The View from Europe

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El Desaparecido

(WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 28, 2009) The Obama administration refused again today to confirm or deny rumors that it has secretly detained former president George W. Bush as an enemy combatant.

Mr. Bush, 62, disappeared five weeks ago shortly after Mr. Obama's inauguration. He boarded Marine One at the White House to fly to Crawford, Texas, but never arrived at the faux ranch that has been on the market since November 5.

His absence went unnoticed and unremarked by even his family and closest friends, however, until yesterday.

"We've all just been so busy decorating the new house," former first lady Laura Bush, sounding uncharacteristically relaxed, said by satellite phone from Asuncion, Paraguay. "I'm sure he'll turn up soon."

Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh accused President Obama of ordering military forces to spirit former president Bush to a secret prison and prevent him from communicating with anyone outside the prison.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Attorney General John Edwards. "It's unconstitutional to imprison American citizens indefinitely without charges."

"Not since Padilla and al Marri!" spat Berkely Law School professor John Yoo. "Just last July, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed the president's right to declare any citizen an enemy combatant and imprison that citizen without charges, forever if he wants!"

A bemused-looking General Edwards responded: "Really?"

In other White House news, last night a weighted Starbucks Travel Cup was thrown through a window in the residence. The Secret Service determined the cup did not present a threat, but declined to comment further. White House insiders, speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss premium lattes, claimed the cup had an attached note which read:

Dear Barack, All is Forgiven. Love, The Left.

Cross-posted at Blue in the Bluegrass.

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Sex and the Torturing Politician

Twenty years ago this Sunday, a Miami Herald reporter got a phone call and the rules of political campaigns changed forever.

When Tom Fiedler's phone rang the evening of April 27, 1987, he thought it might be another crank call, the kind political reporters get all the time. But Fiedler, a veteran campaign chronicler for the Miami Herald, couldn't ignore the caller's message: "Gary Hart is having an affair with a friend of mine."

Hart's inexcusable stupidity - he actually dared reporters to follow him - set a new standard for political coverage: sex lives are fair game.

The Clinton impeachment a decade later may seem to be the apotheosis of that standard, but in fact it was its nadir; it made most people realize that a politician's consensual adult sex really wasn't as important as how he did his job.

In Kentucky, Governor Paul Patton provided the egregious example of a public official who let his dick affect his job performance; he gave his mistress Tina Connor sweetheart contracts and regulatory exemptions for her businesses. His real crime, however, was that the exposure of his malfeasance led directly to the election of Republican Criminal Ernie Fletcher.

But it wasn't until the American people got collectively though metaphorically ass-raped by a frat-boy with arrested development who has probably never cheated on his wife that we really understood the moral calculus of presidential flaws.

In a president, which is preferable? Discreet extramarital affairs with consenting adults or treating the Constitution as toilet paper?

Let me put it more baldly: rather than a "good Christian" sociopathic failure bent on destroying the nation in a futile attempt to out-macho his father and who gets his jollies personally approving sexual torture of innocents, I'll take a homosexual, atheist, liberal, feminist, elitist, UN-loving, business-hating, gun-confiscating abortionist any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

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Bush tries bait-and-switch with carbon dioxide cap

The sliver of good news? Reportedly, for the first time, the Bush Administration is not reflexively nixing carbon dioxide emissions caps. Of course, there’s always a catch.

The first one, in this case, is that BushCo would limit carbon caps to electric power plants only.

The second catch is this was a political trial balloon floated in a meeting with the most anti-cap Republican conservatives in Congress.

The third catch, as admitted by Dana Perino, is this is an attempt to avoid Environmental Protection regulation of CO2, per a Supreme Court ruling last year that says it has the power to do so:

“We are dealing with what we call a regulatory train wreck.”

So, here’s what the White House is going to propose to avoid the “regulatory train wreck.”
It will soften up the conservatives enough to get them on board for something.

It will then propose a cap-and-trade bill limited to power plants only.

It will throw in a rider that specifically says CO2 is not a human health issue and therefore not under EPA purview.

It will make the cap looser, with a longer implementation time, than legislation already in the Senate.

When the smoke and mirrors are apparent, and resisted, Bush will blame “obstructionist Democrats.”

There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

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BushCo hates bloggers in the name of national security

The Bush Administration strenuously opposes Sen. Arlen Specter’s media shield law. Why?

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the bill would erect roadblocks to gathering information “from anyone who can claim to be a journalist, including bloggers.”

The legislation gives an overly broad definition of journalists that “can include those linked to terrorists and criminals,” wrote Attorney General Michael Mukasey and National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the nation would be more vulnerable to “adversaries’ counterintelligence efforts to recruit” those shielded by the bill.

Bullshit, bullshit, and bullshit.

We know the real reason they’re saying this is the same reason Mukasey took top blog Talking Points Memo off the AG’s daily e-mail news summary mailing.

They hate bloggers.

Why?

TPM got former AG Alberto Gonzales canned over partisan firings of district attorneys.

Bloggers got House Democrats to stiffen up and pass a FISA bill without telco immunity.

Bloggers took Bush, Uncle Fester Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld et al to task on Iraq long before the mainstream media had a clue.

George W. Bush, for the remaining nine and a half months of his term (not starring Mickey Rourke as Bush) wants to spy on bloggers.

It’s that simple.

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Preznit in Dilbertland

Paul Krugman has it exactly right: the economic “regulatory reform” package trotted out by President Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry “Who are you going to believe, your lying eyes or my Moody’s confidence” Paulson is as much a sham as the periodic office reorganizations conducted by Dilbert’s clueless boss in the comic of that name.



Per Krugman:

The Treasury has, with great fanfare, announced — you know what’s coming — its support for a rearrangement of the boxes on the org chart. OCC, OTS, and CFTC are out; PFRA and CBRA are in. Whatever.

Here’s the brilliant Paulson (oh, Nature Conservancy, can you dissociate yourself from him, for the love of doorknobs?):

“I do not believe it is fair or accurate to blame our regulatory structure for the current turmoil.”

Well, that’s on the same level of lying as the Preznit himself, Uncle Fester and Alberto Gonzales.

Congratulations, you have made it to the “Pioneer” level, or “Ranger” level… or, shall we say, the…

Clusterfuck level?

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Addington behind Bush gambit on Vienna Convention

As Time notes, both anti-U.N. type right-wingers and internationalists alike were baffled earlier this week over the Bush Administration arguing against the state of Texas that a Mexican national convicted of murder should get a new trial because, contrary to the 1967 Vienna Convention, he never had a chance to be aided by Mexican consular officials.

But, Vice President Dick Cheney’s legal counsel, David Addington, appears to have been behind this political chess playing:

Back in 1969, the U.S. had joined the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, part of which requires countries to give arrested foreigners access to consular officials. … The Administration renounced that part of the treaty after the ICJ ruled Medellin should get a retrial. (The U.S. still abides by the parts of the Treaty governing immunity for embassy officials and sovereignty of embassy buildings.) Yet Bush told Texas to retry Medellin anyway — since the ICJ ruling came before the U.S. backed away from the treaty. In essence it was a double power grab: Bush wanted the right to unilaterally leave a treaty — and still order state courts to comply with obligations while the treaty was in effect.

The Supreme Court said treaty implementation details were up to Congress. That, on the other hand ignores the clear language of the Constitution that a treaty, when approved by the Senate and signed by the president, becomes part of the “supreme law of the land.”

Most treaties, the Court ruled, don't automatically apply domestically unless the full Congress passes a separate law specifying how and when the treaty should be implemented. … Law professor Marty Lederman of Georgetown University, writing on the widely read Scotusblog after the decision was handed down, called the majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts "an implausible interpretation" that was "potentially very troubling for construction of treaty obligations going forward." He worried that by letting states ignore treaties unless Congress ordered them to abide by them, the Supreme Court had opened the door for chaos in compliance with all international law.

Of course, that then gets into knotty issues of treaties versus “executive agreements,” which need the approval of both houses of Congress, but only by simple majorities — and are nowhere mentioned in the Constitution. (That, in essence, is how John Tyler did an end run around the Constitution when leaving office in 1845 and got an independent Republic of Texas admitted to the Union without a formal treaty.)

As Time notes, most countries approve formal treaties in that fashion, just like other legislation. Time tries to put a silver lining on the issue, arguing we may move in such a direction, perhaps through enabling legislation being attached to treaties. But, whether that itself would require constitutional amending or not is unclear.

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Bush launched civil war in Gaza

That explosive claim is the heart of this Vanity Fair exclusive. This pull quote graf from David Rose ought to whet your appetite, drop your jaw, or both:

After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.

Muhammad Dahlan, identified as Fatah’s long-term “heavy” in Gaza, and privately called “our guy” by Bush himself, is fingered as BushCo’s proxy in this, a pro-Zionist? pro-stupidity, for certain head-shaker that even neocon stalwart David Wurmser denounces, in the story, as anti-democratic. (Wurmser resigned from the State Department a month after Dahlan’s Gaza coup was launched.)

Dahlan, the story details, has a long history as a “heavy,” arresting Hamas people, on behalf of Fatah, as early as 1996. And, this isn’t anything new. He personally knows Bill Clinton as well as George Bush; he also knows George Tenet, under the Clinton Administration portion of Tenet’s CIA tenure.

This isn’t all Dahlan’s fault, though. He says he warned the Bush Administration that Fatah wasn’t ready for the January 2006 parliamentary elections:

“Everyone was against the elections,” Dahlan says. Everyone except Bush. “Bush decided, ‘I need an election. I want elections in the Palestinian Authority.’ Everyone is following him in the American administration, and everyone is nagging Abbas, telling him, ‘The president wants elections.’ Fine. For what purpose?”

We all know the end result. Hamas won the elections, as Bush was even more criminally stupid in Palestine than in Iraq in presuming a democracy could be started from the top down.

It’s a long story, but hugely worth your reading.

The State Department, understandably, has refused to comment.

There's more: "Bush launched civil war in Gaza" >>

Jeb Endorses McCain

Way to put yourself out there Jeb.

Ten days after the Florida primary, Jeb decides that he is supporting McCain. Any big press announcement? Hell, no. Just an email after he wrote a check to the McCain campaign:

"Yes. I support him," Bush wrote in an e-mail to the Sentinel this afternoon, after blog reports that he had written a check to McCain began surfacing.

This may be a first. Jeb has been steadfastly quiet on much of brother W's policies. Now, however, he appears to be jumping on the same bandwagon that big Brother is on:

"We have had good debates, and soon we will have a nominee who will carry the conservative banner into this election and beyond," Bush said.

Bush's address highlighted his conservative credentials in similar language to that McCain used when he spoke to the same group Thursday.

I think this is code for McCain is no longer a maverick, he's a Bushite. I really hope the MSM picks this up for what it is: More of the same.

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Even GOP Congressman attacks Bush-Iraq long-term security deal

When even somebody as hawkishly conservative as Dana Rohrbacher says Bush needs to bring a proposed long-term security deal with Iraq before Congress, this baby as currently proposed is probably dead.

Will the Bush Administration back off this type of stubbornness?

“We don't anticipate now that these negotiations will lead to the status of a formal treaty which would then bring us to formal negotiations or formal inputs from the Congress,” General Douglas Lute, Bush’s deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, said in November when the White House announced the plan.

Here’s Rohrabacher’s recent take:

At a House hearing on the pact (Jan. 23), Rohrabacher, Republican of California and a former Reagan administration official, accused the Bush administration of “arrogance” for not consulting with Congress about the pact. If it includes any guarantees to Iraq, he said, Congress must sign off.

“We are here to fulfill the constitutional role established by the founding fathers,” Rohrabacher said, adding, “It is not all in the hands of the president and his appointees. We play a major role.”

The deal actually goes far beyond a status-of-forces security agreement anyway, including things like debt forgiveness and economic aid, as well as security commitments.

Globe commentator Savage notes that such a sweeping agreement has never been done before without Congressional approval and merely by presidential fiat.

And, this is becoming a political issue too, he notes:

Adding to the pressure, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has also repeatedly raised the topic in recent days. The New York senator has filed legislation that would block the expenditure of funds to implement any agreement with Iraq that was not submitted to Congress for approval. Her rival, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, became a cosponsor to the bill (Jan. 22).

As an I-don’t-give-a-damn lame duck, though, I foresee Bush ploughing ahead, and then daring his successor to retroactively seek Congressional approval, or the current Congress to actually not fund its provisions.

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The Theater Scene In Blue Girl's Home Town

It is little known in New York or California, but we here in the Midwest enjoy a vibrant theater scene. Here, for example, is a presentation "Seasons of Bush" performed by Full Frontal Comedy at the Quality Hill Playhouse in Kansas City, MO., Blue Girl's hometown. It's not exactly Othello, but when you consider the subject matter....



And you thought we spent all of our time talking about the price of corn, pigs and wheat.

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Bush smokes crack on Palestine

The president claims there will be a Palestine-Israel peace treaty before the end of the year.

Three comments.

1. Do you really expect such a thing to happen overnight, when you’ve done no lifting for seven years?

2. On whose/what terms?

3. Aren’t you suddenly even more concerned about your “legacy” than Bill Clinton?

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None Dare Call It Art

Tonight I thought we might all benefit by visiting an art gallery. If you are in New York any time soon you should visit the New York Public Library's main Fifth Ave. branch. It has put up mugshots of several well known administration figures. The Daily News has a slide show. In the alternative, the AP has a video story.



UnitedOffensiveIII's "liner" notes after the break.

Mug shots' of Bush, Cheney featured in library exhibit

The New York Public Library is displaying an unusual set of photographs: images of Bush administration officials doctored to make them look like police mug shots.

The half dozen pictures were created by two Brooklyn artists, Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese, as part of a privately financed exhibit called "Line Up" in the landmarked public space on Fifth Avenue.

Also in the mug shot gallery are images of Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Bush adviser Karl Rove, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The dates on each image match days when each official spoke about Iraq in ways the artists consider criminal - with sound clips of them speaking, along with a camera flash going off and a prison door closing.

Some have criticized the library for displaying political satire in an institution that receives public funding.

Matthew Walter, spokesman for the New York Republican State Committee, said: "It is simply inappropriate to have political attack in the form of egregious doctored photographs of the president and other high-ranking officials who have dedicated their lives to public service in a taxpayer-funded building frequented by schoolchildren and the general public."

The library said the exhibition "has no political agenda."

The photographs are part of a larger exhibit called "Multiple Interpretations: Contemporary Prints in Portfolio at the New York Public Library," which will be up through Jan. 27.

The library has a long tradition of collecting political satire and caricature, library spokesman Herb Shaer said Friday.

"It's the mission of the library to document what's happening in the culture, and this is an artist's response to what's happening to the world around them," he said.

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George Bush's Coors Light Commercial

Tonight's funny is called George W. Bush Coor's Light. It was posted by DeadAmericans. It's funny, and you have no rights.

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Dennis Kucinich On SCHIP --" My Way Or The Highway"

Yesterday I asked why Dennis Kucinich voted against the final compromise version of SCHIP. He had voted for the original house bill. Well straight from his website here is his explanation.

“I cannot support legislation which extends health coverage to some children while openly denying it to other children,” Kucinich said. “This legislation is woefully inadequate: and I will not support it."

OK, the version that emerged from committee was a bipartisan compromise of the House and Senate versions of the bill. When I was young, which was before the Newt Gingrich era changed everything, I was taught that compromise is the Congressional stock in trade. One side doesn't get everything it wants, but neither does the other side. Give and take. Give and take.

I guess Kucinich is a completely modern politician who eschews the old fashioned. Kucinich says that he can't support the compromise. As far as children's health is concerned its his way or the highway. Odd, doesn't "the decider" George W. Bush have that same "my way or the highway" approach to Democracy.

Maybe Dennis Kucinich could learn something about Democracy if he listened to Charles Grassley on how the legislative process works. Here is Grassley talking about President Bush's shameful veto of SCHIP and his unwillingness to work with Congress in the days prior to it's passage.

Dennis, if you are listening, do American democracy a favor and announce that you will vote to override.



Like I said Congress and the rest of our government used to be about give and take, not "my way or the highway." Those were happier days. Those were days of American greatness.

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Maliki steals page from Bush

Says criticism of his administration helps the terrorists. Watch for color-coded “terrorist” alerts, based on the degree of U.S., or U.S. surrogate (that’s you, Ayad Allawi) criticism of Iraq, to hit the streets of Baghdad any day now.

Of course, Maliki may be right.

According to Allawi's published program, the parliamentarians would not only appoint a new government but also suspend the new constitution, declare a state of emergency and make the restoration of security its priority.

Given Iraq’s state of disarray, I can’t see how suspending the constitution would do anything but eliminate the final remnants of trust in a central government, thereby fueling people’s allegiance to various insurgencies.

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Hillary Plays Political Checkers With Roveless White House

As I reported yesterday Hillary Clinton has put up her first Iowa TV ad of the season.

At the time I suggested you notice the target of the ad. It wasn't Obama. It wasn't Edwards. It wasn't any of the Republican candidates. It was the only target I would have picked if I were in Hillary's shoes.

Today the target struck back through his spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Well, this is going to be tricky going into the campaign season, when people start running ads, because as tempted as I am to take that head on, I think I will refer to the R.N.C. for the specific — for answers on the politics of it. But as to the merits of it, I think it’s outrageous. This is a president who, first and foremost, has helped millions of seniors across the country have access to prescription drugs at a much lower cost. That system that the president put in — helped put in place, with the help of both sides of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, Medicare Part D, is helping millions of people, and working better than anyone would have expected. In addition to that, the president has tried to take on the issue at the root cause of it, and tried to change our health care system so that we actually are helping provide less expensive but still great quality care to people all over the country.

And as to whether or not our troops are invisible to this president, I think that that is absurd, and that is unconscionable that a member of Congress would say such a thing.

According to the DesMoines Register Hillary Clinton replied.

“The White House just attacked me a few minutes ago saying how dare I say that Americans weren’t visible to the president,” Clinton told a crowd of more than 800 in Dubuque today. “I’ve said it and I will keep saying it because I happen to believe it.”

Last evening Chris Bowers at OpenLeft watched the ad three times and said it was boring. Chris, I don't think Dana would agree.

The New York Times political blogger Patrick Healy seems to think

The Clinton campaign likes few things more than taunting a rival into attacking Mrs. Clinton — allowing her advisers, in turn, to say that Mrs. Clinton is under assault by this opponent or that one (in this case, the “right wing attack machine”). The Clinton camp cites these episodes in fund-raising letters and other literature to try to energize Democrats to support her fighting spirit.

Hillary wins this round. Thank you very much Dana. I doubt Tony Snow would have risen to the bait. I have a hunch that unlike Tony, who is merely an unprincipled hack, you are a true believer, a real loyal Bushie.

If you haven't watched the ad, here it is again. Chris, I would suggest you watch it again too. If this isn't a Jimmy Seigal ad I would be surprised. Althought I have to admit the David Strathairn as Edward R. Murrow ad is one of the best I have ever seen anywhere at any time, the top of the line pros at the helm of Team Clinton don't put up ads merely for the amusement of us bloggers. It is too early for all the attack ads. It is too early for David Strathairn. The time is just right for this Hillary ad.

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More FISA follies

Stop me before I Photoshop again.

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The Triumph of Politics Over Policy, Is Team Clinton Like Bush/Cheney?

Watching Team Clinton at work is a lot like watching a master craftsman create a piece of fine furniture. You have to admire the planning, the skill and the workmanship, but at the end of the day you realize the craftsman has been working to satisfy a customer's desires, nothing more.

A few years ago Team Clinton positioned Senator Hillary right with the majority of Americans who approved the invasion of Iraq. That's what the electorate wanted and that's what the fine folks at Team Clinton provided. Over the years the public has soured on the Iraq war. As the public has soured Team Clinton realized that the old position had to change.

Unlike John Edwards, Team Clinton didn't want to make a clean break. Instead, they elected to move Hillary by carefully measured steps from full throated support to whatever they think their constituents want. Since Hillary's constituents include AIPAC and many in the pro-israel foreign policy establishment, positioning her so as not to alienate anyone has been particularly tricky. Today's New York Times has a terrific inside politics story outlining just how Team Clinton has deftly positioned Hillary to allow her to continue soaking up AIPAC and big business money, and to keep the old time foreign policy establishment happy, all the while sounding sufficiently anti-Iraq war to satisfy a lot of regular Americans.

Recently, Barack Obama used the term Bush/Cheney Lite when referring to Team Clinton's foreign policy. I think that is unfair. When you read their positions Team Clinton has moved Hillary's public foreign policy positions right next to those of Barack Obama. There is, however, a comparison to be made between Team Clinton and Bush/Cheney.

During the Bush/Cheney administration politics has always trumped policy. Everything has been about political advantage--rewarding supporters and punishing opponents. Domestically Karl Rove's first question has always been, how does this issue affect our base. The same with foreign policy. The Bush/Cheney foreign policy has always been about advancing the interests of the large trading companies, oil companies, the neo-cons, AIPAC and the House of Saudi. What is best for America doesn't seem to have ever captured any one's attention. The result of Bush/Cheney's narrow political focus is that nothing much good has been accomplished and most people would just as soon see the Bush team retired right now.

What has been missing is any sense that Bush/Cheney has given any priority to advancing a vision of what is good for the country as a whole as opposed to satisfying the narrow political and economic constituencies they have cultivated.

My fear is that Team Clinton has the same politics over policy attitude. Can anyone point to a single position on a single topic that hasn't been neatly planned to advance Hillary's political career. I would like to know if Hillary has a vision for the country. Where should we be going as a nation? Before giving her my support I need to know that she has a vision and whether, if elected, that vision will shape her Presidency to a greater extent than Team Clinton's political craftsmanship.

It has been said that difference between a craftsman and an artist is vision--a sense of independence and overall direction. A great artist has to be a craftsman, but many times a craftsman isn't an artist.

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Didn't FDR and Truman Talk To Stalin? Didn't Nixon Talk To Mao?

This morning M.J. Rosenberg makes a point that is so obvious, it is profound. We have been so long under the yoke of foreign policy incompetence we forget

A President isn't likely to meet any foreign leader (thug or not) if he or she did not perceive that doing so is in the national interest.

He notes further that

FDR met with Stalin and Nixon with Mao who, between them, killed more innocent people than anyone in history (actually, each dictator alone might have done that). Neither President met with their evil counterpart as a favor to the latter but to advance national interests.

Making her argument the way Hillary does seems to imply that a presidential meeting with a foreign head of state is some kind of reward for good behavior. That is exactly what George Bush and Condi Rice think.

Of course, it should not be surprising that the foreign policy views of George Bush and Hillary Clinton as to when a president should meet with a foreign leader are in harmony. After all both Condi Rice and Madeleine Albright were shaped by their relationships with Josef Korbel -- Madeleine's father and Condi's mentor. I need to read Korbel's books to find out for sure. I do know one thing, yesterday Hillary made Madeleine available to explain just why Obama is naive. I guess Condi was busy.

After 16 years maybe we need some new ideas about when to use Presidential diplomacy?

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