What to Do With All the Baby Lawyers
Andrew Cohen, Washington Post, December 3, 2007
This front-page article is a classic dog-bites-woman story: about a law student who, after much self-absorbed agonizing, decided to take a high-paying job as an associate at a big law firm instead of taking a public interest position. For generations law students have faced this choice, and typically have made this decision. Still, the story gives me another opportunity to rant against a system of supply and demand that is so warped and twisted it ought to be the subject of a congressional investigation -- a system, you should be reminded, that costs you money. The co-conspirators are law students, law school administrators (who charge outrageous amounts of money for tuition), law firm recruiters (who pay outrageous amounts of money for starting salaries for baby lawyers) and the schmillions of clients out there who accept outrageous litigation costs.
* * * * * * * * * *
Wow, what a curious set of thoughts. Having practiced law for many years and taught at a private law school for more years, I agree with some of what Mr. Cohen writes. He is correct, I believe that law school tuition is unnecessary high. In preparing for testimony before a state bar commission on "access to justice," I did a study on tuition increases at my own law school since my student days. Over the period of the study, the consumer price index had quadrupled but tuition had increased ninefold. The quality of the professional education had not increased significantly. Indeed, a pretty good argument could be made that it had decreased because the faculty had become ever more 'eggheaded.' The faculty were not interested much in the practice of law; it was in large measure to escape the onerous demands of the practice of law that they sought refuge in the law school. The curriculum came to include more and more esoteric and liberal arts type courses that may well have been interesting, but realistically were of rather little value as preparation for the practice of law. Tuition kept going up because of the availability of educational loan money, the students' willingness (probably the wrong word in many cases) to incur very large debts, and the university's practice of skimming off a good share of the law school's profits to support things like the graduate program in the theology department. And let us not forget the American Bar Association's role in the steady increase of law school revenues. The ABA entered into a consent decree with the US Justice Department (before it became corrupted) that (if I recall correctly) essentially admitted a form of price-fixing in its accreditation activities. In sum, there is much to be pretty disgusted about in American legal education.
On the other hand, how are these systemic problems helped by conscripting all law school graduates for two years of required service in 'the public sector'? Do you equate, Mr. C., working for the government with working for, e.g., the Salvation Army? And how many conscripted new law grads would do what many new law grads have done for years, i.e., get a job in government that will give them a leg up in getting a job with those law factories you abhor? A stint with the IRS or SEC or EPA can be turned to good use working for a big firm on behalf of big money corporate interests. Lastly, why do you ignore that substantial sector of the legal practice that serves non-corporate clients, the solo practitioners and small firm lawyers who help people with 'personal plights'? Surely the most legally underrepresented sector of American society is not units of government or not-for-profit institutions, but rather middle class and working class citizens who are hard-pressed to afford the services of any competent lawyers. They are the ones paying those inflated prices for products and services that you complain about, Mr. C. How about some help for them while you're conscripting young lawyers?
Posted by: P. Bosley Slogthrop | December 3, 2007 04:46 AM
Monday, December 3, 2007
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Tortured Words
Bush Backs Attorney General Nominee
President Bush today demanded that Democratic lawmakers stop pressing his attorney general nominee for his views on a harsh CIA interrogation technique and called for a prompt Senate confirmation vote in the interests of battling terrorism.
- By William Branigin and Dan Eggen
Comments
PBosleySlogthrop wrote:
George Bush tells the nation that asking his nominee for the post of Attorney General whether waterboarding is torture or illegal is "unfair." It reminds me of George Orwell's great 1946 essay on "Politics and the English Language." The latter George wrote: "Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." Is there anything uglier that the games being played by Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and their apparatchiks, now including Judge Mukasey, with the word "torture"? And now what are we to make of the meaning of the word "unfair" when it is used as Mr. Bush uses it, to defend his nominee's inability to answer a simple question that everyone else in the world knows the answer to because the nominee "hasn't been briefed" on the "classified program"? Of course, it's Bush himself who determines who will or will not be briefed and what information will or will not be classified. Apparently Judge Mukasey can't be trusted with information about interrogation techniques before he is confirmed. "Unfair" indeed. It puts me in mind of another great quote in Alice in Wonderland (or Through a Looking Glass): "When I use a word, it means just what I want it to mean . . ." When Alice challenged that words have meanings independent of the speaker's intention, the response was something like "The question is who is to be master, that's all." "Torture" and "unfair" - they mean just what Bush and Cheney want them to mean, that's all. After all, as Bush reminded us, he's "the Decider"!
11/1/2007 8:33:43 PM
President Bush today demanded that Democratic lawmakers stop pressing his attorney general nominee for his views on a harsh CIA interrogation technique and called for a prompt Senate confirmation vote in the interests of battling terrorism.
- By William Branigin and Dan Eggen
Comments
PBosleySlogthrop wrote:
George Bush tells the nation that asking his nominee for the post of Attorney General whether waterboarding is torture or illegal is "unfair." It reminds me of George Orwell's great 1946 essay on "Politics and the English Language." The latter George wrote: "Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." Is there anything uglier that the games being played by Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and their apparatchiks, now including Judge Mukasey, with the word "torture"? And now what are we to make of the meaning of the word "unfair" when it is used as Mr. Bush uses it, to defend his nominee's inability to answer a simple question that everyone else in the world knows the answer to because the nominee "hasn't been briefed" on the "classified program"? Of course, it's Bush himself who determines who will or will not be briefed and what information will or will not be classified. Apparently Judge Mukasey can't be trusted with information about interrogation techniques before he is confirmed. "Unfair" indeed. It puts me in mind of another great quote in Alice in Wonderland (or Through a Looking Glass): "When I use a word, it means just what I want it to mean . . ." When Alice challenged that words have meanings independent of the speaker's intention, the response was something like "The question is who is to be master, that's all." "Torture" and "unfair" - they mean just what Bush and Cheney want them to mean, that's all. After all, as Bush reminded us, he's "the Decider"!
11/1/2007 8:33:43 PM
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
NeoNixonism and Bush
In the last post, I paraphrased Richard M. ("I am not a crook") Nixon's (in)famous assertion "If the president does it, it's not illegal" in his (in)famous 1977 interview by David Frost. It seemed prudent to review that interview again in light of George Bush's scary assertions of presidential powers. The parallels between Nixon's philosophy of presidential powers and Bush's are rather startling. Especially scary are the implications of the Nixon/Bush thinking in an era of endless war. Nixon, Bush, (and Abraham Lincoln?) claimed extraordinary powers to commit otherwise illegal acts because of the exigencies of war. The Vietnam War and the Civil War, however, were wars involving sovereign nations in the one case and a sovereign nation and its semi-sovereign states in the other. The wars were going to end at some point. There were governmental representatives to negotiate with or from whom to accept surrender. None of that is true of Bush's endless 'WAR ON TERROR.' Under the Bush Doctrine, the extraordinary powers claimed by Nixon and Lincoln would be ordinary powers. Quaere whether this has already occurred in light of the Democratic Congress' unwillingness to consider impeachment of Bush and of the nearly thoroughly Republican federal judiciary. If it has, we can kiss goodbye the notion of civil liberties and 'the land of the free.'
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The following is an excerpt from an interview with former President Nixon conducted by David Frost. It aired on television on May 19, 1977.
FROST: The wave of dissent, occasionally violent, which followed in the wake of the Cambodian incursion, prompted President Nixon to demand better intelligence about the people who were opposing him. To this end, the Deputy White House Counsel, Tom Huston, arranged a series of meetings with representatives of the CIA, the FBI, and other police and intelligence agencies.
These meetings produced a plan, the Huston Plan, which advocated the systematic use of wiretappings, burglaries, or so-called black bag jobs, mail openings and infiltration against antiwar groups and others. Some of these activities, as Huston emphasized to Nixon, were clearly illegal. Nevertheless, the president approved the plan. Five days later, after opposition from J. Edgar Hoover, the plan was withdrawn, but the president's approval was later to be listed in the Articles of Impeachment as an alleged abuse of presidential power.
FROST: So what in a sense, you're saying is that there are certain situations, and the Huston Plan or that part of it was one of them, where the president can decide that it's in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal.
NIXON: Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal.
FROST: By definition.
NIXON: Exactly. Exactly. If the president, for example, approves something because of the national security, or in this case because of a threat to internal peace and order of significant magnitude, then the president's decision in that instance is one that enables those who carry it out, to carry it out without violating a law. Otherwise they're in an impossible position.
FROST: So, that in other words, really you were saying in that answer, really, between the burglary and murder, again, there's no subtle way to say that there was murder of a dissenter in this country because I don't know any evidence to that effect at all. But, the point is: just the dividing line, is that in fact, the dividing line is the president's judgment?
NIXON: Yes, and the dividing line and, just so that one does not get the impression, that a president can run amok in this country and get away with it, we have to have in mind that a president has to come up before the electorate. We also have to have in mind, that a president has to get appropriations from the Congress. We have to have in mind, for example, that as far as the CIA's covert operations are concerned, as far as the FBI's covert operations are concerned, through the years, they have been disclosed on a very, very limited basis to trusted members of Congress. I don't know whether it can be done today or not.
FROST: Pulling some of our discussions together, as it were; speaking of the Presidency and in an interrogatory filed with the Church Committee, you stated, quote, "It's quite obvious that there are certain inherently government activities, which, if undertaken by the sovereign in protection of the interests of the nation's security are lawful, but which if undertaken by private persons, are not." What, at root, did you have in mind there?
NIXON: Well, what I, at root I had in mind I think was perhaps much better stated by Lincoln during the War between the States. Lincoln said, and I think I can remember the quote almost exactly, he said, "Actions which otherwise would be unconstitutional, could become lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the Constitution and the Nation."
Now that's the kind of action I'm referring to. Of course in Lincoln's case it was the survival of the Union in wartime, it's the defense of the nation and, who knows, perhaps the survival of the nation.
FROST: But there was no comparison was there, between the situation you faced and the situation Lincoln faced, for instance?
NIXON: This nation was torn apart in an ideological way by the war in Vietnam, as much as the Civil War tore apart the nation when Lincoln was president. Now it's true that we didn't have the North and the South—
FROST: But when you said, as you said when we were talking about the Huston Plan, you know, "If the president orders it, that makes it legal", as it were: Is the president in that sense—is there anything in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights that suggests the president is that far of a sovereign, that far above the law?
NIXON: No, there isn't. There's nothing specific that the Constitution contemplates in that respect. I haven't read every word, every jot and every tittle, but I do know this: That it has been, however, argued that as far as a president is concerned, that in war time, a president does have certain extraordinary powers which would make acts that would otherwise be unlawful, lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the nation and the Constitution, which is essential for the rights we're all talking about.
From the third Nixon-Frost interview, The New York Times, May 20, 1977, p. A16.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The following is an excerpt from an interview with former President Nixon conducted by David Frost. It aired on television on May 19, 1977.
FROST: The wave of dissent, occasionally violent, which followed in the wake of the Cambodian incursion, prompted President Nixon to demand better intelligence about the people who were opposing him. To this end, the Deputy White House Counsel, Tom Huston, arranged a series of meetings with representatives of the CIA, the FBI, and other police and intelligence agencies.
These meetings produced a plan, the Huston Plan, which advocated the systematic use of wiretappings, burglaries, or so-called black bag jobs, mail openings and infiltration against antiwar groups and others. Some of these activities, as Huston emphasized to Nixon, were clearly illegal. Nevertheless, the president approved the plan. Five days later, after opposition from J. Edgar Hoover, the plan was withdrawn, but the president's approval was later to be listed in the Articles of Impeachment as an alleged abuse of presidential power.
FROST: So what in a sense, you're saying is that there are certain situations, and the Huston Plan or that part of it was one of them, where the president can decide that it's in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal.
NIXON: Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal.
FROST: By definition.
NIXON: Exactly. Exactly. If the president, for example, approves something because of the national security, or in this case because of a threat to internal peace and order of significant magnitude, then the president's decision in that instance is one that enables those who carry it out, to carry it out without violating a law. Otherwise they're in an impossible position.
FROST: So, that in other words, really you were saying in that answer, really, between the burglary and murder, again, there's no subtle way to say that there was murder of a dissenter in this country because I don't know any evidence to that effect at all. But, the point is: just the dividing line, is that in fact, the dividing line is the president's judgment?
NIXON: Yes, and the dividing line and, just so that one does not get the impression, that a president can run amok in this country and get away with it, we have to have in mind that a president has to come up before the electorate. We also have to have in mind, that a president has to get appropriations from the Congress. We have to have in mind, for example, that as far as the CIA's covert operations are concerned, as far as the FBI's covert operations are concerned, through the years, they have been disclosed on a very, very limited basis to trusted members of Congress. I don't know whether it can be done today or not.
FROST: Pulling some of our discussions together, as it were; speaking of the Presidency and in an interrogatory filed with the Church Committee, you stated, quote, "It's quite obvious that there are certain inherently government activities, which, if undertaken by the sovereign in protection of the interests of the nation's security are lawful, but which if undertaken by private persons, are not." What, at root, did you have in mind there?
NIXON: Well, what I, at root I had in mind I think was perhaps much better stated by Lincoln during the War between the States. Lincoln said, and I think I can remember the quote almost exactly, he said, "Actions which otherwise would be unconstitutional, could become lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the Constitution and the Nation."
Now that's the kind of action I'm referring to. Of course in Lincoln's case it was the survival of the Union in wartime, it's the defense of the nation and, who knows, perhaps the survival of the nation.
FROST: But there was no comparison was there, between the situation you faced and the situation Lincoln faced, for instance?
NIXON: This nation was torn apart in an ideological way by the war in Vietnam, as much as the Civil War tore apart the nation when Lincoln was president. Now it's true that we didn't have the North and the South—
FROST: But when you said, as you said when we were talking about the Huston Plan, you know, "If the president orders it, that makes it legal", as it were: Is the president in that sense—is there anything in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights that suggests the president is that far of a sovereign, that far above the law?
NIXON: No, there isn't. There's nothing specific that the Constitution contemplates in that respect. I haven't read every word, every jot and every tittle, but I do know this: That it has been, however, argued that as far as a president is concerned, that in war time, a president does have certain extraordinary powers which would make acts that would otherwise be unlawful, lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the nation and the Constitution, which is essential for the rights we're all talking about.
From the third Nixon-Frost interview, The New York Times, May 20, 1977, p. A16.
Chickens Coming Home to Roost?
Spy v. Spy
Andrew Cohen, Bench Conference, Washington Post
So much for keeping secrets. We learned this weekend that there's an internal dispute at the Central Intelligence Agency over the legality of the agency's interrogation and detention programs.
The President, may beets grow in his belly, blew off the anti-torture legislation not only with his "I'm the Decider, nobody tells me what to do" signing statement, but with the secret, made-to-order legal opinions from Gonzales' 'Yassuh boss whatever you say boss" Justice Department. It's hard to feel a lot of sympathy for torturers, even our own, but I confess to having some for the CIA operatives who did what they were told by the White House probably thinking, pace Richard Nixon, that 'if the president orders it, it's OK.' It may be that someday the chickens will come home to roost and someone will be punished for engaging in torture, but I doubt it. The recent action by the federal courts, including the Supremes, in dismissing the suit by the alleged German kidnap and torture victim on the 'state secrets' ground suggests that no one will ever be held to account for the criminal acts ordered by Bush and supported by Cheney, Addington, Gonzales et alia. So it looks like Nixon will ultimately be proved right, albeit 35 years too late to help him. If the President does it, it's OK. So much for the Rule of Law. Bush, like Nixon and France's King Louis XIV, could all say 'L'etat, c'est moi.' And Bush and his henchmen, like the later Louis XV, can add "Apres nous, le deluge." The nation will be paying for his hubris and essential stupidity for many, many years. One is reminded of Thomas Jefferson writing "Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."
Posted by: P. Bosley Slogthrop | October 15, 2007 02:36 PM
Andrew Cohen, Bench Conference, Washington Post
So much for keeping secrets. We learned this weekend that there's an internal dispute at the Central Intelligence Agency over the legality of the agency's interrogation and detention programs.
The President, may beets grow in his belly, blew off the anti-torture legislation not only with his "I'm the Decider, nobody tells me what to do" signing statement, but with the secret, made-to-order legal opinions from Gonzales' 'Yassuh boss whatever you say boss" Justice Department. It's hard to feel a lot of sympathy for torturers, even our own, but I confess to having some for the CIA operatives who did what they were told by the White House probably thinking, pace Richard Nixon, that 'if the president orders it, it's OK.' It may be that someday the chickens will come home to roost and someone will be punished for engaging in torture, but I doubt it. The recent action by the federal courts, including the Supremes, in dismissing the suit by the alleged German kidnap and torture victim on the 'state secrets' ground suggests that no one will ever be held to account for the criminal acts ordered by Bush and supported by Cheney, Addington, Gonzales et alia. So it looks like Nixon will ultimately be proved right, albeit 35 years too late to help him. If the President does it, it's OK. So much for the Rule of Law. Bush, like Nixon and France's King Louis XIV, could all say 'L'etat, c'est moi.' And Bush and his henchmen, like the later Louis XV, can add "Apres nous, le deluge." The nation will be paying for his hubris and essential stupidity for many, many years. One is reminded of Thomas Jefferson writing "Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."
Posted by: P. Bosley Slogthrop | October 15, 2007 02:36 PM
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Sun Rises in East, Heat Rises and Pope a Catholic!
Ex-Commander In Iraq Faults War Strategy
'No End in Sight,' Says Retired General Sanchez
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 13, 2007; Page A01
Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who led U.S. forces in Iraq for a year after the March 2003 invasion, accused the Bush administration yesterday of going to war with a "catastrophically flawed" plan and said the United States is "living a nightmare with no end in sight."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Finally, the truth comes out: Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, our homegrown axis of evil, were grossly incompetent in leading the United States into an invasion and occupation of Iraq. Surely it is a slow news day for both the Washington Post and New York Times to make this a front page story. Is there any sentient soul in the world who does not realize that the BushCheneyRummy plan (we use the term loosely) was "catastrophically flawed"? Is there anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear who does not realize that the United States is "living a nightmare with no end in sight'? Sanchez Sez: Bears Poop in the Woods!!!
What makes the Sanchez story newsworthy of course is simply the fact that it is the former top military commander in Iraq who is publicly uttering what is obvious to everyone. Sanchez Admits 'Water Runs Downhill"!!! Sanchez will undoubtedly be blasted by the likes of Rush, Sean, Laura, Glenn and the rest of the Fox News crowd. He will be blamed for everything from Abu Ghraib to the embarassing executions of Saddam and the guy who was decapitated by the noose. The Decider will magnanimously stay above the fray while his henchmen and apparatchiks busy themselves calumniating Sanchez the Failure. Nonetheless, the nation and the world know that Sanchez speaks the unutterable truth: the Republican, neocon, Israel-pushed adventure in Iraq is another American failure much like (dare we say it?) Vietnam. Are the generals to blame? Sure. Is the press to blame? Sure. Is the Department of Defense to blame? Sure. Is the State Department to blame? Sure. Are Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and their neocon diehard supporters and apologists to blame? Sure. We would need more arms than an octopus and more fingers than Shiva to point out all who are to blame for this catastrophe. Alas, all we need is a mirror to see that we too are to blame for following silently and meekly as the criminals in Washington led the nation into this Slough of Despond.
'No End in Sight,' Says Retired General Sanchez
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 13, 2007; Page A01
Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who led U.S. forces in Iraq for a year after the March 2003 invasion, accused the Bush administration yesterday of going to war with a "catastrophically flawed" plan and said the United States is "living a nightmare with no end in sight."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Finally, the truth comes out: Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, our homegrown axis of evil, were grossly incompetent in leading the United States into an invasion and occupation of Iraq. Surely it is a slow news day for both the Washington Post and New York Times to make this a front page story. Is there any sentient soul in the world who does not realize that the BushCheneyRummy plan (we use the term loosely) was "catastrophically flawed"? Is there anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear who does not realize that the United States is "living a nightmare with no end in sight'? Sanchez Sez: Bears Poop in the Woods!!!
What makes the Sanchez story newsworthy of course is simply the fact that it is the former top military commander in Iraq who is publicly uttering what is obvious to everyone. Sanchez Admits 'Water Runs Downhill"!!! Sanchez will undoubtedly be blasted by the likes of Rush, Sean, Laura, Glenn and the rest of the Fox News crowd. He will be blamed for everything from Abu Ghraib to the embarassing executions of Saddam and the guy who was decapitated by the noose. The Decider will magnanimously stay above the fray while his henchmen and apparatchiks busy themselves calumniating Sanchez the Failure. Nonetheless, the nation and the world know that Sanchez speaks the unutterable truth: the Republican, neocon, Israel-pushed adventure in Iraq is another American failure much like (dare we say it?) Vietnam. Are the generals to blame? Sure. Is the press to blame? Sure. Is the Department of Defense to blame? Sure. Is the State Department to blame? Sure. Are Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and their neocon diehard supporters and apologists to blame? Sure. We would need more arms than an octopus and more fingers than Shiva to point out all who are to blame for this catastrophe. Alas, all we need is a mirror to see that we too are to blame for following silently and meekly as the criminals in Washington led the nation into this Slough of Despond.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Remember Francoise Duclos? She was communications director for Canada’s then prime minister Jean Chretien. In 2002, she famously though undiplomatically called George W. Bush “a moron.” Mr. Bush, the” War President,” “the Decider,” and now “the commander guy” has spent the last 5 years proving Ms. Duclos right. Alas.
By percyslogthrop-mail | May 4, 2007 9:06:10 AM |
Eugene Robinson’s column Washington Post
I fear Mr. Cohen is engaging in wishful thinking again, as he did two days ago vis a vis Elizabth Holtzman's realism. Messrs. Bush and Gonzales are locked in a death embrace. If Bush were to nominate a person of high competence and integrity as Attorney General, he would leave his administration vulnerable to attacks from within, investigations he could not dismiss as mere 'partisan politics' like the congressional oversight investigations and hearings. Plus, once Gonzales was a goner, protected by neither his office nor the personal fealty of POTUS, he would quickly become fair game for even more attacks from administration insiders and other Republicans than he is enduring now. It wouldn't take long for him to start retaliating and trying to mount some kind of defense of himself and the only likely defensive targets for him would be the political people in the White House and indirectly, the Decider himself, at whose pleasure, as we all know, the US attorneys serve. Perhaps Gonzales would simply fall on his sword and go through the rest of his life with his honesty and integrity thoroughly discredited, but it doesn't seem likely. Witness George Tenet. If he does bite the dust, my bet on the likely replacement nominee is not Comey or Fitzgerald, but that loyal Bushie Michael Chertof. He's screwed up the Department of Homeland Security and the relief effort for Hurricane Katrina; why not give him a shot to continue the good work at the Department of Justice where he used to work. Maybe he could bring back Heckofajob Brownie as his deputy AG.
Posted by: P. Bosley Slogthrop | May 4, 2007 09:58 AM
By percyslogthrop-mail | May 4, 2007 9:06:10 AM |
Eugene Robinson’s column Washington Post
I fear Mr. Cohen is engaging in wishful thinking again, as he did two days ago vis a vis Elizabth Holtzman's realism. Messrs. Bush and Gonzales are locked in a death embrace. If Bush were to nominate a person of high competence and integrity as Attorney General, he would leave his administration vulnerable to attacks from within, investigations he could not dismiss as mere 'partisan politics' like the congressional oversight investigations and hearings. Plus, once Gonzales was a goner, protected by neither his office nor the personal fealty of POTUS, he would quickly become fair game for even more attacks from administration insiders and other Republicans than he is enduring now. It wouldn't take long for him to start retaliating and trying to mount some kind of defense of himself and the only likely defensive targets for him would be the political people in the White House and indirectly, the Decider himself, at whose pleasure, as we all know, the US attorneys serve. Perhaps Gonzales would simply fall on his sword and go through the rest of his life with his honesty and integrity thoroughly discredited, but it doesn't seem likely. Witness George Tenet. If he does bite the dust, my bet on the likely replacement nominee is not Comey or Fitzgerald, but that loyal Bushie Michael Chertof. He's screwed up the Department of Homeland Security and the relief effort for Hurricane Katrina; why not give him a shot to continue the good work at the Department of Justice where he used to work. Maybe he could bring back Heckofajob Brownie as his deputy AG.
Posted by: P. Bosley Slogthrop | May 4, 2007 09:58 AM
Email to Maureen Dowd at NYTimers May 2, 2007 re her column “Slam’s Silence” I have long thought it a defect in the American character that we rarely, indeed almost never, hear of a resignation from government because of a serious disagreement over important policy decisions. I'm not sure if it is still the case, but not long ago it wasn't all that uncommon to read of a British minister, or one on the Continent, resigning because of a disagreement with leadership of his government. In America, such an act is viewed as "quitting," or "showboating," or "not being a team player," or the worst, "being disloyal." This of course represents a terribly perverted and rather fascistic notion of "loyalty," something akin to the child's game of "follow the leader." Assuming there are many men and women of conscience serving in government, think of how many should have resigned as a matter of principle as Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld led the country ever deeper into the abyss and what effect such resignations might have had in alerting the public to what was really going on behind all the lies.
As I watched and listened to the Gonzales hearing on C-Span 3, I got to thinking of all the congressional hearings I have watched over the years, starting with the Army-McCarthy hearings in the 50s. I've seen a lot of hearings over the last 50 plus years but never in my life have I seen anything as preposterous and pathetic as yesterday's clown show before the Judiciary Committee.
This is the guy that all the federal pros
ecutors report to? This is the guy that the FBI reports to? This is the guy in charge of protecting the civil rights of Americans?
What does it say of George W. Bush that he put such a man in charge of the Department of Justice? What does it say about George W. Bush that that told the nation that he was "very pleased" with Gonzales' wholly incredible testimony?
Surely, Gonzalez' testimony, more than anything else, has strengthened the suspicion that the firings had everything to do improper partisan abuse of federal prosecutorial power and nothing to do with legitimate management concerns. This was a classic cover up at a very high level. It wasn't Sampson, Battle, and the others at DOJ who determined who made "the list" and who didn't, it was Karl Rove and his minions, including Harriet Miers. The purpose of the replacements was not to remediate problems of the past but to gear up for the next election in key swing states. Why would Rove want one of his own political deputies in the US attorney's office in Little Rock in the period leading up to the next national election? Because he's "very well qualified" as Gonzales testified, or to have the power of a federal grand jury to harass Hillary Clinton?
Gonzales' torment by the senators was so embarrassing that there were times when I almost felt sorry for him. When those feelings started to surface, I reminded myself that this is the guy who routinely blew off clemency appeals when he was the Decider's pardon counsel in Texas and who provided the torture opinion that let Bush and Rumsfeld bring shame upon the nation "under advice of counsel." Berto/Gonzo/Fredo has so much blood on his hands, I'll save my sympathy for his many, many victims. Any honor that attended his name is long gone. Good riddance. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Posted by: P. Bosley Slogthrop | April 20, 2007 07:00 AM
Gonzalez' testimony was so unenlightening that it leaves me with no reasonable doubt that the impetus for these firings originated and was maintained not in the Department of Justice, but in the White House with the Bush-Cheney-Rove axis of evil. The issue was never the administration of justice or management skills, but the preservation of executive power and regaining of legislative power, i.e., the 2008 elections and using the powers of federal prosecutors to further Republican power interests. Recall the DOJ memo about preparing for the political firestorm that would predictably result from the firings. These folks would not be willing to trigger the expected negative fallout from the firings if the only gain were increased managerial efficiencies at local US attorneys’ offices or fine tuning prosecutorial discretion on how to allocate prosecutorial resources. Power is the coin of the realm in politics: gaining it, keeping it or regaining it. Power is what the White House mob was after and Gonzales' role was essentially that of the mob lawyer.
This is the guy that all the federal pros
ecutors report to? This is the guy that the FBI reports to? This is the guy in charge of protecting the civil rights of Americans?
What does it say of George W. Bush that he put such a man in charge of the Department of Justice? What does it say about George W. Bush that that told the nation that he was "very pleased" with Gonzales' wholly incredible testimony?
Surely, Gonzalez' testimony, more than anything else, has strengthened the suspicion that the firings had everything to do improper partisan abuse of federal prosecutorial power and nothing to do with legitimate management concerns. This was a classic cover up at a very high level. It wasn't Sampson, Battle, and the others at DOJ who determined who made "the list" and who didn't, it was Karl Rove and his minions, including Harriet Miers. The purpose of the replacements was not to remediate problems of the past but to gear up for the next election in key swing states. Why would Rove want one of his own political deputies in the US attorney's office in Little Rock in the period leading up to the next national election? Because he's "very well qualified" as Gonzales testified, or to have the power of a federal grand jury to harass Hillary Clinton?
Gonzales' torment by the senators was so embarrassing that there were times when I almost felt sorry for him. When those feelings started to surface, I reminded myself that this is the guy who routinely blew off clemency appeals when he was the Decider's pardon counsel in Texas and who provided the torture opinion that let Bush and Rumsfeld bring shame upon the nation "under advice of counsel." Berto/Gonzo/Fredo has so much blood on his hands, I'll save my sympathy for his many, many victims. Any honor that attended his name is long gone. Good riddance. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Posted by: P. Bosley Slogthrop | April 20, 2007 07:00 AM
Gonzalez' testimony was so unenlightening that it leaves me with no reasonable doubt that the impetus for these firings originated and was maintained not in the Department of Justice, but in the White House with the Bush-Cheney-Rove axis of evil. The issue was never the administration of justice or management skills, but the preservation of executive power and regaining of legislative power, i.e., the 2008 elections and using the powers of federal prosecutors to further Republican power interests. Recall the DOJ memo about preparing for the political firestorm that would predictably result from the firings. These folks would not be willing to trigger the expected negative fallout from the firings if the only gain were increased managerial efficiencies at local US attorneys’ offices or fine tuning prosecutorial discretion on how to allocate prosecutorial resources. Power is the coin of the realm in politics: gaining it, keeping it or regaining it. Power is what the White House mob was after and Gonzales' role was essentially that of the mob lawyer.
Oh to have been a fly on the wall overhearing chats and reading memos and emails bewtween Counseler Miers and Domestic Counsel Rove re which venues needed to be targeted for US attorney changes. Ditto re communications between the Decider and Rove. Ditto re communications between the Veep and Rove. How is it possible for anyone to believe that Fredo Gonzales was the driving force behind these firings. Is there anywhere any suggestion that Fredo has ever leaned back when the Decider or the Veep or Rumsfeld or Rove wanted to do something illegal or outrageous. Fredo's value is that he is the Great Enabler for the Great Decider, dismissing legal and moral concerns about torture, eavesdropping, etc. He is worse than a mob lawyer. Mob lawyers had to be concerned about those pesky US attorneys, district attorneys, FBI and DEA agents, unfriendly judges, etc. Fredo and the Decider had no such problems since they were on top of the power structure, not outside it. He is a disgrace who has cast a shadow of suspicion over all US attorneys and their DOJ string-pullers. Like his boss, he has done much harm to the nation.
Posted by: Slogthrop | April 1, 2007 10:36 AM
Posted by: Slogthrop | April 1, 2007 10:36 AM
There is something deeply ironic about George W. Bush of all people chiding the Iraqi government for a lack of maturity. This comes from a guy with a penchant for childish nicknames (”Turd Blossom” Rove, “Kennie Boy” Lay, and the infamous “You’re doin’ a heckofa job, Brownie” re FEMA’s Michael Brown), who gives unwelcome surprise shoulder rubs to the woman who is Chancellor of Germany (”Gotcha!), and who, four years ago, must have thought of the men and women who would invade and occupy Iraq as toy soldiers rather than flesh and blood sons and daughters, moms and dads, brothers and sisters and friends and neighbors who, with the Iraqi people, who would suffer the direst consequences of the immature decisions of the Decider. Yes, the Iraqi government suffers from a lack of a lot of qualities, but I wouldn’t put ‘maturity’ high on the list. Our own leader may have cornered that market.
— Posted by P. Bosley Slogthrop
— Posted by P. Bosley Slogthrop
There came a time during the American conflict in Vietnam when most Americans realized that, notwithstanding favorable "kill ratios" and burgeoning "body counts" and generals' visions of "light at the end of the tunnel," Vietnamese opponents of the American invaders and occupiers would never stop coming. We Americans couldn't kill them fast enough or in great enough numbers to end the war, ever. The war was not winnable. Most Americans now realize, with Bush and his minions thoroughly discredited on all Iraq issues, that the fighting between and among Iraqi tribal and religious groups will not stop no matter how many soldiers and Marines Bush orders into the cauldron. It is almost impossible to believe that a 15% increase in troop levels will alter the course of Iraq's disintegration. Bush's plan looks very much like putting off the inevitable.
Percy Slogthrop, Saukville, Wisconsin, USA
Bush will find little support in the U.S for his "new way forward' in Iraq no matter what it is. Except for the ever decreasing numbers of 'dead-enders' who would follow Bush off a cliff, Americans have finally seen the light about our arrogant, petulant Decider: he doesn't have a clue how to unscramble the egg he laid in Iraq. The one thing we are all sure of is that his proposal will cost billions more of dollars and ever more casualties. I haven't seen so much public contempt for a sitting president since the dire days preceding the impeachment and resignation of Nixon.
Percy Slogthrop, Saukville, Wisconsin, USA
Bush will find little support in the U.S for his "new way forward' in Iraq no matter what it is. Except for the ever decreasing numbers of 'dead-enders' who would follow Bush off a cliff, Americans have finally seen the light about our arrogant, petulant Decider: he doesn't have a clue how to unscramble the egg he laid in Iraq. The one thing we are all sure of is that his proposal will cost billions more of dollars and ever more casualties. I haven't seen so much public contempt for a sitting president since the dire days preceding the impeachment and resignation of Nixon.
If there is an 'art' to war, as Sun Tzu averred millennia ago, then the Bush-Blair catastrophic artwork in Iraq calls to mind John Ruskin's comments on the sculpture of the Earl of Dudley's dog Bashaw in the V&A Museum: "The most perfectly and roundly ill-done thing which as yet in my whole life I ever saw produced in art. It showed that the persons who produced it had seen everything, and practiced everything; and misunderstood everything they saw, and misapplied everything they did." It was Bush's highly experienced 'dream team' of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and even Powell who gave us this war, men who knew everything and understood nothing. Blair let Bush get away with calling the American invaders and occupiers a "coalition force." Alas, the people of the US and the UK will pay for this tragic mistake by the Decider and his buddy well beyond my lifetime. Would that Bush and Blair had only sculpted a dog rather than loosed the dogs of civil war and chaos.
Percy Slogthrop, Saukville, Wisconsin, USA
Percy Slogthrop, Saukville, Wisconsin, USA
Years ago, while eating lunch with my partners in our law firm's library, long before I had ever heard of George W. Bush or Saddam Hussein or of the neoconservative movement, I opined that the greatest threat to world peace was the United States because the U.S. is (1) extremely and intentionally militarily powerful and (2) extremely and increasingly dependent on foreign resources to sustain our standard of living which we consider "ours" as a matter of right. I am a former Marine officer and Vietnam vet and considered the opinion I offered as almost self-evident. My partners (and friends) however reacted to my statement as if I had questioned the legitimacy of their births. The U.S. 'defense' budget now is roughly equal to the combined military budgets of all the world's other nations and our dependency on foreign resources is even greater than it was when I shocked my partners. Can there be any surprise that much of the rest of the world considers the US a threat?
FEBRUARY 15, 2007 7:25 AM
FEBRUARY 15, 2007 7:25 AM
Comment on: Democrat, Republican Gang Up on Incumbent - washingtonpost.com on 10/6/2007 8:32 AM
I live in the district and have been often chagrinned by Sensenbrenners "prickliness" and more by his position on issues. That he is a jerk is clear beyond cavil; even his fellow Republicans often get the bum's rush from him. Worse, he's a jerk who does things like engineer the scandalous federal intervention in the Terri Schiavo case. I would love to see someone beat him and send him home to Menomonee Falls, Wis. to stew in his own juices. Alas, I don't expect it to happen.
Comment on: Ruth Marcus - One Angry Man - washingtonpost.com on 10/3/2007 6:29 AM
Clarence Thomas' grandfather raised him and apparently was a very admirable man who taught his grandson many good life lessons. One he apparently missed, however, is 'when you're in a hole, stop digging.' Why in the world would Thomas bring to national attention again the sordid mess of his relationship with Anita Hill, and thus his relationship with other subordinate females in his workplace? As Ruth Marcus points out, Anita Hill was not the only one to testify to Thomas' abusive behavior and quirky fixation on pubic hairs and Coke cans. As I recall, this sexual quirkiness and abuse of power by Thomas occurred before he 'saw the light' and got religion but the behavior nonetheless cast some light on his character, specifically his willingness to abuse the power of his position to satisfy his personal desires. One can hardly help wondering how much of that we are seeing in his opinions on the Supreme Court, i.e., acting out his barely suppressed rage. His claim that his difficulties at the confirmation hearing were attributable to a desire on the part of whites to 'get the black man' or 'keep the black man in his place' is ludicrous, a transparent and pathetic throwback to the 60s and early 70s, when Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown were uttering such claims with greater eloquence and persuasivess than Thomas exhibits now. His troubles stemmed from his own nasty conduct toward pretty young black women who he harrassed in the hope of 'getting lucky.' As it turned out, his behavior came back to haunt him years later and he's been PO'd about it for going on two decades. It seems pretty clear he'll be PO'd about it till he goes to his Final Reward. Let's be more charitable than Thomas is and hope that his Final Reward will be to be relieved of the burden of anger, resentment and bitterness that he carries through life like the albatross around the neck of the Ancient Mariner.
Comment on: Eugene Robinson - Witness for The Persecution - washingtonpost.com on 10/2/2007 7:30 AM
Poor Clarence Thomas. He acted nastily towards Anita Hill and had it come back to haunt him when he was about to take Thurgood Marshall's seat on the Supreme Court. There he was, the most qualified person in the country according to George H. W. Bush, and Professor Hill barged in to spoil his party and sully his reputation as an nice Christian gentleman and a man of integrity, one whose behavior in private doesn't vary from his behavior in public. The miracle man from Pin Point turned out to be yet another hypocrite on the far right, morally righteous in public, a porn fan and utterer of salacious comments to workplace subordinates in private. God knows that there are an army of men who dabble in porn and support the multimillion dollar growth industry and there are many many men who troll in their workplaces with inappropriate sexual comments to co-workers and subordinates. These behaviors in a man's past don't necessarily disqualify him from high office. Unless they are persistent and egregious, perhaps they shouldn't even be brought up in a confirmation hearing. But they did surface in the Thomas hearings because those who opposed his confirmation because of his radical political and constitutional views were desparate for anything that would cause his nomination to fail. And Thomas has never forgiven those who brought his naughtiness to light.
With the publication of his autobiography, we now know for sure what we had long suspected: that Thomas is a pathologically angry man, unable to forget, unable to forgive. He would benefit from the teachings of Jesus and of Buddy Hackett. Jesus wisely advised Peter that he should forgive his wrongdoing brother not once, not seven times, but 'seven times seventy.' Those who forgive get over their wrongs and fell better. Buddy Hackett told Johnny Carson he refused to carry a grudge because 'while you're carrying that grudge around, the other guy is out dancing.' Live and learn, Clarence Thomas. Get over it. You'll feel better and maybe stop living a life of vengeance.
Comment on: House Panel Says Rice Is Hindering Its Work - washingtonpost.com on 9/26/2007 8:02 AM
Ah, Condoleeza, that piano-playing, smooth-talking, Bush-loving fascista. She is to George W(armonger) Bush what Tariq Aziz was to Saddam Hussein, the eloquent but mendacious public face of the dictator and Decider.
Comment on: Private Security Puts Diplomats, Military at Odds - washingtonpost.com on 9/26/2007 7:47 AM
It doesn't take a Clausewitz to realize that the use of "private security contractors" in a war zone was and is a bad idea. This is one of the scariest developments under the BushCheney Regime, a large, well-armed, government sponsored private army, subject to no rules and reminiscent of the Brownshirts and Blackshirts. Blackwater closely resembles the fascistic regime that succors them: secretive, militaristic, arrogant, unaccoutable and lawless and led by evangelical born-agains. What will become of this private army when the Iraq catastrophe is over, when we pull out or are driven out? Will the mercenary army disband? Will the highly paid former Seals and Recon marines and Rangers, etc., go home to shop at Walmart and raise families or will they be shopping for other missions? What assurance can we have that those new missions won't be domestic? Forgive me for shuddering for the country.
Comment on: George F. Will - A War Still Seeking a Mission - washingtonpost.com on 9/11/2007 8:57 AM
Mr. Will has sharpened the focus on what is probably the central issue facing the nation: is there an Iraq, are there Iraqis? It seems abundantly clear that the Kurds who happen to live within the borders of Iraq no more consider themselves to be Iraqis than Kurds who live withing the borders of Turkey or Iran consider themselves Turks or Persians. As for the Sunni and Shia Arabs within the Iraq borders, what reason is there to think that they are any more reconcilable than, for example, the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland? Yes, these folks have worked out, for now at least, a political accommodation but only after almost 40 years of sectarian violence and more than 80 years of ethnic hostility. The Catholics considered themselves Irish, not 'Northern Irish,' and the Protestants considered themselves British. Northern Ireland was a state cobbled together by the imperial Brits to serve British interests, just as Iraq was. Neither the presence of the Royal Irish Constabulary nor the presence of British occupation troops was sufficient to stop the sectarian violence that persisted over several decades, even though the Brits and the locals shared a common language, a common Christian religion, a common Western culture and regional history. What reason is there to believe that American soldiers and Marines, who have virtually nothing in common with the "Iraqis" can bring peace and reconciliation to the many ethnic and sectarian and tribal groups within 'Iraq'? George Bush, may a skunk set up shop in his nose and thrive, and his neocon dead-enders (thanks, Don Rumsfeld for this useful term that has acquired a meaning you never intended or expected) are indulging a pipe dream in thinking that we can create a recreate a nation in Iraq now that we have removed the country's real unifying force, i.e, the despotic rule of a ruthless dictator and his Baath Party apparatchiks. The Bush regime is simply playing its end-game in Iraq, keeping the war going under the pretense that 'victory is still attainable' so that when the inevitable bloody collapse comes they can blame it on the next administration and, of course, on the "lefties," the "cut and run" crowd, the "America haters." How despicable.
Comment on: David Ignatius - Bush's Lost Iraqi Election - washingtonpost.com on 8/30/2007 8:08 AM
Ah, yes. Another story demonstrating that the best friend Iran ever had is George "Mission Accomplished" Bush. First he removes (alas, temporarily) the hostile Sunni Taliban government to the east of Iran and then he removes the hostile Sunni government of Saddam Hussein to the west of Iran. Then he ineptly occupies Iraq, weakening the US's credibility throughout the region and he refuses to support moderate forces in the celebrated purple finger election, guaranteeing that Iranian-backed candidates would dominate. Now he wants to start yet another war in the region, this time with Iran, the 'axis of evil' country whose regional power has only been enhanced by the actions of Bush himself. What an incredibly dangerous jerk he is, like an irresponsible child playing with guns.
Comment on: Report Finds Little Progress On Iraq Goals - washingtonpost.com on 8/30/2007 7:36 AM
This is another piece of the growing mountain of evidence demonstrating the mendacity of George W. Bush and his team of hired liars at the White House. "We will hold the Iraqi government to these benchmarks." What nonsense. It suggests, falsely, that the Iraqi "government" actually governs Iraq. It clearly does not and never has. Saddam governed Iraq, cruelly but effectively. Malliki and Alawi before him and even the Coalition Provisional Authority have been pretense governments. Despite the predictable failure of the Iraqi 'government' to meet the benchmarks, Bush has made it clear that there will be no consequences, at least until next April when our overstretched Army, National Guard, and Marines will run out of troops and may stage some sort of mini-mutiny if Bush extends their tours yet again. No mater what happens or doesn't happen in Iraq, Bush will 'stay the course' so as not to be seen for the incompetent homicidal loser that he is. It's Lyndon Johnson again, "I will not the the first American president to lose a war." Johnson left the bloody endgame to Nixon, who turned out to be worse than Johnson. Bush will leave the endgame to whoever sits in the Oval Office in 2009. Then he will blame him (or her) for 'losing Iraq.' The set-up for this blame game has already started, just listen to the wingnuts on talk radio. For this guy our soldiers and Marines are being killed and wounded? Shame on us.
Comment on: Bush Wants $50 Billion More for Iraq War - washingtonpost.com on 8/29/2007 6:42 AM
To paraphrase Everett Dirksen, "50 billion here, 50 billion there, before you know it, you're talking real money." As a former Marine (RVN, 1965-66), I opposed ending the draft. I feared the ending conscription and creating a wholly voluntary Army would mean the end of deep and personal resistance to military adventurism by American presidents. If only professional soldiers were sacrificing lives and limbs on foreign battlegrounds, we wouldn't have the natural scepticism towards war of draft age men, their parents, their siblings, their girlfriends and others for whom waging war would carry personal costs. The all volunteer Army would become much like the all volunteer Marines. As much as I was proud to be a Marine, as my father had been in WWII, I didn't want the Army to lose its citizen-soldier character. Bush's Iraq catastrophe has demonstrated the unwisdom of abandoning the draft if for no other reason because the only reason we don't have this country convulsed by demonstrations, violence and other forms of war resistance like we experienced during Vietnam is because we have no draftees coming back in flag-draped boxes or missing legs, arms, or parts of their faces or brains. Bush will be able to keep this God-awful misadventure going until he is out of office, able to blame the inevitable bad ending on his successor, or the Congress, or 'lefties', or the Iraqis, or the Iranians, or the Syrians, or the man in the moon, or anyone other than himself and his criminal vice president. Meanwhile, we and our children and grandchildren will be left to deal with the shattered lives of our returning soldiers and Marines and with the real monetary cost of the war, in excess of $1 trillion. Others may wonder whether George W. Bush is the worst president in American history. I'm satisfied that not only is he the worst, he's in a class by himself.
Comment on: In the End, Realities Trumped Loyalty - washingtonpost.com on 8/28/2007 8:42 AM
Most Americans, I suspect, have long since concluded that Alberto Gonzales is a person with few if any moral values, the stuff that in the aggregate we call "character." Early on in his professional career he hitched his wagon to George W. Bush, a richer, more powerful, better connected version of himself, i.e., a man with few if any moral values. He succumbed to the fatal attraction that has brought many a lawyer to ruin: doing what a bad client wants him to do because the short-term payoff is so attractive. For some the payoff is a big fee or lucrative retainer, for others others it can be sexual favors, for others, including Gonzales, it is power and prestige. For the attractive payoffs, the lawyer sacrifices his independent professional judgment and become a toadeater for his client. Gonzales' fall from grace was apparent at least from the time he was routinely giving the 'all clear' signs to Bush on death penalty cases during Bush's governorship. Despite the sometimes appalling lack of due process in some capital punishment cases in Texas during that time, Bush was more willing to have blood on his hands (as long as it was someone else's blood) than he was to be called 'soft on crime' and Gonzales served as his willing toadie in these cases. As Bush rose to become president he got more blood on his hands (other people's blood, of course), this time on a wholesale level, in his catastrophic muscle-flexing misadventure in Iraq, and again Gonzales was there to do his bidding, which also meant doing the bidding of the aptly-named "Dick" Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and other amoral Bushie miscreants. Whatever was required in terms of legal opinions to justify anything these guys wanted to do, kidnappings, torture, ignoring treaty obligations, warrantless searches, and so on, Gonzales could be counted on to deliver. He was a guy who just couldn't say 'no.' Now his loyalty to Bush has finally brought him low. The poor sap continues to praise and thank the one man (other than himelf) who has led to his disgrace, his patron Bush. How much more clueless can a man be to say "I have led the American dream" as he resigns high government office in disgrace, his integrity, his character, his credibility, his honor probably forever stained by his venal subservience to Bush. This is "the American dream" lived by Jay Gatsby perhaps, pursuing unobtainable and unworthy goals only to end up a tragic loser. Perhaps Gonzales' most revealing comment was that his worst day of Attorney General was better than his father's best day. I understand that his father was a construction worker who undoubtedly worked hard to earn an honest living for his family. That Gonzales' thinks that occupying a position of high status and power is superior to earning an honest living with your hands and back even if the more prestigious job costs you your reputation and your honor tells us what kind of a man he is. He and Bush deserved each other and I, for one, hope Bush leaves office with his reputation and place in history as indelibly stained as Gonzales'.
I live in the district and have been often chagrinned by Sensenbrenners "prickliness" and more by his position on issues. That he is a jerk is clear beyond cavil; even his fellow Republicans often get the bum's rush from him. Worse, he's a jerk who does things like engineer the scandalous federal intervention in the Terri Schiavo case. I would love to see someone beat him and send him home to Menomonee Falls, Wis. to stew in his own juices. Alas, I don't expect it to happen.
Comment on: Ruth Marcus - One Angry Man - washingtonpost.com on 10/3/2007 6:29 AM
Clarence Thomas' grandfather raised him and apparently was a very admirable man who taught his grandson many good life lessons. One he apparently missed, however, is 'when you're in a hole, stop digging.' Why in the world would Thomas bring to national attention again the sordid mess of his relationship with Anita Hill, and thus his relationship with other subordinate females in his workplace? As Ruth Marcus points out, Anita Hill was not the only one to testify to Thomas' abusive behavior and quirky fixation on pubic hairs and Coke cans. As I recall, this sexual quirkiness and abuse of power by Thomas occurred before he 'saw the light' and got religion but the behavior nonetheless cast some light on his character, specifically his willingness to abuse the power of his position to satisfy his personal desires. One can hardly help wondering how much of that we are seeing in his opinions on the Supreme Court, i.e., acting out his barely suppressed rage. His claim that his difficulties at the confirmation hearing were attributable to a desire on the part of whites to 'get the black man' or 'keep the black man in his place' is ludicrous, a transparent and pathetic throwback to the 60s and early 70s, when Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown were uttering such claims with greater eloquence and persuasivess than Thomas exhibits now. His troubles stemmed from his own nasty conduct toward pretty young black women who he harrassed in the hope of 'getting lucky.' As it turned out, his behavior came back to haunt him years later and he's been PO'd about it for going on two decades. It seems pretty clear he'll be PO'd about it till he goes to his Final Reward. Let's be more charitable than Thomas is and hope that his Final Reward will be to be relieved of the burden of anger, resentment and bitterness that he carries through life like the albatross around the neck of the Ancient Mariner.
Comment on: Eugene Robinson - Witness for The Persecution - washingtonpost.com on 10/2/2007 7:30 AM
Poor Clarence Thomas. He acted nastily towards Anita Hill and had it come back to haunt him when he was about to take Thurgood Marshall's seat on the Supreme Court. There he was, the most qualified person in the country according to George H. W. Bush, and Professor Hill barged in to spoil his party and sully his reputation as an nice Christian gentleman and a man of integrity, one whose behavior in private doesn't vary from his behavior in public. The miracle man from Pin Point turned out to be yet another hypocrite on the far right, morally righteous in public, a porn fan and utterer of salacious comments to workplace subordinates in private. God knows that there are an army of men who dabble in porn and support the multimillion dollar growth industry and there are many many men who troll in their workplaces with inappropriate sexual comments to co-workers and subordinates. These behaviors in a man's past don't necessarily disqualify him from high office. Unless they are persistent and egregious, perhaps they shouldn't even be brought up in a confirmation hearing. But they did surface in the Thomas hearings because those who opposed his confirmation because of his radical political and constitutional views were desparate for anything that would cause his nomination to fail. And Thomas has never forgiven those who brought his naughtiness to light.
With the publication of his autobiography, we now know for sure what we had long suspected: that Thomas is a pathologically angry man, unable to forget, unable to forgive. He would benefit from the teachings of Jesus and of Buddy Hackett. Jesus wisely advised Peter that he should forgive his wrongdoing brother not once, not seven times, but 'seven times seventy.' Those who forgive get over their wrongs and fell better. Buddy Hackett told Johnny Carson he refused to carry a grudge because 'while you're carrying that grudge around, the other guy is out dancing.' Live and learn, Clarence Thomas. Get over it. You'll feel better and maybe stop living a life of vengeance.
Comment on: House Panel Says Rice Is Hindering Its Work - washingtonpost.com on 9/26/2007 8:02 AM
Ah, Condoleeza, that piano-playing, smooth-talking, Bush-loving fascista. She is to George W(armonger) Bush what Tariq Aziz was to Saddam Hussein, the eloquent but mendacious public face of the dictator and Decider.
Comment on: Private Security Puts Diplomats, Military at Odds - washingtonpost.com on 9/26/2007 7:47 AM
It doesn't take a Clausewitz to realize that the use of "private security contractors" in a war zone was and is a bad idea. This is one of the scariest developments under the BushCheney Regime, a large, well-armed, government sponsored private army, subject to no rules and reminiscent of the Brownshirts and Blackshirts. Blackwater closely resembles the fascistic regime that succors them: secretive, militaristic, arrogant, unaccoutable and lawless and led by evangelical born-agains. What will become of this private army when the Iraq catastrophe is over, when we pull out or are driven out? Will the mercenary army disband? Will the highly paid former Seals and Recon marines and Rangers, etc., go home to shop at Walmart and raise families or will they be shopping for other missions? What assurance can we have that those new missions won't be domestic? Forgive me for shuddering for the country.
Comment on: George F. Will - A War Still Seeking a Mission - washingtonpost.com on 9/11/2007 8:57 AM
Mr. Will has sharpened the focus on what is probably the central issue facing the nation: is there an Iraq, are there Iraqis? It seems abundantly clear that the Kurds who happen to live within the borders of Iraq no more consider themselves to be Iraqis than Kurds who live withing the borders of Turkey or Iran consider themselves Turks or Persians. As for the Sunni and Shia Arabs within the Iraq borders, what reason is there to think that they are any more reconcilable than, for example, the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland? Yes, these folks have worked out, for now at least, a political accommodation but only after almost 40 years of sectarian violence and more than 80 years of ethnic hostility. The Catholics considered themselves Irish, not 'Northern Irish,' and the Protestants considered themselves British. Northern Ireland was a state cobbled together by the imperial Brits to serve British interests, just as Iraq was. Neither the presence of the Royal Irish Constabulary nor the presence of British occupation troops was sufficient to stop the sectarian violence that persisted over several decades, even though the Brits and the locals shared a common language, a common Christian religion, a common Western culture and regional history. What reason is there to believe that American soldiers and Marines, who have virtually nothing in common with the "Iraqis" can bring peace and reconciliation to the many ethnic and sectarian and tribal groups within 'Iraq'? George Bush, may a skunk set up shop in his nose and thrive, and his neocon dead-enders (thanks, Don Rumsfeld for this useful term that has acquired a meaning you never intended or expected) are indulging a pipe dream in thinking that we can create a recreate a nation in Iraq now that we have removed the country's real unifying force, i.e, the despotic rule of a ruthless dictator and his Baath Party apparatchiks. The Bush regime is simply playing its end-game in Iraq, keeping the war going under the pretense that 'victory is still attainable' so that when the inevitable bloody collapse comes they can blame it on the next administration and, of course, on the "lefties," the "cut and run" crowd, the "America haters." How despicable.
Comment on: David Ignatius - Bush's Lost Iraqi Election - washingtonpost.com on 8/30/2007 8:08 AM
Ah, yes. Another story demonstrating that the best friend Iran ever had is George "Mission Accomplished" Bush. First he removes (alas, temporarily) the hostile Sunni Taliban government to the east of Iran and then he removes the hostile Sunni government of Saddam Hussein to the west of Iran. Then he ineptly occupies Iraq, weakening the US's credibility throughout the region and he refuses to support moderate forces in the celebrated purple finger election, guaranteeing that Iranian-backed candidates would dominate. Now he wants to start yet another war in the region, this time with Iran, the 'axis of evil' country whose regional power has only been enhanced by the actions of Bush himself. What an incredibly dangerous jerk he is, like an irresponsible child playing with guns.
Comment on: Report Finds Little Progress On Iraq Goals - washingtonpost.com on 8/30/2007 7:36 AM
This is another piece of the growing mountain of evidence demonstrating the mendacity of George W. Bush and his team of hired liars at the White House. "We will hold the Iraqi government to these benchmarks." What nonsense. It suggests, falsely, that the Iraqi "government" actually governs Iraq. It clearly does not and never has. Saddam governed Iraq, cruelly but effectively. Malliki and Alawi before him and even the Coalition Provisional Authority have been pretense governments. Despite the predictable failure of the Iraqi 'government' to meet the benchmarks, Bush has made it clear that there will be no consequences, at least until next April when our overstretched Army, National Guard, and Marines will run out of troops and may stage some sort of mini-mutiny if Bush extends their tours yet again. No mater what happens or doesn't happen in Iraq, Bush will 'stay the course' so as not to be seen for the incompetent homicidal loser that he is. It's Lyndon Johnson again, "I will not the the first American president to lose a war." Johnson left the bloody endgame to Nixon, who turned out to be worse than Johnson. Bush will leave the endgame to whoever sits in the Oval Office in 2009. Then he will blame him (or her) for 'losing Iraq.' The set-up for this blame game has already started, just listen to the wingnuts on talk radio. For this guy our soldiers and Marines are being killed and wounded? Shame on us.
Comment on: Bush Wants $50 Billion More for Iraq War - washingtonpost.com on 8/29/2007 6:42 AM
To paraphrase Everett Dirksen, "50 billion here, 50 billion there, before you know it, you're talking real money." As a former Marine (RVN, 1965-66), I opposed ending the draft. I feared the ending conscription and creating a wholly voluntary Army would mean the end of deep and personal resistance to military adventurism by American presidents. If only professional soldiers were sacrificing lives and limbs on foreign battlegrounds, we wouldn't have the natural scepticism towards war of draft age men, their parents, their siblings, their girlfriends and others for whom waging war would carry personal costs. The all volunteer Army would become much like the all volunteer Marines. As much as I was proud to be a Marine, as my father had been in WWII, I didn't want the Army to lose its citizen-soldier character. Bush's Iraq catastrophe has demonstrated the unwisdom of abandoning the draft if for no other reason because the only reason we don't have this country convulsed by demonstrations, violence and other forms of war resistance like we experienced during Vietnam is because we have no draftees coming back in flag-draped boxes or missing legs, arms, or parts of their faces or brains. Bush will be able to keep this God-awful misadventure going until he is out of office, able to blame the inevitable bad ending on his successor, or the Congress, or 'lefties', or the Iraqis, or the Iranians, or the Syrians, or the man in the moon, or anyone other than himself and his criminal vice president. Meanwhile, we and our children and grandchildren will be left to deal with the shattered lives of our returning soldiers and Marines and with the real monetary cost of the war, in excess of $1 trillion. Others may wonder whether George W. Bush is the worst president in American history. I'm satisfied that not only is he the worst, he's in a class by himself.
Comment on: In the End, Realities Trumped Loyalty - washingtonpost.com on 8/28/2007 8:42 AM
Most Americans, I suspect, have long since concluded that Alberto Gonzales is a person with few if any moral values, the stuff that in the aggregate we call "character." Early on in his professional career he hitched his wagon to George W. Bush, a richer, more powerful, better connected version of himself, i.e., a man with few if any moral values. He succumbed to the fatal attraction that has brought many a lawyer to ruin: doing what a bad client wants him to do because the short-term payoff is so attractive. For some the payoff is a big fee or lucrative retainer, for others others it can be sexual favors, for others, including Gonzales, it is power and prestige. For the attractive payoffs, the lawyer sacrifices his independent professional judgment and become a toadeater for his client. Gonzales' fall from grace was apparent at least from the time he was routinely giving the 'all clear' signs to Bush on death penalty cases during Bush's governorship. Despite the sometimes appalling lack of due process in some capital punishment cases in Texas during that time, Bush was more willing to have blood on his hands (as long as it was someone else's blood) than he was to be called 'soft on crime' and Gonzales served as his willing toadie in these cases. As Bush rose to become president he got more blood on his hands (other people's blood, of course), this time on a wholesale level, in his catastrophic muscle-flexing misadventure in Iraq, and again Gonzales was there to do his bidding, which also meant doing the bidding of the aptly-named "Dick" Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and other amoral Bushie miscreants. Whatever was required in terms of legal opinions to justify anything these guys wanted to do, kidnappings, torture, ignoring treaty obligations, warrantless searches, and so on, Gonzales could be counted on to deliver. He was a guy who just couldn't say 'no.' Now his loyalty to Bush has finally brought him low. The poor sap continues to praise and thank the one man (other than himelf) who has led to his disgrace, his patron Bush. How much more clueless can a man be to say "I have led the American dream" as he resigns high government office in disgrace, his integrity, his character, his credibility, his honor probably forever stained by his venal subservience to Bush. This is "the American dream" lived by Jay Gatsby perhaps, pursuing unobtainable and unworthy goals only to end up a tragic loser. Perhaps Gonzales' most revealing comment was that his worst day of Attorney General was better than his father's best day. I understand that his father was a construction worker who undoubtedly worked hard to earn an honest living for his family. That Gonzales' thinks that occupying a position of high status and power is superior to earning an honest living with your hands and back even if the more prestigious job costs you your reputation and your honor tells us what kind of a man he is. He and Bush deserved each other and I, for one, hope Bush leaves office with his reputation and place in history as indelibly stained as Gonzales'.
Comment on: Jim Hoagland - Bush's Vietnam Blunder - washingtonpost.com on 8/24/2007 8:46 AM
Mr. Hoagland writes that Vietnam and Iraq are totally different situations. That may be true in all respects except the most important one: quagmire. I was a Marine in DaNang in 195-66, serving at the headquarters of the 1st Marine Air Wing. By the end of 1965, after we had dropped bombs on the area near the airbase day and night for many months, the number of 'hostiles' had doubled. Even the lowly lieutenants with whom I worked knew the war was not likely to turn out well in terms of America's geopolitical goals. We learned much later, after the publication of the Pentagon Papers and of Robert McNamara's memoir, that the nation's leaders also knew by the end of 1965 that the war was a loser. Nonetheless hundreds of thousands of additional troops were injected into the unwinnable war and thousands were killed and wounded and an unknowable number of Vietnamese were blown up, shot, burned, and poisoned by our acts. By the time the war was ended, the military was severely weakened and embarassed by the loss of the war. Worse, the country was torn apart by bitter conflict between the "America, love it or leave it" crowd and the "End the War" crowd. America was held in contempt by other nations. How can Mr. Hoagland say that Vietnam and Iraq are 'totally different'?
The president's Vietnam speech is part of a larger effort that has been going on for some time: setting up the Democrats and 'lefties' as responsible for 'losing Iraq' (as if it ever was 'ours' to lose.) As long as the neocons and talk radio wingnuts and other Republicans maintain that the war is winnable, they are in a position to blame others for the inevitable disaster that will befall Iraq when we withdraw. Many of those VFW guys (I am a life member) that Bush was talking to still insist that we 'lost' Vietnam only because of political interference with the military. Bush was simply doing his part in setting up the same spurious argument for his catastrophic Iraq misadventure which he knows is doomed to failure. What a truly terrible human being he is.
Comment on: Comments: Bush Compares Iraq to Vietnam - washingtonpost.com on 8/23/2007 12:05 AM
Back in the waning days of the Nixon regime, I vividly remember becoming angrier and angrier with Nixon as the evidence of his criminality mounted and the country, or at least its national government, became increasingly paralyzed in a constitutional crisis. I thought I would never again see the day when an American president would trigger in me the same kind of deep disgust and anger and anxiety for the future of the nation. Alas, George Walker Bush has outdone Richard Milhous Nixon.
After using his Daddy’s clout to avoid service in Vietnam (where I served as a Marine in 1965-66), he now has the shameless audacity to argue that it was a terrible mistake to pull out of that country after losing only 58,000 American lives and many multiples of that number of Vietnamese lives. Yes, he now tells us that the American government should have sent even more thousands and thousands of young conscripts to be killed or brutalized in that country while he partied in Texas and played jet jockey in the Air National Guard. When I first heard this incredible charge on a cable news program, I was reminded of Attorney Joseph Welch’s famous words directed at Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the Army hearings: "Until this moment, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. . . Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" I would ask Bush “Have you no sense of shame, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of shame?” How many more thousands of lives would you squander in Iraq rather than admit that you made a catastrophic mistake in invading and occupying that country? Once again, you live in the lap of luxury, surrounded by suckbutts while others pay the price you’ve never been willing to pay yourself or with your privileged family and buddies. You are a total disgrace, especially to your father who (1) served honorably and at risk in the war of his youth, and (2) had the wisdom to eschew toppling Saddam Hussein and occupying Iraq because doing so would lead to precisely the maelstrom his strutting chickenhawk son has brought about. You make Nixon look good. You surely must be the most disgusting president in the history of the country, as well as the most incompetent. God help the nation.
Comment on: Comments: As Democracy Push Falters, Bush Feels Like a 'Dissident' - washingtonpost.com on 8/20/2007 6:33 AM
"emainland"s comment on the first page of these comments says it all and says it best. Bravo. Failed and wholly incompetent 'democracy' and 'liberty' agenda abroad, emerging fascism at home. What a disaster Bush and Cheney and their koolaid drinking Republican supporters and venal, feckless Democratic demi-opposition have been.
Comment on: Domestic Use of Spy Satellites To Widen - washingtonpost.com on 8/16/2007 8:03 AM
Bush's chief intelligence officer for the Department of Homeland Insecurity says: "We can give total assurance" that Americans' civil liberties will be protected. 'Americans shouln't have any concerns about it." Ronald Reagan said: "The nine scariest words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.p" So much for real Reaganism in the Republican Party. Lord Acton, one of only a few Roman Catholic members of the English peerage, wrote in opposition to the First Vatican Council's adoption of the theory of papal infallibility: "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." Have we learned nothing from the Hoover years at the FBI, the Church Committee's report on illegal CIA activities, the FBI's recent gross abuse of its Patriot Act power to issue 'national security letters' to obtain information without warrant, from the torture and other abuse of prisoners with BushCheney blessings, from all that has happened under the thugs running the White House and the Depatment of Justice? Oh, I forgot. We have a Bushie's 'total assurance' that our civil liberties will be protected and that 'Americans shouldn't have any concerns about it." Now I feel better.
Comment on: Comments: Harold Meyerson - Rove's Blind Spot - washingtonpost.com on 8/15/2007 9:37 AM
I have thought from early on in the Bush presidential regime that George W. Bush is profoundly stupid - not stupid in the ordinary sense of 'not too bright,' or 'a little slow on the uptake,' but stupid in the sense of having little or practical wisdom, the ability to understand life and the world and to know what needs to be done and what needs to be avoided. Practical wisdom comes from living a life full of challenges, a wide range of experiences, and a fair share of regretted mistakes. Bush's life has been highly privileged and elitist from the get-go. He was born with the metaphorical silver spoon in his mouth, or 'on third base' in the words of Ann Richards. His family ties and wealth got him into Yale notwithstanding his undistinquished academic career and his family ties and wealth and provided the means to get into the Air National Guard and to avoid service in Vietnam, to get into the oil business in West Texas and to get into professional baseball and to get into politics. It comes as no surprise therefore that Bush fails to understand the plight of millions of his countrymen who know only too well that they have little real economic security. They are at substantial risk and they are always aware of it, fearing a recession, fearing a serious injury or protracted illness, fearing a merger or acquisition that will cost them their jobs, fearing outsourcing to China, fearing decreasing employability with increasing age, and so on. It has been in this Age of Anxiety that Bush, tutored by the equally profoundly stupid Karl Rove, trotted out his Ownership Society, his Social Security privitization scheme, his fabulous tax cuts for the fabulously wealthy, his support for importing more immigrant workers and exporting more manufacturing and service jobs, and of course his trilion dollar misadventure in Iraq. Karl Rove is now appropriately identified with all of Bush's profound stupidities, his profound misreadings of the times. The effects of Bush's and Rove's profound stupidities will long outlast the Bush regime. It's hard to imagine that History's judgment of Rove will comport with Bush's judgment of "boy genius" but it will agree with his title of "Architect", but only as the architect of a structure that collapsed. A pox on both of them.
Comment on: Comments: Eugene Robinson - Just Another Vacation From Reality - washingtonpost.com on 8/10/2007 7:57 AM
I always look to see what Eugene Robinson has to say about whatever interests him to write about on any given day and today's column sure demonstrates why he is so worth reading. He cuts right through the BS, the GroupThink, the Orwellian misuse of language to get at the heart of the matter. The only problem is that when sees as clearly as Mr. Robinson does, and shares his clear vision of reality with his readers, it's scary, especially when he writes about the Decider, the Leader of the Free World, the Commander Guy. As he strips away the trappings of the White House, the pomp of the Rose Garden setting, the Marines in ceremonial dress blues, the 'Hail to the Chief' music and all that, we are left with the sight of the most powerful man in the world, the guy we elected and empowered, as a man either as delusional as Kim Jung Il or as wicked as many dictators, or as dumb as a fencepost, or some combination of the above. Let us shudder for the nation.
Comment on: Comments: Investigating Mr. Gonzales - washingtonpost.com on 8/2/2007 7:12 AM
It looks like this editorial could have been written by the chair of the Republican National Committee, or perhaps by Tony Snow, or maybe even by the Decider himself. To whom does the Inspector General of the Departmnt of Justice report? Is it not . . . the Decider? Does the Editorial Board of the Washington Post thinks that its readers are so benighted and ill-informed that they do not understand that the central impediment to obtaining information from Mr. Gonzales is Mr. Bush? that it is precisely the intimate and conspiratorial relationship between these two miscreants that empowers Mr. Gonzales in persistent attempts at deception of the American public and his contemptuous relations with both houses of the Congress? Does the Editorial Board think we have forgotten the regime's embrace of the theory of the 'unitary executive' under which the Insprector Generals of the departments and agencies of the government, and every other federal employee in the executive branch, works directly for the Decider? Bush's claimed prerogative to order the U. S. Attorney for the District of Columbia not to bring criminal contempt charges before a grand jury in the cases of Mr. Bolton and Ms. Meirs would operate as well to justify his telling the DOJ Inspector General to lay off Gonzales. In addition, he could always play the 'classified information' and 'national security ' cards with the IG. C'mon, Editorial Board, being disingenuous is one thing, treating your readers as total morons is something else. The only disciplinary process in which George W. Bush doesn't ultimately hold all the cards is impeachment. Let the games begin.
Comment on: Comments: Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed - washingtonpost.com on 7/30/2007 7:30 AM
"Ita8111" and "jam754" write of the political effect of the Gonzales saga, the first suggesting that Hispanic voters will punish Democrats for 'torturing' Gonzales, the second suggesting that "ita" misunderestimates (couldn't resist it) Hispanic voters. I'm reminded of a bit that the comic genius and social critic Richard Pryor used to do in his heyday. When news broke that a terrible crime had been committed,he said, the folks in the black community would start praying 'pleeease, don't let it be a brother!" While there are surely many Hispanic supporters of Alberto Gonzales and of his Mephistopheles George Bush, there are surely many others who wish Gonzales would disappear. He is, as the old Yiddish saying goes, a 'shanda fur die goyim,' one whose shameful actions tends to bring the vulnerable minority group to which he belongs into disrepute or to provide an excuse for bigoted thinking or action within the dominant majority community. When I think of Gonzales, I think of another old Yiddish saying which translates as "May a skunk set up shop in his nose and thrive!"
Comment on: Comments: Iraqi Government Dismisses Sunni Demands - washingtonpost.com on 7/27/2007 4:28 PM
Today's NY Times has a feature story on the US's growing anger with the Saudi government (you know, those royals who are long term dear friends of the Bush family)for supporting the Sunni opponents of the feckless Maliki 'government' (it pretends to run the Green Zone). So here's a story about a large Sunni bloc threatening to pull out of the 'national unity' government supported by Decider and Commander Guy Bush. So we have the Sunnis against us, the Shiites against us, the Saudis against us, the Iranians against us, let's see, who'd I forget? Oh, yes, the Kurds love us, which potentially has the Turks against us and the Israelis (kind of) love us, which puts most Muslim nations against us. Now, George and Dick, tell me again why American sons and daughters, American mothers and fathers, American brothers and sisters and friends and neighbors should be spilling their blood in this cobbled-together excuse for a country? And have a nice weekend.
Comment on: Comments: Eugene Robinson - Bedtime for Gonzo - washingtonpost.com on 7/27/2007 1:34 PM
Let me second Mr. Robinson's wish that Gonzales gets nailed for, not to put too fine a point on it, Gonzo is a despicable human being. Look at his record on torture. Look at his record as Bush's pardon counsel in Texas, pretending to provide serious review of death sentence cases. He is a bad, bad man, a perfect accomplice for another bad, bad man, his string puller, Bush. On whether he committed perjury or not respecting the late night visit to Ashcroft's hospital room, I think he is being, as the Irish say, too clever by half. He will say that the disagreement within the administration was over the portions of the NSA program that were dropped after the threats of resignation by Ashcroft, Comey, Mueller, et al., and thus those portions were not part of the program that the President announced to the public after disclosure by the New York Times. This must be what the DOJ spokesman called Gonzales' confusing (i.e., misleading) "linquistic parsing." What a pig he is. May a skunk set up shop in his nose, and thrive. Ditto re his enabler Bush.
Mr. Hoagland writes that Vietnam and Iraq are totally different situations. That may be true in all respects except the most important one: quagmire. I was a Marine in DaNang in 195-66, serving at the headquarters of the 1st Marine Air Wing. By the end of 1965, after we had dropped bombs on the area near the airbase day and night for many months, the number of 'hostiles' had doubled. Even the lowly lieutenants with whom I worked knew the war was not likely to turn out well in terms of America's geopolitical goals. We learned much later, after the publication of the Pentagon Papers and of Robert McNamara's memoir, that the nation's leaders also knew by the end of 1965 that the war was a loser. Nonetheless hundreds of thousands of additional troops were injected into the unwinnable war and thousands were killed and wounded and an unknowable number of Vietnamese were blown up, shot, burned, and poisoned by our acts. By the time the war was ended, the military was severely weakened and embarassed by the loss of the war. Worse, the country was torn apart by bitter conflict between the "America, love it or leave it" crowd and the "End the War" crowd. America was held in contempt by other nations. How can Mr. Hoagland say that Vietnam and Iraq are 'totally different'?
The president's Vietnam speech is part of a larger effort that has been going on for some time: setting up the Democrats and 'lefties' as responsible for 'losing Iraq' (as if it ever was 'ours' to lose.) As long as the neocons and talk radio wingnuts and other Republicans maintain that the war is winnable, they are in a position to blame others for the inevitable disaster that will befall Iraq when we withdraw. Many of those VFW guys (I am a life member) that Bush was talking to still insist that we 'lost' Vietnam only because of political interference with the military. Bush was simply doing his part in setting up the same spurious argument for his catastrophic Iraq misadventure which he knows is doomed to failure. What a truly terrible human being he is.
Comment on: Comments: Bush Compares Iraq to Vietnam - washingtonpost.com on 8/23/2007 12:05 AM
Back in the waning days of the Nixon regime, I vividly remember becoming angrier and angrier with Nixon as the evidence of his criminality mounted and the country, or at least its national government, became increasingly paralyzed in a constitutional crisis. I thought I would never again see the day when an American president would trigger in me the same kind of deep disgust and anger and anxiety for the future of the nation. Alas, George Walker Bush has outdone Richard Milhous Nixon.
After using his Daddy’s clout to avoid service in Vietnam (where I served as a Marine in 1965-66), he now has the shameless audacity to argue that it was a terrible mistake to pull out of that country after losing only 58,000 American lives and many multiples of that number of Vietnamese lives. Yes, he now tells us that the American government should have sent even more thousands and thousands of young conscripts to be killed or brutalized in that country while he partied in Texas and played jet jockey in the Air National Guard. When I first heard this incredible charge on a cable news program, I was reminded of Attorney Joseph Welch’s famous words directed at Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the Army hearings: "Until this moment, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. . . Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" I would ask Bush “Have you no sense of shame, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of shame?” How many more thousands of lives would you squander in Iraq rather than admit that you made a catastrophic mistake in invading and occupying that country? Once again, you live in the lap of luxury, surrounded by suckbutts while others pay the price you’ve never been willing to pay yourself or with your privileged family and buddies. You are a total disgrace, especially to your father who (1) served honorably and at risk in the war of his youth, and (2) had the wisdom to eschew toppling Saddam Hussein and occupying Iraq because doing so would lead to precisely the maelstrom his strutting chickenhawk son has brought about. You make Nixon look good. You surely must be the most disgusting president in the history of the country, as well as the most incompetent. God help the nation.
Comment on: Comments: As Democracy Push Falters, Bush Feels Like a 'Dissident' - washingtonpost.com on 8/20/2007 6:33 AM
"emainland"s comment on the first page of these comments says it all and says it best. Bravo. Failed and wholly incompetent 'democracy' and 'liberty' agenda abroad, emerging fascism at home. What a disaster Bush and Cheney and their koolaid drinking Republican supporters and venal, feckless Democratic demi-opposition have been.
Comment on: Domestic Use of Spy Satellites To Widen - washingtonpost.com on 8/16/2007 8:03 AM
Bush's chief intelligence officer for the Department of Homeland Insecurity says: "We can give total assurance" that Americans' civil liberties will be protected. 'Americans shouln't have any concerns about it." Ronald Reagan said: "The nine scariest words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.p" So much for real Reaganism in the Republican Party. Lord Acton, one of only a few Roman Catholic members of the English peerage, wrote in opposition to the First Vatican Council's adoption of the theory of papal infallibility: "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." Have we learned nothing from the Hoover years at the FBI, the Church Committee's report on illegal CIA activities, the FBI's recent gross abuse of its Patriot Act power to issue 'national security letters' to obtain information without warrant, from the torture and other abuse of prisoners with BushCheney blessings, from all that has happened under the thugs running the White House and the Depatment of Justice? Oh, I forgot. We have a Bushie's 'total assurance' that our civil liberties will be protected and that 'Americans shouldn't have any concerns about it." Now I feel better.
Comment on: Comments: Harold Meyerson - Rove's Blind Spot - washingtonpost.com on 8/15/2007 9:37 AM
I have thought from early on in the Bush presidential regime that George W. Bush is profoundly stupid - not stupid in the ordinary sense of 'not too bright,' or 'a little slow on the uptake,' but stupid in the sense of having little or practical wisdom, the ability to understand life and the world and to know what needs to be done and what needs to be avoided. Practical wisdom comes from living a life full of challenges, a wide range of experiences, and a fair share of regretted mistakes. Bush's life has been highly privileged and elitist from the get-go. He was born with the metaphorical silver spoon in his mouth, or 'on third base' in the words of Ann Richards. His family ties and wealth got him into Yale notwithstanding his undistinquished academic career and his family ties and wealth and provided the means to get into the Air National Guard and to avoid service in Vietnam, to get into the oil business in West Texas and to get into professional baseball and to get into politics. It comes as no surprise therefore that Bush fails to understand the plight of millions of his countrymen who know only too well that they have little real economic security. They are at substantial risk and they are always aware of it, fearing a recession, fearing a serious injury or protracted illness, fearing a merger or acquisition that will cost them their jobs, fearing outsourcing to China, fearing decreasing employability with increasing age, and so on. It has been in this Age of Anxiety that Bush, tutored by the equally profoundly stupid Karl Rove, trotted out his Ownership Society, his Social Security privitization scheme, his fabulous tax cuts for the fabulously wealthy, his support for importing more immigrant workers and exporting more manufacturing and service jobs, and of course his trilion dollar misadventure in Iraq. Karl Rove is now appropriately identified with all of Bush's profound stupidities, his profound misreadings of the times. The effects of Bush's and Rove's profound stupidities will long outlast the Bush regime. It's hard to imagine that History's judgment of Rove will comport with Bush's judgment of "boy genius" but it will agree with his title of "Architect", but only as the architect of a structure that collapsed. A pox on both of them.
Comment on: Comments: Eugene Robinson - Just Another Vacation From Reality - washingtonpost.com on 8/10/2007 7:57 AM
I always look to see what Eugene Robinson has to say about whatever interests him to write about on any given day and today's column sure demonstrates why he is so worth reading. He cuts right through the BS, the GroupThink, the Orwellian misuse of language to get at the heart of the matter. The only problem is that when sees as clearly as Mr. Robinson does, and shares his clear vision of reality with his readers, it's scary, especially when he writes about the Decider, the Leader of the Free World, the Commander Guy. As he strips away the trappings of the White House, the pomp of the Rose Garden setting, the Marines in ceremonial dress blues, the 'Hail to the Chief' music and all that, we are left with the sight of the most powerful man in the world, the guy we elected and empowered, as a man either as delusional as Kim Jung Il or as wicked as many dictators, or as dumb as a fencepost, or some combination of the above. Let us shudder for the nation.
Comment on: Comments: Investigating Mr. Gonzales - washingtonpost.com on 8/2/2007 7:12 AM
It looks like this editorial could have been written by the chair of the Republican National Committee, or perhaps by Tony Snow, or maybe even by the Decider himself. To whom does the Inspector General of the Departmnt of Justice report? Is it not . . . the Decider? Does the Editorial Board of the Washington Post thinks that its readers are so benighted and ill-informed that they do not understand that the central impediment to obtaining information from Mr. Gonzales is Mr. Bush? that it is precisely the intimate and conspiratorial relationship between these two miscreants that empowers Mr. Gonzales in persistent attempts at deception of the American public and his contemptuous relations with both houses of the Congress? Does the Editorial Board think we have forgotten the regime's embrace of the theory of the 'unitary executive' under which the Insprector Generals of the departments and agencies of the government, and every other federal employee in the executive branch, works directly for the Decider? Bush's claimed prerogative to order the U. S. Attorney for the District of Columbia not to bring criminal contempt charges before a grand jury in the cases of Mr. Bolton and Ms. Meirs would operate as well to justify his telling the DOJ Inspector General to lay off Gonzales. In addition, he could always play the 'classified information' and 'national security ' cards with the IG. C'mon, Editorial Board, being disingenuous is one thing, treating your readers as total morons is something else. The only disciplinary process in which George W. Bush doesn't ultimately hold all the cards is impeachment. Let the games begin.
Comment on: Comments: Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed - washingtonpost.com on 7/30/2007 7:30 AM
"Ita8111" and "jam754" write of the political effect of the Gonzales saga, the first suggesting that Hispanic voters will punish Democrats for 'torturing' Gonzales, the second suggesting that "ita" misunderestimates (couldn't resist it) Hispanic voters. I'm reminded of a bit that the comic genius and social critic Richard Pryor used to do in his heyday. When news broke that a terrible crime had been committed,he said, the folks in the black community would start praying 'pleeease, don't let it be a brother!" While there are surely many Hispanic supporters of Alberto Gonzales and of his Mephistopheles George Bush, there are surely many others who wish Gonzales would disappear. He is, as the old Yiddish saying goes, a 'shanda fur die goyim,' one whose shameful actions tends to bring the vulnerable minority group to which he belongs into disrepute or to provide an excuse for bigoted thinking or action within the dominant majority community. When I think of Gonzales, I think of another old Yiddish saying which translates as "May a skunk set up shop in his nose and thrive!"
Comment on: Comments: Iraqi Government Dismisses Sunni Demands - washingtonpost.com on 7/27/2007 4:28 PM
Today's NY Times has a feature story on the US's growing anger with the Saudi government (you know, those royals who are long term dear friends of the Bush family)for supporting the Sunni opponents of the feckless Maliki 'government' (it pretends to run the Green Zone). So here's a story about a large Sunni bloc threatening to pull out of the 'national unity' government supported by Decider and Commander Guy Bush. So we have the Sunnis against us, the Shiites against us, the Saudis against us, the Iranians against us, let's see, who'd I forget? Oh, yes, the Kurds love us, which potentially has the Turks against us and the Israelis (kind of) love us, which puts most Muslim nations against us. Now, George and Dick, tell me again why American sons and daughters, American mothers and fathers, American brothers and sisters and friends and neighbors should be spilling their blood in this cobbled-together excuse for a country? And have a nice weekend.
Comment on: Comments: Eugene Robinson - Bedtime for Gonzo - washingtonpost.com on 7/27/2007 1:34 PM
Let me second Mr. Robinson's wish that Gonzales gets nailed for, not to put too fine a point on it, Gonzo is a despicable human being. Look at his record on torture. Look at his record as Bush's pardon counsel in Texas, pretending to provide serious review of death sentence cases. He is a bad, bad man, a perfect accomplice for another bad, bad man, his string puller, Bush. On whether he committed perjury or not respecting the late night visit to Ashcroft's hospital room, I think he is being, as the Irish say, too clever by half. He will say that the disagreement within the administration was over the portions of the NSA program that were dropped after the threats of resignation by Ashcroft, Comey, Mueller, et al., and thus those portions were not part of the program that the President announced to the public after disclosure by the New York Times. This must be what the DOJ spokesman called Gonzales' confusing (i.e., misleading) "linquistic parsing." What a pig he is. May a skunk set up shop in his nose, and thrive. Ditto re his enabler Bush.
Comment on: Comments: In Prosecutors Probe, a Detour Around Courts - washingtonpost.com on 7/27/2007 9:28 AM
Anyone who suffered through the House Judiciary Committee's examination of Messrs. Gonzales and McNulty and Ms. Goodling got a preview of what an "inherent contempt" proceeding in the House would look like and it's not pretty. Chairman Conyers is a courtly gentleman but no courtroom lawyer. Most of the members of the committee, the Democrats at least, have no idea how to ask a question that will produce a usable response. There are a couple of good courtroom lawyers on the committee, most notably Arthur Davis of California, and if Mr. Conyers or the Democratic majority of the committee had any sense, and if he and they thought it was more important to obtain useful information than to provide each member an opportunity to bloviate, they would have allocated all or most of the hearing time to Mr. Davis and perhaps Adam Shiff. Instead, we got the pathetic clown shows in which the clown were the congressmen rather than the culpable witnesses. John Conyers is no Peter Rodino (those of an advanced age will remember him from the House impeachment hearings on Watergate)and so far we haven't seen the contemporary equivalent of a Judge John Sirica to force the disgorgement of White House documentary evidence and the appearance of witnesses. So I fear that an inherent contempt proceeding in the House would be as edifying as the impeachment show the Republicans mounted against Bill Clinton, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." I think what we can expect is continued total fecklessness out the Democrats in the House and the Senate and maybe it's better that way. More's the pity.
Comment on: Comments: FBI Director Contradicts Gonzales Testimony - washingtonpost.com on 7/26/2007 10:18 PM
What does Andrew Card have to say about all this? What does John Ashcroft have to say about all this? How about Mrs. Ashcroft, if she was in the hospital room during the colloquy? If Gonzales is telling the truth, I would have expected Messrs. Card and Ashcroft to have come forth with some kind of statement taking issue with Mr. Comey's testimony and supporting the integrity and honesty of Mr. Gonzales. Instead, silence. Perhaps Messrs. Card and Ashcroft have stopped answering their telephones. All those annoying calls from Gonzales, calls from the White House, calls from reporters. Will they now say that BOTH Comey and Mueller are testifying falsely? Doesn't their silence say it all?
Comment on: P.X. Kelley and Robert F. Turner - War Crimes and the White House - washingtonpost.com on 7/26/2007 7:07 AM
Three cheers for P. X. Kelley and Robert F. Turner. I too am a former Marine officer and Vietnam veteran. Like the writers, I have been appalled by the actions of the Bush regime with respect to treatment of captives. The policies of "enhanced interrogation techniques" which cannot be described even generally in public could only emanate from men who did not themselves serve on regular active duty in the military and who never served in a combat zone, i.e., chickenhawks. General Kelley and Mr. Turner have expressed perfectly the results of the BushCheney decisions: (1) our national honor compromised, (2) our own servicemen and intelligence operatives encouraged to commit war crimes, and (3) the encouragement of those who capture our own servicemen and operatives to subject them to torture.
It is not by chance that a Marine commandant would head his list with a reference to “honor.” To Marines, and to soldiers, honor is more than a word; it is a reality of conscience that leads men, and now women, to willingly sacrifice life and limb rather than suffer its opposite, dishonor. It is dishonorable to torture captives. The Gestapo and SS engaged in torture, not Americans. The Japanese Imperial forces in WW II engaged in torture, not Americans. Of course captives were occasionally mistreated, but not as a matter of national policy. Bush and Cheney have changed all that.
Gen. Kelley and Mr. Turner also focus honestly on the reality of torture rather than the disingenuous and indeed utterly dishonest interpretation of the word “torture” by the Bush regime. George Orwell wrote an essay in 1946 entitled “Politics and the English Language.” He wrote:
“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism., question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.”
In our time, torture is called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Shame on us and thank you, Gen. Kelley and Mr. Turner, for calling a spade a spade.
Comment on: Comments: House Panel Votes for Contempt Charges in Firings Case - washingtonpost.com on 7/25/2007 2:15 PM
Jim Sensenbrenner, a/k/a Senselessbrenner in his own district, shows the same kind of judgment on the contempt issue as he showed in the Terry Schiavo matter and in trying to make all undocumenented aliens felons. Query: if the occupant of the White House were Bill Clinton instead of King George, would Sensenbrenner's position on the contempt citation be different? It's bad enough that the congressional Republicans have no shame in their support for Bush on most matters, but even worse that they can't take the Autocrat on even when it comes to protecting the prerogative of Congress itself. How disgraceful. Bend over, congressional Republicans. King George is approaching.
Comment on: Comments: Gonzales, Senators Spar on Credibility - washingtonpost.com on 7/25/2007 8:35 AM
When I was in high school 50 years ago, we had a goofy cheer when our football team was on defense: REPEL THEM, REPEL THEM, MAKE THEM RELINQUISH THE BALL. I thought of it as I read the story about Gonzales' perjury (let's call it by its proper name). IMPEACH HIM, IMPEACH HIM, MAKE HIM RELINQUISH THE BALL! As I watched Sens. Leahy, Spector, Schumer et al. working over Gonzales I was reminded of hunters clubbing a baby harp seal, with the big difference being that, unlike Gonzales, the baby seals did nothing to deserve the beating. However, the chance of getting a special prosecutor appointed and an indictment returned against Gonzo is nil. Under the BushCheney unitary executive theory of plenary presidential power, Bush himself could simply instruct DOJ and the US Attorney for the District of Columbia not to seek charges against his criminal buddy Fredo. Even if the Decider doesn't do the job himself, the Solicitor Geneneral and USA could decline to do so for any of a variety of reasons. The only practical way for the Senate to address the challenge posed by Gonzales' perjury is to start an impeachment inquiry in which the 'high crimes or misdemeanor' are perjury and contempt of Congress. The Democrats have been so feckless since they gained power in January that it is hard to believe that they will have the cajones to start and pursue impeachment proceedings, even if they can get over the hurdle of Republican opposition. Failure to act decisively in the face of such obvious perjury and contempt of the Judiciary Committee can only serve to drag Congress even lower in the estimate of the American public, including Democratic supporters and independents, and embolden BushCheney and their supporters who believe that Congress is indeed beneith contempt.
Comment on: The Phony Debate - washingtonpost.com on 7/21/2007 2:08 AM
Your editorial stance is clearly correct: the position of the Senate Democratic leadership is irresponsible, a disgrace in fact. Senator Reid's refusal to offer any comment on the bloodbath that is almost universally agreed to be inevitable once the Americans pull out is indefensible. Shame on him. Shame on Senator Durbin and Leader Pelosi. Shame on the lot of them. We created the horrible situation in Iraq and it would be immoral, grossly irresponsible to simply pull out and let the blood run through the streets. But please, Editorial Board, let's not forget or ignore where within our government the greater culpability lies, which is to say, in the White House. The Bush/Cheney recklessness and wilfulness in initiating and prosecuting this war has been disastrous for the United States and catastrosphic for the Iraqis. Bush's religiously ecstatic otherworldliness about the war, and Cheney's unwavering Machiavellian imperialism in stoking the war fires have driven opponents of the war to countering extremes of irresponsibility. Our country, and the poor Iraqi 'Joe and Jane Doe's' are left with what we have now: gross irresponsibility on the part of both the Bush regime and the Democratic majority in the Congress. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just."
Comment on: Comments: Mahdi Army, Not Al-Qaeda, is Enemy No. 1 in Western Baghdad - washingtonpost.com on 7/16/2007 9:02 AM
Every senator and congressman who reads this article needs to ask him/herself "How can I justify American servicemen and women dying and being mutilated to police this fight between Baghdadi Sunnis and Shiites?" This is national madness, not just in Iraq, but in the United States. If we were sending draftees over there instead of volunteers, the streets of America would be running with blood. College campuses would be ablaze and our National Guard units would be deployed (a) to control American demonstrators and rioters instead of the Mahdi Army and Sunni insurgents and (b) to protect induction centers and other government buildings. Remember Kent State? The bombed Army Math Center in Madison, Wisconsin? Thousands of "Hell, no, we won't go" demonstrations across the land? What American mother or father would want their son or daughter to sacrifice their life or their limbs or their future emotional peace of mind to get gasoline to Sunnis who can't buy it from the Shiites? We need a March on Washington to bring tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans to the Mall to drive home to the politicos that the Bush Madness must stop. God help us; Bush wont, and the Congress won't unless they are forced to.
Comment on: Comments: Why Bush Will Be A Winner - washingtonpost.com on 7/15/2007 9:36 AM
Not that I would wish it so, but if ours were a nation that experienced cataclysmic and violent changes of government, Mr. Kristol would be among the first lined up against a wall. Through his magazine and his innumberable television appearances and his other avenues of political influences, he has been as responsible as anyone for the disaster in Iraq and the threats to the Constitution in the United States. He, and those whose views he shared and helped to create, were dangerous, bellicose, jingoists who pulled the strings on George W. Bush from the time he started to run for office. Bush claimed not to be interested in "nation building" and wanted a "more humble" foreign policy but from the moment he was (kind of)l elected, he was hellbent on invading Iraq as is made abundantly clear in the book by Paul O'Neill, W's first Treasury Secretary and member of his National Security Council and in other sources. The excuse for the invasion and occupation came on September 11, 2001, and the whole world knows the catastrophic consequences. Mr. Kristol knows the consequences too, as does Mr. Bush, but they just can't get themselves to admit that they could be responsible for so many deaths, so many devastating injuries, so much suffering by so many people, with so little good to show for it. So they make stuff up, stuff like the delusional nonsense that appears in this OpEd piece. "Bush will be viewed as a winner" and "we will win in Iraq" and the Medicare drug program is a good program and on and on. This is the sort of stuff that only he and Fred Barnes and the FoxNews deludniks could believe.
He's right about one thing, however. The Republicans clearly have a chance of retaining the White House in the 2008 election. This is so not because of the strength of the Bush regime's record, but because, when push comes to shove on Election Day 2008, neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. Obama nor Mr. Edwards is likely to draw enthusiastic support from the electorate. Alas.
Comment on: White House Denies Request for Documents in Ex-NFL Player's Death - washingtonpost.com on 7/14/2007 8:42 AM
You know, for those of us old enough to have lived through the Nixon Era as adults and young enough to still remember it, this Bush/Cheney drama with Congress is awfully familiar. The parallels between Bush and Nixon are clear, one big difference being that Nixon was a lot smarter than Bush is and, thank God, not deluded by thoughts that he was an instrument of the Divine Will. On the other hand, Bush (and Cheney) is clearly the more dangerous of the two evildoers (sorry, couldn't resist it.)
What is hard to figure out is the issue of for whom we should have the greater contempt: the arrogant though incompetent Republicans running the Executive Branch or the cowardly though incompetent Democrats running the Legislative Branch. One wonders just what Bush and Cheney would have to do to get Nancy Pelosi to withdraw her infamous dictate: impeachment is not on the table. Perhaps if the Vice (how appropriate that is) peed on Henry Waxman's shoes? Maybe if Mr. Bush simply repeated to Harry Reid Mr. Cheney's memorable statement to Senator Leahy about what he should do to himself? Perhpas having Alberto Gonzales stand on the Mall, drop trou and moon the Capitol? Just what would it take?
There were three Article of Impeachment against Nixon: Obstruction of Justice, Abuse of Power, and Contempt of Congress. Although the specifics would differ, all of these headings would apply with equal vigor to articles filed against Bush/Cheney. With the refusal to turn over documents relevant to the NSA intercepts, the US attorney scandal, the order to Sara Taylor and the order not to even appear at the hearing to Harriet Meirs, and now the Tillman coverup, it's helpful to recall the language of Nixon's contempt of congress article:
Article 3: Contempt of Congress.
In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, contrary to his oath faithfully to execute the office of the President of the United States, and to the best of his ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, had failed without lawful cause or excuse, to produce papers and things as directed by duly authorized subpoenas issued by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives . . .
Does this remind us of anyone?
Comment on: Comments: Going Over The Edge With 'Precipitous' - washingtonpost.com on 7/13/2007 9:00 AM
Wow. Our Leader, the Decider, the Commander Guy speaking words of four and five syllables! I clearly have minunderestimated him. What the Uniter-not-a-Divider fails to realize however is that, as he himself put it with respect to the Gonzales controversies, "this process has drug out too long." The problem is not precipitousosity but quagmiricity. On top of that, Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice and the neocons have been telling us too long that 'progress is being made' and things would be really awful if we leave (unlike the current situation.) As our articulate Embarassment-in-Chief reminded us "There's an old saying in Tennessee, I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee, fool me once, shame on . . . shame on you. Fool me . . . you can't get fooled again." Who could put it better?
Anyone who suffered through the House Judiciary Committee's examination of Messrs. Gonzales and McNulty and Ms. Goodling got a preview of what an "inherent contempt" proceeding in the House would look like and it's not pretty. Chairman Conyers is a courtly gentleman but no courtroom lawyer. Most of the members of the committee, the Democrats at least, have no idea how to ask a question that will produce a usable response. There are a couple of good courtroom lawyers on the committee, most notably Arthur Davis of California, and if Mr. Conyers or the Democratic majority of the committee had any sense, and if he and they thought it was more important to obtain useful information than to provide each member an opportunity to bloviate, they would have allocated all or most of the hearing time to Mr. Davis and perhaps Adam Shiff. Instead, we got the pathetic clown shows in which the clown were the congressmen rather than the culpable witnesses. John Conyers is no Peter Rodino (those of an advanced age will remember him from the House impeachment hearings on Watergate)and so far we haven't seen the contemporary equivalent of a Judge John Sirica to force the disgorgement of White House documentary evidence and the appearance of witnesses. So I fear that an inherent contempt proceeding in the House would be as edifying as the impeachment show the Republicans mounted against Bill Clinton, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." I think what we can expect is continued total fecklessness out the Democrats in the House and the Senate and maybe it's better that way. More's the pity.
Comment on: Comments: FBI Director Contradicts Gonzales Testimony - washingtonpost.com on 7/26/2007 10:18 PM
What does Andrew Card have to say about all this? What does John Ashcroft have to say about all this? How about Mrs. Ashcroft, if she was in the hospital room during the colloquy? If Gonzales is telling the truth, I would have expected Messrs. Card and Ashcroft to have come forth with some kind of statement taking issue with Mr. Comey's testimony and supporting the integrity and honesty of Mr. Gonzales. Instead, silence. Perhaps Messrs. Card and Ashcroft have stopped answering their telephones. All those annoying calls from Gonzales, calls from the White House, calls from reporters. Will they now say that BOTH Comey and Mueller are testifying falsely? Doesn't their silence say it all?
Comment on: P.X. Kelley and Robert F. Turner - War Crimes and the White House - washingtonpost.com on 7/26/2007 7:07 AM
Three cheers for P. X. Kelley and Robert F. Turner. I too am a former Marine officer and Vietnam veteran. Like the writers, I have been appalled by the actions of the Bush regime with respect to treatment of captives. The policies of "enhanced interrogation techniques" which cannot be described even generally in public could only emanate from men who did not themselves serve on regular active duty in the military and who never served in a combat zone, i.e., chickenhawks. General Kelley and Mr. Turner have expressed perfectly the results of the BushCheney decisions: (1) our national honor compromised, (2) our own servicemen and intelligence operatives encouraged to commit war crimes, and (3) the encouragement of those who capture our own servicemen and operatives to subject them to torture.
It is not by chance that a Marine commandant would head his list with a reference to “honor.” To Marines, and to soldiers, honor is more than a word; it is a reality of conscience that leads men, and now women, to willingly sacrifice life and limb rather than suffer its opposite, dishonor. It is dishonorable to torture captives. The Gestapo and SS engaged in torture, not Americans. The Japanese Imperial forces in WW II engaged in torture, not Americans. Of course captives were occasionally mistreated, but not as a matter of national policy. Bush and Cheney have changed all that.
Gen. Kelley and Mr. Turner also focus honestly on the reality of torture rather than the disingenuous and indeed utterly dishonest interpretation of the word “torture” by the Bush regime. George Orwell wrote an essay in 1946 entitled “Politics and the English Language.” He wrote:
“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism., question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.”
In our time, torture is called “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Shame on us and thank you, Gen. Kelley and Mr. Turner, for calling a spade a spade.
Comment on: Comments: House Panel Votes for Contempt Charges in Firings Case - washingtonpost.com on 7/25/2007 2:15 PM
Jim Sensenbrenner, a/k/a Senselessbrenner in his own district, shows the same kind of judgment on the contempt issue as he showed in the Terry Schiavo matter and in trying to make all undocumenented aliens felons. Query: if the occupant of the White House were Bill Clinton instead of King George, would Sensenbrenner's position on the contempt citation be different? It's bad enough that the congressional Republicans have no shame in their support for Bush on most matters, but even worse that they can't take the Autocrat on even when it comes to protecting the prerogative of Congress itself. How disgraceful. Bend over, congressional Republicans. King George is approaching.
Comment on: Comments: Gonzales, Senators Spar on Credibility - washingtonpost.com on 7/25/2007 8:35 AM
When I was in high school 50 years ago, we had a goofy cheer when our football team was on defense: REPEL THEM, REPEL THEM, MAKE THEM RELINQUISH THE BALL. I thought of it as I read the story about Gonzales' perjury (let's call it by its proper name). IMPEACH HIM, IMPEACH HIM, MAKE HIM RELINQUISH THE BALL! As I watched Sens. Leahy, Spector, Schumer et al. working over Gonzales I was reminded of hunters clubbing a baby harp seal, with the big difference being that, unlike Gonzales, the baby seals did nothing to deserve the beating. However, the chance of getting a special prosecutor appointed and an indictment returned against Gonzo is nil. Under the BushCheney unitary executive theory of plenary presidential power, Bush himself could simply instruct DOJ and the US Attorney for the District of Columbia not to seek charges against his criminal buddy Fredo. Even if the Decider doesn't do the job himself, the Solicitor Geneneral and USA could decline to do so for any of a variety of reasons. The only practical way for the Senate to address the challenge posed by Gonzales' perjury is to start an impeachment inquiry in which the 'high crimes or misdemeanor' are perjury and contempt of Congress. The Democrats have been so feckless since they gained power in January that it is hard to believe that they will have the cajones to start and pursue impeachment proceedings, even if they can get over the hurdle of Republican opposition. Failure to act decisively in the face of such obvious perjury and contempt of the Judiciary Committee can only serve to drag Congress even lower in the estimate of the American public, including Democratic supporters and independents, and embolden BushCheney and their supporters who believe that Congress is indeed beneith contempt.
Comment on: The Phony Debate - washingtonpost.com on 7/21/2007 2:08 AM
Your editorial stance is clearly correct: the position of the Senate Democratic leadership is irresponsible, a disgrace in fact. Senator Reid's refusal to offer any comment on the bloodbath that is almost universally agreed to be inevitable once the Americans pull out is indefensible. Shame on him. Shame on Senator Durbin and Leader Pelosi. Shame on the lot of them. We created the horrible situation in Iraq and it would be immoral, grossly irresponsible to simply pull out and let the blood run through the streets. But please, Editorial Board, let's not forget or ignore where within our government the greater culpability lies, which is to say, in the White House. The Bush/Cheney recklessness and wilfulness in initiating and prosecuting this war has been disastrous for the United States and catastrosphic for the Iraqis. Bush's religiously ecstatic otherworldliness about the war, and Cheney's unwavering Machiavellian imperialism in stoking the war fires have driven opponents of the war to countering extremes of irresponsibility. Our country, and the poor Iraqi 'Joe and Jane Doe's' are left with what we have now: gross irresponsibility on the part of both the Bush regime and the Democratic majority in the Congress. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just."
Comment on: Comments: Mahdi Army, Not Al-Qaeda, is Enemy No. 1 in Western Baghdad - washingtonpost.com on 7/16/2007 9:02 AM
Every senator and congressman who reads this article needs to ask him/herself "How can I justify American servicemen and women dying and being mutilated to police this fight between Baghdadi Sunnis and Shiites?" This is national madness, not just in Iraq, but in the United States. If we were sending draftees over there instead of volunteers, the streets of America would be running with blood. College campuses would be ablaze and our National Guard units would be deployed (a) to control American demonstrators and rioters instead of the Mahdi Army and Sunni insurgents and (b) to protect induction centers and other government buildings. Remember Kent State? The bombed Army Math Center in Madison, Wisconsin? Thousands of "Hell, no, we won't go" demonstrations across the land? What American mother or father would want their son or daughter to sacrifice their life or their limbs or their future emotional peace of mind to get gasoline to Sunnis who can't buy it from the Shiites? We need a March on Washington to bring tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans to the Mall to drive home to the politicos that the Bush Madness must stop. God help us; Bush wont, and the Congress won't unless they are forced to.
Comment on: Comments: Why Bush Will Be A Winner - washingtonpost.com on 7/15/2007 9:36 AM
Not that I would wish it so, but if ours were a nation that experienced cataclysmic and violent changes of government, Mr. Kristol would be among the first lined up against a wall. Through his magazine and his innumberable television appearances and his other avenues of political influences, he has been as responsible as anyone for the disaster in Iraq and the threats to the Constitution in the United States. He, and those whose views he shared and helped to create, were dangerous, bellicose, jingoists who pulled the strings on George W. Bush from the time he started to run for office. Bush claimed not to be interested in "nation building" and wanted a "more humble" foreign policy but from the moment he was (kind of)l elected, he was hellbent on invading Iraq as is made abundantly clear in the book by Paul O'Neill, W's first Treasury Secretary and member of his National Security Council and in other sources. The excuse for the invasion and occupation came on September 11, 2001, and the whole world knows the catastrophic consequences. Mr. Kristol knows the consequences too, as does Mr. Bush, but they just can't get themselves to admit that they could be responsible for so many deaths, so many devastating injuries, so much suffering by so many people, with so little good to show for it. So they make stuff up, stuff like the delusional nonsense that appears in this OpEd piece. "Bush will be viewed as a winner" and "we will win in Iraq" and the Medicare drug program is a good program and on and on. This is the sort of stuff that only he and Fred Barnes and the FoxNews deludniks could believe.
He's right about one thing, however. The Republicans clearly have a chance of retaining the White House in the 2008 election. This is so not because of the strength of the Bush regime's record, but because, when push comes to shove on Election Day 2008, neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. Obama nor Mr. Edwards is likely to draw enthusiastic support from the electorate. Alas.
Comment on: White House Denies Request for Documents in Ex-NFL Player's Death - washingtonpost.com on 7/14/2007 8:42 AM
You know, for those of us old enough to have lived through the Nixon Era as adults and young enough to still remember it, this Bush/Cheney drama with Congress is awfully familiar. The parallels between Bush and Nixon are clear, one big difference being that Nixon was a lot smarter than Bush is and, thank God, not deluded by thoughts that he was an instrument of the Divine Will. On the other hand, Bush (and Cheney) is clearly the more dangerous of the two evildoers (sorry, couldn't resist it.)
What is hard to figure out is the issue of for whom we should have the greater contempt: the arrogant though incompetent Republicans running the Executive Branch or the cowardly though incompetent Democrats running the Legislative Branch. One wonders just what Bush and Cheney would have to do to get Nancy Pelosi to withdraw her infamous dictate: impeachment is not on the table. Perhaps if the Vice (how appropriate that is) peed on Henry Waxman's shoes? Maybe if Mr. Bush simply repeated to Harry Reid Mr. Cheney's memorable statement to Senator Leahy about what he should do to himself? Perhpas having Alberto Gonzales stand on the Mall, drop trou and moon the Capitol? Just what would it take?
There were three Article of Impeachment against Nixon: Obstruction of Justice, Abuse of Power, and Contempt of Congress. Although the specifics would differ, all of these headings would apply with equal vigor to articles filed against Bush/Cheney. With the refusal to turn over documents relevant to the NSA intercepts, the US attorney scandal, the order to Sara Taylor and the order not to even appear at the hearing to Harriet Meirs, and now the Tillman coverup, it's helpful to recall the language of Nixon's contempt of congress article:
Article 3: Contempt of Congress.
In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, contrary to his oath faithfully to execute the office of the President of the United States, and to the best of his ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, had failed without lawful cause or excuse, to produce papers and things as directed by duly authorized subpoenas issued by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives . . .
Does this remind us of anyone?
Comment on: Comments: Going Over The Edge With 'Precipitous' - washingtonpost.com on 7/13/2007 9:00 AM
Wow. Our Leader, the Decider, the Commander Guy speaking words of four and five syllables! I clearly have minunderestimated him. What the Uniter-not-a-Divider fails to realize however is that, as he himself put it with respect to the Gonzales controversies, "this process has drug out too long." The problem is not precipitousosity but quagmiricity. On top of that, Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice and the neocons have been telling us too long that 'progress is being made' and things would be really awful if we leave (unlike the current situation.) As our articulate Embarassment-in-Chief reminded us "There's an old saying in Tennessee, I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee, fool me once, shame on . . . shame on you. Fool me . . . you can't get fooled again." Who could put it better?
Comment on: Comments: Alleged Slayings In Fallujah Spur Military Inquiry - washingtonpost.com on 7/7/2007 7:51 AM
The defense attorney is right, one might as well investigate the whole war. In fact, one might as well investigate all wars. Apparently, as least sos I've heard to date, the investigated Marines were guarding recently captured combatants, i.e., men who who but a short time before were trying to kill the Marines who were guarding them, when they got a call to come to the assistance of other Marines engaged in heavy combat with other combatants. They could either (1) not come to the aid of their fellow Marines by staying with the captives and risking the deaths of more Marines or (2) do what they were trying to do before the capture, i.e., kill the hostile combatants so they could help out the other Marines under fire. Yes, the captives would have been unarmed and unable to defend themselves, just like the tens of thousands of civilians killed in the war, but what choices did the Marines face: protect the captives or protect fellow Marines. What choice do we expect them to make?
Among the many jarring scenes in Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima films, both of them, are scenes of Marines killing captives and of Japanese soldiers killing captives. It's easy enough to call such killings "murder" but to comdemn the killers, but guarding and caring for captives takes combat soldiers away the combat front and make them unavailable to aid in the accomplishment of the mission. From what I've heard so far about the Fallujah incident, it is a particularly poignant example of the moral difficulties inherent in the treatment of captives in the heat of battle. Let us feel bad about the shooting of unarmed hostile captives, but let's not let those offended moral sensibilities get int the way of helping the Marines who were under heavy and lethal fire from the other insurgents. And if you're of a mind to let your heart and soul really ache, think about the PTSD and other likely-to-be-permanent amotional and spiritual damage suffered by the Marines who had to kill the captives to get to the scene of the other firefight.
As for a command culture in the Marines that devalues Iraqi lives, let's get real. What in the world do we expect in this kind of war? Only Bush and Cheney and Rice can get away with spouting all that happy talk about 'our Iraqi partners' and 'the valient Iraqis" and what have you. Don't expect the Marines and soldiers to have generalized warm feelings about Iraqis when virtually all of those who kill and maim them happen to be Iraqis, whether Sunni insurgents, Sunni al Qaeda types, or Shiite militiamen. Was there a 'command culture' that devalued Japanese life during WWII? that devalued Vietnamese life during that war? By definition, war devalues life, both of the enemy and of our own fighters. This is the moral can of worms that is opened when one starts a war. Everyone who has fought in one or gotten close to those who have knows this, and this is why so many people who, like me, served as a Marine in Vietnam 40 years ago, saw Iraq as a repeat performance that would replicate and perhaps increase the terrible consequences that we experienced in Vietnam and other wars.
So the story of the Marines in Fallujah comes as no surprise. I have sympathy for the Iraqis who never should have been invaded and occupied by the US, and more for the Marines and their families who are and will continue to pay a terrible price for the arrogance and stupidity of Mr. Bush and his partners in crime.
Comment on: Car Bomb Kills at Least 22 in Iraq, 20 Found Beheaded - washingtonpost.com on 6/28/2007 8:40 AM
One reads these news items day after day and week after week and each one of them triggers the recollection that all this carnage, all this suffering, all this slaughter in Iraq was predicted by wise and knowledgeable experts on Iraq and the Middle East. Prominent among these was Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor for George H. W. Bush, but he was only one of many, many voices warning George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice and the rest of the neoconsertative chickenhawks in and around the White House and Pentagon that the invasion of Iraq would open Pandora's Box. The almost unbelievable human suffering that has followed the invasion and occupation is the direct result of George Bush's recklessness and wilfullness and, to a lesser extent, the gross incompetence of his Republican administration. The Democrats who voted for this reckless and immoral war, including Hillary Clinton, bear a full measure of responsibility for this suffering, but one can't escape the view that the Republicans, especially the neocons, have simply become the party of endless war. They see enemies everywhere, which is becoming an increasingly accurate perception and self-fulfilling prophecy in large measure because of Bush's foreign and defense policy and gross disregard for human rights. What a national disgrace. What a tragedy.
It's too late to stop the civil war in Iraq. That killing will continue until there is some 'winner' or until the nation is sufficiently dvided along ethnic and sectarian lines to reduce the slaughter rates. Our nation bears a terrible burden of responsibility for all of this but there is now little we can do to control, minimize or stop it. On the other hand, there is no need for more American (and other) soldiers and Marines to die in this senseless war. These men and women are now dying and suffering terrible wounds to their heads and limbs and souls only to buy time and save face for Bush and his wretched regime, just as tens of thousands of American (and other) troops and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese fighters and civilians died long after it was clear to President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, the Congress, the American people and the rest of the world that that sorry war was lost.
Mr. Bush, please stop this senseless killing and wounding of our soldiers and Marines. Support our troops in fact, not just in words. Supporters of the Bush regime and this immoral war, remember the words of John Prine's song from the Vietnam era:
Your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.
They're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war.
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reason's for,
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more
Comment on: Comments: GOP Skepticism On Iraq Growing - washingtonpost.com on 6/27/2007 8:58 AM
In 1966-1967, I served the last year of my four years in the U.S. Marine Corps at a naval air station outside of Philadelphia. The previous year I had served in then early war in Vietnam. During that last year, I regularly was on call to notify families that their sons or husbands had been killed or wounded in Vietnam. Making those 'casualty assistance calls' was the worst duty I had in the Marines, but at least at that time, most Americans (though not I) thought that the American war in Vietnam would or at least could lead to some good result. By early 1968, of course, this optimism started to erode with the Tet offensive, and eventually disappeared. By the time Nixon and Kissinger got the Americans out under the totally deceptive banner of "Peace With Honor", many thousands of American and Vietnamese had been killed or maimed to provide political cover to the American regime. How thankful I am that I wasn't called upon to notify mothers and fathers and wives and children of the deaths or maiming of their Marines during those last years when it was so clear that the deaths and injuries would produce no good, when we could no longer pretend.
Here we are again with another president and his regime feeding us a line while men and women, American and Iraqi, are being slaughtered in a war that will produce no good. Bush doesn't withdraw or reposition American troops because he can't tolerate the realization that such a change of policy will demonstrate what a total failure his invasion and occupation of Iraq has been. We all know it and so does he, but he is willing to sacrifice more American and Iraqi lives to save face, his face. Senator Lugar knows this and the other senators, all of them, know this, as do the vast majority of congressmen, Americans, Iraqis and the rest of the world. I can't imagine the fear and suffering the families of servicemen are experiencing now with their loved ones at risk and a "Commander Guy" who is perfectly willing to let them die or suffer maiming rather than admit that he led the nation into a catastrophic war and a Congress and citizenry that are willing to let him get away with it. If this war were being fought by draftees rather than volunteers, the streets of America, like the streets of Iraq, would be running in blood and the CIA and FBI and other agencies controlled by the Bush regime would be engaging in the same kind of infiltrating and spying on peace activists just like they did during the Vietnam disaster.
So thanks, Senator Lugar, and thanks, Senator Voinovich and Senator Hagel and the others, but, you know, you're a little late.
Comment on: Olmert Makes 'Gesture of Goodwill' - washingtonpost.com on 6/26/2007 10:29 AM
Sally Quinn's theory to the contrary notwithstanding, it is hard to imagine Cheney agreeing to leave under fire. He doesn't give a hoot for the opinion of members of Congress, the media, or the American public. I suspect he doesn't give a hoot for the opinion of POTUS either except insofar as that opinion is necessary for Cheney to accomplish his purposes. A resignation this summer, under the clouds of his abysmal poll ratings and the Washington Post "Angler" series, would be leaving in disgrace, not as bad as the impeachment circumstances that drove Nixon from office prematurely, but not far behind. If his protégé and front man Bush told him to resign, Cheney would probably give Bush that eerie half-smile and give him the same advice that he gave Senator Leahy on the Senate floor: "Go **** yourself."
Comment on: A GOP Plan To Oust Cheney - washingtonpost.com on 6/26/2007 9:49 AM
It is hard to imagine Cheney agreeing to leave under fire. He doesn't give a hoot for the opinion of members of Congress, the media, or the American public. I suspect he doesn't give a hoot for the opinion of POTUS either except insofar as that opinion is necessary for Cheney to accomplish his purposes. A resignation this summer, under the clouds of his abyssmal poll ratings and the Washington Post "Angler" series, would be leaving in disgrace, not as bad as the impeachment circumstances that drove Nixon from office prematurely, but not far behind. If his protege and front man Bush told him to resign, Cheney would probably give Bush that eerie half-smile and give him the same advice that he gave Senator Leahy on the Senate floor: "Go **** yourself."
Comment on: Comments: Michael Dobbs - Passport to Frustration - washingtonpost.com on 6/23/2007 8:53 AM
Let's see . . . who was the National Security Advisor when all the 'preparations' for the occupation of Iraq were made, when General Shinseki, Colin Powell and many others were warning that the effort would require many more troops than Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush were committing? Who was the Secretary of State when preparations should have been made for the predictable flood of passport applications due to changes in passport requirements for intrahemispheric travel? Do we see a pattern here? [Oh, btw, I am entering week 14 since I submitted my application for renewal and check to the State Department, whose web site still says the process will take 10 to 12 weeks. The check cleared promptly but I'm wondering if I'll ever get the new passport. If it was the Bush administration's overriding purpose to demonstrate that the federal government does not work, witness Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, border enforcement, passport issuance, etc., they have succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations.)
Comment on: CIA to Air Decades of Its Dirty Laundry - washingtonpost.com on 6/22/2007 8:00 AM
General Hayden has clearly spent too many years in Washington, out of touch with the rest of us who have little or no faith in our government any more.
"Barred by secrecy restrictions from correcting "misinformation," he said, the CIA is at the mercy of the press. "Unfortunately, there seems to be an instinct among some in the media today to take a few pieces of information, which may or may not be accurate, and run with them to the darkest corner of the room," Hayden said.
The nasty media 'running to the darkest corner of the room'? We live with what must be the most secretive regime in the history of our country. 'Renditions' are kidnappings, as the current prosecution of CIA operatives in Italy demonstrates. "Enhanced interrogation techniques' are torture, as we all know even if we don't want to admit it. "Private contractors" conducting interrogations. Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo. 'Geneva Convention' protections are 'quaint.' Late night visit to Ashcroft's hospital room by Gonzo and Card to extract approval from a sedated AG for an intelligence program that was SO illegal that the AG, the Deputy AG, and the Director of the FBI were prepared to resign if it was implemented and General Hayden bemoans a tendency 'to run to the darkest corner of the room.' The good general bears a certain unfortunate resemblance to Elmer Fudd and he must be living in a cartoon world if he can't understand that the millions of us skeptical Americans and foreign observers aren't just 'wascally wabbits' drunning to 'dark corners.'
Comment on: Comments: Little Relief on Ward 53 - washingtonpost.com on 6/18/2007 9:45 AM
I am a former Marine and Vietnam vet. My recently deceased Dad was a Marine and World War II vet, serving on Iwo Jima. We both sensed as Bush and Cheney beat the war drums for the Iraq invasion and occupation that the misadventure would end badly for the United States. We both were certain, on the other hand, that the war experience would end very badly for thousands of soldiers and Marines sent to fight the war. It always does. It always had. After all, that is precisely why Messrs. Bush and Cheney (and other elites now running the government) did everything they could to avoid military service in Vietnam. Death and physical injury are not the only risks for combatants. Almost all the fighters will return spiritually and emotionally wounded, many of them for life. How good it would be, and how improbably, if all those folks who put 'support our troops' stickers on their vehicles would devote their patriotic efforts to REALLY supporting the troops by exerting pressure on the miscreants in the federal government, from the Decider and Commander Guy on down, to provide real support for the now tens of thousands of soldiers and Marines who are REALLY wounded, injured, disabled by their service. It rings hollow to call them 'heroes' while not giving a hoot about the fact that they are so ignored by our government as they try to piece together their lives after combat service. Giving a fellow like Calloway $800 a month and a slap on the back provides a true measure of how much Bush, Cheney, Condi, and the others REALLY care about the men and women who fight their war. The Bloods and Crips who waste our money in Congress are no better. What a disgrace.
I am reminded of an essay on war that James Boswell wrote in 1777:
"Were there any good produced by war which could in any degree compensate its direful effects; were better men to spring up from the ruins of those who fall in battle, as more beautiful material forms sometimes arise from the ashes of others; or were those who escape from its destructions to have an increase in happiness; in short, were there any great beneficial effect to follow it, the notion of its irrationality would be only the notion of narrow comprehension. But we find that war is followed by no general good whatsoever. The power, the glory, or the wealth of a very few may be enlarged. But the people in general, upon both sides, after all the sufferings are passed, pursue their ordinary occupations, with no difference from their former state. The evils therefore of war, upon a general view of humanity are as the French say, à pure perte, a mere loss without any advantage, unless indeed furnishing subjects for history, poetry, and painting. And although it should be allowed that mankind have gained enjoyment in these respects, I suppose it will not be seriously said, that the misery is overbalanced."
In reading the Priest/Hull articles, we should all weep.
Comment on: The War Inside - washingtonpost.com on 6/17/2007 10:25 AM
How appropriate that this article by Dana Priest and Ann Hull appears on Father's Day. It reminds us of the thousands of fathers throughout the last century and now into this century who have been shattered by service in our country's wars and who received for their efforts no help. I am keenly aware of this fact because my father, who died this year at age 86, was one of those men. He was drafted into the Marines in 1944 at age 23, fought on Iwo Jima with the 4th Marine Division in February and March of 1945, and was returned in November of that year, an emotional wreck, to my then 23 year old mother, and her children, aged 4 and 1. Our family lived with the longlingering though diminishing effects of his emotional and spiritual injuries for almost his entire lifetime. He returned from WWII with no purple heart, but with devastating injuries that impaired him for decades, injuries for which his nation provided no help. Had he been killed on Iwo Jima, another Marine in dress blue uniform would have presented to his 23 year old widow and his son and daughter a neatly folded American flag as a token of gratitude from "a grateful nation." As it was, he was discharged with $100 mustering out pay, a slap on the back, and a 'good luck, Marine.'
His situation was hardly unique. In FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, James Bradley wrote:
For many of the veterans, their memories of combat receded; supplanted by happy peacetime experiences. But there were others from whom the memories did not die, but were somehow contained. And for a few, the memories were howling demons that ruled their nights. . . Langley, who as Corpsman Langley labored side by side with my father on Iwo – 3rd Platoon, Easy Company. He went on to serve in Korea and Vietnam with the Army. But there’s one battle that rules: “The dreams have lasted for years. At seventy-three I still get ‘em. I’ve been in three wars and I haven’t got past Iwo yet.”
My Dad's nightmares didn't stop until the last few years of his life, well into his 80s.
Let there be no mistake about the military's complicity in the national scandal about mistreatment and non-treatment of vets with PTSD. This illness, really a combat injury, didn't start with Vietnam or Iraq. It's been with us forever, but many in the military see it simply as a sign of cowardice or weakness. General George "Blood and Guts" Patton delivered a famous speech to his soldiers before the invasion of Normandy on D Day in which he said:
I want to say a word about those low characters known as ‘psychoneurotics.’ They are [expletives deleted to get comment posted] and lice.. In the last war they had ‘shell shock,’ and in the next war they will have some other kind of shock. But every one of them that quits means that more of a burden is thrown on you brave men who continue to fight. So if you have a man who thinks he is a psychoneurotic, make fun of him, kick his ***, and shake him out of it.
Patton’s attitude was common throughout the military and still is. Weakness, sensitivity, vulnerability are disgraceful and dishonorable, unbefitting ‘real men,’ especially of course do-or-die Marines.
Farley Mowat wrote a book entitled AND NO BIRDS SANG. The book describes the author’s service in the Canadian Army in the Italian campaign of World War II. In it, he quoted a letter he received during the war from his father, himself a World War I veteran:
"Keep it in mind during the days ahead that war does inexplicable things to people and no man can guess how it is going to affect him until he has had a really stiff dose of it. The most unfortunate ones after any war are not those with missing limbs. They’re the ones who have had their spiritual feet knocked out from under them. The beer halls and gutters are still full of such poor [deleted] from my war and nobody understands or cares what happened to them. I remember two striking examples of two men from my old company in the 4th Battalion, both [deleted] fine fellows yet both committed suicide in the lines. They did not shoot themselves. They let the Germans do it because they had reached the end of the tether. They never knew what was the matter with them. They had become empty husks, were spiritually depleted, were burned out."
Despite my knowledge of my father's condition after World War II, I followed his footsteps and joined the Marines and ended up serving in Vietnam in 1965-66. Unlike my Dad, I came out of 'my war' OK though deeply and permanently cynical about my government. The United States government has treated its injured soldiers, sailor, airmen and Marines disgracefully for years. The current situation does not differ from that facing veterans of earlier wars. The government does only what it must, not what it should.
Let us hope that the efforts of Dana Priest and Anne Hull,may Go
The defense attorney is right, one might as well investigate the whole war. In fact, one might as well investigate all wars. Apparently, as least sos I've heard to date, the investigated Marines were guarding recently captured combatants, i.e., men who who but a short time before were trying to kill the Marines who were guarding them, when they got a call to come to the assistance of other Marines engaged in heavy combat with other combatants. They could either (1) not come to the aid of their fellow Marines by staying with the captives and risking the deaths of more Marines or (2) do what they were trying to do before the capture, i.e., kill the hostile combatants so they could help out the other Marines under fire. Yes, the captives would have been unarmed and unable to defend themselves, just like the tens of thousands of civilians killed in the war, but what choices did the Marines face: protect the captives or protect fellow Marines. What choice do we expect them to make?
Among the many jarring scenes in Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima films, both of them, are scenes of Marines killing captives and of Japanese soldiers killing captives. It's easy enough to call such killings "murder" but to comdemn the killers, but guarding and caring for captives takes combat soldiers away the combat front and make them unavailable to aid in the accomplishment of the mission. From what I've heard so far about the Fallujah incident, it is a particularly poignant example of the moral difficulties inherent in the treatment of captives in the heat of battle. Let us feel bad about the shooting of unarmed hostile captives, but let's not let those offended moral sensibilities get int the way of helping the Marines who were under heavy and lethal fire from the other insurgents. And if you're of a mind to let your heart and soul really ache, think about the PTSD and other likely-to-be-permanent amotional and spiritual damage suffered by the Marines who had to kill the captives to get to the scene of the other firefight.
As for a command culture in the Marines that devalues Iraqi lives, let's get real. What in the world do we expect in this kind of war? Only Bush and Cheney and Rice can get away with spouting all that happy talk about 'our Iraqi partners' and 'the valient Iraqis" and what have you. Don't expect the Marines and soldiers to have generalized warm feelings about Iraqis when virtually all of those who kill and maim them happen to be Iraqis, whether Sunni insurgents, Sunni al Qaeda types, or Shiite militiamen. Was there a 'command culture' that devalued Japanese life during WWII? that devalued Vietnamese life during that war? By definition, war devalues life, both of the enemy and of our own fighters. This is the moral can of worms that is opened when one starts a war. Everyone who has fought in one or gotten close to those who have knows this, and this is why so many people who, like me, served as a Marine in Vietnam 40 years ago, saw Iraq as a repeat performance that would replicate and perhaps increase the terrible consequences that we experienced in Vietnam and other wars.
So the story of the Marines in Fallujah comes as no surprise. I have sympathy for the Iraqis who never should have been invaded and occupied by the US, and more for the Marines and their families who are and will continue to pay a terrible price for the arrogance and stupidity of Mr. Bush and his partners in crime.
Comment on: Car Bomb Kills at Least 22 in Iraq, 20 Found Beheaded - washingtonpost.com on 6/28/2007 8:40 AM
One reads these news items day after day and week after week and each one of them triggers the recollection that all this carnage, all this suffering, all this slaughter in Iraq was predicted by wise and knowledgeable experts on Iraq and the Middle East. Prominent among these was Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor for George H. W. Bush, but he was only one of many, many voices warning George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice and the rest of the neoconsertative chickenhawks in and around the White House and Pentagon that the invasion of Iraq would open Pandora's Box. The almost unbelievable human suffering that has followed the invasion and occupation is the direct result of George Bush's recklessness and wilfullness and, to a lesser extent, the gross incompetence of his Republican administration. The Democrats who voted for this reckless and immoral war, including Hillary Clinton, bear a full measure of responsibility for this suffering, but one can't escape the view that the Republicans, especially the neocons, have simply become the party of endless war. They see enemies everywhere, which is becoming an increasingly accurate perception and self-fulfilling prophecy in large measure because of Bush's foreign and defense policy and gross disregard for human rights. What a national disgrace. What a tragedy.
It's too late to stop the civil war in Iraq. That killing will continue until there is some 'winner' or until the nation is sufficiently dvided along ethnic and sectarian lines to reduce the slaughter rates. Our nation bears a terrible burden of responsibility for all of this but there is now little we can do to control, minimize or stop it. On the other hand, there is no need for more American (and other) soldiers and Marines to die in this senseless war. These men and women are now dying and suffering terrible wounds to their heads and limbs and souls only to buy time and save face for Bush and his wretched regime, just as tens of thousands of American (and other) troops and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese fighters and civilians died long after it was clear to President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, the Congress, the American people and the rest of the world that that sorry war was lost.
Mr. Bush, please stop this senseless killing and wounding of our soldiers and Marines. Support our troops in fact, not just in words. Supporters of the Bush regime and this immoral war, remember the words of John Prine's song from the Vietnam era:
Your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.
They're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war.
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reason's for,
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more
Comment on: Comments: GOP Skepticism On Iraq Growing - washingtonpost.com on 6/27/2007 8:58 AM
In 1966-1967, I served the last year of my four years in the U.S. Marine Corps at a naval air station outside of Philadelphia. The previous year I had served in then early war in Vietnam. During that last year, I regularly was on call to notify families that their sons or husbands had been killed or wounded in Vietnam. Making those 'casualty assistance calls' was the worst duty I had in the Marines, but at least at that time, most Americans (though not I) thought that the American war in Vietnam would or at least could lead to some good result. By early 1968, of course, this optimism started to erode with the Tet offensive, and eventually disappeared. By the time Nixon and Kissinger got the Americans out under the totally deceptive banner of "Peace With Honor", many thousands of American and Vietnamese had been killed or maimed to provide political cover to the American regime. How thankful I am that I wasn't called upon to notify mothers and fathers and wives and children of the deaths or maiming of their Marines during those last years when it was so clear that the deaths and injuries would produce no good, when we could no longer pretend.
Here we are again with another president and his regime feeding us a line while men and women, American and Iraqi, are being slaughtered in a war that will produce no good. Bush doesn't withdraw or reposition American troops because he can't tolerate the realization that such a change of policy will demonstrate what a total failure his invasion and occupation of Iraq has been. We all know it and so does he, but he is willing to sacrifice more American and Iraqi lives to save face, his face. Senator Lugar knows this and the other senators, all of them, know this, as do the vast majority of congressmen, Americans, Iraqis and the rest of the world. I can't imagine the fear and suffering the families of servicemen are experiencing now with their loved ones at risk and a "Commander Guy" who is perfectly willing to let them die or suffer maiming rather than admit that he led the nation into a catastrophic war and a Congress and citizenry that are willing to let him get away with it. If this war were being fought by draftees rather than volunteers, the streets of America, like the streets of Iraq, would be running in blood and the CIA and FBI and other agencies controlled by the Bush regime would be engaging in the same kind of infiltrating and spying on peace activists just like they did during the Vietnam disaster.
So thanks, Senator Lugar, and thanks, Senator Voinovich and Senator Hagel and the others, but, you know, you're a little late.
Comment on: Olmert Makes 'Gesture of Goodwill' - washingtonpost.com on 6/26/2007 10:29 AM
Sally Quinn's theory to the contrary notwithstanding, it is hard to imagine Cheney agreeing to leave under fire. He doesn't give a hoot for the opinion of members of Congress, the media, or the American public. I suspect he doesn't give a hoot for the opinion of POTUS either except insofar as that opinion is necessary for Cheney to accomplish his purposes. A resignation this summer, under the clouds of his abysmal poll ratings and the Washington Post "Angler" series, would be leaving in disgrace, not as bad as the impeachment circumstances that drove Nixon from office prematurely, but not far behind. If his protégé and front man Bush told him to resign, Cheney would probably give Bush that eerie half-smile and give him the same advice that he gave Senator Leahy on the Senate floor: "Go **** yourself."
Comment on: A GOP Plan To Oust Cheney - washingtonpost.com on 6/26/2007 9:49 AM
It is hard to imagine Cheney agreeing to leave under fire. He doesn't give a hoot for the opinion of members of Congress, the media, or the American public. I suspect he doesn't give a hoot for the opinion of POTUS either except insofar as that opinion is necessary for Cheney to accomplish his purposes. A resignation this summer, under the clouds of his abyssmal poll ratings and the Washington Post "Angler" series, would be leaving in disgrace, not as bad as the impeachment circumstances that drove Nixon from office prematurely, but not far behind. If his protege and front man Bush told him to resign, Cheney would probably give Bush that eerie half-smile and give him the same advice that he gave Senator Leahy on the Senate floor: "Go **** yourself."
Comment on: Comments: Michael Dobbs - Passport to Frustration - washingtonpost.com on 6/23/2007 8:53 AM
Let's see . . . who was the National Security Advisor when all the 'preparations' for the occupation of Iraq were made, when General Shinseki, Colin Powell and many others were warning that the effort would require many more troops than Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush were committing? Who was the Secretary of State when preparations should have been made for the predictable flood of passport applications due to changes in passport requirements for intrahemispheric travel? Do we see a pattern here? [Oh, btw, I am entering week 14 since I submitted my application for renewal and check to the State Department, whose web site still says the process will take 10 to 12 weeks. The check cleared promptly but I'm wondering if I'll ever get the new passport. If it was the Bush administration's overriding purpose to demonstrate that the federal government does not work, witness Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, border enforcement, passport issuance, etc., they have succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations.)
Comment on: CIA to Air Decades of Its Dirty Laundry - washingtonpost.com on 6/22/2007 8:00 AM
General Hayden has clearly spent too many years in Washington, out of touch with the rest of us who have little or no faith in our government any more.
"Barred by secrecy restrictions from correcting "misinformation," he said, the CIA is at the mercy of the press. "Unfortunately, there seems to be an instinct among some in the media today to take a few pieces of information, which may or may not be accurate, and run with them to the darkest corner of the room," Hayden said.
The nasty media 'running to the darkest corner of the room'? We live with what must be the most secretive regime in the history of our country. 'Renditions' are kidnappings, as the current prosecution of CIA operatives in Italy demonstrates. "Enhanced interrogation techniques' are torture, as we all know even if we don't want to admit it. "Private contractors" conducting interrogations. Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo. 'Geneva Convention' protections are 'quaint.' Late night visit to Ashcroft's hospital room by Gonzo and Card to extract approval from a sedated AG for an intelligence program that was SO illegal that the AG, the Deputy AG, and the Director of the FBI were prepared to resign if it was implemented and General Hayden bemoans a tendency 'to run to the darkest corner of the room.' The good general bears a certain unfortunate resemblance to Elmer Fudd and he must be living in a cartoon world if he can't understand that the millions of us skeptical Americans and foreign observers aren't just 'wascally wabbits' drunning to 'dark corners.'
Comment on: Comments: Little Relief on Ward 53 - washingtonpost.com on 6/18/2007 9:45 AM
I am a former Marine and Vietnam vet. My recently deceased Dad was a Marine and World War II vet, serving on Iwo Jima. We both sensed as Bush and Cheney beat the war drums for the Iraq invasion and occupation that the misadventure would end badly for the United States. We both were certain, on the other hand, that the war experience would end very badly for thousands of soldiers and Marines sent to fight the war. It always does. It always had. After all, that is precisely why Messrs. Bush and Cheney (and other elites now running the government) did everything they could to avoid military service in Vietnam. Death and physical injury are not the only risks for combatants. Almost all the fighters will return spiritually and emotionally wounded, many of them for life. How good it would be, and how improbably, if all those folks who put 'support our troops' stickers on their vehicles would devote their patriotic efforts to REALLY supporting the troops by exerting pressure on the miscreants in the federal government, from the Decider and Commander Guy on down, to provide real support for the now tens of thousands of soldiers and Marines who are REALLY wounded, injured, disabled by their service. It rings hollow to call them 'heroes' while not giving a hoot about the fact that they are so ignored by our government as they try to piece together their lives after combat service. Giving a fellow like Calloway $800 a month and a slap on the back provides a true measure of how much Bush, Cheney, Condi, and the others REALLY care about the men and women who fight their war. The Bloods and Crips who waste our money in Congress are no better. What a disgrace.
I am reminded of an essay on war that James Boswell wrote in 1777:
"Were there any good produced by war which could in any degree compensate its direful effects; were better men to spring up from the ruins of those who fall in battle, as more beautiful material forms sometimes arise from the ashes of others; or were those who escape from its destructions to have an increase in happiness; in short, were there any great beneficial effect to follow it, the notion of its irrationality would be only the notion of narrow comprehension. But we find that war is followed by no general good whatsoever. The power, the glory, or the wealth of a very few may be enlarged. But the people in general, upon both sides, after all the sufferings are passed, pursue their ordinary occupations, with no difference from their former state. The evils therefore of war, upon a general view of humanity are as the French say, à pure perte, a mere loss without any advantage, unless indeed furnishing subjects for history, poetry, and painting. And although it should be allowed that mankind have gained enjoyment in these respects, I suppose it will not be seriously said, that the misery is overbalanced."
In reading the Priest/Hull articles, we should all weep.
Comment on: The War Inside - washingtonpost.com on 6/17/2007 10:25 AM
How appropriate that this article by Dana Priest and Ann Hull appears on Father's Day. It reminds us of the thousands of fathers throughout the last century and now into this century who have been shattered by service in our country's wars and who received for their efforts no help. I am keenly aware of this fact because my father, who died this year at age 86, was one of those men. He was drafted into the Marines in 1944 at age 23, fought on Iwo Jima with the 4th Marine Division in February and March of 1945, and was returned in November of that year, an emotional wreck, to my then 23 year old mother, and her children, aged 4 and 1. Our family lived with the longlingering though diminishing effects of his emotional and spiritual injuries for almost his entire lifetime. He returned from WWII with no purple heart, but with devastating injuries that impaired him for decades, injuries for which his nation provided no help. Had he been killed on Iwo Jima, another Marine in dress blue uniform would have presented to his 23 year old widow and his son and daughter a neatly folded American flag as a token of gratitude from "a grateful nation." As it was, he was discharged with $100 mustering out pay, a slap on the back, and a 'good luck, Marine.'
His situation was hardly unique. In FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, James Bradley wrote:
For many of the veterans, their memories of combat receded; supplanted by happy peacetime experiences. But there were others from whom the memories did not die, but were somehow contained. And for a few, the memories were howling demons that ruled their nights. . . Langley, who as Corpsman Langley labored side by side with my father on Iwo – 3rd Platoon, Easy Company. He went on to serve in Korea and Vietnam with the Army. But there’s one battle that rules: “The dreams have lasted for years. At seventy-three I still get ‘em. I’ve been in three wars and I haven’t got past Iwo yet.”
My Dad's nightmares didn't stop until the last few years of his life, well into his 80s.
Let there be no mistake about the military's complicity in the national scandal about mistreatment and non-treatment of vets with PTSD. This illness, really a combat injury, didn't start with Vietnam or Iraq. It's been with us forever, but many in the military see it simply as a sign of cowardice or weakness. General George "Blood and Guts" Patton delivered a famous speech to his soldiers before the invasion of Normandy on D Day in which he said:
I want to say a word about those low characters known as ‘psychoneurotics.’ They are [expletives deleted to get comment posted] and lice.. In the last war they had ‘shell shock,’ and in the next war they will have some other kind of shock. But every one of them that quits means that more of a burden is thrown on you brave men who continue to fight. So if you have a man who thinks he is a psychoneurotic, make fun of him, kick his ***, and shake him out of it.
Patton’s attitude was common throughout the military and still is. Weakness, sensitivity, vulnerability are disgraceful and dishonorable, unbefitting ‘real men,’ especially of course do-or-die Marines.
Farley Mowat wrote a book entitled AND NO BIRDS SANG. The book describes the author’s service in the Canadian Army in the Italian campaign of World War II. In it, he quoted a letter he received during the war from his father, himself a World War I veteran:
"Keep it in mind during the days ahead that war does inexplicable things to people and no man can guess how it is going to affect him until he has had a really stiff dose of it. The most unfortunate ones after any war are not those with missing limbs. They’re the ones who have had their spiritual feet knocked out from under them. The beer halls and gutters are still full of such poor [deleted] from my war and nobody understands or cares what happened to them. I remember two striking examples of two men from my old company in the 4th Battalion, both [deleted] fine fellows yet both committed suicide in the lines. They did not shoot themselves. They let the Germans do it because they had reached the end of the tether. They never knew what was the matter with them. They had become empty husks, were spiritually depleted, were burned out."
Despite my knowledge of my father's condition after World War II, I followed his footsteps and joined the Marines and ended up serving in Vietnam in 1965-66. Unlike my Dad, I came out of 'my war' OK though deeply and permanently cynical about my government. The United States government has treated its injured soldiers, sailor, airmen and Marines disgracefully for years. The current situation does not differ from that facing veterans of earlier wars. The government does only what it must, not what it should.
Let us hope that the efforts of Dana Priest and Anne Hull,may Go
Further to my last:
Comment on: Comments: Iraq Contractors Face Growing Parallel War - washingtonpost.com on 6/16/2007 9:26 AM
Of all the bad consequences of Bush's and Cheney's war in Iraq, the creation and funding of these mercenary forces is the scariest. They are an army for hire, available to whoever can pay the considerable freight. Let's see, who could afford to hire private armies? Ordinary citizens? Small businesses? Or would it be big corporations, especially transnationals, and other centers of concentrated capital? Or governemtns, say the government of what we used to consider our own country, who for any number of reasons, including legal reasons, needs to avoid the use of regular military forces? Can't send in the Marines because of treaty obligations or internal law or deep public opposition? Heck, secretly hire Blackwater to do the job. Do it through a third party created for the purpose to hide the source of the funds and of the mission, an 'agent for an undisclosed principal'. Need some folks 'whacked'? Hire a 'private security contractor.' Isn't this what mafiosi were to those paying protection money, 'private security contractors'? The very idea of the existence of these companies is scary, evidence of the total erosion of any notion of participatory democracy and of the rule of law. Thanks, Commander Guy. Thanks, Dick. Thanks, Rummmie. Thanks, Condoleeza. Thanks, Gonzo.
Comment on: Comments: Lisa de Moraes - Fade to Black Has 'Sopranos' Fans Seeing Red - washingtonpost.com on 6/12/2007 7:23 AM
Like everyone else, I was stunned when the screen went black and thought 'what a lousy ending.' I went to bed thinking Tony had won the mob war and life was going on as usual for him and his family. I woke up however thinking Tony and the whole family had been whacked, that the diner was full of assassins waiting for Meadow to show up so they could blow the whole famn damily away in revenge for the muffed hit on psuedo-Phil and his goomah and the real hit on Phil right in front of his wife and granddaughters. This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.
Comment on: Comments: Robert D. Novak - Standing by the Wrong Guy - washingtonpost.com on 6/11/2007 8:15 AM
It is wishful thinking to think that Bush will dump Gonzales or that Gonzales will resign. Messrs. Bush and Gonzales are locked in a death embrace. They are like many other criminals who have committed serious crimes together. Each 'has the goods' on the other and knows where the bodies are buried. If Bush were to nominate a person of high competence and integrity as Attorney General, he would leave himself, his vice president, and his administration vulnerable to attacks from within, investigations he could not dismiss as mere 'partisan politics' like the congressional oversight investigations and hearings. Plus, once Gonzales was a goner, protected by neither his office nor the personal fealty of the "commander guy", he would quickly become fair game for even more attacks from administration insiders and other Republicans than he is enduring now. It wouldn't take long for him to start retaliating and trying to mount some kind of defense of himself. The only likely defensive targets for him would be the Decider, Darth Cheney, and the political people in the White House. Perhaps Gonzales would simply fall on his sword and go through the rest of his life with his honesty and integrity thoroughly discredited, but it doesn't seem likely. Witness George Tenet. If Gonzales does bite the dust, my bet on the likely replacement nominee would not be a James Comey or Fitzgerald-type, but that loyal Bushie Michael Chertof. He's screwed up the Department of Homeland Security and the relief effort for Hurricane Katrina; why not give him a shot to continue the good work at the Department of Justice where he used to work. Maybe he could bring back 'Heckofajob Brownie" as his deputy AG to replace the hapless McNulty who is about to join the long line of dustbiters.
As for Libby, Bush probably doesn't have to worry about him blowing any secrets. Libby is rather like that Nixon miscreant G. Gordon Liddy, a real soldier. He won't be going public and embarassing Cheney or Bush, who will insure that Liddy, ah Libby that is, is very well taken care of when he emerges from federal prison. A cushy job in the defense industry or at the American Enterprise Institute or Hoover Institution or some other nice think tank awaits him Reminds me of George H. W. Bush telling us years ago, "Don't cry for me, Argentina." Ah, those Bushes and their way with words.
Comment on: Nominee to Coordinate War Offers Grim Forecast on Iraq - washingtonpost.com on 6/8/2007 6:02 AM
I watched almost all of the hearing at which Gen. Lute testified and was surprised at both the candor and analyses of Gen. Lute and the lack of bloviating by the members of the panel. The only Republicans I saw participating in the hearing were Senator Warner who was, as usual, thoughtful and heartfelt in his comments and questions and Senator Sessions, who was similarly thoughtful. The other GOP members were noticable only by their absence, except for the troubling DINO Lieberman. IF, and it's a big if, Gen. Lute survives in his new White House position and is not regularly undercut by both Vice President Cheney and David Addington and the other Cheneyites in Cheney's alternate government and by his nominal boss, George W. Bush, maybe for the first time since 2003 we will get some straight talk out of the White House on Iraq and Afganistan. Both Gen. Lute and DOD Secretary Gates have been much more candid and realistic in their public assessements of our unenviable strategic and tactical positions in both Iraq and Afganistan than the President, the Vice President, Condoleeza Rice, Steve Hadley or Tony Snow(job). It makes me think that Gen. Lute won't last long as a public voice within the White House unless he beaten into submission by the White House's extensive deception machinery.
Comment on: David Ignatius - Solving 'Stovepipe America' - washingtonpost.com on 6/7/2007 7:14 AM
". . . or America will enter a period of cyclical decline"? Or? As an American who was born on the eve of the country's entry into the Second World War, it's pretty hard not to accept the fact that we are in the cyclical decline right now and still on the downslope. For the last half of the last century, this country was universally considered "the leader of the free world." To the extent that that is still true, it is only by dint of the overwhelming destructive power of our military establishment. Whatever moral leadership we retained at the end of the century, Messrs. Bush and Cheney squandered in Iraq. Maybe the next president will regain some of that moral leadership, but one would have to be quite an optimist to believe that the damage done by the current regime will be undone by the next regime. As Mark Anthony said of Caesar, "The evil men do lives after them." We'll be paying for our recklessness in Iraq, in more ways than one, long after I've departed this life. Domestically, our manufacturing strength has been decimated by globalization. In my city, the loss of manufacturing jobs to Mexico, China and elsewhere has had a devastating effect, especially in minority communities. The crime rates in certain neighborhoods reminds one of Baghdad or Beirut during the civil war. The loss of well-paying factory work has led to a sense of hopelessness that is manifested in all kinds of ways, all bad. We have moved from being the world's No. 1 creditor nation to being the world's No. 1 debtor nation. Our dependency on other nations for everything from manufactured goods to debt financing has put us in such a vulnerable position that we must maintain a military budget as large as the rest of the world's military budgets combined, or very nearly as large. Is it any wonder that so much of the world considers America the greatest threat to world peace? No, the news isn't all bad; there is still much to be grateful for about living in America but one would have to be wilfully blind not to recognize that the country is in a period of decline and vulnerability. Turning that situation around will require great leadership and willing followership. ASU President Crow is clearly correct about the seriousness of the problem of "stovepipe" thinking and institutional organization, but how likely is it that real change will occur in large private institutions. Look at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler and the health care sector of the economy. As for the federal government, don't Katrina and Iraq say it all?
Of all the bad consequences of Bush's and Cheney's war in Iraq, the creation and funding of these mercenary forces is the scariest. They are an army for hire, available to whoever can pay the considerable freight. Let's see, who could afford to hire private armies? Ordinary citizens? Small businesses? Or would it be big corporations, especially transnationals, and other centers of concentrated capital? Or governemtns, say the government of what we used to consider our own country, who for any number of reasons, including legal reasons, needs to avoid the use of regular military forces? Can't send in the Marines because of treaty obligations or internal law or deep public opposition? Heck, secretly hire Blackwater to do the job. Do it through a third party created for the purpose to hide the source of the funds and of the mission, an 'agent for an undisclosed principal'. Need some folks 'whacked'? Hire a 'private security contractor.' Isn't this what mafiosi were to those paying protection money, 'private security contractors'? The very idea of the existence of these companies is scary, evidence of the total erosion of any notion of participatory democracy and of the rule of law. Thanks, Commander Guy. Thanks, Dick. Thanks, Rummmie. Thanks, Condoleeza. Thanks, Gonzo.
Comment on: Comments: Lisa de Moraes - Fade to Black Has 'Sopranos' Fans Seeing Red - washingtonpost.com on 6/12/2007 7:23 AM
Like everyone else, I was stunned when the screen went black and thought 'what a lousy ending.' I went to bed thinking Tony had won the mob war and life was going on as usual for him and his family. I woke up however thinking Tony and the whole family had been whacked, that the diner was full of assassins waiting for Meadow to show up so they could blow the whole famn damily away in revenge for the muffed hit on psuedo-Phil and his goomah and the real hit on Phil right in front of his wife and granddaughters. This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.
Comment on: Comments: Robert D. Novak - Standing by the Wrong Guy - washingtonpost.com on 6/11/2007 8:15 AM
It is wishful thinking to think that Bush will dump Gonzales or that Gonzales will resign. Messrs. Bush and Gonzales are locked in a death embrace. They are like many other criminals who have committed serious crimes together. Each 'has the goods' on the other and knows where the bodies are buried. If Bush were to nominate a person of high competence and integrity as Attorney General, he would leave himself, his vice president, and his administration vulnerable to attacks from within, investigations he could not dismiss as mere 'partisan politics' like the congressional oversight investigations and hearings. Plus, once Gonzales was a goner, protected by neither his office nor the personal fealty of the "commander guy", he would quickly become fair game for even more attacks from administration insiders and other Republicans than he is enduring now. It wouldn't take long for him to start retaliating and trying to mount some kind of defense of himself. The only likely defensive targets for him would be the Decider, Darth Cheney, and the political people in the White House. Perhaps Gonzales would simply fall on his sword and go through the rest of his life with his honesty and integrity thoroughly discredited, but it doesn't seem likely. Witness George Tenet. If Gonzales does bite the dust, my bet on the likely replacement nominee would not be a James Comey or Fitzgerald-type, but that loyal Bushie Michael Chertof. He's screwed up the Department of Homeland Security and the relief effort for Hurricane Katrina; why not give him a shot to continue the good work at the Department of Justice where he used to work. Maybe he could bring back 'Heckofajob Brownie" as his deputy AG to replace the hapless McNulty who is about to join the long line of dustbiters.
As for Libby, Bush probably doesn't have to worry about him blowing any secrets. Libby is rather like that Nixon miscreant G. Gordon Liddy, a real soldier. He won't be going public and embarassing Cheney or Bush, who will insure that Liddy, ah Libby that is, is very well taken care of when he emerges from federal prison. A cushy job in the defense industry or at the American Enterprise Institute or Hoover Institution or some other nice think tank awaits him Reminds me of George H. W. Bush telling us years ago, "Don't cry for me, Argentina." Ah, those Bushes and their way with words.
Comment on: Nominee to Coordinate War Offers Grim Forecast on Iraq - washingtonpost.com on 6/8/2007 6:02 AM
I watched almost all of the hearing at which Gen. Lute testified and was surprised at both the candor and analyses of Gen. Lute and the lack of bloviating by the members of the panel. The only Republicans I saw participating in the hearing were Senator Warner who was, as usual, thoughtful and heartfelt in his comments and questions and Senator Sessions, who was similarly thoughtful. The other GOP members were noticable only by their absence, except for the troubling DINO Lieberman. IF, and it's a big if, Gen. Lute survives in his new White House position and is not regularly undercut by both Vice President Cheney and David Addington and the other Cheneyites in Cheney's alternate government and by his nominal boss, George W. Bush, maybe for the first time since 2003 we will get some straight talk out of the White House on Iraq and Afganistan. Both Gen. Lute and DOD Secretary Gates have been much more candid and realistic in their public assessements of our unenviable strategic and tactical positions in both Iraq and Afganistan than the President, the Vice President, Condoleeza Rice, Steve Hadley or Tony Snow(job). It makes me think that Gen. Lute won't last long as a public voice within the White House unless he beaten into submission by the White House's extensive deception machinery.
Comment on: David Ignatius - Solving 'Stovepipe America' - washingtonpost.com on 6/7/2007 7:14 AM
". . . or America will enter a period of cyclical decline"? Or? As an American who was born on the eve of the country's entry into the Second World War, it's pretty hard not to accept the fact that we are in the cyclical decline right now and still on the downslope. For the last half of the last century, this country was universally considered "the leader of the free world." To the extent that that is still true, it is only by dint of the overwhelming destructive power of our military establishment. Whatever moral leadership we retained at the end of the century, Messrs. Bush and Cheney squandered in Iraq. Maybe the next president will regain some of that moral leadership, but one would have to be quite an optimist to believe that the damage done by the current regime will be undone by the next regime. As Mark Anthony said of Caesar, "The evil men do lives after them." We'll be paying for our recklessness in Iraq, in more ways than one, long after I've departed this life. Domestically, our manufacturing strength has been decimated by globalization. In my city, the loss of manufacturing jobs to Mexico, China and elsewhere has had a devastating effect, especially in minority communities. The crime rates in certain neighborhoods reminds one of Baghdad or Beirut during the civil war. The loss of well-paying factory work has led to a sense of hopelessness that is manifested in all kinds of ways, all bad. We have moved from being the world's No. 1 creditor nation to being the world's No. 1 debtor nation. Our dependency on other nations for everything from manufactured goods to debt financing has put us in such a vulnerable position that we must maintain a military budget as large as the rest of the world's military budgets combined, or very nearly as large. Is it any wonder that so much of the world considers America the greatest threat to world peace? No, the news isn't all bad; there is still much to be grateful for about living in America but one would have to be wilfully blind not to recognize that the country is in a period of decline and vulnerability. Turning that situation around will require great leadership and willing followership. ASU President Crow is clearly correct about the seriousness of the problem of "stovepipe" thinking and institutional organization, but how likely is it that real change will occur in large private institutions. Look at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler and the health care sector of the economy. As for the federal government, don't Katrina and Iraq say it all?
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