Wolfowitz is resigning effective 30 June.
The White House ‘reluctantly’ accepts the resignation.
Almost every aspect of the GOP is imploding, and I wish I could say I was even slightly upset about that.
by John Cole| 55 Comments
This post is in: Republican Stupidity
Wolfowitz is resigning effective 30 June.
The White House ‘reluctantly’ accepts the resignation.
Almost every aspect of the GOP is imploding, and I wish I could say I was even slightly upset about that.
by John Cole| 44 Comments
This post is in: Military, Politics, Republican Stupidity, War on Terror aka GSAVE®
Charles Krulak and James Hoar join the ranks of the terrorist enablers by pointing out thast torture is not only unnecessary, but counterproductive:
The American people are understandably fearful about another attack like the one we sustained on Sept. 11, 2001. But it is the duty of the commander in chief to lead the country away from the grip of fear, not into its grasp. Regrettably, at Tuesday night’s presidential debate in South Carolina, several Republican candidates revealed a stunning failure to understand this most basic obligation. Indeed, among the candidates, only John McCain demonstrated that he understands the close connection between our security and our values as a nation.
Tenet insists that the CIA program disrupted terrorist plots and saved lives. It is difficult to refute this claim — not because it is self-evidently true, but because any evidence that might support it remains classified and unknown to all but those who defend the program.
These assertions that “torture works” may reassure a fearful public, but it is a false security. We don’t know what’s been gained through this fear-driven program. But we do know the consequences.
As has happened with every other nation that has tried to engage in a little bit of torture — only for the toughest cases, only when nothing else works — the abuse spread like wildfire, and every captured prisoner became the key to defusing a potential ticking time bomb. Our soldiers in Iraq confront real “ticking time bomb” situations every day, in the form of improvised explosive devices, and any degree of “flexibility” about torture at the top drops down the chain of command like a stone — the rare exception fast becoming the rule.
To understand the impact this has had on the ground, look at the military’s mental health assessment report released earlier this month. The study shows a disturbing level of tolerance for abuse of prisoners in some situations. This underscores what we know as military professionals: Complex situational ethics cannot be applied during the stress of combat. The rules must be firm and absolute; if torture is broached as a possibility, it will become a reality.
This has had disastrous consequences. Revelations of abuse feed what the Army’s new counterinsurgency manual, which was drafted under the command of Gen. David Petraeus, calls the “recuperative power” of the terrorist enemy.
Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld once wondered aloud whether we were creating more terrorists than we were killing. In counterinsurgency doctrine, that is precisely the right question. Victory in this kind of war comes when the enemy loses legitimacy in the society from which it seeks recruits and thus loses its “recuperative power.”
The torture methods that Tenet defends have nurtured the recuperative power of the enemy. This war will be won or lost not on the battlefield but in the minds of potential supporters who have not yet thrown in their lot with the enemy. If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave or imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it.
This is not just a lesson for history. Right now, White House lawyers are working up new rules that will govern what CIA interrogators can do to prisoners in secret. Those rules will set the standard not only for the CIA but also for what kind of treatment captured American soldiers can expect from their captors, now and in future wars. Before the president once again approves a policy of official cruelty, he should reflect on that.
It is time for us to remember who we are and approach this enemy with energy, judgment and confidence that we will prevail. That is the path to security, and back to ourselves.
They are far to charitable with McCain, who has used his former POW status to enable all sorts of bad behavior by this administration. They essentially do what they want, McCain acts concerned and throws around his alleged moral authority and pretends to impede them, and then, a few weeks later, the administration goes back to their business of doing whatever the hell they want.
At any rate, these military men probably just have a book to sell.
*** Update ***
Belgravia Dispatch. Go.
by John Cole| 41 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Republican Stupidity
The Politico profiles the GOP culture of corruption:
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner took his job last year with a pledge to cleanse his party’s scandal-stained reputation on Capitol Hill. In recent weeks, Boehner has been getting an unpleasant education in how hard that turns out to be.
When Reps. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) and Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) became the subjects of FBI raids, Boehner pushed them to give up their committee assignments. But party operatives said Doolittle and Renzi are not facing pressure to resign from the House for now — in part because the House GOP campaign committee does not want the expense of competing to keep their seats in a special election.
And Boehner is coming under fire from his own members over the decision to replace Doolittle on the House Appropriations Committee with Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.). Calvert himself is facing ethics scrutiny over a land deal in his Southern California district.
The Calvert decision underscores the complexity of Boehner’s task, as he tries simultaneously to clean house and keep peace within his own caucus. The California delegation was insistent that the coveted Appropriations seat go to one of their own, following long-standing custom. But the move has upset other GOP members and some conservative bloggers, who fear that Calvert’s alleged problems will feed the party’s reputation for corruption.
“If only John Boehner the Republican leader would act like John Boehner the leadership candidate, the Republican Conference would be in a much stronger position,” said a House Republican aide who works for a lawmaker upset with Boehner’s move. “Decisions like the Calvert appointment cripple our party’s ability to be associated with reform, and until our leadership changes direction, they are leading this conference even further into the political abyss.”
If the GOP ever wants my support, when it is exposed that one of their own is corrupt, they will begin to turn on them with the same ruthlessness they reserve for people named Clinton. As it is, I see no reason to support the Republicans in 2008 until they have rooted out all the slime. besides, Democratic rule hasn’t been that bad. We are going on 5 months in and I still have not had my forced abortion.
by Tim F| 20 Comments
This post is in: Media, Republican Stupidity
Some days it gets hard to believe how rapidly the Giuliani campaign has become a weird self-caricature.
Greg Sargent thinks that the major media outlets will find it interesting that the Giuliani campaign jilted an Iowa farm couple when it found out that they didn’t have enough money to qualify for the Estate Tax. I could be wrong, but that strikes me as unlikely. After all, Sargent is a partisan source and one of those crazy blogger people. John Harris’s fishwrap will only go into full alert when they hear about it from one of their Republican staffer friends or see it on Drudge.
If only we knew what Rudy spent on his hair…
***Update***
Side note to Greg: the word is jilted, not snubbed. The word both fits better and better conveys the rudeness involved.
by Tim F| 40 Comments
This post is in: Republican Stupidity
Funny spring. Usually as the weather warms up rain and the occasional hail will drop from the sky. This year we get shoes.
The Bush administration has withheld a series of e-mails from Congress showing that senior White House and Justice Department officials worked together to conceal the role of Karl Rove in installing Timothy Griffin, a protégé of Rove’s, as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
The withheld records show that D. Kyle Sampson, who was then-chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, consulted with White House officials in drafting two letters to Congress that appear to have misrepresented the circumstances of Griffin’s appointment as U.S. attorney and of Rove’s role in supporting Griffin.
[…] Several of the e-mails that the Bush administration is withholding from Congress, as well as papers from the White House counsel’s office describing other withheld documents, were made available to National Journal by a senior executive branch official, who said that the administration has inappropriately kept many of them from Congress.
Damn, that will leave a mark.
***Update***
The story has so many gems that it is almost impossible not to quote it in full. Waas catches the White House flat-footed:
White House spokesman Tony Fratto denied that the White House was withholding records in the Justice Department’s possession, and he said that Gonzales could make many of them public at any time. “The White House is neither guiding nor directing the Justice Department’s decisions on privileged documents,” Fratto said. “They make those decisions on their own.”
It would have been subtler if the White House tacked a target on Gonzo’s back and cried, Duck season! Although I suppose that the alternative, admitting their own role in obstructing justice, would bridge that shrinking gap between public scandal and indictable behavior. The perps don’t have any good options right now.
***Update 2***
John begged me to keep the title, but in the end I decided to go with something a bit less hair-raising.
***Update 3***
Good analysis by Paul Kiel at TPM.
Peak Schadenfreude: Major New Reserves Discovered in Karl Rove’s OfficePost + Comments (40)
by Tim F| 20 Comments
This post is in: Republican Stupidity, War, Democratic Stupidity
One: another day, another GOP delegation to the president.
NBC News reports tonight that 11 Republican members of Congress pleaded yesterday with President Bush and his senior aides to change course in Iraq.
The group of Republicans was led by Reps. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Charlie Dent (R-PA), and the meeting included Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Karl Rove, and Tony Snow. One member of Congress called the discussion the “most unvarnished conversation they’ve ever had with the president…”
This trip inside the bubble has become something of a ritual pilgrimage among Republican legislators. Why is that? If the president cared about loyalty in the traditional sense they might have something to talk about, but these guys have worked with the president for long enough to know that he doesn’t work that way. Disagreement is disloyalty, you’re either with him or you’re against him, yadda yadda. These guys know they don’t have a veto-proof majority to wave around so the point of the trip has to be something other than changing the president’s mind. Talking will never change his position and these clowns lack the stones to change it by force.
To get a clue what the point might be, check out Timmeh:
NBC’s Tim Russert said it “may have been a defining pivotal moment” in the Iraq debate.
Three points! No net! Our very concerned delegation gets no compromise (the dog might not want to catch that truck) but the breathless press ought to earn them some desperately-needed breathing room with their home constituencies. This whole exercise could have happened just to keep the poor schmucks who answer these Congressmen’s phones from quitting en masse.
The Dems will surprise me if they don’t once again mistake kabuki for truth and let these oh-so-concerned GOP “mavericks” take point on the issue, just like the brave three Senators who valiantly spectered on the right of habeas corpus.
Two: Conservative Dems could cave to Bush and vote with the GOP on tomorrow’s Iraq funding bill:
I just heard from an impeccable source that there is serious concern on the Hill that conservative Democrats in the House will vote with the Republicans to strip any and all restrictions from the Iraq supplemental tomorrow, effectively giving Bush all the money he wants with no restrictions and no effort to hold either him or the Iraq government accountable for anything.
Sadly, you can always count on Democrats to utterly whiff on the basic laws of political advantage. Public opinion runs steeply against the Republicans and it’s trending away from them. The GOP caucus is equally terrified by the Iraq issue, their moron president and the appearance of capitulating when they finally give in to the Democratic position on Iraq. Pressure and a united front helps the Democrats, even the conservative ones, in every conceivable way. Some days I wonder whether the geniuses whispering in these guy’s ears, Markos’s DC consultant bogeymen, really do have a magical ability to give the wrong advice about everything.
by John Cole| 11 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Republican Stupidity
Oh NOES! Abortionists everywhere in the GOP race:
Former Gov. Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, gave an $150 donation to the abortion-rights group Planned Parenthood in 1994, at a time when Romney considered himself effectively “pro-choice,” the Romney campaign confirmed today.
Campaign spokesman Kevin Madden said Ann Romney had no recollection of the circumstances under which she donated the money.
“The governor has not donated to Planned Parenthood or abortion-rights groups,” Madden said.
The most satisfying thing about the complete and total sell-out to the flat earth religionist crowd is watching the inevitable cannibalization from within.
Almost no one can live up the fake standards and faux moral code they have constructed, and anyone who can most certainly is not sane or trustworthy enough to be President.