Month: June 2005

Tompaine.com has an article up by Russ Baker titled Why George Went to War. The question comes as a result of glimpses behind the scenes during the run-up to war in early 2002 offered by the Downing Street documents.

Baker describes how a combination of events and atmospherics came together to enable President Bush to enact a plan to go to war in Iraq that he had been talking about since at least 1999. This plan would have been nearly impossible to pursue had it not been for two factors – a public still fearful and a bit blood thirsty in the wake of the 2001 attacks, and a completely cowed news corps who accepted without question or reservation every single lie the president told.

So we understand a bit of why President Bush wanted to go to war with Saddam, but another question remains: “Why then?” Why did the invasion have to happen so soon? There was no intrinsic, compelling reason to rush into war with Saddam Hussein in 2002. He hadn’t made any overtly threatening moves in a decade or more.

So why did Bush rush the process? Why was it so important to get the public prepared for war in the fall of 2002?

One answer, of course, is politics. You may recall that that the top story of first eight months of 2002 was one that made the Bush team nervous. Corporate corruption, especially the Enron scandal, had the full attention of the media and the public.

In January 2002, Ken Lay resigned as CEO of Enron. Two days later, Enron Vice President John C. Baxter committed suicide. The White House was sued because it refused to give over documents that almost certainly showed that Ken Lay had dictated the Administration’s energy policy. In June, Arthur Andersen, one of the nation’s oldest accounting firms, was found guilty on charges it helped Enron executives cook the books. In July, nine of the biggest banks were implicated in the scandal, including Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase.

Polls showed that the public was outraged over Enron’s excesses, and Enron had close ties to the Republican Party, all the way up to the President himself. If this story stayed on the front burner, the Republicans might fail to take back the Senate and might even lose control of the House in the November congressionals.

Bush and his political adviser Karl Rove knew had to change the subject. And nothing changes the subject like announcing the imminent and unprovoked invasion of another country.

In September 2002, the White House started marketing the war. By election day, the topic of war had divided the country, enflaming and radicalizing both the Left and the Right. The Right won hands down, of course – taking back the Senate and holding the House.

The invasion appeared to be an across-the-board winning move for President Bush. But he had to go into Iraq in early 2003 to reap the benefits. The Bush team assumed the war would be a cakewalk, so that most of the soldiers would be home by Christmas 2003 – or at least before the November 2004 presidential elections. If so, Bush would be a hero.

But in the unlikely event that the war would continue through presidential campaign, Bush could turn it into a political benefit. He would be a “war time president.” Statistics show that war time presidents are rarely defeated at the polls.

After dividing the country, President Bush took us to war. Who knew that wouldn’t work out so well?

The events of 2002 were brought back to me in stunning detail when I saw the documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, at the Fairfax Theatre in Hollywood. It is a gripping, masterful retelling of the rise and fall of Enron, directed by Alex Gibney, based on the book, The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind.

In his review, Roger Ebert said,”This is not a political documentary. It is a crime story. No matter what your politics, ‘Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room’ will make you mad. It tells the story of how Enron rose to become the seventh largest corporation in America with what was essentially a Ponzi scheme, and in its last days looted the retirement funds of its employees to buy a little more time.”

There are many shots from 2002 of Ken Lay making sincere, declarative statements about his innocence that we know now to be lies. You can compare and contrast his style to that of his friend, George W. Bush. But now we know, in 2002, there was a whole lot of lying going on.

There’s a new Field Poll out that has bad news for Governor Schwarzenegger.

There has been a steep drop in the regard that Californians have of the job that Arnold Schwarzenegger is doing as their governor. In a statewide survey completed last week following Mr. Schwarzenegger’s call for a special election this November, the nonpartisan Field Poll finds the governor’s approval rating sliding to 37 percent among registered voters statewide, while 53 percent disapprove of how he’s handling his job.

As recently as last September 65 percent of voters approved and 22 percent disapproved of Mr. Schwarzenegger, while in February 55 percent approved and 35 percent disapproved…

The drop in the governor’s job rating is most pronounced among registered Democrats and non-partisans, according to the Field Poll. Throughout all of 2004, a plurality of Democrats, as well as a majority of nonpartisans, approved of the job he was doing. Now, just 16 percent of Democrats approve, while 76 percent disapprove. Among non-partisans 35 percent approve and 54 percent disapprove, a reversal from a 48 percent approve and 38 percent disapprove rating in February.

Can we have another Recall now? Please?

First Fox News assured its brainless accolytes that there was nothing to the contents of the Downing Street minutes and memos, now Rush Limbaugh has come out with a similar message for the intellect-free class he calls his Dittoheads:

I purposely haven’t talked about this Downing Street memo much because, frankly, A, it didn’t interest me. And, you know, if it doesn’t interest me I’m not going to talk about it. And the reason it didn’t interest me is because it was just another one of these ginned up things by the libs, and it looks like it’s got some similarities to Bill Burkett and the forged documents of CBS and Rathergate.

In fact, the Associated Press has a story that the reporter who discovered the memos destroyed the originals and retyped them himself. There was some dispute over whether or not the original memos were destroyed. The original memos don’t say anything. They don’t prove anything, other than the Brits were concerned about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq themselves. Also, what’s this reporter’s name? British reporter Michael Smith, who broke the memo story in the London Times on May the 1st, revealed to the AP over the weekend that he protected the identity of the source that he’d obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals. His admission means there’s now no independent way to determine the accuracy of the Downing Street memo, i.e., whether he made any typos or transcription errors that could have changed the memo’s meaning.

Methinks he doth demur too much.

The problem with the tactic of alleging that the documents are fake is that no one in authority in either the British or American governments has denied their authenticity.

Prediction: Another set of documents will be released soon, perhaps by a U.S. source, that appears to prove the Bushes’ malfeasance in setting up the war. As the brouhaha is building, these new documents will proved to be forgeries, thus casting aspersions on the genuine minutes and memos.

I just voted in the DailyKos presidential straw poll and was pleasantly surprised to find that my guy Wesley Clark is winning. He has 2,396 votes. Number 2 is “No Fricking Clue,” with 1,454 votes, and 3 is Sen. Russ Feingold (?), with 992. Hillary is close behind Feingold with 922.

I voted for Clark, but my odds-on favorite to get the nomination at this point is Bill Richardson.

Go vote here.

Rose Aguilar is a San Francisco-based journalist who decided to leave the safety of the liberal bubble to travel to states that voted overwhelmingly for President Bush in 2004. Her mission is to look beyond what divides us to discover what binds us together as progressives, no matter what state we live in.

Aguilar has been in Texas recently, where she has interviewed Democrats and Republicans about their political views. She posts these interviews to her website, Stories in America. These conversations make for fascinating reading – taken together, they offer a direct feed into a critical piece of the body politic in mid-2005.

There are many encouraging signs, the progressive cause is strong and vibrant behind the Red Curtain. From Republicans, what is most shocking is how they spout the party line without apparently having given what they are saying the slightest bit of analysis.

And then there are dismaying moments, like this from a liberal Texan:

I would rather have a gay person get married to their significant other than to go out and be a pedophile or a stalker. If you love somebody, you love somebody. I don’t have a problem with that.

Yikes! So gay and lesbian folks can only choose between finding a significant other and settling down OR pedophilia and/or stalking?

Nonetheless, I would encourage anyone who is interested in poltiical strategy to visit Stories in America regularly.

Update: Rose Aguilar has a column up today on AlterNet – The Loneliness of a Lonestar Liberal. The article opens with this statement, which sums up the conundrum that faces progressives in Red states like Texas:

It’s not easy being a progressive activist in Texas. Not only are the state’s progressives up against a conservative majority and completely ignored by national politicians, they’re also stuck with the media’s label of “red state voters” who have completely different values from “blue state voters…”

The repetitive use of the term “red state voter” makes it easy for the country at large, including progressives living in Democratic cities, to lose sight of the fact that Texas is a diverse state full of activists.

Borowitz Report line:

…Elsewhere, a new poll shows that less than half of all Americans approve of the way Dick Cheney is handling President Bush’s job.

There’s trouble in the rightwing paradise of Indiana. Gov. Mitch Daniels – whose previous gig was director of the Office of Management and Budget for President Bush – is in disfavor with rightwing Christian extremists in the state who feel he is not being sufficiently abusive toward the civil rights of Indiana’s gay and lesbian taxpayers.

Micah Clark, leader of the 12,000 members of the American Family Association of Indiana, a conservative, pro-family group, used his Web site to call Daniels “a disappointment in the family values department.”

He criticized Daniels for not being out front in favor of issues such as a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and for having an office policy banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Family values spokesman Clark says he would prefer the GOP to remain the party of bigotry:

“I don’t believe in the big tent,” Clark said. “I don’t believe you get to be that big offending a large portion of your base.”

When forced to comment, Daniels accidentally revealed his real position – thereby permanently scuttling any hope of winning election to national office as a Republican:

“I don’t believe in discrimination, period. We had that (anti-discrimination) policy in our campaign. We left it in place. Basic rights of assembly, employment, housing and so forth ought not be limited based on a person’s race, creed, color or lifestyle,” [Daniels] said.

Making inclusive statements like that will get the governor nowhere in today’s GOP.

US News & World Report “Washington Whispers”:

Here’s Why Jeb Bush Won’t Run: Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has for months sternly rejected running to replace his brother in the White House, but only now are we finding out why. Friends say it’s his wife, Columba, who closed the door. “His wife has just said no,” a close Bush Florida political pal tells us.

Poor Columba, she has a target on her back. She ought to know by now that nobody stands in the way of the Bushes.