurd," but also said shuttering Gitmo could in fact be on the table, that his administration is "exploring all alternatives" for detaining prisoners.
Carter added that Amnesty International should not have called the prison "the gulag of our time" in a report last month.
William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International's U.S. office, clarified that the comparison of Guantanamo to the Soviet prison system was "not an exact or literal" one: "People are not being starved in those facilities. They're not being subjected to forced labor. But there are some similarities. The United States is maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many of them secret prisons into which people are being literally disappeared."
Rumsfeld conceded that the U.S. would rather wash its hands of detainees anyway: "Our desire is not to have these people. ... Our goal is to have them in the hands of the countries of origin, for the most part."
Former CIA officer Reuel Marc Gerecht said the goal should actually be to keep them in our own hands, even if we have to torture them ourselves.
And what does the American public think? Harder to say.
-- Mark Follman
[18:34 EDT, June 9, 2005]
Conservatives' widening war on gay rights
Dr. James Dobson, the man who has it in for the overly tolerant SpongeBob SquarePants, will no doubt be heartened by this piece in today's New York Times. America's fight over gay rights, pegged last fall to proposed bans on same-sex marriage in 11 states (all of which passed), is now taking place on a wider battlefield. According to the Times, conservatives are winning on other fronts now, too.
"Emboldened by the political right's growing influence on public policy, opponents of school activities aimed at educating students about homosexuality or promoting acceptance of gay people are mounting challenges to such programs, at individual schools, at statehouses and in Congress. Chief among the targets are sex education programs that include discussions of homosexuality, and after-school clubs that bring gay and straight students together, two initiatives that gained assent in numerous schools over the last decade.
"In many cases, the opponents have been successful. In Montgomery County, Md., for example, parents went to court to block a health education course that offered a discussion of homosexuality, while in Cleveland, Ga., gay and lesbian students were barred from forming a high school club of gay and straight youths.
"Leading figures on both sides of the fight say they have never seen passions about public school activities run so high. They agree that much of the reason is conservative groups' eagerness to meet their adversaries with a forcefulness more common to modern-day election campaigns."
The core issues involved are challenging ones: determining whether classrooms are an appropriate venue to explore issues of homosexuality, whether schools should sanction extracurricular activities in which gay culture is a focus, and whether textbooks acknowledging homosexual relationships are suitable for younger children. But what's striking, and a bit chilling, is the rhetoric -- seemingly more accepted now -- from the side that's gained the upper hand.
"We're concerned about the effort to capture youth through indoctrination into the homosexual lifestyle," said Mathew Staver, the president of Liberty Counsel. "Students are a captive audience, and they are being targeted by groups with that as an agenda."
This April, in response to the National Day of Silence, an event sponsored for nine years by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to protest discrimination in schools, the conservative group Alliance Defense Fund launched its own event for high school students, offering "an opportunity for Christian students to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda at schools across America.” The "respectful debate" included having participating students wear T-shirts and hand out cards bearing the message, "I believe in equal treatment for all, and not special rights for a few. I believe in loving my neighbor, but part of that love means not condoning detrimental personal and social behavior."
The event was billed as the Day of Truth.
-- Mark Follman
[16:42 EDT, June 9, 2005]
Life in the green lane?
Are the 15 members of Congress who drive hybrids trying to reduce dependence on foreign oil and fight global warming, one vehicle at a time? Or are they really trying to guarantee their own spots in the fast lane?
In Virginia, hybrids are currently allowed in high-occupancy vehicle lanes, which happens to be a violation of federal law. Members of Congress are trying to rectify that by passing legislation that would allow more fuel-efficient vehicles to speed by other traffic. The Senate’s version includes hybrid SUVs, like the Ford Escape Hybrid, which gets better gas mileage than a conventional SUV, but isn’t exactly greener-than-thou. (The four-wheel drive Escape gets an average of 31 miles per gallon. But drivers of any Honda Civic, for example, would still be crawling their way along in the jammed up lanes, even though their cars get better gas mileage than the Escape.)
So, are these hybrid-driving lawmakers trying to save the earth, or are they more focused on getting to that next meeting with lobbyists more efficiently?
-- Katharine Mieszkowski
[16:07 EDT, June 9, 2005]
Impeachment impractical? Don't tell Conyers
We've said it before, and the constitutional experts are saying it now: Whatever the strength of the case for impeaching George W. Bush, it ain't gonna happen. But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't happen, and it doesn't mean that Democrats -- or any Americans, for that matter -- shouldn't be making the case.
So let's hear it, once again, for John Conyers. The gentleman from Michigan isn't calling for Bush's impeachment yet, but he's asking the right questions and vowing to go wherever the answers might lead. Last month, Conyers wrote a letter to Bush, asking him to answer the charges raised in the not-so-famous Downing Street memo. So far, more than 160,000 Americans have signed on to the letter. And so far, Bush hasn't responded.
In an interview with BuzzFlash today, Conyers describes the next steps: "Well, the next thing that needs to be done is that we need to talk with some of the people in London in the Prime Minister’s top echelons of government and others around there in London about this whole subject matter," he says. "We need to not be pulling this off the Internet, reading it from newspaper reports. We need to do some face time with the people that are connected with it or know about it, or can add to our understanding of it. And then also inevitably we’re going to have to have hearings. There will need to be hearings in which this matter is talked about before the Judiciary Committee, and . . . we have witnesses of all persuasions to help shed some light on this. This is a critical part of the democratic process in a constitutional democracy."
The mainstream press has all but ignored the Downing Street memo, sometimes dismissing it as old news from a not-so-credible source. Conyers says that's not good enough: "You can’t be silent about something that’s from the British intelligence notes," he says. "You can’t say we refuse to talk about it, or it has no credibility, when everybody that was involved in it, from what we can tell, are all perfectly silent and are acquiescing by their silence in the accuracy of what’s being reported."
Between the blogs and his own investigation, Conyers seems confident that the truth -- about the memo, about the war and the lies that led up to it -- will eventually come out and sink in. "Things are going to turn, and we think that it’s a matter of such seriousness," Conyers tells BuzzFlash. "This is not just picking on the President or playing petty partisan politics. This is a matter of profound truth. We’ve lost thousands of lives, and we stand to lose many more yet in a war that the President refuses to tell the Congress what his plans are for getting out of Iraq. He wouldn’t tell us he was going into Iraq, and now he won’t tell us how he plans to get out of Iraq. Something’s wrong here, and we’re going to get to the bottom of it no matter how much of our time and energy it takes."
-- Tim Grieve
[12:54 EDT, June 9, 2005]
Piling on
If you're keeping tabs on where people are lining up in the flap over Howard Dean's recent comments about Republicans, here are a few more names for your ledger.
According to today's Washington Post, at least three Washington Democrats registered their disapproval yesterday over Dean's pronouncement that the GOP is "pretty much a white, Christian party." House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said that she didn't think the statement was "helpful" but attributed it to the Dean's "exuberance" for the DNC chairmanship. Sen. Joseph Lieberman -- never afraid to take a strong stand, especially when it involves selling out his own party -- said Dean's comments were "way over the top" and called on the chairman to apologize. Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel said that he'd prefer that Dean were talking about other special interests -- the oil companies, the tobacco industry, the pharmaceuticals -- to whom the Republican Party is beholden. Emanuel said that Democrats "don't need gratuitous hits," which is apparently what he thinks they're getting as a result of their chairman's comments.
The Washington Times adds a couple of more. Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, who voted yesterday to confirm Janice Rogers "Liberal Democracy = Slavery" Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals, said that Dean "doesn't speak for me." New Jersey Sen. Jon Corzine said Dean's style "gets away from how the Democrats should frame issues." And Sen. Barack Obama said he is certain that Dean "regrets how his statements were interpreted."
Are we there yet?
Democrats may question the wisdom of some of Dean's remarks -- we've done so ourselves -- but it seems like an appropriate time to ask: Isn't there some sort of pre-approved time limit on self-flagellation? And if there isn't, might the Democrats who feel such a need to attack Dean for his lack of discipline find some discipline of their own?
As Dean himself has said, the Republicans would like nothing more than to make him the issue. His comments have helped make that possible. But so, too, have the words of Biden and Edwards and Lieberman and Pelosi and Emanuel and Nelson and Corzine and Obama and every other Democrat who feels a need to announce that Howard Dean doesn't speak for him. By rounding up the usual circular firing squad, Dean's fellow Democrats have guaranteed the result that they most fear: That the mainstream media will pay attention to "outrageous" comments by Howard Dean rather than to the Republican Party's flailing on Social Security, on stem cells, on the war in Iraq and on just about everything else that matters to voters right now. If it's just the Rush Limbaughs and Bill O'Reillys rattling on, it's the usual way of the world and the press moves on sooner or later. But when Democrats line up again and again and again against their chairman, it's all those things -- dispute! intrigue! family squabbles! -- that the press finds irresistible.
"It's a diversion from the real, central issues," Sen. Ted Kennedy said yesterday. It's also classic Democratic Party politics. "It seems to me that the shots at the chairman from Democratic elites says more about our party, sadly, than it does about Chairman Dean," Jim Jordan, a Democratic consultant who has worked for Dean, told the Post. "Not much of a mystery really why we're the minority party."
-- Tim Grieve
[09:56 EDT, June 9, 2005]
Your new judge: Liberal democracy = slavery
In an odd bit of a closing-the-barn-door timing, the New York Times has a profile today of Janice Rogers Brown, the California Supreme Court justice the U.S. Senate confirmed for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals yesterday. For those who think the "Gang of 14" compromise that averted the nuclear option was a disaster for Democrats and for the judiciary, too, the Times' piece has got to be the new Exhibit A.
"In the heyday of liberal democracy, all roads lead to slavery," the Times quotes Brown as saying. In a speech several years ago, Brown told the Federalist Society: "We no longer find slavery abhorrent. We embrace it." In another speech: "If we can invoke no ultimate limits on the power of government, a democracy is inevitably transformed into a kleptocracy - a license to steal, a warrant for oppression."
While Brown's supporters have downplayed comments like these as just the thought-provoking remarks one might make in a speech, the Times says that Brown's opinions on the California Supreme Court "have reflected the philosophy and language of her speeches." In one opinion on fees charged to hotel owners in San Francisco, for example, Brown wrote that "private property, already an endangered species in California, is now entirely extinct in San Francisco."
Brown was confirmed yesterday by a vote of 56 to 43; independent Jim Jeffords didn't vote, and Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, a Democrat and "Gang of 14" member, crossed over to join Republicans in voting to confirm Brown. The "Gang of 14" deal made the floor vote on Brown possible; before that deal was struck, Republicans lacked the votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster of Brown's nomination.
Next up: William Pryor. The former Alabama attorney general is the last of three judges (Priscilla Owen was the first) explicitly assured floor votes as part of the "Gang of 14" deal. Just after confirming Brown yesterday, the Senate voted 67-32 to cut off debate on Pryor's nomination and move it toward a floor vote, which will likely come today.
So you don't have to read it in the New York Times after the debate is over, here's the word on Pryor from a recent piece in Salon: "He once called Roe v. Wade 'the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history'; in 2002 he argued in the Supreme Court, on behalf of Alabama and four other states, for states' execution of mentally retarded inmates; he termed the Voting Rights Act 'an affront to federalism and an expensive burden that has far outlived its usefulness'; and he affirmed in 2003 that extending the civil rights of same-sex couples would logically extend to activities like necrophilia and bestiality."
-- Tim Grieve
[08:53 EDT, June 9, 2005]
Americans: We're safer going with the Dems
The full results of the latest Washington Post/ABC news poll are in, with more bad news for President Bush. In addition to finding that Bush's approval rating remains at a career low and that a majority of Americans think he's not paying attention to issues that are important to them, the results show that 52 percent of Americans believe the war in Iraq has not made the U.S. safer. The Post points out that this finding marks "the first time a majority of Americans disagreed with the central notion Bush has offered to build support for war: that the fight there will make Americans safer from terrorists at home."
Not surprisingly, support for the war continues to wane: Seventy-three percent of respondents found the number of American military deaths to be "unacceptable." Sixty-five percent said the U.S. "has gotten bogged down" in Iraq, up from 58 percent in late April. Only 33 percent of respondents said the U.S. is making good progress in Iraq. And 65 percent believed President Bush lacks a clear plan for eventually withdrawing most U.S. troops from Iraq, while nearly 60 percent considered the war to be not worth fighting.
As the public grows skeptical about the war effort, Republicans in general are getting less love from the American people. Sixty-one percent of respondents said that Bush and the Republican leaders in Congress are not making good progress on solving the nation's poblems, and of those who said progress isn't being made, 67 percent faulted Bush and the Republicans for the lack of positive action.
Poll results also showed that this month is the first time since 9/11 that more respondents said they trust Democrats than Republicans to do a better job in coping with the main problems the nation will face in the next few years -- with 46 percent putting their faith in Dems, versus 41 percent who favored the GOP.
-- Page Rockwell
[16:22 EDT, June 8, 2005]
Driving hybrids home in Congress
With even neocon hawks pushing hybrids, it seems like everyone's a booster for the greener car technology. But how do House and Senate members' own rides stack up?
Eight Democrats, six Republicans and one independent drive hybrid cars, according to U.S. News and World Report. That includes Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts who has a Ford Escape Hybrid on order. Three members of Congress – Sen. Barbara Boxer, Sen. Lincoln Chaffee and Rep. Darrell Issa – each have two Priuses, one in Washington and one back at home in California, Rhode Island and California, respectively. And Detroit take notice: eight of the 15 drive Toyota's Prius hybrid, while seven like the homegrown Ford Hybrid Escape SUV.
Of course, if these fuel-conscious members of Congress really wanted to do something to reduce dependence on foreign oil and fight global warming they could do a lot beyond making smart choices as consumers. For instance, they could pass legislation that would raise fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks around the country. Apparently, it's a lot easier to buy a green car than get legislation through Congress taking on the car industry.
-- Katharine Mieszkowski
[13:30 EDT, June 8, 2005]
The question is finally asked
All hail, Steve Holland!
Boldly stepping where no other Washington reporter has dared to go, the Reuters correspondent actually asked the president Tuesday about the July 2002 Downing Street memo. At a joint George W. Bush-Tony Blair press briefing, Holland asked: "On Iraq, the so-called Downing Street memo from July 2002 says intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action. Is this an accurate reflection of what happened? Could both of you respond?"
Blair answered first. Despite the memo's statement to the contrary -- and without offering any explanation for the contradiction -- Blair said, "No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all." He then turned to the memo's conclusion that Bush had already decided to use military force to depose Saddam Hussein. Again without explaining how the memo got it wrong -- assuming, for the sake of argument, that it did -- Blair insisted that he and Bush worked until the very end to find a way to avert war. "As it happened, we weren't able to do that because -- as I think was very clear -- there was no way that Saddam Hussein was ever going to change the way that he worked, or the way that he acted."
Bush took to the microphone next. He said nothing whatsoever about the core charge of the memo -- that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed" around Bush's decision to go to war. He did, however, deny that he had decided to use military force against Saddam Hussein as early as the memo said he did. "There's nothing farther from the truth," Bush said.
Along the way, Bush did what the Bush administration always does: He blamed the messenger. Bush complained that the memo had been "dropped" into the British press in the final days of Blair's re-election campaign: "Well, I -- you know, I read kind of the characterizations of the memo, particularly when they dropped it out in the middle of his race," Bush said. "I'm not sure who 'they dropped it out' is, but -- I'm not suggesting that you all dropped it out there."
Members of the White House press corps laughed, and for good reason: The idea that the White House press corps would have covered the Downing Street memo in any serious way apparently strikes everyone concerned as just hilarious. While Holland's question and the answers of Bush and Blair resulted in some press coverage, the mainstream media has been awfully quiet about the Downing Street memo to date. Why? Jim Cox, USA Today's senior assignment editor for foreign news, offers up an explanation in his paper today that would do George W. Bush proud: "We could not obtain the memo or a copy of it from a reliable source," Cox says. "There was no explicit confirmation of its authenticity from (Blair's office). And it was disclosed four days before the British elections, raising concerns about the timing."
-- Tim Grieve
[12:59 EDT, June 8, 2005]
More words from -- and about -- Howard Dean
Howard Dean's supporters should prepare themselves to hear more about the words that the DNC chairman uses in describing the other party. Over the weekend, Joe Biden and John Edwards distanced themselves from Dean after he said that "a lot" of Republicans "have never made an honest living."
Dean clarified his remarks, saying that he meant to refer only to the Republican leadership, and Edwards clarified his, saying that, while Dean expressed his sentiments in a way he wouldn't have, he agrees with Dean's underlying point: "This Republican president and this Republican majority are not doing what they should be doing for working people in this country." But the beat goes on. In California this week, Dean called the Republicans a "a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party."
Dean's larger point, according to the San Francisco Chronicle: "The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. We're more welcoming to different folks, because that's the type of people we are. But that's not enough. We do have to deliver on things: jobs and housing and business opportunities." As for the brouhaha over his earlier comments, Dean said it was much ado about nothing. "This is one of those flaps that comes up once in awhile when I get tough," he said. "We have to be rough on the Republicans. Republicans don't represent ordinary Americans and they don't have any understanding of what it is to go out and try and make ends meet."
But what's odd about Dean's remarks -- both the "honest living" one and the "monolithic party" one -- isn't that they're unusually "tough": That's to be expected and, given the timidity of the press and a lot of Democrats these days, admired. Rather, what strikes us as strange is that they're a little off the mark. Dean can say that he intended his "honest living" remark to apply only to the Republican leadership, but that's not the way he said the words when he first said them. So is it true that "a lot" of Republicans have never made an "honest living"? Maybe. But it's also true that "a lot" of Republicans -- a lot more Republicans -- spend their lives working just like the rest of us do.
Indeed, one of the central problems facing Democrats now is that working Americans whose economic interests would be better served by a Democratic president are pulling levers and pushing buttons for Republican candidates instead. As Ruy Teixeira noted the other day, exit polls showed that George W. Bush beat John Kerry among white working class voters by 23 points. Teixera didn't make that point in the context of Dean's "honest living" comment, but John Edwards did. While Edwards stressed that he and Dean have been saying "the same thing for years" about Republicans' indifference to the needs of working Americans, he said he that he "can't agree" with Dean's "honest living" remark "since I come from a place where hard-working people, who are better served by the agenda and passion of the Democrats, somehow still vote Republican."
Similarly, although Dean referred to Republicans as a "monolithic party" where "they all look the same," Republicans have made some small gains in winning over minority voters. Bush got nine percent of the African-American vote in 2000; he got 11 percent in 2004. And it appears that Bush improved his standing among Hispanic voters by about four percentage points in 2004. While the Republican National Convention can still come off looking like a segregated event, the challenge for the Democrats isn't that support for Republicans is too white. It's that it's getting a little less so.
It's true that Republicans like George Bush and Bill Frist come from a place of privilege and probably don't have much experience with the concerns of working Americans. And it's true that the Republican Party has become the political arm of the religious right and hasn't done much to help working people of any race or religious persuasion. But it's also true that Dean might be more successful in persuading voters to come back to the Democratic Party -- if that's his goal -- if he were to start speaking with just as much fire but a little more precision about the problems his party actually faces.
-- Tim Grieve
[10:46 EDT, June 8, 2005] |
