Month: October 2005

I rarely read Steve Gilliard’s blog, but last night I saw that Buzzflash, a news portal I respect, favorably linked to his newest entry. Says Buzzflash, “The inimitable Steve Gilliard analyzes Maureen Dowd’s withering takedown of Bushevik groupie Judy Miller — in which she’s essentially told not to bother returning to the NYT.” I read MoDo’s satiric paean to Judith Miller and enjoyed it very much. I thought the column pretty much spoke for itself, so I wondered what impressive insight had garnered Gilliard such high praise. I ask you, gentle reader, to please take a look at this, and tell me what his “analysis” brings to the table other than blatant misogyny.

Perhaps I view Mr. Gilliard through a very specific prism, because I only really became aware of him in a diary called Hating Women on this website. There I learned that he had been taken to task by another blogger for implying that everyone was responsible for the crime of rape except the rapist. The comment in the Gilliard piece in question that I found most offensive was that Natalee Holloway, who had recently gone missing in Aruba, must have been trying to “pull a train,” when she left that bar with 3 men. But, there is much in the blog entry entitled Girls Gone Wild to offend.

Read More

New episode tonight: “White House counsel Oliver Babish (Best Bet favorite Oliver Platt) questions Toby (Richard Schiff) about the White House leak — until Toby realizes he might need to retain his own lawyer after all. What’s happening over there? Josh (Bradley Whitford) and Leo (John Spencer) left and all heck broke loose!”

P.S. The Seymour Hersh / Scott Ritter talk and Q&A is on C-SPAN2 again at 7pm PT. I plan to watch again and tape it this time. There’s too much important said for me to trust my memory alone. OPEN THREAD:

Read More

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison on Sunday’s Meet the Press (thanks to Think Progress):

I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation were not a waste of time and dollars.

Perjury. Yup. There it is. Right in the text of the law. Perjury’s just a technicality all right. In fact, if you read between the lines it says “this charge only applies when you can’t get a real indictment on anything more juicy”.

Today’s Get a Clue Award goes to Bailey Hutchison. No doubt about that.

See the video at Crooks and Liars.

Read More

Modern political scandals are funny.  Funny strange, not funny haha.  

Strange because the initial acts that trigger the scandal are obscured by the technical reasons that the person is in trouble.  Nixon was sunk by the cover-up of the Watergate break-in more than the actual act.  Clinton was nailed for lying about an act that was not illegal at all.

Tom DeLay, indicted for money laundering and violating campaign finance laws, seems to be an exception.  DeLay played fast and loose with ethical considerations.  He’s accepted vacations from lobbyists, paid family members hundreds of thousands of dollars, used government resources for partisan gain and illegally shifted corporate money to state elections.  As a result, he’s been admonished by the House Ethics Committee and indicted on charges of money laundering and violating campaign finance laws.

Fundamentally this is a scandal of business as usual being pointed out to the American public.  There’s never been any doubt that Tom DeLays and Jack Abramoffs exist; up until now there just hasn’t been any interest in the mainstream media or in the halls of justice to document their crimes.  What still isn’t being discussed is how DeLay’s habit of representing corporate boardrooms and not the citizens of Texas’ 22nd congressional district has been harmful to the whole country.

Read More

Congressman George Miller wrote an op-ed that appeared in today’s Contra Costa Times detailing his suggested strategy for withdrawing our troops from Iraq.  It’s worth noting that while Miller voted in favor of military action in Afghanistan, he opposed the invasion of Iraq, claiming that “there was no evidence to support President Bush’s claim that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to our country.”

Miller goes on to say “Americans and Iraqis alike desperately need a strategy that will resolve the conflict, bring our troops home safely and quickly, and enable the United States to concentrate on real security threats. We cannot afford to simply ‘stay the course’ of failure.”  He quotes Gen. George Casey, who has said that the presence of American troops in Iraq “fuels the insurgency” and “extends the amount of time that it will take for Iraqi security forces to become self-reliant.”

Here’s Miller’s exit plan:

The United States should take the following steps.

• Immediately renounce any permanent designs on Iraq’s territory or resources, and plans for long-term bases there.
• Stop financing Iraqi political parties and candidates.
• Over the next 12 months, shift active duty forces in Iraq away from combat and counterinsurgency operations and toward a training and stability force.
• Shift several thousand U.S. combat troops from Iraq to Kuwait in the form of a rapid reaction force to help ensure regional stability, deter Iraq’s neighbors from meddling in its affairs and to protect against any coups to destabilize Iraq’s new government.
• The remaining active duty forces should be redeployed out of Iraq to bolster the fight against terrorism elsewhere or be returned home. Iraqi security forces must stand up on their own but will only do so when American forces withdraw.
• Return to the United States the approximately 46,000 Guard and Reserve forces in Iraq immediately following the December elections.
• Increase aid for democracy assistance that allows independent political growth.
• Shift development aid in Iraq away from large projects undertaken by foreign contractors, like Halliburton, and toward microdevelopment locally oriented projects run by Iraqis.
• President Bush must diplomatically engage all of Iraq’s neighbors immediately, including, and most especially, Iran. Without their help on issues like border security there will be no stable future for Iraq.

Of course, there’s no chance in hell that the current administration would ever follow this blueprint, but it sure seems like Miller makes some good points.

Read More