Hope is not a plan

Mr. Bush --

I am writing to let you know that I am stunned by your failure as a president. I may have disagreed, sometimes severely, with the policy decisions and ethos of presidents prior to you, but none of them have been so stunningly incompetent. It is distressing to see the damaging effect you have had on our nation.

Before we went to war in Iraq, I believed that they possessed chemical and biological weapons and intended to make more. After the fact, I probably would have believed you if you, like David Kay, simply said "We made a mistake." But I can only conclude now that you willfully misrepresented many things in an effort to start a war with the intent of restructuring the Middle East.

Leaving that aside, your failure to address reality in your execution of the war and subsequent rebuilding of Iraq has led to many deaths among our soldiers and civilians and has now created a training area for Islamic militants. The situation can still be resolved successfully, if you or someone else -- with more competence than you have shown to date -- will actually define goals with associated metrics of success and failure.

The present crisis has convinced me that you are not specifically incompetent at foreign affairs but are, in fact, generally a failure. You said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did appreciate a serious storm but these levees got breached and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will."

I don't know if this was a willful misrepresentation to deflect blame, or if you were on vacation and couldn't be bothered to do research, but your statement is untrue. People were concerned about the failure to do upkeep of the levies, and of your dramatic funding cuts to same. Emergency preparedness exercises for New Orleans expected storm surges that would exceed the height of the current levees, flooding the city. Many, many people anticipated this problem, and worked very hard without your help to try and prevent the death of New Orleans.

You, sir, are personally incompetent, and you are dragging a good country down with you.

But there is still hope.

My simple advice is this -- try very hard to learn how to do the job. Stop making excuses for your failures. Stop setting up photo opportunities and scripted appearances. Stop bragging about your emergency measures when people are dying and CNN is more up-to-date than your emergency agency. Stop going on vacation -- the job is only yours for another few years, then you can retire.

Please do this right now. You're killing a great nation.

Sent today. I am angry.

Mr. Bush--

In your weekly radio address, you said this:

"All Americans can be certain our nation has the character, the resources, and the resolve to overcome this disaster. We will comfort and care for the victims. We will restore the towns and neighborhoods that have been lost in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. We'll rebuild the great city of New Orleans. And we'll once again show the world that the worst adversities bring out the best in America."

This is all true. Our nation does have the character, resources and resolve to overcome this disaster. Your ill-timed vacation and sick fascination with covering yourself and enriching a small group of allies curtailed our nation's response. The people on the ground did their jobs, when they were allowed to. Ordinary Americans, myself included, have donated to the effort to save lives. But because of your thoughtlessness, hundreds have died who could have been saved -- who had rescuers ready and able to save them, if only you'd led the way.

It is true that we, ordinary Americans, will comfort and care for victims -- even the relatives of those who died because you refused to act or listen, and have crippled our nation's emergency response.

We will restore these towns and neighborhoods, many of which might not have been lost had levees been maintained as they should. We will restore them even though many of their residents are dead, and many more have had their livelihoods destroyed. We will do this, of course, without any expectation of help from you. Unless we are, perhaps, already quite wealthy and due for a tax break.

The worst adversities do bring out the best in America -- at least, in the true Americans I know. So far, it has brought out the worst in you. Instead of strong, decisive leadership, you have given us craven weakness trying to hide itself from blame. You preach sacrifice then make sure that you and your friends need never face that sacrifice.

You're going to have many years after your term expires to consider your career as President. Your father can look back at his time and say that he did the best he could. You can never do this, but you have a few years left to try and come as near as possible. Perhaps you could ask your father for advice; right now, I have to assume you don't, for he was never the kind of all-encompassing failure that you have been.

You have only a few more years to get it right. Buckle down, actually listen, learn and think and make a positive difference.

I didn't vote for you, but I damn well pay your salary. So figure it out and get it right.

Sent today. Still angry. Donated money to the Red Cross yesterday.

Read Tim's essay Robbing America on the role of government in making us what we are today -- and how that's changed.

Here's an email from one of my relatives in Scotland about this mess:

New Orleans disaster

Your message about the shambles of the reaction to the hurricane damage confirms the dreadful scenes being watched on television by the rest of the world. The awful first impressions of the pathetic rescue attempts at State and Federal levels were that more emphasis was placed on protecting property than on caring for the people -- looting can be condoned when people are thirsty and hungry, after all, stealing unusable items is of little consequence, particularly when there is no power or gas supplies available. Care of the masses should be the prime purpose of any government and a five day delayed fly-over by the president is hardly a sign of dedicated commitment by the executive.

A letter to the president, inspired by the prior post:

Mr. Bush --

"They can't stand elections; the thought of people voting is anathema to them."

You said this recently while warning of a possible upswing in violence before the constitutional referendum in Iraq. Though the threat of violence is real, your thinking isn't, and that must change if we're going to succeed in Iraq.

You say that "voting is anathema" to the Iraqi insurgents. I say that I'm sick of this kind of magical thinking that couches the conflict in terms of some sword-and-sorcery fantasy story. Voting isn't anathema to the insurgents -- they don't burst into flame at the sight of a free election and wither into nothingness when a ballot is cast. They have, instead, rationally determined that they can best achieve their end goal, be it a Sunni Iraq or a worldwide caliphate, by targeting the construction of a working, civil society.

I'm deeply disturbed that a violent sect that wants the world to live under medieval Islam nonetheless thinks more clearly than you do. This is not a fantasy world, you are not the hero and the insurgents are not evil goblins. They're thinking carefully and choosing their best possible course of action.

Are you?

Bush spoke to the National Endowment to Democracy. You can read the full text of his speech here, and read about the speech here.

Some bits and thoughts in the extended. First, though, the line that defines Bush's bizarre, messianic worldview:

The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity.

Excuse me? Their war against humanity? They are not demons. They are not aliens. They are people from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and elsewhere who have a political goal that conflicts with our goals, and they are willing to kill people to achieve that goal. They are bad men, but they are NOT AT WAR WITH HUMANITY. That's foolish and puerile.

Okay, one more front-page bit here:

Some have also argued that extremism has been strengthened by the actions of our coalition
in Iraq, claiming that our presence in that country has somehow caused or triggered the rage
of radicals. I would remind them that we were not in Iraq on September the 11th, 2001 -- and
al Qaeda attacked us anyway. The hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue,
and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse. The government of Russia did not support
Operation Iraqi Freedom, and yet the militants killed more than 180 Russian schoolchildren in
Beslan

That's grotesque. The murderers who hit Beslan did it because the Russians are occupying their homeland. Of course that has nothing to do with our being in Iraq. That's a straw man argument that is intensely disrespectful to those killed in Beslan.

A letter will likely follow, but I don't have time for it right now. Again, more speech notes in the extended.

The Constitution of the United States of America defines "treason" very specifically in Clause 3, Section 2 of Article III:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Based on the charges against him, Lewis Libby wouldn't fall under this definition, and it's pretty much a given that no one will be tried for this crime, which is reserved largely for wartime. But someone in the hierarchy decided on and approved of the identification of one of our own covert agents. What could that do but give "Aid and Comfort" to our enemies?

Even though there will be no conviction for treason as defined in the Constitution, this is treason, pure, willful and malicious. Small men betrayed one of our own in an act of pointless revenge.

From the Press briefing on the President's FY 2007 budget:

Q: Several years ago, General Shinseki was chastised for suggesting that the war in Iraq might cost upwards of $200 million. Larry Lindsey got in some hot water, too. Now with the cost of the war up around $300 billion or so, is it time to apologize to these guys for being, if anything, conservative in their estimates?

DIRECTOR BOLTEN: I'll leave that to others. I don't think so. The costs of the war are what they are. It's been a very expensive undertaking and essential undertaking in the fight in the global war on terror. The President has committed to provide our fighting men and women what they need to prosecute this war correctly and as safely as they possibly can. That's what our budgets provide.

This answer is a nonsequitur. Imagine that exchange translated into a business setting. If a consulting firm sacked the two people who had the best estimate, then came to you after their new estimate washed out and said, "Business costs are what they are," you'd minimally fire them, and might well sue them for their negligence and deceit. It's a meaningless comment that steps around the fundamental problem that not only were their earlier estimates off, they trashed the two people who generated "unpleasant" estimates that ended up being more accurate.

Adding the pseudopatriotic mention of providing "our fighting men and women what they need to prosecute this war correctly and as safely as they possibly can" is disgusting, especially when those same fighting men and women are stuck using inferior body armor because of a sweetheart procurement deal.

Mr. President –

I am troubled.

I am troubled by your words, and troubled by your actions.

I am troubled that you can both declare that our mission is accomplished, and then stress that our young men and women absolutely must remain at war.

I am troubled that you say that we must be strong, then do your best to make our people weak and fearful with your rhetoric.

I am troubled that you claim to be fighting for democracy and against totalitarian rule, yet condone torture.

I am troubled that, because of your failings, our nation is being crippled.

Consider Iraq. When you claimed an imminent threat, I believed you. When that threat dissolved after the invasion, I could have forgiven you for being wrong. When you lied to America and told us that you'd succeeded in deposing a dictator just as you'd meant to all along, I lost all respect for you. Was that your real reason? Was that a cover? We can't know, because your story keeps changing to avoid admitting failure, without realizing that this indecisive stall and switch is the true failure.

Consider America. Are we strong, or are we weak? Must we be courageous, or should we listen to your hammering message of fear, pounded out in cynical rhythm with your chief advisor's desperate need to keep your party in power? How is it that you can say we face the Hitler of our times, yet eschew Roosevelt's famous depression-era admonition that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?" The President who led us to victory against Hitler certainly did not agree with your approach. Allow me to include the entire first paragraph of this great President's inaugural address:

"I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days."

Have you read and truly considered these words? Have you considered the strength it would represent to have actual convictions, stand by them, and trust that the value of those convictions and of your actions would be enough to earn the people's faith?

I do not appreciate what you are doing to our country. I do not appreciate that you exhibit such a crude failure of good citizenship that you believe that sidestepping the Constitution can save our nation. I am troubled that you do not understand that the spirit and ideals of our nation are the United States. It is not just a matter of protecting our physical borders, or making sure we have enough fuel. You are failing in these tasks, too, but fundamentally, you fail because you sell our ideals, and you sell them cheaply.

This is not simply a matter of disagreement. I have disagreed with every President before you, in one way or another. I disagreed with your father on many issues, but at the end of the day, I still respect him.

I cannot respect you. You send our troops to die, tell our people to cower, and throw away the spirit of our nation, and I do not understand why.

(Mailed and emailed today.)

Tony Snow's press conference today was, unsurprisingly, about deflecting criticism of President Bush and his administration. Some gems:

Q Tony, in 2003, the President said very clearly that we will not tolerate North Korea with nuclear weapons.

MR. SNOW: I'm not sure anything went wrong. The failed diplomacy is on the part of the North Koreans because what they have done so far is turn down a series of diplomatic initiatives that would have given them everything they have said they wanted, which was the ability to have adequate power for their country, to have economic growth, to have diplomatic ties with other countries, and to have security guarantees. All of that was included in the September 19th agreement of last year. And yet they've walked away from all of it. So if there's a failure in diplomacy, it's on their part.

Maybe it makes Snow feel better to blame this problem on North Korea, but that's a pretty inane deflection. The pressure to succeed or fail in diplomacy has never been on their heads -- it's been on ours. Anything that leaves them in a position of holding the rest of the world at bay is a success for the government of the DPRK.

Q But, Tony, results -- I'm trying to get you to focus on results. You invaded a country that had no nuclear weapons and all the while a country further developed their nuclear capacity.

MR. SNOW: No, I think it is. People have been trying to assess. But you know what, I'll take the worst case scenario as you've placed it, okay? Number one, we invaded a country that was directly involved in a war on terror, that was paying off terrorists, that was making direct threats. That was one thing. And we went ahead and we dealt with a terrorist threat, and, frankly, the world is safer off without Saddam Hussein.

It's not surprising that Snow continues the "Iraq was about terror" lie, even though you can pick it apart as you read it. "Paying off terrorists" refers to payments Hussein made to the families of suicide bombers in Israel. As unpleasant as that is, it's also not a threat to the United States. Israel never asked us to handle that for them, so that's a highly dubious "reason" for a war. Iraq also was no longer making any threats, and repeatedly claimed to not have weapons of mass destruction. Although I think it was legitimate to imagine that the prior Iraqi regime had WMDs based on past performance, we now know that the Bush administration willfully used single-source and discredited reports that supported its desire to invade Iraq while carefully avoiding information suggesting that there was no need for an invasion.

...and, as the reporter points out, we let North Korea develop its program in the meantime.

Q Just one more, I just want to be clear. You're suggesting the Clinton approach was appeasement?

MR. SNOW: No, what I'm saying is that in the past what has happened is the attempt to say to the North Koreans -- because I think the Clinton administration, again, tried something and it was worth trying, which is to say, okay, we're going to give you a bunch of carrots: You guys renounce; we're going to try to give you a light-water breeder reactor, we'll give you incentives. And the North Koreans took it and ran away with it. What has also happened is that in response to bad behavior in the past, people have said, you know, what we'll do is we'll increase aid, we'll increase trade.

He's lying. The Clinton administration threatened North Korea with destruction for misbehaving. That was the stick that balanced the carrot of aid. In contrast, the Bush administration has made nonspecific threats, first uninterested in and then afraid of North Korea.

A very good question follows:

Q Okay, a couple of things you've just said -- you've said that you've got to approach this diplomatically, you've got millions of people who are starving to death there under a repressive regime, which is pretty much what you had in Iraq and we invaded. What's the difference here?

MR. SNOW: Because in the case of Iraq we had exhausted all diplomatic possibilities. We're just exploring them now in the case of North Korea. We're going to approach --

Though Snow tries to pretend the reporter wants war with North Korea, the reporter quickly returns it to the true question -- given the similarities, why did we go to war with Iraq, but not North Korea?

Q Looking back, is there anything that the President would have done differently? Does he believe he has made any mistakes in this?

MR. SNOW: No, it's a silly question.

Snow considers this silly because it will always result in headlines that suggest the president is admitting mistakes and didn't do his best. Fair enough. However...

Q The notion that that's a silly question, when you have a President who draws a red line three years ago and says, we will not tolerate nuclear weapons, and now you have a country that just tested a nuclear weapon -- you don't think it's fair to ask for some accountability as to what happened, or that there were mistakes made?

MR. SNOW: David, the accountability lies in North Korea, not in Washington.

Once again, nothing that happens in this situation is the President's fault. Of course not. Mind you, when something turns out well, it will be heralded as a great success on his part. That's duplicitous.

You can read the full press conference here.

A group of Methodist ministers from across the nation launched an online petition drive Thursday urging Southern Methodist University to stop trying to land George W. Bush's presidential library.

They're trying to prevent the linking of a well-known Methodist institution with Bush's name, as well as the establishment an associated think tank that would be "dedicated to the philosophy of the Bush administration."

I don't know how you devote a think tank to covering your ass, but there you go.

You can read more about their effort at their petition site, www.protectsmu.org

CNN article

It's good to write down the promises and claims made during any State of the Union address. As David Kuo can attest, despite repeated claims of support, faith-based initatives were ultimately hung out to dry by a fundamentally uninterested President Bush. In that light, let's look at this year's State of the Union address and tally the promises and claims, in that order.

Overall, the address was unsurprisingly vanilla, choosing only the easiest applause lines, by and large. As many commentators pointed out, too much dead silence or half-hearted applause just wouldn't play well.

The Promises

Balance the Federal budget without raising taxes. As the GAO recently pointed out in an official report, although the 2006 unified budget deficit was lower than the year before, our national liability has more than doubled, from $20 trillion to $50 trillion, since Bush took over. In 2017, Social Security will no longer run a surplus, and then that particular "trick" of budget balancing will no longer be available.

Stop earmarks which amounted to $18 billion in 2005 -- notably, a year when the President's party was in power, and deeply disinclined to talk about this kind of thing. Also note that $18 billion is (1) a good savings and (2) chump change compared to our national deficit. Still, this is an easy claim for him to support -- although Republicans in Congress may hate him for it, when their own constituents get angry about lost earmarks.

Tax deductions for healthcare amounting to $7,500 for single individuals and $15,000 for families. Let's see if this happens, and if employers try to ditch health care plans as a consequence. This one is among his easy fixes -- it sounds good, it could actually help some people, and it doesn't require addressing anything about health care on a larger scale.

Provide Federal funds for state health care programs as long as they're programs that provide only private healthcare for the uninsured. There's no money there for any state-run programs, naturally.

Doubling the size of the Border Patrol which is a fairly meaningless increase, although it will cost a lot of money. Based on real-world examples of mostly secured borders (such as the Korean DMZ), we would need many, many times the current number of Border Patrol agents to have a chance of effectively shutting down border traffic. A doubling is like 20,000 more troops to Iraq -- half-assed. This part of the speech included the waffling statement that, "We need to resolve the status of the illegal immigrants who are already in our country without animosity and without amnesty." That's another fabuluous splunge moment from Bush. Perhaps he'll see more success now that fewer of his fellow Republicans are around.

Comprehensive immigration reform is nothing new. Maybe it'll work this time.

A 20% reduction in gas use in the next ten years along with improved automotive efficiency standards, a mandate of 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels by 2017, a doubling of the strategic oil reserve, and increased drilling. All of these are achievable, although the 20% decrease and the 35 billion gallons would require a heroic effort of a type that this administration has not shown any inclination toward. On the other hand, more drilling is, again, easy. I'm going to bet on that one for sure -- after all, it can be achieved within two years.

The Iraqi government must stop the violence or else nothing. Bush's tone is one of consequence, but his words speak of no consequences. They "must" do this, but we're not going to do anything if they don't. I think this empty statement is a pretty solid promise of things to come.

Set up an advisory council for the war on terror, consisting of members of both parties who, if Bush operates as usual, will be ignored regardless of party affiliation.

Add 92,000 soldiers to the military. This is a desperate need, largely as a consequence of Bush's Iraq misadventure.

Design and establish a volunteer civilian reserve corps with an unclear mandate. It sounds like he's trying to find a workaround for expensive contractors by making a "nonmilitary" that follows the structure of the current reserves. If they can find volunteers, more power to them. I'm sick of no-bid contracts to KBR and others who fail to feed our troops as required and overcharge for the unfinished job. I know volunteers will at least try.

$1.2 billion over 5 years to fight malaria in Africa. I hope he does this. More than any attempt to democratize the world, this will make it a better place and buy us decades of good will.

Fund the Millennium Challenge Account, which provides economic aid tied to performance indicators in developing countries. You can read more about the MCA by clicking here.

The claims

Minority students are closing the achievment gap if, by minorities, you mean Asians. Or, according to some reports, all minorities have improved, but others point to the troubling practice of dropping some minority tests scores, possibly to evade penalties under No Child Left Behind.

We have made advances in energy including solar, wind, clean diesel, biodiesel, clean coal, and ethanol. Of course, that's mainly on the backs of venture cap and some minor subsidies, and most of that has pushed toward ethanol, which is a dubious and incomplete solution. Biodiesel, which could actually provide all our fuel needs domestically (ethanol can't), has seen little to no Federal support.

Everything that went wrong in Iraq started with the Golden Mosque of Samarra, except that it really didn't, and Shiite militias were engaging in violence from the tail end of 2003 onward -- that would be about twenty months before the Golden Mosque was hit. And if you're honest with yourself and you paid attention to the news, you remember a whole lot of violence before then. In fact, about 2,300 or so of our soldiers were killed between the 1st of November, 2003 and the bombing of the Golden Mosque. That's right -- most of our people were killed well before anyone hit this particular Mosque.

"Every one of us wishes this war were over and won." But only he had the hubris to actually claim we'd won. Back in 2003.

"We didn't drive al Qaeda out of their safe haven in Afghanistan only to let them set up a new safe haven in a free Iraq." Let's shorten that to "we didn't drive al Qaeda out of their safe haven in Afghanistan." Indeed, later on in the same speech, we hear that "In Afghanistan, NATO has taken the lead in turning back the Taliban and al Qaeda offensive..." which suggests that even Bush knows we didn't clear al Qaeda out of Afghanistan. This is a perpetual message of his administration, of course -- that they have solved our problems, but that the same problems remain, so it'd be best if we kept him in office without questioning his methods.

Our new axis is Cuba, Belarus, and Burma, because things most be said in threes to achieve rhetorical strength. This time, Bush picked nations that are highly unlikely to develop nuclear weapons and cause him to look weak anytime in the near future.

Glenn Greenwald writes here about the misuse ot the "commander in chief" title to imply that the President is everyone's war leader, rather than an elected public servant. In doing so, he mentions a Gary Wills editorial that notes that Eisenhower didn't trade salutes with military officers when he was President, because he considered himself a civilian -- but never-in-combat Presidents Reagan and Bush Jr. both follow(ed) the practice.

He also brings up the following quote on dissent with a wartime President, written by Theodore Roosevelt during the first World War:

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."

You can read this and other TR quotes at www.theodoreroosevelt.org

This sentence is the one you want to remember, should it come to a debate:

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. "

Remember, TR says failing to criticize is treasonable.

President Bush recently spoke with Juan Williams of NPR. You can read the full transcript by clicking here. Many of his answers feature what I might call a "tactic" of connecting dots that don't actually connect. I say I might call it that, because I am never sure just what he himself does or doesn't believe. If you lie enough to other people, you often end up believing it yourself.

On believing in his plan for Iraq:

Well, one way to – and one of the things I have found here in Washington amongst those who were skeptical about whether the Iraqis will do what it takes to secure their own freedom, is to remind them of what would happen if there's failure.

This is a non sequitur. Replace "Iraqis" in that sentence with something more prosaic, like "the Brooklyn Bridge." If someone said this to you:

One of the things I've found among those who were skeptical about whether the Brooklyn Bridge will collapse or not, is to remind them of what would happen if it did collapse.

...you might feel compelled to point out how nonsensical it is. The statement "Gosh, that would be bad, so stop thinking about it" is not a real answer to "What if this goes wrong?" But it is the answer Bush is giving above.

On the nature of the Iraq war:

See, the difference, Juan, between other conflicts in the past and this one is that failure would endanger the homeland. In other words, the enemy isn't going to be just contained in the Middle East if they succeed in driving us out or succeed in wrecking the Iraqi democracy. The enemy would be likely to follow us here. And that's why I tried in my State of the Union speech, why I reminded people that September the – the lessons of September the 11th need to be remembered.

This is mainly another chance for Bush to do a callback to September 11th to justify an unrelated war, but it's worth noting that the explicit inciting incident for September 11th was the American presence in Saudi Arabia (and not, say, ethnic tensions in Iraq). The lesson of "they will try to hit us at home" is absolutely valid, but the associated lesson might be "so it would be good to actually go after the people who hurt us, rather than an unrelated third party."

On a balanced budget:

The budget is going to be balanced by keeping taxes low. In other words, we're not going to raise taxes. And as a result of keeping taxes low, the economy is doing just fine, and when the economy is doing well, it yields a certain level of tax revenues that we can live with. And then making sure that we constrain federal spending, and you do that by setting priorities.

I imagine someone tapping on his shoulder. "Sir? Sir? We've been running an enormous deficit. We're selling out to China. I thought you should know before you go on about..."

...and then he says this about why he's never vetoed an appropriation, ever:

Because the United States Congress that was controlled by Republicans exercised spending restraint.

Say what? Then where'd that enormous deficit come from? What happened to our surplus? Why are you on about earmarks (in the same paragraph, no less) if that Congress exercised spending restraint?

The problem with Bush's lack or misuse of evidence is that it's either a cover for a callous disloyalty to and disregard for Americans or he believes it all and he's a fool. Evil acting dumb or dumb yielding evil -- neither is good.

George Bush has said, in various ways, that he listens to our military commanders.

But consider this...

As I've discussed earlier, he's already ignored both the Iraq study group report and worries from our military that new troops would be a liability in Iraq.

At the same time, (American) General Bantz Craddock, representing the allied group in Afghanistan, is in Brussels begging for an additional two thousand troops from the other NATO member states.

So, to clarify cause and effect here.

No request for troops and a recommendation against it = Over 20,000 additional troops.

A desperate need for troops, and our officers begging for months for help from our allies = No additional American soldiers.

When Bush says that he listens to our military officers and their needs, he lies.

Right now, we're escalating in Iraq by adding fifteen percent again on top of our troop totals there, when no such increase was requested. The exact same number sent ot Afghanistan would be a whopping fifty-eight percent increase, perhaps enough to put paid to the remnant Taliban and their al Qaeda allies for good.

And remember, al Qaeda were the ones who attacked us, and the Taliban their bastard allies who harbored them. Not Hussein, not Iraq.

As a final bonus, whereas 20,000 soldiers sent to Iraq means another 19 Americans dead and 134 Americans wounded each month, 20,000 soldiers sent to Afghanistan means less than a third as many more Americans dead and wounded per month (6 and 42, respectively).

It's obscene that our officers must go, hat in hand, to our allies to try and fulfill critical needs neglected by George Bush, Dick Cheney and their league of incapable administrators.

"Churchill answers critics on Crete operations during House of Commons debate."

- page 138, 2194 Days of War

More on the battle of Crete.

Ronald Reagan

1983 Beirut barracks bombing - 241 American military dead

Bill Clinton

Battle of the Black Sea - 18 American military dead

George Bush

Invasion and occupation of Iraq - 3,296 and counting

Retired General William Odom, head of the NSA during the Reagan administration, is advising President Bush to sign the current budget legislation that would mandate an American withdrawal from Iraq.

"The challenge we face today is not how to win in Iraq; it is how to recover from a strategic mistake: invading Iraq in the first place," he said. "The president has let (the Iraq war) proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued. He lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies."

As it happens, Odom agrees with something John McCain said way back in 1993. Here's the McCain quote:

One would hope that with adequate consultation with Congress, the administration would avoid future blunders that needlessly put at risk the lives of our troops. If they do not avoid such mistakes, Congress has the right to refuse to fund them. However, I do not believe Congress should preclude or circumscribe the President's foreign policy leadership in advance of the policy's formulation. Congress should work closely with the administration to help keep the President from making future mistakes like the debacle in Somalia. But should he persist in making them, our legislative resources should be to terminate them as quickly as we can by denying them funds for further implementation once they have been made.

From the article discussing General Odom's advice to Bush:

Odom said he doesn't favor congressional involvement in the execution of foreign and military policy, but argued that Bush had been derelict in his responsibilities.

Indeed, it seems like military officers everywhere are calling for Congressional intervention in Iraq.

George Bush has, unsurprisingly, vetoed the current military spending bill with its withdrawal clause, despite being urged to sign the bill by an experienced military officer.

"Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure, and that would be irresponsible," Bush said in a televised address after the veto.

He's right. You can't just rush a failure. Something that's merely a terrible failure that's cost us thousands of lives right now could really blossom into a spectacular failure that costs us tens of thousands of lives. As long as we don't set a date, or define success, or have clear goals, there's always room for more failure.

CNN article
BBC article
al Jazeera article

Time online has an article about oft-reclassified "terror" suspect Jose Padilla, whose case is now going to trial.

Padilla has been shuffled around quite a bit, and was used as a scary emblem of the "terrorist threat" as long as George Bush could get away with it. Faced with the problem of actually making a case against Padilla, the administration suddenly reclassified him as an "enemy combatant," despite his being an American citizen, picked up on American soil. That was very late in 2001. Ahead of Supreme Court review of his illegal detention, the administration shifted Padilla over to civil custody and charged him the normal way, in Federal court.

But in pre-trial motions, Padilla's attorneys have consistently tried to steer attention to what happened to Padilla during his three years and eight months in military detention — and to some degree Cooke has allowed them to do that. They contend that Padilla was tortured: fed LSD and other drugs, exposed to extreme temperatures, shackled in "stress positions" and deprived of sleep. The torture, they argue, made Padilla mentally unfit to stand trial and so undermined his constitutional right to a fair process that the whole case should be thrown out.

What prosecutors are left with, then, is an underwhelming case involving cryptic evidence of a murder and terrorist conspiracy that lacks names, places or pretty much any other specifics. Even if they manage to pull off a conviction, we still won't know whether Padilla really was the Dirty Bomber. And if they don't? The government has the option of reclassifying him as an enemy combatant, which, believe it or not, could start the process all over again.

Jose Padilla's case is representative of all that is most grotesque about George Bush and his facilitators. He is not John walker Lindh, picked up in the middle of open warfare in Afghanistan. He is an American citizen, taken into custody at an American airport, then denied the basic Constitutional protections that were put in place at the founding of our nation to prevent exactly this kind of abuse.

Some pertinent quotes. Bonus points if you know where they come from off the top of your head:

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

As I've discussed recently, American politicians have a pathological fear of admitting that actions have consequences. Indeed, we've learned that the penalty for marketing a lethal product to American soldiers is to have your contract renewed, that we broadcast propaganda for terrorists without any oversight to stop it, that there are no real checks on failed or even corrupt procurement practices, that it's okay to redefine our goals rather than admit failure, and that the penalty for real, solid failure is either a Medal of Freedom or a job heading the World Bank.

Imagine if, instead, the penalty for dereliction of duty were death?

The former head of China's Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, was just sentenced to death for corruption. Zheng stands accused (and we suppose now convicted) of accepting just shy of a million dollars in bribes to allow many drugs and other products onto the market without proper oversight. This corruption may well have contributed to many deaths over the last few years.

I'm not actually advocating execution for malfeasance that leads to injury or death, but prison and admission of responsibility would be an amazing start. A standout quality of America is our relative lack of corruption. I'm dismayed, if not surprised, that a bunch of people who like to claim moral authority are the ones most prone to corruption of the rankest, most lethal sort. Do you suppose I care more about someone's adultery, or someone else's sweetheart deal that puts our soldiers in defective body armor?

Of course, those who seize the moral high ground most stridently and publically have a long and tainted pedigree.

I'd like some more responsibility, wouldn't you?

Thanks to Tim for the original link. Two weeks ago the University of Massachusetts, Amherst piled onto the honoring mediocrity bandwagon by deciding to give an honorary degree for "public service" to Iraq war co-founder Andrew Card. The actual honor grads and the audience were having none of it:

Congratulations on your strong support for perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying. With the commuting of Lewis Libby's sentence, you have made an impressive stand for immorality and lawbreaking.

I continue to be as proud of my nation as I am saddened to see you damaging it day by day. I do wish your behavior and policies matched your rhetoric.

(My letter to George Bush today, in light of his commuting of the sentence of Lewis Libby. Notice how he's too cowardly to not do this, yet also too cowardly to actually pardon the man. Also note that he rarely ever modifies a jail sentence -- less than any other president in a century, in fact. His fondness for perjuring sidekicks must be strong and abundant.)

I was visiting the White House site today, and clicked through to "Iraq" on the "In Focus" index, only afterward noticing something curious:

Iraq was right there, just as I expected, but no "terrorism," or "global war on terror," or any variant on the name. Sure, there's a "Homeland Security" section, a "National Security" section, and a "Defense" section, but "Defense" overlaps heavily with Iraq, and Iraq continues to net its own topic area regardless. This suggests terrorism should as well.

So what's the deal? Isn't the global war on terror the real issue? Isn't that why we went to war in Iraq? If I go to the Iraq page today, the first thing I see is this excerpted remark, under the headline "President Bush Visits East Grand Rapids, Discusses Global War on Terror":

"So no matter how frustrating the fight in Iraq can be, no matter how much we wish the war was over, the security of our country depends directly on the outcome of Iraq. The price of giving up there would be paid in American lives for years to come. ... Success in Iraq would bring something powerful and new -- a democracy at the heart of the Middle East, a nation that fights terrorists instead of harboring them, and a powerful example for others of the power of liberty to overcome an ideology of hate."

If the war on terror is the larger issue, where is its focus area? Where do I, as a citizen, learn specifically what the executive branch is doing to tackle this biggest of all issues?

How curious that we have to hunt for that information, but not for information on Iraq.

Mr. Bush --

Time and again, you emphasize that we are at war. We are at war against terror, and specifically at war in Iraq. You like to think of yourself as a wartime president.

Maybe it makes you feel special.

But clearly, you don't actually believe we're in a real war. At the very least, you're deeply ignorant of how America actually wins wars.

Despite saying we're at war, you have not made the war part of our regular budget. You continue to cheat much of the cost in as special expenditures, as if that means we're not actually spending the money. This is the first time we've ever let a conflict stretch this long without putting its costs into the regular budget. Even the Vietnam and Korean Wars, both "police actions," were put into the regular budget quite soon after they began.

Despite saying we're at war, you've pushed for lower taxes. Perhaps you don't know your history. I understand you weren't a very good student. During the first World War, the marginal tax rate went as high as 77%. During the second World War, the marginal tax rate went even higher, up to 94%. During Korea, it went up as high as 87%. During Vietnam, up to 70%. Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, and Nixon all understood that wars can't be won without true sacrifice on our part -- at the very least, taxes must go up. None of these men would have actually tried to fight a war on credit, with that credit coming from another, not necessarily friendly, power.

I learned these numbers from the U.S. Treasury. They're part of the Executive Branch. Maybe you can ask them for a refresher.

Despite saying we're at war, you're trying to cheat on how many troops we send. Despite historical precedent and smart men telling you what to do, you chose to send half as many troops as we needed to hold Iraq. Now our soldiers are hit every day by munitions that we didn't have enough soldiers to secure. Now they clear an area only to have it retaken by our enemies a week later, because we don't have enough soldiers to leave a garrison behind.

I understand that we aren't likely to have a draft. It would be too politically damaging for you. But if this war on terror were a real war to you, you'd aggressively recruit new soldiers. You'd offer large pay increases and solid family support. You could even support this with the taxes you would have raised.

If this were a real war to you.

I understand you were a poor student. You probably turned in essays that were just barely long enough, and copied your math and science homework from someone who actually put in the time to learn the material. I understand that you think that the appearance of trying should be good enough, success be damned. I understand that you're just putting in the time, collecting your paycheck, clocking in and out until your time in office is done.

I understand that you quit when things get hard. I understand this because if you weren't this kind of person, then you'd treat this war like a real war.

If you did that, we might even win.

Mr. Bush --

In a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention today, you tried to describe the potentially disastrous consequences of an American withdrawal from Iraq by relating it to the Second World War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. You also showed your usual comfort with screwing up the facts, leaving out the inconvenient ones, and generally just saying what your speech writers wrote for you, totally at peace with your ignorance.

Naturally, you led with the ever-present conflation of September 11th with the Iraq war, and your gigglingly strident declaration of yourself as a war president. I must say I've been hard-pressed to find examples of Truman and Roosevelt spending that much time lauding themselves for that role.

You then moved on to rise of democracy in South Korea and Japan, hoping to highlight the possibilities in Iraq. After all, if we defended South Korea and occupied and rebuilt Japan, why wouldn't it work in Iraq?

But Iraq is not post-war Japan. In Japan, there was no active insurgency. Our troops were not under constant attack every time they went on a street patrol. Japan was largely ethnically and religiously homogeneous. Roving murder squads and ethnic militias didn't walk the streets, torturing and killing people of other sects and ethnicities. Japan was, at heart, a single country. Iraq has for decades been a compilation of unrelated peoples, held together by a torture regime.

Nor is Iraq the Korean war. We did not come in to stop a totalitarian power from overtaking a nascent democracy. We ousted a frankly brutal dictator, but did so with no coherent plan for what happened afterward, and with an arrogant misunderstanding of local culture and civilization. We took an impoverished, unhealthy nation and brought down on it a plague of sectarian violence that you even now try to blame on al Qaeda alone.

Oddly enough, Iraq is not the Vietnam war, either. It made much more sense for us to come to the aid of South Vietnam than it ever made for us to invade Iraq in 2003. The threat to South Vietnam was clear and present, in a way that your wishful thinking about changing the Mideast through war, backed by the lies of Ahmed Chalabi, never was.

You argue that the after-effects of our withdrawal from Vietnam were harsh. This is unarguably true, but we must also match it against the millions of Vietnamese who died during the war. Unfortunately for Iraq, it is still not Vietnam. In Vietnam, the divide was purely political. In Iraq, sectarian violence may lead to a partition of peoples, whether we stay or go. In staying, we keep the vultures of al Qaeda in Iraq in business, and lose our own soldiers on a daily basis.

You point to the killing fields in Cambodia as the ultimate example of the disastrous effects of the American withdrawal from Vietnam, with the clear implication that these fields will be repeated in Iraq. I, in turn, remind you that the killings in Cambodia were stopped by the 1978 invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam.

Maybe you didn't know that.

Let me say it clearly. You are incompetent, and arrogantly so. As long as you are in charge, we must press for our soldiers to leave as soon as possible, because you will bleed them dry to save your image. You will conflate Iraq and al Qaeda, Cambodia and Vietnam, and anything else you possibly can to confuse people for just a little bit longer.

Do please learn your history. Read about these vital parts of the American story before you misuse them in aid of your ill-conceived ideas. Perhaps then you'll start thinking, really thinking, about what it means to lead a nation at war.

(Letter sent today.)

Mr. Bush -

In response to the discovery that DoJ went ahead and authorized torture even in the wake of your fatuous declaration that our country does not torture (as, indeed, it never should), your spokesperson had this to say:

White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino confirmed the existence of the February 2005 opinion, but she says all procedures used by U.S. interrogators are tough, safe, necessary, and lawful.

Perino says she will not comment specifically as to whether simulated drowning constitutes torture because discussing any specific interrogation techniques would allow the enemy to train against them.

I quote here from Voice of America, a source I hope you have the sense to trust is not conspiring against you.

Ms. Perino's answer is, in truth, no answer at all. She can't comment on whether something is or is not torture because people may train against it if she does? Seriously?

Maybe I should switch to a new career as a criminal defense attorney. When someone asks if my client is guilty of murder, I'll say that I can't comment on that nor can it be openly discussed, as it might inform others about the practice of murder (or not -- after all, if I don't comment, who's to know what my imaginary client did?).

Shoving someone's head under water until they nearly drown is torture, you dim, immoral excuse for a man. Marching Ms. Perino out and sticking her with the unfortunate job of trying to deflect an all-too-deflectable press corps is a sad, yet accurate, commentary on how little you have in common with the American citizens you regularly endanger by tarnishing our country's reputation for freedom and justice with your tawdry pretense of national defense.

Your answer, as told by Ms. Perino, was no answer at all. Try again.

(Sent today.)

Voice of America article

In a report in the Washington Post, relayed here by CBS news, the antiterrorism nonprofit SITE Institute calls foul on the Bush administration for completely destroying one of our intelligence channels in a fit of self-serving leaking.

SITE Institute, one of many private companies that troll extremist Web content and use secret methods to find unreleased material and release it early, against the wishes of the militants creating it, was the first to obtain an Osama bin Laden video last month.

"Techniques that took years to develop are now ineffective and worthless," Katz told The Post.

This would not be the first time Bush and Cheney have destroyed an American intelligence resource for personal gain. Then, as now, it's good to recall the words of Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

It must be comforting for al Qaeda, having a security hole sealed.

I'm not a regular Frank Rich reader (or even a regular NYT reader, as my primary news sources are the BBC, AP, and al Jazeera), but his recent column touches twice on important points of pragmatism.

Point 1: Our excessive use of contractors places our own people at risk

His words:

Last week Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq war combat veteran who directs Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, sketched for me the apocalypse to come. Should Baghdad implode, our contractors, not having to answer to the military chain of command, can simply “drop their guns and go home.” Vulnerable American troops could be deserted by those “who deliver their bullets and beans.”

This potential scenario is just one example of why it’s in our national self-interest to attend to Iraq policy the White House counts on us to ignore. Our national character is on the line too. The extralegal contractors are both a slap at the sovereignty of the self-governing Iraq we supposedly support and an insult to those in uniform receiving as little as one-sixth the pay.

Point 2: Compromising our ethics buys us nothing

Again, from the piece:

Our moral trajectory over the Bush years could not be better dramatized than it was by a reunion of an elite group of two dozen World War II veterans in Washington this month. They were participants in a top-secret operation to interrogate some 4,000 Nazi prisoners of war. Until now, they have kept silent, but America’s recent record prompted them to talk to The Washington Post.

“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an M.I.T. physicist whose interrogation of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, took place over a chessboard. George Frenkel, 87, recalled that he “never laid hands on anyone” in his many interrogations, adding, “I’m proud to say I never compromised my humanity.”

Despite everything you've seen on 24, torturing people doesn't really work, and it creates all kinds of practical problems for you -- for example, if we go around torturing people left and right, what kind of support can we expect from other nations when our people are held? It's a foolish choice.

One last bit from the piece:

By any legal standards except those rubber-stamped by Alberto Gonzales, we are practicing torture, and we have known we are doing so ever since photographic proof emerged from Abu Ghraib more than three years ago. As Andrew Sullivan, once a Bush cheerleader, observed last weekend in The Sunday Times of London, America’s “enhanced interrogation” techniques have a grotesque provenance: “Verschärfte Vernehmung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to describe what became known as the ‘third degree.’ It left no marks. It included hypothermia, stress positions and long-time sleep deprivation.”

As described here, George Bush is trying to push through his attorney general nominee (Michael Mukasey) by disingenuously tying it to the war:

"Judge Mukasey is not being treated fairly," the president said, after taking the extraordinary step of inviting a group of reporters into the Oval Office to vent his feelings. Sitting behind his desk and leaning back in his chair, Mr. Bush said he was concerned that some people may have "lost sight of the fact that we're at war."

I think some people have. Some people like to cut taxes, despite the historical record that we win wars by raising taxes. Some people like to commit pocket treason by blowing our own spies' cover to advance domestic political goals, again hurting our war effort.

I completely agree with George Bush. He clearly lost sight of the fact that we're at war long ago. If he hadn't, he might be supporting our troops in Afghanistan, where the true war on terror began.

In this article, the BBC summarizes a 60 Minutes expose' on "Curveball," the sole source behind Colin Powell's false claims of mobile bioweapons factories in his pre-invasion speech to the United Nations.

As it happens, rather than being a top-notch chemical engineer, Rafid Ahmed Alwan was just a chem E student with bad grades and a natural desire to win asylum anywhere other than Iraq. Mindful of this exact possibility, German intelligence passed on Alwan's claims with an advisory letter warning that they had no way of verifying what he said. Failure medal winner George Tenet claims he never saw that letter. Maybe so, but surely he had some inkling that sole-source word-of-mouth intelligence with no material evidence backing it up is not enough.

For more exciting action without evidence, you may want to go look George up at his current job as a non-executive director at defense contractor QinetiQ. Perhaps a non-executive director is one who directs without actually taking action? That seems safest, given his track record.

One might, at the end of the day, be inclined to ask exactly how "conservative" it is go to war based on the unsupported statements of one random student bucking for his green card.

If you've been following the news, you should have heard that a recent National Intelligence Estimate says that Iran dropped its nuclear weapons program in 2003. George Bush has countered by claiming that this recent NIE is a "warning signal" -- rather than, say, seeing the positives that apparently international pressure can put a nation of nuclear arms.

You can download and read the public version of the NIE by clicking here. Here's the relevant section heading bits:

A. We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. We judge with high confidence that the halt, and Tehran’s announcement of its decision to suspend its declared uranium enrichment program and sign an Additional Protocol to its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement, was directed primarily in response to increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran’s previously undeclared nuclear work.

H. We assess with high confidence that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so.

Notably, this public version of the NIE was (naturally) not released at the request of George Bush. You can click here to read Dr. Donald Kerr's statement about why they released the information. Here's the punchline, in his words:

The decision to release an unclassified version of the Key Judgments of this NIE was made when it was determined that doing so was in the interest of our nation’s security. The Intelligence Community is on the record publicly with numerous statements based on our 2005 assessment on Iran. Since our understanding of Iran’s capabilities has changed, we felt it was important to release this information to ensure that an accurate presentation is available. While the decision to release the declassified Key Judgments was coordinated in discussion with senior policy makers, the IC took responsibility for what portions of the NIE Key Judgments were to be declassified.

"...we felt it was important to release this information to ensure that an accurate presentation is available."

"...doing so was in the interest of our nation's security."

The office of the DNI is, perhaps, not as compliant as George Tenet was.