Month: January 2006

Gypsies, tramps and thieves: With legislators looking for way to divest themselves of ill-gotten Abramoff-tainted money, Americans are looking at their congressional representatives with a jaundiced eye, according to National Journal’s PollTrack:

CNN/Gallup/USA Today pollsters found that a 49% plurality said most members of Congress are corrupt, and 46% said they were not. With nearly nine in 10 respondents saying corruption will be at least moderately important in the 2006 midterms, CNN’s analysis suggests that “Congress’ image could emerge as an election topic.”

Numbers didn’t vary much between the two major parties, however: 52% said “only a few” Democrats in Congress are corrupt; 49% said the same of Republicans; 2% for each party said no members are corrupt, and fewer than two in 10 said “almost all” were crooked.

Respondents to a recent National Public Radio survey don’t see ethics problems limited to one party, either — 19% said troubles lie more with Republicans than Democrats and 14% said the reverse, but a 65% majority said both parties had problems with ethics.
[…]

Duck and cover: With the announcement that licentious lobbyist and Indian slighter Jack Abramoff had rolled over for prosecutors yesterday, congresspersons on both sides of the aisle in the House and Senate are sweating bullets.

While Democrats will likely point to the Republican “culture of corruption” as the investigation begins to uncover the money trail (i.e., Delay, Ney), Repugs will be quick to note any links between Abramoff and Democrats, as they, too, took donations from the Jackster. The “Abramoff Effect” likely will paint any legislator who took money from Abramoff and then voted for or against one of the lobbyist’s pet issues within a certain period of time — say, ever — with the tar brush of corruption.

Because Abramoff lobbied a number of legislators on a wide variety of issues, the scandal has no end in sight. And don’t think for a minute that the investigation will not be pursued with vigor. Leading the investigation is the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice — guys in the mold of Elliot Ness — along with the FBI and the IRS. Here’s how the PIS is described on its Web site:

The Public Integrity Section oversees the federal effort to combat corruption through the prosecution of elected and appointed public officials at all levels of government. The Section has exclusive jurisdiction over allegations of criminal misconduct on the part of federal judges and also monitors the investigation and prosecution of election and conflict of interest crimes. Section attorneys prosecute selected cases against federal, state, and local officials, and are available as a source of advice and expertise to other prosecutors and investigators. Since 1978, the Section has supervised the administration of the Independent Counsel provisions of the Ethics in Government act.

To read the DOJ’s press release issued following the plea deal yesterday (which covers the crimes and the investigation), click […]

Change the Q to an N: German media have been reporting that it appears likely the United States is preparing to mount air strikes against Iran’s nuclear production facilities, possibly as soon as early 2006. Word is that CIA Director Porter Goss has been in talks with Turkey’s President Reccep Erdogan over access to intelligence in support of attacks against Iran.

According to an article in the English edition of Der Spiegel, quoting German news wire service DDP:

DDP also reported that the governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Pakistan have been informed in recent weeks of Washington’s military plans. The countries, apparently, were told that air strikes were a “possible option,” but they were given no specific timeframe for the operations.

Hey, and doesn’t this sound familiar? Links to al-Qaida, nukuler weapons, unspecified threats ….

According to DDP, during his trip to Turkey, CIA chief Goss reportedly handed over three dossiers to Turkish security officials that purportedly contained evidence that Tehran is cooperating with Islamic terror network al-Qaida. A further dossier is said to contain information about the current status of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.

The newspaper notes a virtual stream of top U.S. personnel visiting Turkey recently:

In recent weeks, the number of American and NATO security officials heading to Ankara has increased dramatically. Within a matter of only days, the FBI chief, then the CIA chief and, most recently, NATO General Secretary Jaap De Hoop Scheffer visited the Turkish capital. During her visit to Europe earlier this month, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also traveled to Turkey after a stopover in Berlin.

DDP quotes a high-ranking German military official saying:

“I would be very surprised if the Americans, in the mid-term, didn’t take advantage of the opportunity delivered by Tehran. The Americans have to attack Iran before the country can develop nuclear weapons. After that would be too late.”

There you have it — we HAVE to attack Iran. That’s just what the Bushies want to hear.

“Bush hater” is a term invented by people who didn’t like being called “Clinton haters” because it was true. I don’t mind being called a Bush hater because it is not.

My antipathy for George Bush is a thousand miles wide and a micro-millimeter deep. Underneath that thin veneer of dislike lurks one million metric tons of couldn’t-care-less.

On that glorious day when he goes back to Crawford for good – and the world once again becomes safe for democracy – before the sun sets, I will have forgotten him. Seriously. George who?

(For Mr. Bush, I predict the transition from Worst President Ever to Worst Ex-President Ever will be seamless. He’ll be content, finally, to have nothing on his schedule but working on his abs. We won’t be hearing much from him. I mean, it’s not like he’s going to write a book.)

What sets Mr. Bush apart from past presidents is how woefully ill-equipped he was for the job when he took office. His staff might have compensated for his incompetence if it hadn’t been for the bad luck thrown their way. But isn’t crisis management the most important qualification for the presidency?

With the exception of hardcore ideological issues that might benefit his constituents, such as his very effective redistribution of wealth from the middle class up to the super-rich, Bush has bungled issues that have come up both large and small – from 9/11 to stem cell resarch, from the war in Iraq to Social Security “reform,” from the death of Terri Schiavo to the nomination of Harriet Miers.

The president’s incompetence is compounded by his blindness to it. He lacks the mental discipline to undertake analysis or introspection, which renders him bereft of the fundamental tools required to take corrective action when he makes mistakes.

Basic communications skills are another minimum requirement for the presidency in the TV age. But this president is hands down the worst public speaker in modern politics. His speechifying style is bizarre. The … staccato … way he … talks … grinds on the brain of the listener. He sounds like Capt. James T. Kirk doing a hillbilly accent with a mouth full of marbles.

The good ol’ boy demeanor he projects strains credulity. Why would a pampered, prep-schooled aristocrat, born to parents whose combined lineage includes America’s wealthiest and WASP-iest families, adopt the persona of a back-slappin’ backy-chawin’ goober?

And that is the final point, he did not get where he is on his merits – he became president because he had the right name. Every single other thing about him is built on fiction.

Failing upward into the presidency is just un-American.

[…]

In a word: According to National Journal’s PollTrack, four new surveys on the Iraq conflict suggest that wording — “mistake” vs. “worth it” — can make a difference in the answers to poll questions about the war.

In a CNN/Gallup/USA Today survey in mid-December, 52% of respondents said they felt the war was a mistake, a 4-point gain from earlier in the month.

A 49% plurality of respondents to a new Associated Press/Ipsos Public Affairs poll said the same — 42% said the U.S. made the right decision in going to war.

But does the word “mistake” change the connotations of the question? ABC News/Washington Post pollsters suggest that 47% of respondents think the war was worth fighting — just 6 points less than those who don’t think the conflict was worth its costs. It’s a similar split to the “mistake” questions, but the split is dramatically narrower than it was in early November, when 38% said the war was worth it and 60% said it wasn’t.

New numbers from Zogby are even closer, with 51% saying the war wasn’t worth its costs, compared to 49% saying it was. That’s roughly the same as an early December survey that put 49% on each side.

Another question from CNN/Gallup/USA Today pollsters showed Americans frowning on recent reports that the government paid Iraqi newspapers to publish favorable stories about the United States — 72% said it was inappropriate. About 4 in 10 said it would bother them a great deal if the charges were true; 24% said it would trouble them a fair amount, and 36% said it wouldn’t bother them much or at all.