What conservatives say when they think we can't hear them
July 15

This is an amazing article. Johann Hari went on a cruise sponsored by The National Review, where conservatives spoke more freely than they do in mainstream media. By "freely", I mean in the way bigots speak when they think because you look like them, it's safe to express their prejudices. I mean in the sense that they don't even feel a need to start their sentences, "I'm not prejudiced, but...". For example, here's a paragraph:

I am getting used to these moments - when gentle holiday geniality bleeds into… what? I lie on the beach with Hillary-Ann, a chatty, scatty 35-year-old Californian designer. As she explains the perils of Republican dating, my mind drifts, watching the gentle tide. When I hear her say, " Of course, we need to execute some of these people," I wake up. Who do we need to execute? She runs her fingers through the sand lazily. "A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralize the country," she says. "Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that's what you'll get." She squints at the sun and smiles. " Then things'll change."

Remember when conservative talk show host Glenn Beck said to the first Muslim member of Congress, Rep. Keith Ellison, "I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' "? The paragraph makes me want to make a similar request of a conservative, prove to me you don't seek my execution. I want to think these conservatives on the cruise were a fringe group, but I also realize they were selected not because they're the hardest right, but because they could afford the cruise.

Remember Robert Bork, who Reagan wanted to put in the Supreme Court? If not, look him up, and shudder at the thought he was once taken seriously. You might also discover he was the one, after after two superiors resigned in protest, who Nixon could get to fire the special prosecutor who was getting too close. He was one of the honored guests:

Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan's one-time nominee to the Supreme Court, mumbles from beneath low-hanging jowls: "The coverage of this war is unbelievable. Even Fox News is unbelievable. You'd think we're the only ones dying. Enemy casualties aren't covered. We're doing an excellent job killing them."

So killing lots of Iraqi's is actually a mark of success. Perhaps Bork didn't read the report by The Nation indicating that the deaths of innocent civilians are a frequent occurrence, according to US troops.

Another respected and influential neocon is Norman Podhoretz:

Podhoretz is the Brooklyn-born, street-fighting kid who traveled through a long phase of left-liberalism to a pugilistic belief in America's power to redeem the world, one bomb at a time. Today, he is a bristling grey ball of aggression, here to declare that the Iraq war has been "an amazing success." He waves his fist and declaims: "There were WMD, and they were shipped to Syria … This picture of a country in total chaos with no security is false. It has been a triumph. It couldn't have gone better." He wants more wars, and fast. He is "certain" Bush will bomb Iran, and " thank God" for that.

I hate throwing the word "fascist" around, because I think it and its nastier cousin "nazi" get thrown around too easily, so I had to feel a bit awkward with this whole article where those words seem appropriate in a way that confirms many liberal suspicions of what conservatives really want. This was especially blatant coming from "Jim", identified as the husband of lying pundit Kate O'Beirne, and self-identified as Donald Rumsfeld's personnel director:

The table nods solemnly and then they march into the conversation - the billion-strong swarm of swarthy Muslims who are poised to take over the world. Jim leans forward and says, "When I see these football supporters from England, I think - these guys aren't going to be told by PC elites to be nice to Muslims. You're going to get fascists rising up, aren't you? Why isn't that happening already?" Before I can answer, he is conquering the Middle East from his table, from behind a crème brûlée.

From the "crème brûlée" remark, Jim sounds like just a tavern rebel, not anyone who'll do anything, and maybe he is. His wife however, and her magazine, have substantial influence with the Bush administration. That's the scary part. In numbers these lunatics are a fringe, but they're a fringe with lots of money and lots of influence to go with their dangerous mix of bigotry and delusion.

You can't make this up: Vitter defended by a madam
July 11

It's the wee hours as I write this and I should get to bed, but this is too good. This is something no one could have made up. A constituent of Sen. David Vitter's has risen to his defense: a New Orleans madam who ran a brothel he patronized. She says he's a good man who was decent to the girls. Nothing kinky or anything like that. Jeanette Maier says his wife should be proud of him and even though he cheated frequently, he didn't leave his wife and kids. Seriously, she brought this out to DEFEND him. She even credited Vitter with rebuilding New Orleans. Other residents have a different opinion on the rebuilding, but she and the senator see it from a different angle I guess.

Maybe I'm just too nice. When I first heard the story the Vitter was a customer of the DC Madam, knowing nothing about the man, I thought I wasn't going to jump on somebody for one mistake. Turns out he does this repeatedly and has for longer than he's been in Congress. I still hate to drag out someone's private life, nad leave this between him and his wife. Wrong: turns out his whole political career is based on being religious with extra morality family values guy, with a focus on denying equality to homosexuals. Well, if that's how you build your career, then you're fair game when it comes to exposing and punishing hypocrisy. At least he had the sense to just admit it, I conceded to him. Wrong again. Turns out Hustler had the goods, and it was when they contacted him for comment that he revealed all to the Associated Press. At least he hasn't been caught taking bribes or lying about the war. Given my record so far, I dare not verify that statement. When this DC Madam scandal brought down Randall Tobias, I used the phrase "Capone these guys," meaning if we can't get them for the bigger stuff, getting them for a sex scandal is fine if that gets these crooks out of office. Given what I just learned about this guy, given the culture of corruption he comes from in Louisiana and works in as a Republican, it's tough to believe there isn't anything like favors for lobbyists hiding in his closet. I also said it odd how crooked politicians resign fast for a sex scandal but not anything else. If Vitter goes but Rep. Jefferson still stays, I guess I'll be shown right.

To add an ironic touch, Vitter was elected to the House to replace Rep. Bob Livingstone, who went after Clinton for an affair and was set to become Speaker, but suddenly resigned when it turned out that while he was condemning Clinton, he was doing the same thing. Vitter apparently has a either a steep learning curve or one rambunctious weenie.

Gonzales caught lying, and no, this isn't a repeat
July 11

Try not to be shocked: Torture Boy Gonzales lied about something else. What the ^&^$@# will it take for the Democrats to finally begin impeachment proceedings against him? It's not just principle, like is probably the case with Bush and Cheney. Gonzales is so despised that his impeachment might actually succeed. The new lie is that when he was testifying for the renewal of the Patriot Act on April 27, 2005, he stated that there were no verified civil liberties violations. However, he had already received the FBI reports of numerous violations.

That's Rovics, not Rove: What If Your Knew?
July 11

This includes some graphic images. This is David Rovic's web site.

I'm shocked: Rove lied at the Aspen Festival
July 10

Minnesota Public Radio broadcast Karl Rove's appearance at the Aspen festival, and he lied in literally the first sentence he spoke, saying the point of the surge was to get to where they could implement Baker-Hamilton. Baker-Hamilton, named for the chairmen of the Iraq Study Group, advocated something very different from a surge, and opposed the surge, nor when the surge was announced was there any indication there was a connection. It appears the Bushies decided to fall back on the commission report by pretending they were surging just to implement it.

Answering a question about who's the enemy, Rove said 80-90% of the bombs are Al Qaida In Iraq, according to "intelligence". Maybe he believes that, like he had "THE math" before last year's elections. Or maybe he made up the number out of thin air. Or maybe this is more of that high quality Douglas Feith - Paul Wolfowitz intelligence. You know, the stuff that was wrong about everything.

Answering a question that mentioned Scott McClellan denied Rove was involved in the Plame leak when in fact he was, Rove said, "Actually, what he said was I didn't have anything to do with revealing her name". Guess what, that's not what McClellan said. He actually said, "The president knows [Rove] wasn't involved ... It's simply not true," and, "There is simply no truth to that suggestion. And I have spoken with Karl about it."

Responding to a point about how the Plame leak scandal would have ended quickly if all involved had just come forward, Rove said they did. Asked specifically about Cheney, Rove ignored the question and went right on to something about Armitage.

Polls show it's time to start impeachment
July 9

Readers have probably by now heard about the recent polls indicating the support for the impeachment of the acting president and acting vice president has increased to roughly half for Cheney and not much less for Bush (they didn't ask about Gonzales, which is where I would start). It occurred to me that the half of the people who don't support impeachment include the roughly 30% who still approve of Bush, and won't stop backing the divine leader regardless of what happens unless maybe one of those faces of Jesus in the sandwich declares that Bush is no longer God's favorite. You might gather I hold little hope of winning over any more of that 30%. Consider then that the 70% who Democrats have some hope of winning over includes the the 40-50% supporting impeachment, which means a majority of Democrats and independents support impeachment. Maybe that number will go up, but nonetheless, if there's ever going to be a time it would seem to be now. The Democratic base is overwhelmingly in support, and many independents are in support. The undecided won't decide until this becomes the big issue of the day. Moreover, the argument that too little time remains, weak as I think it is, will only get stronger as time goes by. The mainstream media has finally started to ask the question, but only when they perceive Democrats are willing to make an issue of it. Now consider the much lower support for Clinton's impeachment, and that was not only with the right wing propaganda machine going full tilt, but the mainstream media giving it non-stop coverage, yet here impeachment supporters are up in the 40s with much of the press yet to mention that it's a possibility.

I know the fear about impeaching is that the voters will react badly and punish Democrats in next year's elections. The Republicans did suffer in the 1998 elections, but then they won both houses of Congress in 2000, won again in 2002, and same again in 2004. They resorted to fraud to win the presidency in 2000 and 2004, but the elections had to be close for them to do that. Some punishment. I've tried to refute that fear argument by saying it's about setting an precedent for future presidents, but if that doesn't sway you, consider that the Republicans did pretty well after impeaching the popular Clinton, so how much less punishment for impeaching the unpopular Bush and Cheney.

Career lobbyist Thompson not what he seemed in Watergate --- or lobbying
July 7

Maybe I was prescient when I suggested referring to Fred Thompson as "career lobbyist", because it's already proven a weak spot for him. The LA Times discovered that he took on lobbying work for an pro-choice group, the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. You can guess how that will sit with pro-life single issue voters. Apparently besides being pro-life, he's pro-paycheck regardless of where it comes from. If he wanted to say he had changed his mind on the issue, that would be one thing, but he's trying to deny it. Too bad the client kept records.

Though what will be more bothersome to liberals is the other piece of Thompson news this week, that his Watergate claim to fame, the event that jumpstarted his career, is fake. He was actually a mole for Nixon. Contrary to what investigators normally do, he was feeding information to the subject of the investigation. Normally, this is called high level corruption, though Republicans just call it loyalty and I'm sure aren't bothered by it. I personally find it discouraging to discover that the GOP culture of corruption is over 30 years old, the Nixon's corruption permeated that far down, and some of the corrupted are still with us and running for president. The other counsels knew at the time, and thought Republican Senator Howard Baker would fire him. Of course, doing the Republican thing, Baker protected him. Thompson admitted it in a 1975 memoir, and his excuse was that he thought Nixon was innocent. Well, that's OK then.

Pardon my deja vu
July 6

Thanks to Adele Stan at American Prospect, I saw this article from 1992 that gave me a bit of deja vu as regards presidents using the pardoning power to protect themselves and their co-conspirators, just as founding father George Mason feared when he objected to giving presidents such power in the debate over the Constitution. The investigation of the Iran-contra conspiracy was stopped when Bush Sr., that's the Bush who actually got elected, pardoned Caspar Weinberger before Weinberger had even gone to trial for obstruction of justice. The specifics of the charge included that he withheld his notes from meetings where the conspiracy was discussed. The suspicion is that it showed greater involvement from President Reagan and Vice President Bush than they had admitted to. Bush pardoned not just Weinberger, but several other men convicted of perjury or withholding evidence. Tell me if this sounds familiar:

"Today's action followed intensive lobbying by former Reagan aides to pardon Mr. Weinberger and a series of meetings in recent days at the White House, culminating with the President's decision this morning. Republicans, long angered by the prosecution, were incensed by the new indictment of Mr. Weinberger four days before the election. The indictment said Mr. Weinberger's notes contradicted Mr. Bush's assertions that he had only a fragmentary knowledge of the arms secretly sold to Iran in 1985 and 1986 in exchange for American hostages in Lebanon."

Hmm, lobbying by connected conservatives, the old "he's suffered enough" argument reserved for powerful men, and the pardoning of a defendant who has information about the president pardoning him. I hope Patrick Fitzgerald will be as clear as the Iran-contra prosecutor, Lawrence Walsh, who reacted to the pre-trial pardon of Weinberger thus:

"The Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed with the pardon of Caspar Weinberger. We will make a full report on our findings to Congress and the public describing the details and extent of this cover-up.

Weinberger's early and deliberate decision to conceal and withhold extensive contemporaneous notes of the Iran-contra matter radically altered the official investigations and possibly forestalled timely impeachment proceedings against President Reagan and other officials. Weinberger's notes contain evidence of a conspiracy among the highest-ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and the American public. Because the notes were withheld from investigators for years, many of the leads were impossible to follow, key witnesses had purportedly forgotten what was said and done, and statutes of limitation had expired."

Yes, to be clear, I am implying a coverup in the acting president's commutation of Libby. The sudden decision of Libby to not testify in his trial, or bring in Rove and Cheney as witnesses despite building his defense on their expected testimony, leads me to believe he was promised protection in exchange for his silence.

As a gift to Clinton-haters, I did catch the bit where President-elect Clinton is quoted on the importance of telling the truth under oath. I don't grant at all that his abuse of the pardoning power was on the scale of either Bush, but I'll try to go more at length into that later. For now, granting that Clinton did abuse the pardoning power, that makes three consecutive presidents to have done so. Clearly we need a reform of the pardoning power, which is going to require a constitutional amendment, and considering the high-level coverups this power is allowing, I put it high up on the list of possible amendments, second only to eliminating the electoral college, without which the current Bush would never have been in office anyway.

Happy Independence Day
July 4

I have heard there are some Americans who don't know why July 4th is a holiday. I haven't gone looking for the polls that say that because I doubt it's worth the time and in a way I don't want to believe that. Still, if you don't know, or you aren't American and therefore can't reasonably be expected to know, this is why it's a holiday. It used to be part of Independence Day celebrations to read the Declaration, and this tradition is long dead except for NPR, which revived it about 20 years ago. It's not only stirring, but remarkably still radical and revolutionary. If you have occasion to run into someone who thinks the acting president was chosen by God, or that any official was chosen by God for that matter, remind them of the explicit statements that the government's authority comes from the people and nowhere else. You can also go through the "repeated injuries and usurpations" of King George III and have fun counting how many apply to George the W (I think I came up with five, but it's arguable). There is also this sentence which explains why current George has still not been impeached: "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." Isn't it finally time to abolish this presidency?

Independence Day: remember when tyrants named George were a bad thing?
July 3

Tomorrow is the 231st anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. How is July 4th different in 1776 and 2007? In 1776, we opposed tyrants named George. Just like under Mad George, under Empty Jacket George law is a matter of executive caprice. Thank you Acting President George for commuting Scooter's jail time and showing definitively there are at least two systems of justice. In one, you can be detained without charge or trial and stripped naked so a snarling dog can snap at your genitals, while in the other, presidents will obstruct justice so connected neocons get pity for and relief from any real penalty. We also have been shown clearly that conservatives are OK with these differing meanings of justice. They try to cover it by pointing out that the president's power to pardon is in the Constitution, but this case touches Bush himself so nearly that it's clearly an abuse of the power to protect a crony, and also smacks of a coverup.

Finally, congressional Democrats, is this enough for you to admit Dennis Kucinich is right and impeach? Can't you see that if there are no consequences beyond another layer of disgrace for a disgraced president, he will do whatever he wants? If you find some mealy-mouthed excuse not to impeach even now, you'll still probably get my vote against the Republicans, but expect me to withhold my cash, volunteer time, and blogging time. If you have a problem with the legal grounds for impeaching over abuse of the pardoning power, I refer you to this blog post by John Nichols, where he describes the position of founding fathers James Madison and George Mason that a president who pardons cronies to protect himself should be impeached for it. Madison said, "[If] the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty." That post starts out mentioning the call by Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. for impeachment, so to my threat to withhold my support, let me give a kudo to Jackson, and I hope he is only the start of Democrats realizing impeachment can't be avoided. I also urge readers to not only pressure Congressmen who won't impeach, but let those who will know they have your support. That means I owe a letter to my representative, Keith Ellison, who last week signed on to Kucinich's bill.

There was something bizarre in some of the reporting of this story, specifically the headline on the front page of the Pioneer Press this morning, which is the story I linked to above. OK lazy, here it is again. Apparently the good headline writers left in the mass layoffs that turned the Pioneer Press from a good newspaper into this thing I rarely bother reading anymore. Anyway, I refer to this Oppositeland headline, "Bush shows no fear in letting Libby off". Of course Bush was afraid. Libby was convicted for deceiving investigators, which means he still hasn't told what he knows. We don't know how what Libby knows would implicate his former boss Cheney, or even Bush --- but Bush knows. Bush also knows that Libby has been Cheney's right hand. The extreme secretiveness this administration has also shown indicates they have a lot to hide, and Libby knows where the bodies are buried. So obviously Bush showed fear --- that Libby would talk sooner than sit in prison, and that the last few loyalists Bush has would turn on him if he didn't protect a Bushie from the same sentence any commoner would have gotten. Bush also showed fear in granting a commutation instead of a pardon, because now Libby can still take the 5th when told to tell what he knows. If he were pardoned, he would be immune from prosecution and unable to refuse to testify. That's what Bush is deeply afraid of.

The acting president showed his fear by his manner of announcing the commutation, a press release at 6 PM Eastern time which let him miss the days news reports, during the week of Independence Day when many people are on vacation and paying no attention. I'm just surprised he didn't wait until tonight or tomorrow, or Friday evening, when attention would be lowest.

Davis column shows grotesque thinking
July 1

It's a sign of how grotesque the thinking has become in the Bush administration and the upper ranks of the armed forces that this op-ed by Air Force Col. Morris D. Davis can be considered a defense of the imprisonment of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo. Davis is the chief prosecutor in the Defense Department's Office of Military Commissions, and wrote this defense of Guantánamo which justifies practices consistent with a dictatorship.

Davis spends the first paragraphs on how nice a prison Guantánamo has become. Great, a crappy prison has been turned into a gilded cage, missing entirely the point that the gilded cage holds prisoners who haven't been charged or tried, and are probably guilty of nothing more than being on the losing side of a war. Some unfortunates not even that. I'd be willing to concede that the prison was probably worse when it was started in a hurry and all that construction must make better facilities. So what? I also hope that the mistreatment has been less than feared, and htat it has improved with exposure. Maybe it really has even become a humane prison, but I doubt it, and it's a separate issue from whether anybody should be locked up at all.

But OK, let's think about the actual treatment of prisoners. This is how Davis backs up his claim prisoners are treated well:

"Critics liken Guantánamo Bay to Soviet gulags, but reality does not match their hyperbole. The supporters of David Hicks, the detainee popularly known as the 'Australian Taliban,' asserted that Mr. Hicks was mistreated and wasting away. But at his March trial, where he pleaded guilty to providing material support to a terrorist organization, he and his defense team stipulated he was treated properly. Mr. Hicks even thanked service members, and as one Australian newspaper columnist noted, he appeared in court 'looking fat, healthy and tanned, and cracking jokes.'"

You're not seeing things. He really does use the statement of a man who was tortured and told to sign it as a condition of release to show there's no torture. It's as absurd as his Davis' statement, "The Constitution does not extend to alien unlawful enemy combatants." I guess that why the framers added that clause about "this does not apply to unlawful enemy combatants." It's in article 1984 and oddly, written in Cheney's handwriting.

Davis tries to refute a myth:

"One myth is that the accused can be excluded from his trial and convicted on secret evidence. The administrative boards that determine if a detainee is an enemy combatant and whether he is a continuing threat may consider classified information in closed hearings outside the presence of the detainee. But military commissions may not."

So the administrative boards can designate you an enemy combatant and use evidence you can't see, thereby keeping you imprisoned. But take comfort, it's not the military commissions that do that. It's like you get pulled over by the police, hauled out of your car on suspicion of whatever, and the first policeman says, "Hi, I'm Officer Friendly, and I'm prohibited from beating the tar out of you just because I feel like. Only my partner, Officer Gonzo, is authorized to beat you on a whim, which he will proceed to do now."

Davis justifies confessions obtained by torture, though that's not how he puts it. He says, "Many critics disapprove of the potential admissibility of evidence obtained by coercion and hearsay. Any statement by a person whose freedom is restrained by someone in a position of authority can be viewed as the product of some degree of coercion." He knows damn well "coercion" doesn't mean turn in your boss or get a heavier sentence. It means the sooner you confess, the sooner we take the snarling dog away from your genitals. Sign this statement you've been treated well, or you never leave your cell again. That's what critics mean by "coercion". "Hearsay" means "I heard the suspect say he loved Osama, I just forgot about it until I spent a day naked in a cold room."

Davis wraps up by misstating the whole issue: "Even the most vocal critics say they do not want to set terrorists free, but they scorn Guantánamo Bay and military commissions and demand alternatives." That's because, though you'd think a lawyer would know this, not that I'm not getting accustomed to conservative lawyers interested only in seizing power, the prisoners at Guantánamo aren't convicted of anything, only suspected, which should be enough. If you've followed the issue, then you already likely know many have been found completely innocent, or to have been merely footsoldiers in an enemy army. That's the point of a democratic legal system: you have to PROVE people are terrorists before imprisoning them, the same protection that applies to anyone suspected of a crime. And no, there's no exception for non-citizens, enemy combatants, or any other designation the acting president invents.