Bell Business

BREAKING NEWS!!! Warner and Levin Parrot Bush Administration!!!

Yesterday it was big news all over my TV about how how Sen. John Warner (R, VA) was breaking with the administration (after his trip to Iraq with Carl Levin) and advocating for a PARTIAL WITHDRAWL of troops so that we could get somewhere around 5000 home in time for Christmas. Wolf Blitzer was all atwitter, as were lots of other talking heads on other stations, who's names I cannot recall.

Of course, Digby says what they didn't say:

The press is portraying this as a "tectonic shift," which is what they've been saying about Warner's every utterance for the last three years. It's ridiculous. I don't know if the Great God Petraeus will say that the surge is working so well that we can redeploy 5,000 troops, but I wouldn't be surprised, would you? (Particularly since it's highly likely that 5,000 troops are scheduled to be redeployed anyway.)

Pretty earth-shaking, huh?

And of course, his buddy, Sen. Carl Levin (D, Mich) goes even a little farther...

"Declaring the government of Iraq "non-functional," the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said yesterday that Iraq's parliament should oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his cabinet if they are unable to forge a political compromise with rival factions in a matter of days.
"I hope the parliament will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and more unifying prime minister and government," Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said after a three-day trip to Iraq and Jordan. (...)

Interesting... So Maliki is the road-block here. You know, I never liked him. Just didn't feel like he was a guy I'd want to have a beer with. That's sort of a deal-breaker with me.

Hilzoy does a pretty good job of explainning why this is crazy talk.

Anyway, my point is, these news people like Blitzer spend literally all of their time hearing about and talking about the news. Couldn't SOMEONE have smelled the bullshit here? (Someone on my TV, I mean)
And granted, it's a little more complex, but isn't it a MUCH BETTER STORY once you've parsed it, even just a little bit?

I'm not saying Warner and Levin are bad guys. Frankly, I have no way of knowing, as Bob Somerby might say. But, at best I think they got played. And nobody on my TV could connect the HUGE dots to see that.

This is pathetic.

I should say, as I write this I'm watching a C-Span3 rebroadcast of the Taguba hearings (5/11/04) featuring Levin and Warner, and they seem to be doing a pretty good job. (Rather, it seems like they did a pretty good job. Three years ago.)

Anyway, I highly recommend you read the entire Digby and Hilzoy posts. They are excellent.
You might even want to politely suggest that Wolf read them.

Kucinich... (Tillman Hearing)

... is now tossing Rumsfeld around like a rag doll. The more I see this guy, the more I like him.

Rumsfeld basically said that maybe they outsourced some of the propoganda, but he has no idea. You'll have to ask someone else, not me. To which Kucinich closed with:

Mr. Chairman, I think it's very important that this committee determine whether or not the outsourcing of press was one of the elements responsible for communicating to the public something that seemed to be beyond the understanding of the Department of Defense.

In other words, if you're going to pretend to be an idiot, I'm going to treat you like an idiot. Nice.

UPDATE: Raw Story has a nice little post on the Kucinich/Rumsfeld business, including video.

Where Would We Be...

...If Colin Powell had done the honorable thing, like his UK counterpart, Robin Cook?

We'd probably be a lot better off, with a lot less people dead. Colin Powell is an asshole.

The Latest From Bush's Brain

Karl Rove says that Iraq will not be an issue in the 2008 elections. This is because Karl Rove would very much like Iraq to not be an issue in the 2008 elections. He is trying to shape that narrative so that it might possibly come true. I really think it's as simple as that. I don't think much more analysis is necessary.

But I would also say that it's good to talk about it, because he is really good at this type of thing. For example, somehow democrats have shouldered a lot of the blame for the war based on the fact that voted for the resolution that gave Bush the power to wage war. (Never mind that in the resolution he also promised to return to the UN for approval, which he never did.)

So now, tools like Hannity and Hewitt and Scarborough, and everyone else can say that EVERYONE stated unequivocally that Saddam had WMD's. Well, aside from the fact that this isn't true, what they don't say is that everyone except the Bush administration was making statements based on what the Bush administration told them. NOBODY had the Bush administration's intelligence. NOBODY. Except the Bush administration.

I am perpetually amazed at the fact the more Democrats don't just come out and say, "I TRUSTED what the president told me. He screwed me. He screwed you too. And that's why we're in this war. If I made one mistake regarding Iraq, it's that I trusted that what the president was telling me was true. This was a huge mistake which I will never make again, and neither should you or anyone else."

It makes me crazy that nobody will say this.

On a side note: It looks like MSNBC has decided on Joe Scarborough for the Imus slot in the morning. It is Joe, plus the annoying producer guy from the Tucker Carlson show, plus some other guy, and Mika Brzezinski, who seems to be there to talk about her dad (asshole).

I don't care what anyone says. Lots of people I respect and admire HATED the Imus show. I miss him.
And MSNBC is pathetic.

More On Presidential Pardons

I've written about this before, and even got Kevin Drum from the Washington Monthly to weigh in on it. I'm of the opinion that presidential pardons are basically bullshit. Simply put, either our criminal justice system works, or we need to fix it.

That said, I don't think our criminal justice system works. But I also don't think that the solution is to give the power of the pardon (or commutation, as the case may be) to a politician.

Do I think Scooter Libby should be in jail? Yes, I do. He lied, and obstructed an investigation into the outing of a covert CIA agent. One that was working on Iraqi and Irani weapons of mass destruction, no less. David Brooks can call me a howler. I don't care. He is an asshole. And a moron. The investigation was non-partisan. His outrage is partisan.

How many people have we executed in this country? People who were minors when they commited their crimes? People whose lawyers literally slept in the courtroom while their cases were being tried? People who were retarded? People who were completely innocent of the crime for which they were accused?

(For the record, I am an athiest who is against the death penalty. Any Christian who is for the death penalty isn't a real Christian, in my opinion.)

And how many people on death row did W pardon while he was governor of Texas? (Hint: you don't need more than one finger to help you count.)

But this post isn't about the death penalty. It's about the presidential pardon, and why we bestow such kingly powers on a (supposedly) democratically elected official. I found a great resource of information about presidential pardons at the Pittsburgh School of Law web site. They answer a lot of questions, and also provide a very handy chart that gives an excellent perspective on how many pardons previous presidents have given.  (Truman gave out over 2000! Ike more than 1100!) They also answered my question as to why our founding fathers gave such superpowers to one mortal man...

At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia the Framers appear to have accepted the argument that the prerogative of mercy, upon which the pardon power is based, is most efficiently and equitably exercised by a single individual, as opposed to a body of legislators or judges. In Federalist No. 74, supporting the ratification of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton wrote:

Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed...As the sense of responsibility is always strongest in proportion as it is undivided, it may be inferred that a single man would be most ready to attend to the force of those motives, which might plead for a mitigation of the rigor of the law, and least apt to yield to considerations, which were calculated to shelter a fit object of its vengeance...On the other hand, as men generally derive confidence from their numbers, they might often encourage each other in an act of obduracy and might be less sensible to the apprehension of suspicion or censure for an injudicious or affected clemency. On these accounts, one man appears to be a more eligible dispenser of the mercy of the government than a body of men.

That's a pretty good explanation! I still think it's bullshit, but at least they made the effort. Kudos!

Why was Scooter Libby pardoned? I certainly can't say. There are only a handful of people who can answer that question with any degree of certainty, and NONE of them work for any media outlet. None of them write op-eds, and none of them host a radio or television show.

Should he have been pardoned? No. I think I can safely say, that's bullshit.

Abu Ghraib

I dont have time to post a lot on this right now. But I urge everyone to read this article by Seymour Hersh in the current New Yorker.

Just a few bad apples...

Lurita Doan

Watching her second congressional hearing. They keep talking about her as if she's black. Is Lurita Doan black?

Also, what does that have to do with anything?

Also, what the hell is Dan Burton talking about? He's going on about the Clintons, about Al Gore's fundraiser at a Buddhist temple, and over and over about Sandy Berger's socks. Wasn't that story debunked a long time ago?

Now, in defense of Doan, he just said "at least she's here testifying." Isn't that because she was SUBPOENAED? And the very next thing he says is that "She's not saying she forgot everything." But that is exactly what she just did!

And now back to Clinton... Boy, my memory is terrible. Clinton must have been a really sucky president.

UPDATE: You know, I don't actually know if she was subpoenaed. I'll try and find out. I thought she was, but I could be wrong.

UPDATE II: This hearing is ridiculous. It seems to me the questions that should be asked are simple. Namely: Is the GSA prohibited by the Hatch Act from holding meetings for political purposes, and urging non-political government employees to act for political purposes? Was such a meeting held while you led the GSA? Are you not ultimately responsible for this occurance? Does this not mean that you violated the Hatch Act?

After all that, aren't we done?

UPDATE III: Lurita Doan, is in fact, black. Though I fail to grasp what that could possibly have to do with anything. Now everyone is arguing about who brought up the black thing first. Classy.

Scum

I'm watching Meet the Press and thinking about Gilliard. I'm looking at Mary Matelin and James Carville and it occurs to me that neither of these people believe in anything. All they care about is winning, whatever that is. The actual issues mean nothing to them. What a pair. Completely soulless. It's all about winning the argument. The substance of the issues means nothing to them.

What a terrible way to live your life.

Say what you want about Gilliard. He was a guy who believed what he said, and cared about the issues, which is a whole lot more than I can say about these two clowns.

Boy, I miss the guy. I've missed him for a while now. This whole business came on so suddenly, and then just wouldn't go away. One day he's feeling bad, and he goes to the hospital. Days turn into months and then all of a sudden you're scared to death that he's not going to make it. Then this shit. Fuck, I hate this.

I guess I've wandered off topic, although I'm not sure what my original point was. I guess it was something about how Matelin and Carville don't give a shit about anything except their bank accounts, and Gilliard was, on the other hand, awesome.

That's really oversimplifying things, obviously. I'm not trying to make Gilliard into a saint or anything. I thought he was full of shit a lot of things, but I never doubted his passion, or his conviction. And more often than not I agreed whole-heartedly with him.  But you always knew where he stood. I don't know why that's such an anomaly these days, but it is. Tell me where James Carville stands on the issues of the day. Or Mary Matelin? What do you think it would take to get them to amend their opinions? Do you think it's more than a phone call, saying "It would help the party if you said this..."?

Anyway, I think that's what was in my head.

I miss Steve Gilliard very much.

And fuck the fucking Yankees.

Comey Testimony

This is incredible. We live in dangerous times. Please read all of it.

jerry's dead

who cares. the guy was an asshole.

he didn't care about you. he didn't care about me. pompous sanctimonious asshole. I wonder why God killed him...