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George Bush has issued a strong statement of support for his longtime friend, disgraced Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The White House also denied that it was looking into possible successors.
Joining Bush in Nephelococcygia is disgraced former Republican House Leader Tom Delay, who in an interview Tuesday on NBC’s Today Show said, “This is a made-up scandal. There is no evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever.”
Hoo boy.
Senior Republican officials are being quoted as saying that the Attorney General’s departure is inevitable, and that Gonzales has lost the confidence of key Republican senators, some of whom are up for tough reelection campaigns in 2008. Party mandarins and White House aides have been openly speculating about who will replace him.
D. Kyle Sampson, one of Gonzales’ senior advisers, has already been thrown off the back of the sleigh. It won’t save Gonzales—his claim that he knew nothing, and that Sampson did all the firing, is not going to stand up—but it’s been great fun to watch. The New York Times has Sampson’s political obituary here.
Expect to hear a lot more about the U.S. Attorney firings. The Justice Department has gone for obfuscation by inundation, responding to requests for information by releasing some 3,000 documents. Sorting and assessment is still going on. Apparently there are mentions of “performance concerns” about the fired officials: yeah, yeah, yeah. I have yet to see anything that would come close to satisfying your average corporate HR department’s documentation standards for a proposed termination.
One of the more interesting infobits extracted thus far is a chart the Justice Department sent the White House in March of 2005. It ranks U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald among the prosecutors who had “not distinguished themselves.”
The ranking placed Fitzgerald below “strong U.S. attorneys … who exhibited loyalty” to the administration but above “weak U.S. attorneys who … chafed against administration initiatives, etc.,” according to Justice documents.Yeah, sure. You betcha.The chart was the first step in an effort to identify U.S. attorneys who should be removed. Two prosecutors who received the same ranking as Fitzgerald were later fired, documents show. …
The March 2005 chart ranking Fitzgerald and other prosecutors was drawn up by Gonzales aide Kyle Sampson and sent to then-White House counsel Harriet Miers. The reference to Fitzgerald is in a portion of the memo that Justice has refused to turn over to Congress, officials told the Washington Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
At the time, Fitzgerald was leading the independent investigation into the leak of the identity of a CIA operative, which led this month to the perjury conviction of former vice-presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, also had recently brought a corruption indictment in Illinois against former Republican Gov. George Ryan.
A Justice Department official Monday sought to play down the importance of Fitzgerald’s ranking, saying the chart was “put together by Sampson and is not an official department position on these U.S. attorneys.”
How I love to see those bastards squirm...
I figured Gonzales was gone when Shrub expressed his support for him. The Kiss of something-or-other, probably 'desire to spend more time with family'. The list of names they're floating as a replacement is, um, disturbing. Half of them have already been rejected, and the other half are not people you'd want in charge given past performance. The only thing they have in common is that 'Whatever George Says Is Good' attitude.
"Gonzo, you're doing a hell of a job."
Gonzalez's inevitable departure can't happen fast enough. Could we make it retroactive?
Talking points memo has put out a call for volunteers to read through the morass. Even though it's anarchy, I rather like the idea that we can all help decipher this.
I want Rove gone.
I want Bush to have an empty feeling inside, from not having Rove's hand shoved up inside to where it can make Bush's lips move.
González provides Bush with what credibility he still has among Hispanics, it would be pretty hard for him to ditch him. That being said, Bush's public approbation does seem to be the kiss of death.
#5, Stefan, the trouble with Bush in that circumstance is that he might be even more likely to do something insane than he already is. Invade Iran, for one.
Not to say I don't want Rove, Hadley, and the whole crew gone, including Bush. 2008 can't come too soon.
It could well be denial, as Shrub seems to be in denial about so many things. I wonder, though, if the problem of picking a successor is having an effect here. While it may not affect Bush 43, it may well be stimulating a great deal of enabling behavior from those close to him.
Consider the problem -- they have to find someone who is:
I want proactive activity to occur--2008 is MUCH too long away and far in the future, I want the Hydrocarbon Toxic Regime removed from office NOW, now, now, NOW! Put the scrubbers into DC and get the effluvia out NOW!!!
I caught the end of a Tom Delay interview on NPR's Morning Edition this morning. Mr. Delay decries the Democratic "criminalization of politics." I'm surprised that he isn't dizzy with the sheer amount of spin. Prosecuting crimes, if done fairly, is not a partisan act. It seems to me that the best way to avoid prosecution and the open display of incriminating evidence is to not commit the crime in the first place. Having him say, in effect, "Well, it's all the Democrats' fault for holding us accountable for our wrongs" strikes me as desperate. (I suppose his argument is really "The Democrats are just making baseless charges for non-crimes against the Republicans just as the Republicans did against them.")
I hope Delay's spin doesn't have legs. We'll see...
JC, as I understand politics these days, anything the Democrats do is partisan. Even breathe.
Delay's spin is really strange. Surely one criminializes politics by, well, committing crimes. The act of investigating the crimes is *de*criminalization.
But of course that would not be something a fine moral upstanding individual like Delay could possibly admit.
DeLay's spin amounts to 'How dare you punish ME for breaking the law?'.
I can see Fox or CNN putting Delay on but NPR? Guess it's true what they say: NPR these days stands for "Nice Polite Republicans."
During the first part of the DeLay interview, I was worried that it was going to be a slow-pitch softball interview.
As it happened, DeLay did a great job of revealing his inner cynical rat bastard all on his own.
#14 moe99, he has a new book out, so he's doing the tour. And Stefan Jones in #15 pretty well describes the interview.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting's appointees by government for the past six years or more have all been selected and vetted by The Entitites Which Replaced Saddam Hussein with an Even More Psychopathic Situation and Which Politically Bowdlerizes all Federally Funded Research and Researchers. And the appointees to high level in CPB have effected changes in NPR and PBS, such as canning long-standing popular show hosts for "failings" of lacking ties and values promoting rightwing propaganda (I'm blanking on the most prominent case--ah, blank filled, Bill Moyers), and of replacing shows with rightwing screed and personalities with no pretense whatsoever to impartiality and objective observation other than to proclaim that they are the true representatives of American and correct values...
I think that Colin Powell's rightwing bigot son got canned after egregiously offensive actions, but... take a close look at what's been going on the past several years, and the objectivity and such that PBS and NPR once have, have been SEVERELY undermined, with shows put on for intentionally politically partisan rightwing values and opinions and public opinion sways and promotion.
Dick Cheney's revisionism and censorship is all over the airwaves....
DeLay is rat poison scum... his profession prior to politics was that of applier of poisons for fumigation--pesticides, and/or herbicides, no chemical too noxious to use....
Robert Novak has a review of Delay's new book. If Novak's reading is correct, Delay is as angry at some of his former cohorts as he is at Ronnie Earle and the Democrats.
#19 Linkmeister, of course he is. Most minor kings are when they find the pledges of fealty falter when they're being lead to the block.
Novak, the fellow who played catamite for the Hydrocarbon Pollution Crew Politicians? His credibility level is that of used towels in houses of prostitution...
Claude Muncey @ 8
They might want Lieberman for the job (but would they? Remember that neither side trusts a turncoat; he's already proved he can turn against his allies), but the Bushites don't dare pull him out of the Senate. He's their ace in the hole, for when even Cheney's vote can't sway a really close one.
#21 Be kinder to the domestic linens, Paula. They're inanimate objects lacking in free will and therefore have no choice in who purchases them or how they are used.
Madeline@3: That was my first thought too. I mean, Dubya expressed support for Brownie, right before chucking him to the wolves. (Ditto on Harriet Myers during her nomination process--I always figured she was a throw-away nominee.)
I'm with Serge. Pass the popcorn, I'm loving it. Yes, I know I'm racking up time in Purgatory. Gloating is unChristian. But this is what we voted for, and it is a pure pleasure to watch the law of karma working itself out in such a fine and public manner. Digby's got a great post up about this with some terrific links. Turns out the Bushies really wanted to fire Patrick Fitzgerald too.
I love it when they document bomb: it means they're panicking and getting desperate. And that in turn means they may not be very careful in choosing and redacting the documents, so there could be something incriminating, or pointing to something else incriminating in the dump. That's how conspiracies unravel, through the mistakes of the fearful.
Stefan Jones @ 5
Bush will only have that feeling for as long as it takes Cheney to pull his hand out of Rove and move on to the Shrubhole. Of course it will cause a few days of confusion as Cheney learns how to work without gloves and a net.
Linkmeister @ 7 - My paranoid worry is that the Bushies will apply the same thought (what's the point in having it if you don't use it) that they used in the US Attorney mess to our nuclear capability.
Forget invading Iran, I'm afraid they'll nuke Teheran.
Delay'ed Justice said "There is no evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever.”
Contrariwise, there's absolutely no evidence of right doing, a much more damning observation.
Just to make life interesting - more interesting - the White House is saying 'Sure, Karl and Harriet can talk to the Senate Judiciary Committee. But we'll only let them do it if they're not under oath and not in a public area like the committee room.'
I can hear the subpoena printer warming up.
Bruce Cohen #27:
For a moment there I thought you meant that Cheney was fisting the Schmuck...
fidelio #23
The linens already get used for that sort of thing...
Turns out the Bushies really wanted to fire Patrick Fitzgerald too. Apologies, Teresa. Half of your post dealt with exactly this. May I plead that zombies from the IRS have eaten my brains?
But really, go here. This is wonderful.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070402/blumenthal
From the link to Newsweek:
The president is personally close to Gonzales and his family. And he owes Gonzales a debt of gratitude: in 1996, Gonzales pulled off a skillful courtroom maneuver to allow Bush to escape jury duty in a drunken-driving case. Bush's lawyer made the clever argument that the governor had a conflict of interest, since he might be called on one day to pardon the defendant (a dancer at a local strip club). Had Bush gone through the normal jury voir dire, he might have had to disclose a 1976 DUI arrest, thereby jeopardizing his presidential ambitions.
If congress subpoenas, Bush will pull the "executive privilege" card.
Quickly followed by news that some terrorist has confessed to killing Anna Nicole Smith, and Bush announcing the Jupiter Expedition, and the INS raiding some more slaughterhouses.
But we'll know. We'll all know, undeniably, that we're led by scoundrels. Even the lap dog pundits will know, not that they'll admit it.
Why does this scandal, out of so many, have traction? Not because of whether anything that was done was right or wrong--though certainly it all stinks to high heaven. No, the reason why this one has staying power is because it involves an infringement by the administration on the customary perquisites of individual senators. Even as damaged as Bush is now, Republican senators might still be willing to support him on policy issues, but not when he tries to pull a fast one on them personally.
Teresa, you might want to do a search-and-replace. Victor's surname is Gonzalez; Alberto's is Gonzales.
Even the Globe and Mail keeps getting the various spellings mixed up. In Toronto, the commonest spelling is Goncalves (and would have a cedille instead of a 'c', if I weren't typing in ASCII).
I hope Victor forgives me for mentioning him in the same sentence as that shit.
When talking about executive privilege, someone's gonna bring up Watergate. Here's an excerpt from the opinion, US v Nixon, 1974:
However, neither the doctrine of separation of powers, nor the need for confidentiality of high level communications, without more, can sustain an absolute, unqualified presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances. The President's need for complete candor and objectivity from advisers calls for great deference from the courts. However, when the privilege depends solely on the broad, undifferentiated claim of public interest in the confidentiality of such conversations, a confrontation with other values arises. Absent a claim of need to protect military, diplomatic or sensitive national security secrets, we find it difficult to accept the argument that even the very important interest in confidentiality of Presidential communications is significantly diminished by production of such material for in camera inspection with all the protection that a district court will be obliged to provide.
SCOTUS ruled 8-0 against Nixon's claim of EP with Rehnquist (then Associate Justice) not participating.
The number of crimes cannot be counted, much less be revealed. Nothing stops them or even interrupts.
On Alternet
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/49275/
[ "Seymour Hersh's recent report that Iran-Contra veterans working out of Dick Cheney's office are using stolen funds from Iraq to arm al Qaeda-tied groups and foment a larger Sunni-Shia war is a very big deal." ]
The only response can be to Investigate, Impeach, Indict, Imprison.
But instead we have public radio speaking to and of the like of DeLay as if he was respectable and honest.
Constance #38
Paradrop the lot of them into territory that the Shi'ite and Sunni violence-mad are fighting over... (note, far from all Shi'ites and Sunnis are violence-mad. The removal of Saddam Hussein from the equation as a check upon worse homicidal maniacal sorts than Saddam and his brutal bully sons, the maniacal sorts who use religious extremism as an excuse for mayhem and murder as opposed to being mere personal power for its own sake fanatics without making up religious pretense excuses, inspired every violence-prone Iraqi living in-country or in exile to grab unguarded munitions from the huge dumps of weaponry and munitions assembled under Saddam and left for looting unguarded courtesy of those brilliant [sarcasm] administrators put in place according to Rumseld's (completely incompetent and inadequate and inane) administering plans for post-invasion Iraa] and use the munitions to main, murder, and mangle to their full homicidal maniac delight, untrammeled by concerns of police suppression or public outrage or political anger with miltarily effective backing and suppression.... the vast bulk of the Iraqi populace does not consist of thugs, goons, homicidal maniacs, jihadists looking to die for their religious extremism and/or make hundreds of others die with or before them into death, but the Hydrocarbon Pollution Regime removed or disabled any and all effective methods of suppressing extremists when it invaded Iraq, dissolved the military with no attempt whatsoever to separate out the homicidal maniac squads and units from the involuntary soldiers and the patriotic but not homicidal career sorts, and with a complete failure to implement any sort of policing of the invaded country, and failed to quickly act to put together a civilian policing force to patrol the streets highways, to suppress antisocial behavior such as looting, destroying power distribution system, etc. ... as a result, the civilian population been under a reign of anarchy and terror for years now... how long did the Terror last after the French Revolution?)
Lizzy@25--
"I speak no evil
I bear no malice within my breast
And yet without quite wishing a man to the devil
One may be permitted to hope for the best"
--Piet Hein
Paula @ 31
Wait a minute until I can stop giggling over the image your post left in my mind ... good thing I have a strong stomach or that sound would not be laughing. Come to think of it, that sounds like the title of Charlton Heston adventure film, mountain-climbing or some such, "Fisting the Schmuck". Hey Fragano, want to collaborate on the screenplay?
Anyhow, Paula, that's exactly what I meant, that Cheney's been operating the meat puppet indirectly through Rove, and now he's really going to have to get his hands dirty.
Linkmeister @ 37
And you just know that as soon as the title of that opinion comes out of anyone's mouth all the Bushies in creation will be up on their hind legs yelling "National Security."
Larry Brennan @ 28
Forget invading Iran, I'm afraid they'll nuke Teheran
You know what scares me the most of all of this mess is what could happen if Bush gives that order and the squadron commander or the pilots tell him to stuff his illegal order up his ass. The neocons have been doing their damndest to subvert or destroy the military over the last 20 years or so and I think they've made a dent. If we ever get a Presidential order refused by a military unit, no matter how right that refusal may be, we're on the slippery slope towards the Legions installing the Emperor.
One of the really great things we got right in this country, possibly just through luck, is to have developed a highly professional military, that on the whole is not interested in taking political power, or dead-set against doing so as a basic tenet of their professional ethics. Sure there are always opportunists and political generals like Colin Powell, but we sure don't have a triumvirate system like Soviet Russia (Party, Army, KGB) or the corporate military state like China today (the Army is the largest slaveowner in the world, to my knowledge, counting political prisoners as slaves, and has more internal industrial capacity than most nations).
One of the worst things that could happen to this country from a political point of view is to have a "Year of 4 emperors", let alone a "Year of 6 emperors". And from any other point of view, who wants a civil war with more than 2,000 nuclear warheads to choose from? I guarantee collateral damage will go far beyond CONUS boundaries, so won't be just our problem, either.
Bruce--the Constitution protects parodies.... that's something in the original document itself and not in the Bill of Rights....
So is the screenplay to be in iambic pentameter or some other metering?
I don't know if you were around when MacBird was published....
When the USSR came unglued, there was the issue of the divvying up of the assets of the Strategic Rocket Forces. Many of the sites were in Ukraine, for example.
y:
I think the other reason is that the R's have lost control of congress, so something might actually be done about this scandal. And 9/11 is receding in memory, so the "you must bend over and spread 'em when we say the phrase 'homeland security'" routine is wearing thin. And Bush is a lame duck, who won't be in a position to reward friends and punish enemies past Jan 2009.
But you're right, this and Plaimegate are small potatoes next to massive warrantless wiretapping in direct violation of written law, running secret prisons where people we've abducted off the streets of allies' cities are tortured, and the breathtaking claim in the Padilla case that a US citizen can be swept up off US soil and locked up indefinitely, incommunicado, on the say so of one man. Any of those should have led to an impeachment trial and mass resignations by principled people in the White House. They didn't. Republicans in Congress demonstrated that, for the most part, they don't mind scary police-state measures so long as they're done by Republicans. (They will be deeply repentant in Jan 2009, I think.)
I seriously think we're going to look back on the Bush administration as a turning point in the history of our country. We've got a de facto national ID card in the works now (Google for RealID), we've turned Echelon onto our own people, we've proclaimed to the world that we will abduct and torture anyone who we like. Many of these are developments that were a long time coming, and 9/11 might have triggered them in any event. But this administration has accelerated them.
I don't expect the next administration to give back those powers. It's just got to be useful to have Echelon turned on the American people, even if you have to share it with a few members of the other party to avoid anyone kicking up a fuss. The ability to get someone you think might be a terrorist and lock him up is surely nice to have, and the ability to use that to silence people about to go public about your gay affairs, drug habit, or bribe taking is even better. Making sure that only fringe extreme types and criminals go to the trouble necessary to retain any privacy at all is valuable to anyone who thinks they're going to have control of government.
Our kids and grandkids will live in the world we've helped make, and they'll never know what they lost. Of course people get questioned by the police if they say the wrong things on their cellphone calls. It's always been that way. Don't be so old-fashioned, Mom. Of course someone checks up on which books you buy and check out of the library, Dad. How could you be so stupid as to check out *those* books. Do you want to get sent to a camp like Mr Johnson did?
It's fun watching the bastards squirm, and they've earned it. But we'll be a long time paying the bill, I think.
I'd like to see this statement of Bush's widely refuted with a megaphone:
“If the staff of a president operates in constant fear of being hauled before congressional committees ... the president would not receive candid advice and the American people would be ill-served,” he said.
FEMA->FISA. Apologies from my slow sodium pump left brain for the atrophied acronym-storage brain cells.
Think Progress has documented a bunch of instances when Clinton aides testified before Congress, too. Precedent runs against Bush (again).
albatross @ 46
I understand a lot of states have already decided not to go with RealID, mostly because they'd have to pay for it themselves. They aren't too sure of the benefits, either.
Alberto Gonzalez gone? Love the idea, personally. But... see also Chickens, counting, before they're hatched. Don't.
Meanwhile, obfuscation by inundation--3000 documents--the Nixon corps tried the same thing, about the time that Ziegler(?) was saying "This is the operative statement." They released volume upon volume of stuff late in the day, just before deadline for the nightly news. I tried to find the passage in my two Woodward and Bernstein books, but I didn't have time. (Speaking of inundation...)
The more things change...
Paula @ 44
Oh, yes (insert devilish glee here) I remember MacBird. But I think what I'm suggesting here is a lot dirtier (as in really explicit sexual innuendo and assigning of anthropomorphic names to body parts), so we'll have to make sure not to write it in Ohio, where they're once again fighting over who gets to pull the plug on support of the arts.
@ 45
As I understand it, once the dust settled and everyone had time to set up the usual mutual admiration treaties, Byelorussia and Kazhakhstan were willing to return most or all of their warheads to Russia in return for various commercial and political favors. I'm not sure about Ukraine, but I seem to recall that they kept some. This makes sense to me, since at the time Russia was probably confident that the Russian immigrant population (read "colonists"), especially in the east, would be able to maintain political control. This issue is still in some dispute, as in "we'd have a civil war, but it might piss everyone else off and screw up commerce, so we'll just have riots and assassinate each other."
albatross @ 46
And Bush is a lame duck, who won't be in a position to reward friends and punish enemies past Jan 2009.
Yes, but he still retains one trump card that gives him some coverage for when the wheels start to come off: he has the power to pardon people up to the morning of the next inauguration. And unless I'm recalling incorrectly, it's possible for him to pardon people for deeds committed but undiscovered or prosecuted at that time.
I first read the title as "Bush paternity in denial..."
moe99 at #4: "Talking points memo has put out a call for volunteers to read through the morass. Even though it's anarchy, I rather like the idea that we can all help decipher this."
SETI@home?
“strong U.S. attorneys … who exhibited loyalty” to the administration but above “weak U.S. attorneys who … chafed against administration initiatives, etc.,”
Like, initiatives not to prosecute corrupt Republicans, and initatives to prosecute Democrats on trumped up charges?
The DOJ is just a tool of the current party in power. That *may* change eventually, but for now, no amount of firings are going to change the Republican strategy. If we fire Gonzales, he'll be replaced with someone who'll do the same thing as needed.
Remember Nixon's eighteen minute gap?
The document dump has an eighteen day gap. No emails from November 15th to December 4th.
Hmmmmm....
Paula @ 44
Reread your post and realized I hadn't answered one question. Yes, I think it should be in verse, although most definitely not in heroic verse. Blank verse is probably too close to heroic. So I'm still undecided on what the verse form should be. Come to think of it, has anyone ever written a play in limericks? Bet some Restoration court hanger-on tried it once.
Nina @ #57: That "gap" would be because Bush was in Texas at the ranch for Thanksgiving. Ghods alone know what the rest of the Mis-Administration was doing at that time...
Bruce, #52 -- a lot of the missile fields were in territory that was originally part of Russia before it metastisized in the USSR, and that became Ukraine after. (It's ironic, that the orignal Russia had Kiev as its capital and was what today is Ukraine, while the contemporary Russia had Moscow as capital and consists of territory mostly not part of what started out as Russia). The spaceport where all the attended flights launched/launch from, too, I strongly recall as being in what today is Ukraine.
======
As regards verse for plays--I wouldn't call e.g. A Midsummer Night's Dream or As You Like It, etc., "heroic". And regarding terminology which would get something banned in Ohio, are not the folks here mostly cleverer than that?
Uh-oh, verse daemon started to rise...
(TTTO of the [Illegitimately engendered] King of England...
Oh Karl Rove plots with the chamber pots
For the House and Senate floors
In the White House rooms where he wields the brooms
To sweep to foreign shores.
He's got deep plans and bugged bedpans
And a operation vast,
The courts suborned and those who'd forewarn,
He smears and makes outcast,
He's dirty and lousy and full of slime,
Besmirched all honor with his foul grime
God save we people from the Bush Gang!
[maybe more later...]
[Note to Teresa, regarding conversation at Boskone -- the words/sound of word/rhythm/meter and the tune hit together, theres' a synergy involved where the rhythm/meter and the word-sounds and concepts interact/drive one another, and with the particular concatenation, there may or may not be an extant tune and lyrics pattern that is/are congruent/work synergistically... working to a specific form to forcefit something to isn't generally comfortable to me, something bubbles up that comes with a piece of pattern for any or all of rhythm, meter, intonation, and tune, and concept...]
Lizzie at #25:
Gloating is unChristian.
I'm with the late great Molly Ivins on this: "My momma may have raised a mean child, but she raised no hypocrite." This has been a long time coming, and I intend to savor it, while poking my senators to keep the ball rolling.
Meanwhile, when the bums get thrown out and the Religious Right loses those allies, I hope Starbucks will stop putting the following text on its cups...
"...Darwinism's connection with eugenics, abortion and racism is a matter of historical record. And the record is not pretty..."
I made it QUITE clear that I didn't appreciate (and said something referring to anti-evolutionists as 'morons') and demanded another cup. I was much happier with the pro-evolution cup.
SPECIAL BULLETIN:
Folks, please call your Senators and Representatives and tell them to demand that Rove and Miers testify under oath.
If you don't know their phone numbers, you can call the Congressional switchboard (1-800-459-1887 or 1-202-224-3121) and ask to be connected to their office.
Senator Arlen Specter's office is keeping a tally on this, so if you're one of his constituents *PLEASE* call.
(For those who remember Watergate, TPMMuckraker has discovered an 18 day gap in the email dump from DOJ...)
We now return you to your regularly scheduled Making Light thread...
The worst part of this whole deal is that some of the attorneys appear to have been fired for refusing to interfere in elections. That's been pointed out a few times, but the implications don't seem to have sunk in yet. The DoJ has become an instrument of a political party, acting to ensure the elections of Republicans to various offices.
I really hope thoughtful people start pointing that out just how scary that part really is. Maybe we have to take some of those election-rigging-conspiracy theories a little more seriously.
#62:
There is a historical connection between eugenics and evolution. Think about why you'd start worrying about dysgenic demographics. The question wouldn't even come up until you had the notion of relative fitness, right? I know Ronald Fisher was a big eugenics guy, as was Galton (who started work on IQ tests, fingerprints, and linear regression, among many other things). Given prevailing beliefs at the time, I expect they were probably mostly racist (though I think Fisher was involved in teaching and research with Indian mathematicians, so presumably he wasn't too picky about the whole Aryan purity thing).
Of course, you don't study a scientific theory because of the moral qualities of its inventor or developers. You study it because it's useful in explaining the world and doing things you want to do. Evolution provides an enormously powerful model for understanding the living world.
Moral objections to empirical statements are deeply stupid.
#64:
If the Bush administration gets away with this, then we can expect to see this become part of politics as usual. Only Democratic election-law violations will be prosecuted during Republican administrations, only Republican violations during Democratic administrations.
albatross @ 65... Maybe those 'gentlemen' used Evolution to justify the racism that was already there. Anyway, I deeply resented being forced to put up with anti-evolutionist sentiments. And if it sounds like I overreacted, one of 'them' once tried to run my wife off the road because of our minivan's Darwin Fish, and the local reinforcement did nothing about it beyond suggesting that we remove the Fish.
As a Federal employee, one of the DOJ emails really annoys me:
Rove and crew had a chart that tracked how loyal certain US Attorneys were to Bush!!!
And guess what? The 8 that were fired weren't (and I quote) "Loyal Bushies."
This is a clear violation of the Civil Service Act -- your party affiliation or lack of one is not supposed to have any bearing on hiring or retention.
Tim #64
Six and a half years after the elections in 2000 and the orchestrated campaign by Repugnicraps to remove/keep off/last-resort-confuse-or-outright-deny those in demographics seen as voting for Democratic candidates off-the-voting-rolls/from-voting, and you only know consider "election rigging conspiracy theories a little more seriously"?!!
What's the probability that removing people who live in areas that vote heavily Democratic, from the voting rolls without informing them because their names (but not domicile/residence street addresses and Social Security numbers and jobs...) match those of convicted felons, and then refusing to reinstate them as voters without MONTHS of effort (long past election day...) is "random" occurrence? What's the probability that the butterfly ballot that misled more than 3000 elderly Jews in Florida retirement communities into poking holes in their ballots (some of them writing in Gore and having it be ignored to point out who they THOUGHT they were voting for) that did NOT match the sample ballots published in the West Palm Beach newspaper (my sources about that included my parents were were in one of those retirement communities at the time) that went to Pat Robertson? I would have seen 30 to 50 of those votes going to Robertson, but NOT 3000, particularly not those who were WWII veterans or suriving spouses or siblings of WWII veterans....
Then there was the recount done of all the Florida ballots, paid for by a consortium of newspapers, that took what, ten or more months, to complete, after getting legal access to the ballots.. and the results clearly and unambiguously were that by the Florida laws regarding voting, Gore WON the vote for President in Florida in 2000.
Then there were the squelched objections to allegations of vote fraud and irregularities, ballot boxes which partisan Repugnicrap hacks in Ohio took custody of between the close of voting and when the ballots were counted, there were the Diebold machines which MIT and Caltech and other computer scientists have gone on record stating that the equipment has no validity and no validity checking available and no audit trail whatsoever with regards to a) preventing tampering, b)recording instances of attempting tampering, c) record any/all instances of tampering and effects of the tampering, d) provide auditable recording and trail of voting done, and e) provide audit trail to validate results.
One of the bases of "security" involved in e.g. safes, is to make tampering -detectable- and -obvious. Another is to have a record of what went into the safe, to be able to compare contents after break-in, with contents before the breakin... and last but not least, having the record of what have have been "compromised" that was in there that the breakers-in could have looked at... The Diebold stuff did NONE of that. The contracts were awarded presumably based on political contacts and without paying any attention to Good Security Practice, validity checking, auditing, audit trail, computer security specialists...
It is NOT that nobody knows anything about computer security, it's that the computer security experts were apparently deliberately and intentionally excluded, despite their expressing objections and grave concerns--and the trail of "how" goes all the way to the top of the US Executive Branch of government, with its to-me-looks=deliberate complete and utter failure to implement and require the most basic computer and electronic device security measures defined by the US Goverment DECADES again to inplement "data security" and auditing...
(note, I have some relevant professional credentials in the area, including have once been a system administator on a locked-up secure computer system, working with computer systems that included ones inside Cheyenne Mountain that handled classified data, and having done e.g. a research study/report on "trusted" operating perating systems' applicability for realtime operating systems for market research company I can't think of the name of at the moment, and wrote the draft version of what became a column in Real Time Computing on the topic based on summarizing some of the content of the study)
Paula Lieberman writes in #60:
Bruce, #52 -- a lot of the missile fields were in territory that was originally part of Russia before it metastisized in the USSR, and that became Ukraine after. (It's ironic, that the orignal Russia had Kiev as its capital and was what today is Ukraine, while the contemporary Russia had Moscow as capital and consists of territory mostly not part of what started out as Russia).
Interesting. I didn't know that.
The spaceport where all the attended flights launched/launch from, too, I strongly recall as being in what today is Ukraine.
Pardon my nitpick, Paula: Not Ukraine, but Kazakhstan.
Usage point 1: all my life, we referred to "the Ukraine." This seems to be changing. Here's a guy who thinks we should stop. Paula has already adapted.
Usage point 2: Now I know what at least one feminist space professional of my acquaintance prefers to "manned space flight." Attended.
I'm reminded of the story in a an old Groff Conklin anthology, "Basic Right" which has the comment that one expect the vile and greedy to act vilely and greedily....
That's why I want the US Executive Branch decapitated of the Schmuck, Cheney, Rove, Gonzales, Rice, and their legions of beholden appartchiks, and all their appointees vetted very carefully and purged if there are questions....
What do you think the possibilities are that W will refuse to leave office when is time is up?
Bill, #70... "attended was standard usage for a while in the late 1970s/early and for a number of years 1980s. When the rightwing assholes sexist shitheads of Reagan-Bush-rightwing-Christian-Dominionists-misogynists grabbed more and more power and control however, part of their revisionism and control politic was to revert "attended" to "manned" -- their goal of removing women from any position other than Kinder Kuche Kirche and the specially exempted exceptions Specially Privileged Graced Bitch Queen Bee like Phyllis Schlafly, Elaine Donnelly, Michelle Malkin, Beverly LaHaye, and what's-her-name-who-went-too-far-last-week-and-has-been-purged-as-columist-by-a-lot-of-papers hypcritical shills for the suppression generally of women as other than subservient domestic Happislaves/fulfilled housewives (there are women for whom the domestic manager is emotionally ideal and intellectually satisfying... there are also adult males that such a life is a rewarding life for... but there's a difference between fulfillment in free choice choosing a domestic life one finds worthwhile, and being forced into a life that's as comfortable and satisfying and self-actualizing as being tortured in an Iron Maiden...).
The game of changing the words and debasing, is one that the rightwing fascists use as a lifestyle for marginalization, disempowering, removal, etc. Having been 3 or 4 years old and achieving hatred and detestation of "no women in space" in the early 1960s, I have been averse essentially my entire life, to being DEFINED out of existence and marginalized as regards interest in math, science, and spacecraft and rockets and wanting to be a space traveler. I do NOT take kindly to dream destroyers who regard PLUMBING as destiny....
As regards the change from "the Ukraine" to "Ukraine," I recall that that country when it separated itself out of the former USSR, made it clear publically that it want the "the" gone... Though it sounded weird to me, I dutifully have made the attempt to drop the the.
Bill Higgins @70: Usage point 1: all my life, we referred to "the Ukraine."
Similarly, though it disappeared half a generation earlier, "the Lebanon".
Paula... In French, the word used to refer to space missions with people onboard translates as 'inhabited'.
#74, John Aspinall
Was that "the Lebanon" or "the Levant"? They're not the same thing, one's a country, the other's a region. I can't remember ever seeing or hearing "the Lebanon," it's been "Lebanon" for as far back as I can remember hearing/reading (and I've been reading for literally half a century).
I remember a George Will column going on at great length about how we ought to be saying "Ukraine" instead of "The Ukraine". (Yes, an entire column! I'm sure that the following week he had a column railing about how those oversensitive liberals shouldn't be so politically correct as to worry about what people are called, but I digress.)
At the time, the main thing I was wondering was: does he think it's a distinction that can even be expressed in Ukranian? I'm 99% sure that it can't. Russian doesn't have definite articles, after all, and Ukranian and Russian are similar enough that I'm pretty sure that means Ukranian doesn't either.
Matt @ 77... Correct. My Ukrainian co-worker never refers to the land of her birth as the Ukraine.
Sorry Lori (#68), Civil Service protections don't apply to political appointments, which the 93 U. S. Attorneys are. They are routinely fired and replaced at the beginning of an administration, at least when parties change hands.
However, they haven't been fired in the middle of a term before except for gross misconduct. That might lead to a conflict of interest between keeping their job and protecting the Constitution.
The other thing that's new is that until the P. A. T. R. I. O. T. Act, they had to be confirmed by Congress. The P. A. T. R. I. O. T. act gave Gonzales the power to appoint new U. S. Attorneys for 120 days, on the theory that tewwists might assassinate a U. S. Attorney at a time when there just wasn't time for Congressional approval. Then there was the recent change that made Attorney General appointments permanent, which some Congresscritters claim they didn't notice before voting on it. Gonzales still has right to appoint U. S. Attorneys "permanently" for about another week, but that train is heading back into the station retroactively.
There was an interesting memo I heard about on the radio this morning asking "What good is this power if we don't use it." Apparently not everyone in the administration believes in this tewwist nonsense.
This just showed up on FireDogLake, and I thought some of you might appreciate it:
"Evidently, (the President) ...wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape, or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.
"Chances are that the courts will hurl such a claim out, but it will take time.
"One gets the impression that... (the Administration) ...values its survival more than most people want justice and thus will delay without qualm. But as the clock ticks, the public's faith in... (the President) ...will ebb away for a simple reason:
"Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold -- the rule of law."
That was written by Tony Snow, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the column was published on March 29, 1998.
Now, in light of the current situation, tell us what you really think of Executive Privilege, Mr. Snow?
Paula @76:
I think the region vs country thing is the key point. Region "The XYZ" becomes country "XYZ".
See e.g. a diary dating from 1905 for usage of "the Lebanon".
#80: Beautiful.
If he doesn't admit he's waffling, I think we should start calling him Yellow Snow.
I think I erred in (#79) on one point. As far as I can tell from Wikipedia, the 120-day appointment power predates this administration, and was not changed by the original P. A. T. R. I. O. T. Act, only the 2006 revision.
Dan @83 -- One of Senator Specter's aides (Tolman) slipped the 120-day appointment language into the 2006 revision of the Patriot Act.
Mr. Tolman was appointed to one of the vacancies caused by the firings, in the US Attorney's office in Utah. So now we know what his price is...
Yesterday, the Senate voted to rescind the language regarding the appointment of US Attorneys -- 94-2.
Romney campaign goes Godwin's Law...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17718509/
My willing suspension of belief takes a hit, even though this allegedly really is Real Life.... bad fantasy novels have to be saner, they have to be....
Oops, #85 should have gone into a different thread...
all my life, we referred to "the Ukraine."
ISTR that "ukraine" means something like "border" in Russian. Referring to "the border" kind of makes sense. Also it's pronounced along the lines of "oo-krai-in-ya."
It might be because we only get the juicy bits of news over here, but is `disgraced' becoming part of the job description for working in the Bush administration? Not that I'm complaining, you understand...
"Krai" - borderlands; hence also "Krajina" in former Yugoslavia. ("Crimea" is different.)
Clownface declared that he wouldn't allow his honest, worthy senior adivsors to be subpoenaed. He will block any such subpoenas.
When Nixon declared the same thing, the Chairman of the Investigative committee (Sam Irwin?) said if they didn't comply with the subpoenas they would be hauled to the committee under arrest.
This time around there are the Blackwater mercs.
Minds kinda tending toward conspiracy might think that is the strategy and objective behind our ill-equipped, ill-cared for, ill-paid and under staffed military. Seeing the Blackwater mercs in their spooky outfits, so beautifully supplied and cared for, so marvelously paid -- the troops join them. Already trained, training paid for by the U.S. taxpayer. Probably taking their weapons with them too.
Blackwater guards the Big Fishies over in Iraq. There are something like over a 100 private mercenary forces there. Blackwater is just the largest -- and incidently owned by bush's really good friend and fellow-Christian.
Mercs aren't constrained by anything other than bigger guns.
Maybe.
The tales we heard about those guys down in New Orleans and their behaviors there chill the blood.
CN at 72, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. I base this on my Rush Limpbough listening, brainwashed right wing now-very-ex boyfriend's fear that Clinton wouldn't leave office in 2000. The Republicans fear that the Democrats may do what they, the Republicans know they would do.
Constance wrote -
Mercs aren't constrained by anything other than bigger guns.
Maybe.
The tales we heard about those guys down in New Orleans and their behaviors there chill the blood.
There are other factors. Most of these guys are ex-US military (often ex-Special Operations - the pay is a LOT better). There's going to be - in some of them, at least - a hesitancy to fight guys in uniforms they once wore - in some cases (and depending on who gets called in - units that get deployed in 24 hours can also frequently get *undeployed* in 24 hours if it has to be done), they will be fighting former comrades. This won't stop some - but it will others.
Others are just going to say 'fuck this for a game of soldiers' and head their asses on home, or to sign up with another unit - this has always been one problem with mercenary armies - past a certain level of hopelessness, they are sometimes less concerned with a positive outcome, and more impressed with saving their own ass. Again - this won't remove all of them. But it will some.
Others will be constrained by their own personal code, or by fear of retribution, or by any of a host of other reasons. Will this be enough to remove Blackwater from the playing field - no. But it will weaken them, will cause hesitancy - and if the wrong guys were to get heroic at the wrong time, it's...problematic.
The mistake, in looking at any hierarchical structure, is assuming it moves in lockstep. You see this with talk of revolutions (Oh, the Army will stomp it down, they're just gonna march on over and kill all the rebels), and bureaucracies, and... well, pretty much any large organization. You can talk about trends - but not absolutes.
In this sort of situation, were it really to get that bad, it would, in fact, be the start of a second Civil War (although it might be over very quickly), and you could not - at all - count on the lure of money, flashy uniforms, or pretty much anything else dragging *all* of the military away from their oaths. Maybe not even substantial amounts - I suspect, given the situation, a lot of them would just bugger off for the hills (likely taking their rifles with them), and of those who remained, many would fight against the Administration, or work to keep the military out of the fight altogether*
For every Pvt Steven Green, there's still a Sgt. Terry Karney - the good guys in the military might not be as loud, or as noticeable, but they're still out there.
*(I recall a novel where the premise is a rapidly degrading fascist government in the US, where the military basically says "what goes on inside the borders of the US is the job of your secret police and goon squads - the military is defending the borders, and that's it" - unrealistic if placed in such a bald-faced manner, but it's amazing how orders can be delayed, garbled, mis-interpreted, or lost when they have to be).
There's no "the" in Ukrainian. All Ukrainians I know refer to Ukraine, no the. I do as they do.
The only reference to The Lebanon I know of is the Human League song, though if it used to be The Lebanon that title makes sense now.
Stefan #82: What, and abandon a perfectly good nickname ("Tony Snowjob")?
CN #72: I suspect strongly that the answer lies with to whom he thinks he's turning the keys over; he'll be lots less reluctant to pass the scepter to, say, John McCain than he will to Bill Richardson (the gods willing).
Paula, #73: As regards the change from "the Ukraine" to "Ukraine," I recall that that country when it separated itself out of the former USSR, made it clear publically that it want the "the" gone...
Yes, precisely. And it did seem strange back then when we were used to saying "the Ukraine," but with time and usage "Ukraine" doesn't sound odd at all any more. At least not to me, but then I have an unfair advantage: I belong to several cultural sub-groups in which it's common for people to have "use-names" by which they are generally known, and for said names to change now and then. For a country to do the same is only a matter of scale, not of kind.
Scott Taylor @ 92
I think there's another factor that makes it even more likely the troops opposing the mercs will not stand down or switch sides, and it's something that was caused by the Iraq war itself.
For the first time since the Vietnam war, and to a degree even greater than at that time, the large majority of enlisted personnel in the military, and especially in the Army, Marine Corps, their Reserve units, and the National Guard, have recently been in combat, and are likely to see combat again soon. Even more, they've been in combat as units, fighting alongside the same soldiers they would have with them against the mercs (this was not generally true in Vietnam).
This means that unit cohesion and loyalty is at an all time high. Unit cohesion is affected by a lot of things, but some of the most important are:
How much you trust your buddies to save your ass.
How much you trust your CO not to get you into bad situations, and to be able to get you out if that fails.
How much you trust the other units you fight with.
Being together in combat lets you find out how much you can trust your comrades. More, it provides a strong motive to be trustworthy to them. And so for the other kinds of trust. It's much more difficult to walk away from a buddy or another unit after you've developed that kind of trust (one of the reasons normally sensible people can be induced to go out and get themselves killed).
So I suspect that the only troops that would turn coat or run away in those circumstances are raw recruits or ones who have been disaffected or corrupted by deliberate acts on the part of their commanders or other officers up the chain of command.
Paula @ 60
As regards verse for plays--I wouldn't call e.g. A Midsummer Night's Dream or As You Like It, etc., "heroic".
Yeah, I know what you mean, but that's the technical term. Heroic verse (in English) is rhymed iambic pentameter. In Greek it's dactylic hexameter. I don't know any other languages the term is used for.
And that may be why you sometimes see blank verse sneered at by critics and scholars. Not being rhymed, it's not "heroic."
George Bush has issued a strong statement of support for his longtime friend, disgraced Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The White House also denied that it was looking into possible successors.
My first thought was, this means he'll be gone in a week. Wasn't it yours? Don't these guys always put their arms around your shoulder so nobody will see them stick in the shiv?
Apparently, Democrats are the ones in denial, according to one of the... er... 'news' items on Comcast.net's web page.
"...Believing they have been given a clear mandate from voters, Democrats are trying to challenge President Bush on the Iraq war while struggling to find enough votes to do it..."
Tehanu @ 98
Don't these guys always put their arms around your shoulder so nobody will see them stick in the shiv?
You've got to hug and kiss the victim so the assassin can identify him for the kill.
You know, maybe finding out just how disgusting these bozos are when you pull the rock up so you can see will persuade people to stop romanticizing vileness like the Mafia.
Tehanu @ 98: Well, another week would just about get them to the March end-of-the-month Security Incident in Boston.
The juxtaposition of comments 8 and 9 was kind of amusing.
I'm fond of this quote:
Evidently, Mr. Clinton wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.
Chances are that the courts will hurl such a claim out, but it will take time.
One gets the impression that Team Clinton values its survival more than most people want justice and thus will delay without qualm. But as the clock ticks, the public's faith in Mr. Clinton will ebb away for a simple reason: Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold -- the rule of law.
The author? Tony Snow. Wonder if anybody in the press room will call him on it.
#96: Aren't you assuming that the CO won't turn and take the unit with him? If there's enough doubletalk and reasonable-sounding propaganda, soldiers who aren't lawyers may not even know which side is in the right. All they know for sure is which side the Praetorian Guard, er, Blackwater is on.
And that's assuming he can't get 5 votes on the Supreme Court to stay in office - he got them to *get* in office, didn't he? If Bush suspends elections someone will take it to the SC, but if they rule in favor of Bush, then he can point to two branches of government that are on his side (even though one of those branches is him and the other is mostly people appointed by him, his dad and his dad's then-boss).
Granted, there's his immense unpopularity, and the soldiers all know that he's the guy who stuck them in Iraq without adequate equipment, support or even a clear military mission, and most of them probably know it was based on deliberately falsified intelligence too.
But on paper they still take orders from him right up until someone else is elected and sworn in or he is impeached and convicted or dead, so I wouldn't count on a general mutiny while the lawyers are still arguing about whether or not he's exceeding his authority (let alone if he gets SC imprimatur). I think you may be underestimating military training and indoctrination's ability to instill commitment to the chain of command. The people at the top of that chain are there because Bush *put* them there, and after the US Attorney scandal, I don't think we should have any doubts about *why* he put those particular generals in charge.
And that's *without* another Reichstag fire to lend him the appearance of legitimacy and stampede people into following his lead "during the present crisis".
Yes, it all sounds like conspiracy-theory stuff. Discrediting conspiracy theories is awfully useful to people who really are conspiring to subvert the Constitution...
Chris @ 104
Judges tend to get unhappy when politicians start telling them how to do their jobs. It isn't a sure thing that Shrub would get 5 votes from the Supremes this time around.
I don't think we have to go back to statements made back during the Clinton Years to find illogic. I mean, if the President feels that nothing wrong happened, and that nobody was lying, why should his people fear to be put on record, under oath, and in front of cameras. After all, don't they keep telling us that we shouldn't worry about the various eavesdropping and spying revelations because we aren't criminals?
Oh, there's a whole host of petards being hoisted this season.
"[this may be the] tip of the iceberg" -- Sen Edward Kennedy interviewed on WBZ radio this morning.
Compare and contrast with the events and activities and commentaries and actions leading into and occurring during the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton....
HYPOCRITE CARCAJOUS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!
And nebbishish Democrats....
I want hearings into the investigations terminated with the removals of the investigating attorneys--e.g., the termination of the investigation of Abramoff's dealings regarding the Marianas and the essentially slave labor factories there and Republican national legislators, the termination of the investigations leading out of Cunningham, what about Ney wasn't there an investigation touching on him that got suddenly discontinued?
Where's the House Ethics Committee looking into all the issues that DeLay and associates
Comments on Bush patently in denial over Gonzales: