“Purely from a strategic point of view, this is another mess…Every time Republicans think they have an issue to unite them and divide the Democrats, the Republicans end up spending most of the time fighting among themselves.” As fear-mongering and falling oil prices perhaps help the GOP get back in the race this November, the WP surveys the political implications of the recent stand of principle by Senators Warner, McCain, Graham, and Snowe against Dubya’s grotesque tribunal plan. Politics or no, Dubya’s proposed gutting of the Geneva Conventions must be stopped: “‘What is being billed as “clarifying” our treaty obligations will be seen as “withdrawing” from the treaty obligations,’ Graham said. ‘It will set precedent which could come back to haunt us.'”
Category: The Dubya Era
Trip through your Wires.
“We should see the administration’s bill for what it is: a shattering assault on our constitutional system of checks and balances. It seeks to inaugurate an age of presidential supremacy over fundamental rights, without effective control by Congress or the courts. The Senate should reject it decisively when it comes to the floor in the coming weeks.” Yale professor Bruce Ackerman decries Dubya’s recent wiretapping bill, which recently passed out of committee on a party-line vote. (Thanks, Arlen.)
Arlen’s Tap Dance.
“Despite the Administration’s stonewalling, the Judiciary Committee, which knows even less about the program than the Intelligence Committee, today approved legislation that would not only legalize a program that the Committee does not understand but would also completely gut the FISA law…Expanding executive power at the request of a president who has shown such deep disrespect for the rule of law is exactly the wrong thing to do.” Checks and balances? Bah, humbug. At Dubya’s mandate — and despite Democratic attempts to limit the damage — Spineless Specter and the GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee approve legislation legalizing the NSA’s warrantless wiretap program. As the ACLU summed it up: “Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee acted as a rubber stamp for the administration’s abuse of power.” For shame.
Novak speaks Plamely.
“First, Armitage did not, as he now indicates, merely pass on something he had heard and that he ‘thought’ might be so. Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked, and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former Amb. Joseph Wilson.” In his column this week, DoL Robert Novak finally comes clean about the Plamegate leak, and his version suggests leaker Richard Armitage knew exactly what he was doing when he told Novak about Valerie Plame.
The Shame of Kazakhstan.
Now, in our country there is problem. Despite being British, Sasha Baron Cohen, a.k.a. Borat, sparks a mild diplomatic situation between the US and Kazakhstan, one that the administration will try to alleviate with White House talks. To be honest, I think I’d prefer Borat representing my country over Dubya.
Fear Factor.
“The power of his rhetoric is in marked decline…We are losing a war right now, and there is no way to get around that.” Five years after the 9/11 attacks, Dubya and the GOP are once again in full “terror, terror, terror, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11” mode. But, really, what can you expect? Other than going virulently negative, it’s the only trick these jokers have left. If we let them pull it again this November, shame on us.
Evildoers in Utah?
“Blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism. A patriot does not tell people who are intensely concerned about their country to just sit down and be quiet; to refrain from speaking out in the name of politeness or for the sake of being a good host; to show slavish, blind obedience and deference to a dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights-violating president.” By way of Looka, even the reddest state in the nation is turning blue: Check out this fiery speech given last week by Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson.
Al Liars.
“‘Saddam only expressed negative sentiments about bin Laden,’ the former Iraqi foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, told the Federal Bureau of Investigation when he was asked about Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda’s leader…’He specified that if he wanted to cooperate with the enemies of the U.S., he would have allied with North Korea or China,’ says a passage in the nearly 400-page report.” A new Senate intelligence report confirms what has become patently obvious: There was no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda before the war. “Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a member of the committee, said the long-awaited report was ‘a devastating indictment of the Bush-Cheney administration’s unrelenting, misleading and deceptive attempts’ to link Saddam to al-Qaida.”
Armitage Wide Open.
“‘I feel terrible,’ Armitage said. ‘Every day, I think, I let down the president. I let down the secretary of state. I let down my department, my family, and I also let down Mr. and Mrs. Wilson.‘” Speaking of coming clean, Dick Armitage admits he was the Plame leaker (after having been outed by Mike Isikoff and David Corn last week.)
Prison Break.
After fierce debate among the neocons, Dubya comes clean about the CIA’s secret prisons (outed by the Post last November) and moves the detainees held therein to Gitmo. But don’t think this moment of clarity means King George is playing it straight just yet: He’s also asking Congress to sidestep recent court decisions and grant him power to continue wiretapping without warrants and to torture alleged evildoers with impunity. And even moderate Republicans and military lawyers have issues with his recent attempts to deny suspected terrorists due process.
Update: Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick has more: “The speech teemed with all the rhetorical wizardry you might expect of a do-over. Bush justified torture and extraordinary rendition while denying that they exist. He stuck a fork in the eye of the Supreme Court while agreeing to be bound by the majority’s decision. He conceded that Congress should play a role in creating military tribunals while demanding that it greenlight his plan.“