Month: September 2006

Poll: Only 42% of Americans Believe Gas Price Plunge Is Politically Motivated

Jon Ponder

How can 53 percent of us be so blind:

According to a new Gallup poll, 42 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that the Bush administration “deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall’s elections.” Fifty-three percent of those surveyed did not believe the conspiracy theory; 5 percent said they had no opinion.

Not surprising, almost two-thirds of those who suspect President Bush intervened to bring down energy prices before Election Day are registered Democrats, according to Gallup.

Young George Allen Alledgedly Stuffed Deer Head in Black Family’s Mailbox

Jon Ponder

Macaca:

The sickest part of the latest reporting is the claim by R. Kendall Shelton that Allen — who called Shelton the “Wizard,” because Shelton shared the surname of a former KKK imperial wizard — once cut the head off a deer and asked where the nearest black person lived, and promptly shoved that head into the person’s mailbox. This may be the episode on which Allen’s Senate career (I think his presidential career has gone the way of the deer’s head) may turn, for two reasons. First, because an incident like this, if true, is not only grotesque and craven, but reveals a general hatred rather than an anger directed at a specific individual. It’s not like Allen was miffed that some guy, who happened to be black, sold him a used car that turned out to be a lemon. If Shelton’s account is true, for Allen any black suffices for intimidation and ridicule.

Rumsfeld in 2003: I’ll Fire the Next Guy Who Asks About a Post-War Plan

Trish

A string of retired military officers took the stand at the Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearings to enumerate all the ways Donald Rumsfeld sucks.

Retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton assessed Rumsfeld as “incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically”

“I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq,” retired Maj. Gen. John R. S. Batiste said…

A second witness, retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, assessed Rumsfeld as “incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically ….”

Well yeah, but except for that —

“Mr. Rumsfeld and his immediate team must be replaced or we will see two more years of extraordinarily bad decision-making,” he added…

[Retired Col. Paul X.] Hammes said in his prepared remarks that not providing the best equipment was a “serious moral failure on the part of our leadership.”

…Batiste, Eaton and Hammes were unsparing in remarks that suggested deep anger at the way the military had been treated. All three served in Iraq…

[Batiste] said Rumsfeld at one point threatened to fire the next person who mentioned the need for a postwar plan in Iraq.

4,000 Troops are Being Extended

And speaking of the Bush administration’s flawed plan for Iraq, it looks like 4,000 troops scheduled to come home aren’t. Someone leaked the crappy news to the press.

The Army has extended the combat tours of about 4,000 soldiers who would otherwise be returning home, a defense official said Monday.

The 1st Brigade of 1st Armored Division, which is operating in the vicinity of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, will be kept in place for several weeks beyond their scheduled departure…

The 1st Brigade…was extended to allow its replacement unit, from the 3rd Infantry Division, the minimum 12 months between overseas tours, the official said. The 3rd Infantry has served two tours in Iraq, including the initial invasion of the country in March 2003…

Until sectarian violence spiked early this year, Bush administration officials had voiced hopes that this election year would see significant U.S. troop reductions in what has become a widely unpopular war.

The British Have Saved Our Asses Again

One of the S-K-Ps from the Afghanistan prison right under our noses last year was killed by troops from the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment.

[Omar] Farouq was one of four al Qaeda suspects who broke out of the prison in Bagram, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, in July 2005.

It was an embarrassing incident for the U.S. military, and the Pentagon waited until November to confirm that the man had escaped. The delay in releasing his name upset Indonesia, which had arrested Farouq in 2002 and then turned him over to the United States — which then shipped him to Afghanistan.

After escaping, the al Qaeda leader and the three others had managed to evade a massive manhunt. They later appeared in a video sent to the Dubai-based television station Al-Arabiya and boasted of their feat.

Army Protests War Costs, Tells Rumsfeld and Bush It Needs Additional Billions to Keep Fighting

Jon Ponder
The Army’s chief of staff is now seeking $138.8 billion in 2008, nearly $25 billion above budget limits originally set by Rumsfeld.

It’s the incompetence, stupid:

The Army’s top officer withheld a required 2008 budget plan from Pentagon leaders last month after protesting to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the service could not maintain its current level of activity in Iraq plus its other global commitments without billions in additional funding.

The decision by Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, is believed to be unprecedented and signals a widespread belief within the Army that in the absence of significant troop withdrawals from Iraq, funding assumptions must be completely reworked, say current and former Pentagon officials.

“This is unusual, but hell, we’re in unusual times,” said a senior Pentagon official involved in the budget discussions.

Schoomaker failed to submit the budget plan by an Aug. 15 deadline. The protest followed a series of cuts in the service’s funding requests by both the White House and Congress over the last four months.

According to a senior Army official involved in budget talks, Schoomaker is now seeking $138.8 billion in 2008, nearly $25 billion above budget limits originally set by Rumsfeld. The Army’s budget this year is $98.2 billion, making Schoomaker’s request a 41% increase over current levels.

“It’s incredibly huge,” said the Army official, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity when commenting on internal deliberations. “These are just incredible numbers.”

Georgia GOP Still Whistlin’ Dixie

Jon Ponder

It has been 151 years since the Confederacy was vanquished in the Civil War, and yet its dark and twisted spirit lives on, ironically enough, in the party of the Confederacy’s archenemy, Abraham Lincoln.

In Georgia, die-hard supporters of the Confederacy are gearing for another battle in the long-ended war to honor a society built on the spiritual and economic evil of slavery. And while the issue is familiar — returning the Confederate battle flag’s “Stars and bars” to Georgia’s state flag — their foe is a fellow Republican, Gov. Sonny Perdue. The governor used to be one of their own, or so they thought:

They helped rout former Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes in 2002, and now they’re rallying their troops for a run at Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue.

Supporters of the 1956 state flag with its dominant Confederate cross plan a final all-out charge to oust a Georgia governor who outflanked their no-retreat-no-surrender efforts to keep the controversial banner flying.

“We can’t elect our own governor. We’ve tried, but we don’t have enough votes. What we can do is make ’em one-termers,” said Elijah Coleman, a Mableton member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Political experts — and even some from their own ranks — say the flag forces are fighting a long-decided battle. And they’re going into the skirmish with divided troops.

“Our members are pretty disgusted with Perdue and the promises he broke,” said Jeff Davis, the Gainesville-based chairman of Georgia Heritage Council, an umbrella group that includes leaders representing other heritage groups. “They certainly will not be supporting him. Some will vote [for Democratic candidate Mark Taylor, the current lieutenant governor]. Some will go fishing that day. Some will support a third-party candidate.”

College Teammates Remember Sen. Allen as Racist

Jon Ponder

Salon searched up Sen. George Allen’s teammates from college football and asked what they remembered about his views on race:

“Allen said he came to Virginia [from Los Angeles, where he grew up] because he wanted to play football in a place where ‘blacks knew their place.’”

Three former college football teammates of Sen. George Allen say that the Virginia Republican repeatedly used an inflammatory racial epithet and demonstrated racist attitudes toward blacks during the early 1970s.

“Allen said he came to Virginia [from Los Angeles, where he grew up] because he wanted to play football in a place where ‘blacks knew their place,'” said Dr. Ken Shelton, a white radiologist in North Carolina who played tight end for the University of Virginia football team when Allen was quarterback. “He used the N-word on a regular basis back then.”

A second white teammate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retribution from the Allen campaign, separately claimed that Allen used the word “nigger” to describe blacks. “It was so common with George when he was among his white friends. This is the terminology he used,” the teammate said.

Angelides Says He’ll Pull California Guard out of Iraq

Jon Ponder

Phil Angelides has had a tough making headlines in his campaign to unseat Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — so this is good news:

In a move to bolster his appeal among Democrats, state Treasurer Phil Angelides said Saturday night that on his first day as governor, he would call on President Bush to withdraw California’s National Guard troops from the war in Iraq.

The Democratic nominee for governor said in a telephone interview that he would take court action against Bush if necessary to extract the state’s National Guard members from Iraq. He said he would also urge other governors and members of Congress to join his effort.

Frank Rich mentioned it on George Stephanapolous’ show this morning, which is good. Maybe the newsers will give it some play next week.