Bush Losing It

Everyone else is weighing in on the Washington Times article about Bush's shrinking inner circle, so I guess I will too.

To me, the scary thing about it is not just that the President of the United States has limited himself to contact with only four people, but that three of those people are Condi Rice, Karen Hughes, and Barbara Bush!!! Aside from Laura Bush, who always has struck me as an reasonable woman who would have been roughly 100 times the president her husband has been, you've got a wannabe lover, a cheerleading flatterer, and Texas' answer to Marie Antoinette.

Much of this story has a supermarket aisle feel to it, so I won't be surprised if it turns out to be a bunch of baloney. But oh my goodness if this is really what's going on...God bless America. Please. We're really gonna need it.

TOP 5 THINGS THAT HAVE ZERO KITSCH VALUE

1. Roxette*


2. Boy Meets World


3. Funyuns


4. The Tasmanian Devil


5. Finishing next to last

*

Party of Ideas

Having no ideas of their own, the GOP, who control the White House and both chambers of Congress, looked to Senate Democrats for an Iraq withdrawal plan. The following paragraph was thoughtfully placed at the very end of this article from the Washington Post.

Republicans largely adopted the Democratic proposal as their own, but they omitted one paragraph calling for the president to offer a plan for a phased withdrawal of the roughly 160,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq. The administration has refused to set a timetable for withdrawal, saying insurgents simply would wait to strike until after U.S. forces departed.

My only question is this: "strike what?"

It's not a War, It's a Crime

I think the main source of conflict regarding the possible suspension of habeas corpus for, among others, Guantanamo detainees is the term "enemy combatants." I'm pretty sure the point of the habeas corpus is to prevent a government from indefinitely detaining a person at will. Since every person has the right to know their own legal standing, what you are charged with, etc., it would be difficult for the authorities to jail someone for reasons outside the scope of democratically created (we hope) laws. But hold on here, if habeas corpus says a prisoner has a right to know what crime the state claims they have committed, how does that apply to a POW? Enemy soldiers are, when captured, taken into custody by their captors. They are placed in facilities designed to house POWs, and their captivity is presumably in accordance with the standing law, the Geneva Conventions. But there's one thing that never happens to a POW. He is never charged with a crime! Wouldn't that make the concept of habeas corpus, in the case of a POW, irrelevant? This seems to be what Sen. Graham is getting at with his recent amendment. On November 10, the day of the vote, Graham had this to say:

I firmly believe that 9/11 was an act of war and not a crime. The detainees at GTMO are not American citizens facing criminal trial, rather, they are terrorists who have taken up arms against the United States.

There has never been a time in our military history where an enemy combatant or prisoner of war has been allowed access to federal court to bring lawsuits against the people they are fighting. Habeas corpus rights have never been given to an enemy combatant and the Senate today reaffirmed that principal.

Regardless of how I may have wanted to vote on the plan, and that many detainees at GIMTO are in fact NOT terrorists notwithstanding, this strikes me as an eminently reasonable statement. Sen. Graham is correct. Enemy soldiers have not and should not have access to the U.S. criminal justice system for the simple reason that what they have done is not criminal. Capturing a enemy soldier and presenting someone with a warrant for their arrest are completely different operations.

Since no one is advocating for a full scale suspension of habeas corpus, and no one believes that POWs, by dint of their combat status, have broken any "laws," then what is the central issue here? It seems to me that the most important thing to be discussed is how the government identifies someone as an "enemy combatant," a wartime enemy, someone who has not broken laws per se, but has actively and with hostile intent opposed them in battle. The suspension of habeas corpus is almost incidental to the central question of who is empowered to make this identification. To the 42nd Tennessee at Manassas, it was a pretty safe bet that the guys wearing dark blue and carrying the flint-locks were the enemy. In Ypres in 1914, it was pretty clear who the combatants were. You looked across the mud to a guy wearing a funny looking hat and if he put his hands up, you sent him behind the lines. But the War On Terror is not fought on battlefields. They do not wear uniforms.

So how is one to determine who opposes you in battle in a war without battlefields? As a terrorist organization, al-Qaida fight mainly on a mental level. Where conventional armies battle to expand borders and territory, the terrorist army desires to expand fear and chaos. One need not be at any certain place, or doing any one certain thing, to accomplish this goal. And apparently, one need not have even meant it. The many-initialled Mark A. R. Kleiman points us to this enlightening article from last December describing a hearing in which government lawyers "asserted...the U.S. military can hold foreigners indefinitely as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, even if they aided terrorists unintentionally and never fought the United States." Sen. Graham's amendment provides the framework for making just that type of determination. And even if the amendment is meant to apply only to NON-CITIZEN COMBATANTS (Sen. Graham's own caps), that's pretty scary power to grant a government. I'm not sure if the process to identify a person as an "enemy combatant" has ever been codified before. After all, there's no guarantee that some well meaning Senator years from now tries to establish the steps by which the government strips citizenship itself. This is where Graham's straddles the line between trying to address a legitimate concern, wartime enemies' access to U.S. courts, and establishing a Kafka-esque world in which one's fate is at the mercy of the unassailable whim of a group of just three persons.

So what to do? Clearly there are some who believe themselves to be at war with us. Shouldn't they be, if captured, detained as POWs? Since there would be no country with which to sign a treaty at the end of this conflict, where would we return such a person? Is the solution to hold al-Qaida members indefinitely? The more I look at this issue, the more I'm convinced that the mistake that Graham and so many others make is to insist that we are indeed at War. To be sure, we are undeniably deeply embroiled in a deadly conflict that pits two worldview one against the other, but is it useful to call it a War? Where does that get us other than debating the benefits and dangers or military tribunals to determine the fate of unintentional "enemies?" I believe it is much more useful to think of the current terrorist situation as a law enforcement issue. Each country should prosecute terrorists who act within its borders according to its own laws. Last I checked, blowing up a bus is still a crime in most places in the world. At the very least, we'll know who really wants to cooperate with us. If a terrorist act is committed, then arrests and trials and convictions are to follow. This is something that the U.S. should absolutely insist upon. And what a perfect way to respond to terror and chaos, with law and democracy and order. But to Graham, this remains a War. Like he said, he "firmly believes" it. I don't think Sen. Graham is an evil man. I do think he is trying his best to respond to a tricky situation. But the truth is that his fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of this conflict may have severe consequences.

Tom Daschle and WMDs

Check out this gem from January, 2003, by Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard. The little "get this" dig in the subtitle line is just precious, isn't it? They were really a bunch of guys who had it all figured out. "We'll be greeted as liberators!" "Cakewalk!" "Did I mention that the invasion will pay for itself in 3 months?!?!"

Here's the blurb from Daschle that Hayes just couldn't wrap his head around:

After a press conference this afternoon Daschle took questions from reporters. He continued his criticism of President Bush on Iraq, saying, "I don't think the administration has presented adequate, convincing evidence to say that [Iraq] can produce weapons to share with terrorist," he said.

Confused, I [Stephen Hayes] asked Daschle to clarify.

"You don't think Saddam disarmed unilaterally, do you?"

"We don't have any concrete evidence that he has not," Daschle replied. "And that's the issue."

This quote ends the article. He doesn't even bother to comment on it, or opine on the relative likelihood of its being true. I'm not saying that Hayes was wrong to disagree with Daschle. After all, sensible people can disagree. But Hayes doesn't just disagree, he dismisses Daschle wholesale, as you'd dismiss the rantings of a Flat-Earther. And yet, (whaddya know!) Daschle was right!

I'm glad the GOP was so shortsighted in 2004 that they didn't understand the benefit of having a truly nice guy like Daschle as the opposition leader. I'm glad that now in Daschle's place, we've got Harry Reid, a guy who's about as bare knuckles as they come. John Thune (his star has dimmed considerably, eh?) might have won Daschle's Senate seat without the concerted national effort, but the truth is that the GOP put more capital into that race than any other. Again, you may wonder why the GOP went to such lengths to unseat an ineffective adversary, seeing as you never know if his replacement will take your sorry ass to the mat, like Reid has. It's ridiculous articles like this one by Hayes, however, which demonstrate that their thought process never rose above simple hubris, petty vindictiveness, and the confidence of a foolish gambler who has miscalulated his odds.

Liars

One more thing on the run-up to war: The standard line out of Bush apologists these days is something like "we went to war with the intelligence we had," to coin a phrase. In essence, the CIA made us do it. Of course, what BushCo expects us to conveniently forget is the fact that for months before the invasion, all we were hearing was how the CIA was "downplaying the threat from Iraq," how they "had their heads in the sand." After all, this is the whole reason Cheney started up his whole Office of Special Plans. Because they weren't hearing what they wanted to hear from the US intelligence community, they decided that known charlatan Ahmed Chalabi was more to be trusted than their own countrymen. Liars.

WMD Sham

Stephen Hadley says Bush didn't mislead America regarding Iraq. "We were wrong," he says. Well, anyone with a brain capable of recollecting only the most basic details about the run-up to the war knows that this statement is a smokescreen. The fact that many people (including Clinton, as we are repeatedly reminded) may have thought that WMDs existed inside Iraq is entirely beside the point. So the CW said there were weapons. Hell, we all thought there were weapons. That's why we sent Hans Blix and the rest of the inspectors back into Iraq. Because we all thought that at the very least there was the possibility of Saddam possessing nukes. Because if we're going to go to war because of weapons, you'd like to make sure they're actually there. But when word came down from the crack team that nothing was there to be found, Bush promptly discredited their mission and sent in the troops anyway. See, the whole weapons sham was just the cover page on the "Let's Go To War" marketing brochure that the White House was passing around. Nothing more. It didn't matter one bit whether they were there or not there. The WMD issue conveniently and perfectly bridged the gap between scary and plausible. It wasn't so much that he manipulated intelligence, even though he did, but that the intelligence, true or false, had practically no bearing on Bush's decision to invade. The WMDs were a selling point for the war, but it wasn't the reason. Saddam was going down, weapons or no weapons, and no one's report of Iraq as a nuclear-free zone was going to stop it. Truth is, we'll never know exactly why we went to war. Probably all the different players had their own reasons, whether selfish or selfless or somewhere in between.

Sunday Random 12

1. Pull Up The People (M.I.A., Arular)


2. I'm Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman (The White Stripes, White Blood Cells)


3. Thank You (Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II)


4. The Handshake (Bad Religion, Stranger Than Fiction)


5. The House Song (The Beta Band, The Three E.P.'s)


6. I Slept With Someone In Fall Out Boy And All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me (Fall Out Boy, From Under The Cork Tree)


7. Delirious (Prince, 1999)


8. Stand Together (The Beastie Boys, Check Your Head)


9. War (OutKast, Speakerboxxx)


10. Parsec (Stereolab, Dots And Loops)


11. To The End (My Chemical Romance, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge)


12. Land Of Sunshine (Faith No More, Angel Dust)

Evolution, Liberal Copyright Law and...

This is an interesting article about the latest salvo in the battle over science curricula in Kansas. Turns out the textbook people want to deny Kansas the right to use their copyrights, which would lead to no textbooks, which would make it kind of hard to teach science class. It's a nice helping of schadenfreude to watch the Kansans scramble in search of a counter to this move, but I must admit I agree with the author when she says that it's hypocritical for liberals to denounce control-based copyright action as contrary to the spirit of the law, all while smirking contentedly at this latest episode (something which I'm finding it hard to keep from doing at the moment).

One other thing, too. As a rational human being who happens to be a Catholic, I sort of resent the way some people paint the whole evolution vs. ID battle. I'm sorry, but yes I can believe that God created the entire universe yet agree that the entirely compatible theory of random genetic mutation was indeed what drove the evolution of life on this planet. Just because I think God has no place in a science class (or a calculus class either, he made that up too, didn't he?), doesn't make me an atheist. As usual, black and white arguments, i.e. you're either with God or with the Evolutionists, are stupid and simplistic, whether it's Pat "GOP consultant" Robertson saying it or some gleefully non-religious liberal.

TOP 5 X-MEN

1. Magneto*


2. Wolverine


3. Professor X


4. Rogue


5. Iceman

*

Shorter Bush

"Our mission has never been more clear. Complete the mission until it is completed."

Pat Robertson: GOP Consultant

Pat "if I squint my eyes, God doesn't have to use his hearing aid" Robertson is at it again.

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club."

What an absolute lunatic.

Once again, as much as Republicans would love you to believe that Pat Robertson is just some old coot, let's not forget that he, giant army of catatonic dunderheads in tow, is in regular contact with the White House. He may as well be on the staff.

Sen. Schumer At Sea

I just don't understand statements like this one from Sen. Schumer (D-NY).

"This portends really well for the future," said Sen. Charles Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. "Unless George Bush reverses his policies and reaches to the middle you're going to see many more victories like this."

What on earth is he talking about? It's almost like he's secretly disappointed that the Dems won.

The basic implication he's making is that the natural order is a country busily electing Republicans under the wise leadership of their center-leaning Republican president. Some of my readers will certainly claim this to be the plain truth, and I suppose it may very well be, but why the heck would a Democratic Senator publicly agree? Even if Charles here doesn't realize it, the goal is to create an environment in which people vote for Democrats not because the Republican president's political balance is off, but because they want things like Guaranteed Healthcare For All Americans, actual economic expansion, real steps toward energy independence, a more thoughtful approach to drug policy, etc.

Schumer should have something like "the results of these elections prove that people want more from their leaders than they're getting right now. They're ready for a change and they showed it. They're turning away from the politics of division and moving towards vision of the future. Blah, blah, blah..." Dems should speak of the recent victories in terms of a "sea change" in the political landscape. Even if that's not actually what happened, they should still talk about it.

"People are dismissing the politics of fear and are embracing the strength of our country, which is its people. They see Democrats as providing leadership on energy and healthcare and they're beginning to realize that the Democratic vision is about making what makes America great even greater." See, Chuck? See how much better that sounds than "Don't worry GOP, if the preznit stops being such an ass they'll start electing Republicans again."

I once imagined myself as a speechwriter, but then I flipped a burger patty into my eye and it pretty much ended my little daydream.

L-O-S-E-R

I guess Bush's trip to Virgina to stump for his boy Kilgore didn't turn out so well. Kaine wins the governorship. Bush really is the worst president of all time. How stupid are the people of South Carolina that they voted for this chump over John McCain in the 2000 primary. If you answered "astonishingly stupid," give yourself a pat on the back.

Monday Random 12

1. Waiting In Vain (Bob Marley And The Wailers, Exodus)


2. Flower (Liz Phair, Exile In Guyville)


3. What Will You Say (Jeff Buckley, Mystery White Boy (Live))


4. It's Too Late (Carole King, Tapestry)


5. Cameltosis (Korn, Follow The Leader)


6. Liferaft (Bedhead, What Fun Life Was)


7. Pickin' It Up (Hot Hot Heat, Elevator)


8. Cecilia (Simon & Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water)


9. Truth Doesn't Make A Noise (The White Stripes, De Stijl)


10. Nowhere Man (The Beatles, Rubber Soul)


11. Crucify (Tori Amos, Little Earthquakes)


12. Wake Up Exhausted (Tegan And Sara, So Jealous)

Torture

Time will tell if the reports that the CIA has established network of "shadow prisons" are indeed the truth. If they do exist, I think it's important to remember that these prisons were established with the full support of the Bush Administration.

Let's be clear here. The America I love does not torture. Period. But, but, but...al Qaida, but rape rooms, but heads chopped off, but bodies burned in Fallujah. My response to that: so flippin what? There once was a guy called Vlad the Impaler who shoved stakes up people's asses. People have done a lot of bad, bad stuff in this world, and they'll continue to do it, as the behavior of certain knife-wielding Muslim fanatics unfortunately attests. But guess what? America does not belong in this group. America doesn't pull out people's toenails. America's POWs don't die while in captivity. America doesn't behead people with lawnmower blades.

In caps so the slow among us will understand: WE ARE THE GOOD GUYS.

Bill!

Unbelieveable! There's a picture up on Drudge right now from the Rosa Parks funeral, and it looks like Bill Clinton was putting the moves on Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York! What a Cassanova. Looks like he's still got that ol' magic touch.

Quack

What a loser. Hey "some-of-the-people-all-of-the-time" crowd! What's Bush selling that you're still buying?

Turning the Tide

I agree with Kos on the prospect of a Dem filibuster of Alito. The tide seems to be turning in the Democrats’ favor. Dare the GOP to go nuclear and make a simple majority sufficient to decide. It won’t be long before we’re passing national health care legislation (that everyone will end up loving, by the way) with 51 votes.

Glenn Reynolds says that Dems in 2005 (Libby indictment, closed Senate meeting, Alito filibuster) are turning into Repubs of 1998. As if this were a bad thing for the Democrats. Yeah, things really collapsed for the GOP after 1998. That was their high water mark for sure. Is Prof. Reynolds nuts? Don’t answer that…

A & F

Some wonderful T-Shirts over at Abercrombie & Fitch. Example: “Who needs brains when you have these?” “These” are apparently intended to indicate the prominent breasts that the words will be stretched over. Anyone with an ounce of decency and a working sense of humor (i.e. one that actually senses humor and distinguishes it from offensive swill) can see that the message sent by this shirt completely degrades women. And so what? Lots of offensive stuff out there, what’s one more t-shirt? Maybe so, but my problem with this is that A&F specifically markets this stuff to girls in junior high. Girls who are truly, actually wondering which of these mysterious developing organs, the brains or the boobs, will do her the most good. And along comes Abercrombie to tell them definitively what the answer is. Some will argue that the t-shirts target audience “doesn’t have a problem with it.” Well, I’d counter that statement by saying that the target audience is about 13 and doesn’t know up from down. All they know is that the cool people at A&F say this is how we’re supposed to think so it must be OK. I didn’t shop there before, but I sure as hell won’t be shopping there now.

Two words for all those whose cursors are hovering over the comments icon right now, just itching to tell me that liberals have no sense of humor: The Onion.