Month: February 2007

Cook: Hillary the Dem to Beat in ’08

Buck Banks

Handicapping the race: National Journal’s political analyst Charlie Cook muses on the effect that Barak Obama’s entry into the presidential race will have on Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Seems he thinks it’s not much:

Obama could be just one more of the alternatives whom Democrats disinclined to support Clinton could choose from.

Part of me hated to see Barack Obama jump into the presidential race. Don’t get me wrong: I have nothing against the senator from Illinois. But I had a theory about how the contest for the Democratic nomination would play out, and I worried that Obama’s entry could complicate things.

My theory was that the race would largely be a referendum on Hillary Rodham Clinton and on whether her party thinks she could win the general election. Virtually every Democratic voter knows her, and up to 83 percent have a favorable opinion of her. If they decide she can win, I reasoned, most would vote for her. It would come down to whether they see her as a winner.

So, this theory goes, the Democratic nomination contest would amount to two NCAA-style brackets. The top bracket would be the Hillary Clinton bracket. She would be the only one in it, and she would get byes all the way to the final. All of the other candidates would be in the second bracket, competing with one another.

Eventually, someone would emerge as the alternative to Clinton, most likely after the Iowa caucuses. Former Sen. John Edwards, I figured, had the best chance to become the un-Hillary because he is better-known than the rest and has a head start in Iowa.
[…]

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.

— John Swinton (1830-1901), Editor of the New York Sun, replying to the toast “An independent press,” at a journalists’ gathering, Twilight Club, New York, April 12, 1893

Joint Chiefs Chair Denies Bush Officials’ Iran Weapons Claim

Jon Ponder

Red-handed: Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace has quashed a story put out by anonymous Bush officials yesterday purporting that the government of Iran was supplying weapons to Shi’ite insurgents in Iraq:

We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran. What I would not say is that the Iranian government, per se [specifically], knows about this,” he said. “It is clear that Iranians are involved, and it’s clear that materials from Iran are involved, but I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit.

It’s good for the republic, though tragically too late, that a general is finally calling the president on his bullshit.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What are the habits of the military? The aim of war is murder; the methods of war are spying, treachery and their encouragement, the ruins of a country’s inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army, and fraud and falsehood termed military craft. The habits of the military class are the absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery and drunkenness. And in spite of all this, it is the highest class, respected by everyone … and he who kills the most people receives the highest rewards.

— Count Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1821-1910), Russian writer

Former Bush Official Says Admininstration Is Deliberately Provoking Iran

Jon Ponder

This one is on the record:

“They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for,” says Hillary Mann, former Bush national security official.

Some view the spiraling attacks as a strand in a worrisome pattern. At least one former White House official contends that some Bush advisers secretly want an excuse to attack Iran. “They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for,” says Hillary Mann, the administration’s former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs.

U.S. officials insist they have no intention of provoking or otherwise starting a war with Iran, and they were also quick to deny any link to Sharafi’s kidnapping. But the fact remains that the longstanding war of words between Washington and Tehran is edging toward something more dangerous.

A second Navy carrier group is steaming toward the Persian Gulf, and NEWSWEEK has learned that a third carrier will likely follow. Iran shot off a few missiles in those same tense waters last week, in a highly publicized test.

With Americans and Iranians jousting on the chaotic battleground of Iraq, the chances of a small incident’s spiraling into a crisis are higher than they’ve been in years.

Whispering Campaign Against Iran Grows

Trish

The mainstream media has reached a new low in failing their sole mission to give us information we need to make good decisions. Instead, they are reporting the carefully assembled “facts” about Iran’s involvement in Iraq without questioning — or even naming — the source. Here’s the lead to an ABC story:

“The officer briefed reporters on condition he not be further identified…” Huh?

High-tech roadside bombs that have proved particularly deadly to American soldiers are manufactured in Iran and delivered to Iraq on orders from the “highest levels” of the Iranian government, a senior intelligence officer said Sunday.

The officer, briefing reporters on condition he not be further identified, said that between June 2004 and last week, more than 170 Americans had been killed by the bombs, which the military calls “explosively formed projectiles.”

Those weapons are capable of destroying an Abrams tank.

The officer said American intelligence analysts believe the EFPs are manufactured in Iran and smuggled into Iraq on orders from the top of the Iranian government. He did not elaborate.

Who is this mystery “senior intelligence officer” and why on earth would we accept his information without demanding his identity? What possible reason is there to keep his identity secret? And who has the greater need? Mr. X, to get out his information? Or the press, to reveal it to us? I’d wager their need to put this out is much greater than ours to get it, especially since they are making sure we can’t judge its accuracy.

Have we not learned any lessons about the miserable mistake of letting the Bush administration spoon-feed us their version of the facts, and what happens when the press rolls over and becomes mere transcribers? Can you say, “Here we go again?”

Putin Not Feeling the Love for W Anymore

Trish

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s blast at Bush policies is going largely ignored in this country, what with more urgent subjects for Americans to debate. You know, like who is Anna Nicole Smith’s baby daddy?

Still, we enjoyed Putin’s unique perspective at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, in which he said the White House should examine its own responsibility for Iran and others not trusting us.

“Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law,” Putin told the gathering.

Putin said it was “the almost uncontained hyper-use of force in international relations” that was forcing countries opposed to Washington to seek to build up nuclear arsenals.

“It is a world of one master, one sovereign. … It has nothing to do with democracy. This is nourishing the wish of countries to get nuclear weapons,” he said.

“This is very dangerous. Nobody feels secure anymore because nobody can hide behind international law,” Putin told the gathering.

Putin did not mention the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, but he voiced concern about NATO’s expansion plans as possible challenges to Russia.

“The process of NATO expansion has nothing to do with modernization of the alliance or with ensuring security in Europe,” Putin said. “On the contrary, it is a serious factor provoking reduction of mutual trust.”

John McCain, who was at the conference looking presidential, rushed to condemn Putin’s speech, nearly falling over as his knee jerked out from under him.

Oddly, new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was more circumspect and actually waited a day to respond. When he did, he focused on the United States’ need for help in Afghanistan, which is going almost as badly as Baghdad.

He struck a familiar theme — one he pressed during a NATO defense ministers meeting this week, when he urged the allies to follow through on their promises to help secure and rebuild Afghanistan.

“It is vitally important that the success Afghanistan has achieved not be allowed to slip away through neglect or lack of political will or resolve,” Gates said. Failure to muster a strong military effort combined with economic development and a counternarcotics plan “would be a mark of shame,” he said.

Bring shame on a neocon initiative? Sounds like a job for George W!

George Bush is Not Our Commander in Chief

Trish

You might have missed Garry Wills’ recent brilliant reality check, so we are excerpting it here as a public service.

We hear constantly now about “our commander in chief.” The word has become a synonym for “president.” It is said that we “elect a commander in chief.” It is asked whether this or that candidate is “worthy to be our commander in chief.”

But the president is not our commander in chief. He certainly is not mine. I am not in the Army.

Dwight Eisenhower, a real general, knew that the salute is for the uniform, and as president he was not wearing one. An exchange of salutes was out of order.

…The president is not the commander in chief of civilians. He is not even commander in chief of National Guard troops unless and until they are federalized. The Constitution is clear on this: “The president shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.”

…The glorification of the president as a war leader is registered in numerous and substantial executive aggrandizements; but it is symbolized in other ways that, while small in themselves, dispose the citizenry to accept those aggrandizements. We are reminded, for instance, of the expanded commander in chief status every time a modern president gets off the White House helicopter and returns the salute of marines.

That is an innovation that was begun by Ronald Reagan. Dwight Eisenhower, a real general, knew that the salute is for the uniform, and as president he was not wearing one. An exchange of salutes was out of order. (George Bush came as close as he could to wearing a uniform while president when he landed on the telegenic aircraft carrier in an Air Force flight jacket).

…Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s prescient last book, “Secrecy,” traced the ever-faster-growing secrecy of our government and said that it strikes at the very essence of democracy — accountability of representatives to the people. How can the people hold their representatives to account if they are denied knowledge of what they are doing? Wartime and war analogies are embraced because these justify the secrecy. The representative is accountable to citizens. Soldiers are accountable to their officer. The dynamics are different, and to blend them is to undermine the basic principles of our Constitution.

Deconstructing the Jeb for President Scenario

Trish

A new book from a Florida insider with no love for its subject warns of a Jeb presidential run as early as 2008.

In ”JEB: America’s Next Bush,” reporter Shirish Date advances a plausible-on-paper scenario for Florida’s 43rd governor to run for the nation’s highest elective office…

New book says Jeb is “not only a liar, but an accomplished one” and describes him as “a tall, mean guy with a giant head and twitching nose hairs.”

”Given his personality, given his sense of mission, given that his father and his clearly less-qualified brother have both accomplished this, it’s hard to imagine Jeb not running for president,” Date writes.

…Date reasons that, at 54, Jeb Bush is too young and ambitious to languish in commercial real-estate boardrooms and policy-wonk think tanks around Miami for long…

”For Jeb, the biggest factor that will push him into a presidential campaign will be his own boredom,” Date writes.

Now there’s a dangerous concept — a bored Jeb. Who knows what mayhem could result from that? I’m tempted to read the book just for the promised descriptions of my least favorite Florida governor ever.

…his narrative is also marked by ventures into more interpretive areas, such as calling Bush ”not only a liar, but an accomplished one” and describing him as ”a tall, mean guy with a giant head and twitching nose hairs.”

Date – pronounced DAH-tay – said in an interview he doesn’t dislike Bush. He just thinks winning outweighs fair play in the autocratic chief executive’s ”bred to rule” approach to government. Bush did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

Others say the ultimate irony is that Democrats taking the White House next year could be just the break Jeb needs to make a big ol’ comeback.

[One analyst] said ”Bush fatigue” will hurt the ex-governor in the foreseeable future. But if the Democrats win in 2008, the brand name could be quickly rehabilitated in 2012, she said, and a third Bush presidency would be plausible.

Chilling thought, but Date has another take.

Running for vice president doesn’t fit Bush’s top-dog style, Date said…

And besides, Date said, if Bush doesn’t run next year and the Republicans win, he’ll have to wait until 2016. He’ll be 63 then, young by presidential standards, but will have been out of office for 10 years – while the family’s big-donor list will have died off or found other GOP favorites.

Let us pray.