Tag: Congress

Scaife Funded ‘Arkansas Project’ to Destroy Clinton, Now Says He Was a ‘Pretty Good’ President

Jon Ponder

In the 1990s, Pittsburgh billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife provided at least $1.8 million to fund the “Arkansas Project,” a conspiracy to dig up dirt on Bill and Hillary Clinton in their home state. The project was successful in that it eventually led to the snaring of Pres. Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in a perjury trap, and their sex lie under oath led to his impeachment.

Rightwingers like to blame the September 11 attacks on Pres. Clinton, saying he was distracted by his personal problems. This is bull, of course. But if it were true, the real culprits would include Scaife, Olson and Tyrrell.

Another result of the Arkansa Project was that it softened support for Clinton’s would-be successor, Vice Pres. Al Gore, thus paving the way for the Bush administration and six diasastrous years of conservatives’ corrupt control of the government, as well as the war in Iraq, which has been called the worst foreign policy blunder in U.S. history.

Now, however, an aide to Scaife says the reclusive billionaire has changed his mind about Bill Clinton:

Christopher Ruddy, who once worked full-time for Mr. Scaife investigating the Clintons and now runs a conservative online publication he co-owns with Mr. Scaife, said, “Both of us have had a rethinking.”

“Clinton wasn’t such a bad president,” Mr. Ruddy said. “In fact, he was a pretty good president in a lot of ways, and Dick feels that way today.”

The purpose of the Arkansas campaign was to hobble the Clinton presidency by spreading lies, half-truths and rumors about the Clintons. According to sources that include the invaluable, “Hunting of the Presidency,” by Joe Conanson and Gene Lyons, the Arkansas Project operated out of the offices of the American Spectator magazine, a mouthpiece for rightwing ideology. Another good source for this story is David Brock, whose book, “Blinded by the Right,” describes how he worked as a “hit man,” writing deliberately false news stories about the Clintons’ personal lives at the behest of American Spectator and its editor-in-chief, Emmett Tyrell Jr.

(Brock has repented and now runs the liberal watchdog organization, Media Matters for America.)

The administrator of Scaife’s funding for the Arkansas Project, according to these and other sources, was Ted Olson, a longtime pal of Whitewater inquisitor Ken Starr. There is much speculation, along with some evidence, that Olson or his minions fed Starr’s Whitewater investigation information collected by the Arkansas Project. This connection was a key element of the “vast rightwing conspiracy” Hillary Clinton referred to during her appearance on the Today Show on January 27, 1998.

Olson’s late wife Barbara was one of the rightwing blondes in the 1990s that included Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway, who used their virulent hatred of the Clintons to became media stars. Barbara Olson wrote an anti-Hillary screed titled, “Hell to Pay: The Unfolding Story of Hillary Rodham Clinton.” (She died onboard the plane that hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.)

In 2000, Ted Olson argued for the Bush-Cheney campaign in Bush v. Gore at the Supreme Court, thus delivering the presidency to the man who will forever be known as the Worst President Ever. Olson was rewarded by being named Bush’s first solicitor general, a post once held by his friend, Ken Starr.

Rightwingers like to blame the September 11 attacks on Pres. Clinton, saying he was distracted by his personal problems. This is bull, of course. But if it were true, the real culprits would include Scaife, Olson and Tyrrell, who drummed up moral outrage about the president’s peccadillos. Other presidents, including the current president’s father, have reportedly had affairs while in office without the intrusion of public scrutiny.

Now that Scaife has seen the light, it seems that the least he could do is offer a full accounting of what was done in his name, and with his money, in connection with the “get Clinton” project.

Obama Pulls a Biden

Buck Banks

Harbinger? Come on, Barack, we thought you were smarter and better than that:

Despite the mea culpa, Obama’s gaffe caused no break in the media gushing over his budding candidacy.

If Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John Kerry or Joe Biden had said that American lives lost in Iraq were “wasted,” a media firestorm would have erupted.

And yet there was Sen. Barack Obama, just 24 hours after his presidential campaign announcement over the weekend, saying the nation had “seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.”

Immediately following his off-the-cuff remark during an Iowa town hall meeting — and after huddling with horrified aides — the Illinois Democrat told the Des Moines Register that he regretted his choice of words, and wished he had instead said “their sacrifices are never wasted.”

Despite the mea culpa, Obama’s gaffe caused no break in the media gushing over his budding candidacy. But if he does win the nomination, expect Republicans to play that tape over and over, arguing that it shows a lack of respect for soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

Rice Refused to Take Iran’s Call in 2003

Trish

Nobody home Iran reached out to the incompetent Bush diplomatic team in 2003 but its calls went unreturned by the worst president ever’s worst diplomats.

Conjuring deja vu all over again in congressional testimony this week, Secretary of Narcolepsy State Condo Rice said the Iranians just didn’t make it clear enough for her or her predecessor, Colin Powell.

“We had people who said the Iranians went to talk to you, lots of people who said the Iranians want to talk to you,” Rice said

Rice told Congress she does not remember seeing the 2003 Iranian proposal, which suggested Iran was ready to discuss its disputed nuclear program, support for militant groups that the United States labels terrorists and the acceptance of Israel…

The document, faxed to the State Department in the early days of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, proposed direct talks, perhaps in Paris. Iraq was at the top of the proposed agenda, with Tehran proposing “active Iranian support for Iraqi stabilization.”

Like the infamous “Terrorists are Going to Hijack Passenger Jets and Fly Them into Skyscrapers” memo that Rice’s National Security Council couldn’t quite parse out the meaning of, the Iranian fax will go down in history as one of the biggest missed opportunities since Capt. Smith said, “Icebergs? Who cares about icebergs? This ship is unsinkable!”

“We had people who said the Iranians went to talk to you, lots of people who said the Iranians want to talk to you,” Rice said during an exchange with Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla.

“But I think I would have noticed if the Iranians had said, ‘We’re ready to recognize Israel,'” Rice said. “I just don’t remember ever seeing any such thing.”

Well of course you don’t, Condo, and therein lies the problem. The Bush team’s idea of diplomacy is sitting back and waiting for the other side to wave a white flag and say, “O.K., we’re giving you everything you want and a few things you haven’t thought of yet! And would you like that gift-wrapped?”

To them, it’s a zero-sum game. Gone are the days of give and take, back and forth, and agreements all parties can live with long-term that win Nobel Peace prizes. Now it’s just threaten sanctions, impose sanctions, and send Cheney off to the bunker to await the explosion.

“This administration, out of some combination of ideological blindness and incompetence, couldn’t be bothered to explore whether this opportunity was as serious as it looked on paper,” [Rice’s former National Security Council Aide Flynt] Leverett said Wednesday…

The Bush administration has resisted suggestions, including from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, that it should engage Iran to try to improve security in next-door Iraq.

And these idiots want us to take their word for it when they tell us now that we might possibly need to go to war with Iran? Don’t!

Saving Marriage: Life Sentences for Adulterers, Forced Annulments for Childlessness

Jon Ponder

There have been two exciting developments recently in the campaign to protect marriage. In Ohio and Michigan wingnuts are pushing adultery laws with life-sentence penalties. In Washington state, liberals have proposed a law that prohibits infertile couples from marrying and annuls marriages that have not produced children after three years.

Count me in. I’m strongly in favor of both these efforts, and believe they warrant serious debate.

Criminalizing Adultery

Rightwing anti-marriage activists say that allowing same-sex couples to wed would destroy the institution of marriage.

But any rational observer would say that it isn’t homos who are wrecking marriage, it’s adulterers who cause most marriages to fail. And since about half of marriages end in divorce, we can surmise that there is a whole lot of adultery going on.

If conservatives feel as strongly as they say they do, why not make adultery punishable by death?

I have long been an advocate of taking the anti-marriage right at its word and criminalizing adultery — after all, it’s in the Bible. One of the Big Ten: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery.

Conversely, nowhere in the Ten Commandments does it say Thou shalt not be gay. In fact, there is nothing of any consequence about gay sex in either Testament.

I was surprised to learn last week that several states already (or, rather, still) have laws on the books against adultery. In Michigan, the penalty for sexual misconduct is a life sentence.

Now we’re talking!

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UN: Iraq Occupation Has Created 3.7 Mil Refugees

Jon Ponder

The Iraq war has spawned a refugee crisis that will likely become increasingly dire over the next year. According to the United Nations, 3.7 million Iraqi citizens are currently displaced as a result of the civil war the U.S. invasion has unleashed. They include 1.7 million who are homeless inside Iraq and 2 million who are living in other countries.

The United States will accept fewer than 500 refugees out of the 3.7 million Bush’s war has created.

“The current exodus is the largest long-term population movement in the Middle East since the displacement of Palestinians following the creation of Israel in 1948,” said a U.N. report in early January. The U.N.’s refugee commission is seeking $6o million to apply to the crisis.

Astoundingly, the United States — whose president started the war — will accept fewer than 500 Iraqi refugees this year. (Not a typo: 500.)

By comparison, between 500,000 and 1 million Iraqi refugees are living in Syria, 700,000 are in Jordan, 20,000 to 80,000 are in Egypt and up to 40,000 are living in Lebanon.

Obviously, our government is not allowing the people its war displaced to come here because it fears that terrorists would enter the country with them. But one day — thanks to George W. Bush — we’ll pay for this displacement, one way or another.

Poll: Prez Hopefuls’ War Stance Evaluated

Buck Banks

McCain’s brain: The Pensito Review brain trust was standing around our virtual water cooler yesterday, scratching our heads over Sen. John McCain’s siding with George Bush on the surge deal in Iraq. Not to mention some of McCain’s recent appointments to his exploratory committee and his tactics on dealing with Mitt Romney’s campaign. Thank goodness every Friday the National Journal polls D.C. insiders on the hot topics of the day and then shares what movers and shakers in both parties have to say about a topics — or we’d still be scratching our heads.

On John McCain: ‘It’s hard to run as a maverick when you are supporting the status quo.’

This week’s National Journal poll of political insiders asked participants whether they thought McCain’s support of the surge would be advantageous to his presidential bid. Of the 77 Democrats tested, 82 percent said no — that it would hinder his chances.

“Once the Republican candidate that Democrats were fearful of, [he] has changed dramatically,” one Democratic insider said. Another pontificated, “It will help him in the primary, but just kill him in the general.”

GOP insiders were fairly split, 48 percent to 43 percent, in favor of McCain’s stance helping his chances. The respondents who said McCain’s support would hurt him offered sentiments similar to the Democrats’, including one who said: “It’s hard to run as a maverick when you are supporting the status quo.”

Insiders were also posed a question on a top-tier Democrat who hopes to return to the White House in 2008. Asked whether it would be a good move for New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to denounce her 2002 vote authorizing the use of force in Iraq, seven in 10 Republicans said no. Like the Republicans were on McCain, Democrats were split, 56 percent to 44 percent, with the majority saying that Clinton should come forth and say her vote was a mistake.

A Democrat who might like her to do so explained, “One moment of candor, authenticity, real emotion would be a plus.” Another called the vote “the dividing line between her and the Democratic nomination.” On the other end of the calculation, one said, “She’s in a box on this one, but changing now might do more damage as it would appear just too politically expedient.”

Republicans on the “no” side agreed, saying that she’d be viewed as a flip-flopper if she changed her position, and that former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama have already earned their chits in the field as anti-war Democrats. But as one Republican voting “yes” put it, “She looks incapable of admitting mistakes if this continues.”

What do you think? Leave a comment.

She’s In: Hail Hillary, the Ralph Nader of 2008

Trish

It’s what passes for official. Hillary Clinton has announced she is forming an “exploratory committee” to run for president. Editor’s note: When did this particular euphemism/hedge get adopted? Didn’t people just used to declare they were running? When did they start declaring they were exploring?

Anyway.

The trailblazer doesn’t usually win but she does open a door that never closes in the same way again

It seems to me that by grabbing all the true believers for whom being their idea of right is more important than being elected, Hillary Clinton will be the Ralph Nader of the 2008 elections. By siphoning off primary votes from candidates who stand a chance in the general election, she will lead us to ultimate loss in November.

The woman just has too much baggage all the way around. She will never be forgiven for marrying Bill, for being too secure to pull a Knots Landing/Desperate Housewives/soap opera maneuver and instead determining adultery isn’t a deal breaker for her, and for, as the Dixie Chicks would say, not making nice.

But maybe it’s time for a woman to be a serious contender in a presidential election. Part of me has to hand it to Clinton for being willing to chart this particular territory. What usually happens in these situations is not that the trailblazer wins but that she opens a door that never closes in the same way again.

Check her out here.

If Obama’s Past Drug Use Is Fair Game So Is Bush’s

Jon Ponder

The issue is no longer simply how and why Bush has successfully dodged the topic for his entire political career. The story now should be why the press has treated him with kid gloves for so long.
— John Seery

The folks at Fox News were discussing Barack Obama’s admission in a book 11 years ago that he’d used drugs in his youth when the show’s hostess went off script and brought up Pres. Bush’s use of cocaine in his youth:

Their conversation took an unusual turn, however, when Fox reporter Kirian Chetry said President Bush had also admitted to using cocaine.

Obama “talks very candidly, as did our current president, who admitted to using cocaine, correct? [Others demur] Well, who wrote, somebody wrote in a book — well, he admitted that he had an alcoholic, he had a drinking problem. Who was it who said they witnessed him using cocaine? It was somebody who wrote a book…”

As her colleagues tried to talk her down from the line of discussion, Chetry responded, “Okay, okay, fine, but there were questions about the current president and whether he used cocaine or not as a young guy, but there’s something about turning your life around…that people can accept.”

John Seery, who wrote about Bush’s cocaine-abusing past back in the 2000 election, has this take on the Fox segment in the Huffington Post:

Whew, that was a close one! Fox News surely didn’t want to open that door into Bush’s creepy closet, and they tried to slam it shut. Maybe the stress of the Iraq War, compounded by the growing abundance of Afghani poppy plants, is triggering memory flashbacks. Whatever the reason, the “cocaine issue” is back in the news–it just won’t go away.

What amazes me is that here we are, six years into Bush’s presidency, and the press still refuses to treat the longstanding stories about Bush’s cocaine use with the severity and scrutiny that such charges surely deserve, given the high level stakes involved. The issue is no longer simply how and why Bush has successfully dodged the topic for his entire political career. The story now should be why the press has treated him with kid gloves for so long.

The cocaine story came up in August 1999. Here’s a CNN article from the time that sums up events around Bush’s non-admission:

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Before Execution, Saddam Was Handed One of His Own Red Cards of Death

Jon Ponder

Like all good fascist states, Saddam’s regime had its paperwork. The most dreaded document produced by Ba’athist bureaucracy was the “red card” — a death decree signed by a judge and printed on red paper. Guess what Saddam got a few hours before he was hanged yesterday:

Iraqi officials say as Hussein stood on the gallows he was handed a red card; the official order for his death, signed by the chief judge. The card was symbolic, as it was a staple of the many state-sponsored executions under the Hussein regime in Iraq.

Aside from giving him a taste of his own medicine, the red card was also meant as a symbol that it was the the Iraqi government, not the Americans, who tried and executed Saddam Hussein, thus making it less likely Saddam’s dead-enders will elevate him to martyrdom.

Even though the Saddam loyalists are probably smart enough to see through the “red car” ploy, they are not a particularly potent force in the insurgent wars today. Saddam probably lost a lot of his followers, and any chance of restoring his tyranny, when the Americans and British released photos showing him in very bad straits after his capture. First there was video of a doctor checking Saddam’s mangy beard for lice, followed by glamour stills of a beardless Saddam in his tighty-whiteys.

It’s hard to regain the adulation and fear of your subjects after they’ve seen you in your BVDs.

SMU Faculty Voices Objections to Being Site of Bush $500 Mil ‘Lie-berry’

Jon Ponder

The plans for this library are a sure sign that after Bush has completed his term as the Worst President Ever, he’ll spend the rest of his life being the Worst Ex-President Ever.

You can’t blame the faculty and staff of Southern Methodist University in Texas for objecting to Pres. Bush’s plan to put his $500 million library, or “lie-berry,” as he might put it on their campus. After all, who wants to be the home of the laughingstock of presidential museums.

Texas Monthly magazine got a copy of a letter sent from the a faculty group to the university’s board of trustees in which they expressed some of their concerns:

“We count ourselves among those who would regret to see SMU enshrine attitudes and actions widely deemed as ethically egregious: degradation of habeas corpus, outright denial of global warming, flagrant disregard for international treaties, alienation of long-term U.S. allies, environmental predation, shameful disrespect for gay persons and their rights, a pre-emptive war based on false and misleading premises, and a host of other erosions of respect for the global human community and for this good Earth on which our flourishing depends.”

“[T]hese violations are antithetical to the teaching, scholarship, and ethical thinking that best represents Southern Methodist University.”

These are excellent points but the reason given by the faculty members that has real resonance is that the library’s real purpose is to rewrite the history of Bush’s term in office:

Their concerns are based on a New York Daily News story of November 27, which describes the future library as a $500 million center (the costliest presidential library ever), the purpose of which would be “to spread the gospel of a presidency that for now gets poor marks from many scholars and a majority of Americans.”

The letter to Turner makes the point that there are “two fundamentally different visions of the Library”: a neutral space for unbiased academic research conducted by scholars, or a conservative think tank and policy institute that engages in legacy polishing and grooms young conservatives for public office.

The concept of a George W. Bush library is a joke, or rather, I wish it were. It is a sure sign that after Bush has completed his term as the Worst President Ever, he’ll spend the rest of his life being the Worst Ex-President Ever.