A tantalizing tidbit on the Jerry Lewis-Bill Lowery front:
The investigation has even reached into Lowery's private life. One of his two ex-wives, Melinda Morrin, has been interviewed twice by the FBI about her ex-husband's dealings, her attorney said last week.
Things can't get much bleaker than when the FBI starts questioning your ex-wife--about you.
--David Kurtz
Steve Clemons offers up a different take on the broader strategic objectives behind Israel's recent actions in Gaza and Lebanon:
The flamboyant, over the top reactions to attacks on Israel's military check points and the abduction of soldiers -- which I agree Israel must respond to -- seems to be part establishing "bona fides" by Olmert, but far more important, REMOVING from the table important policy options that the U.S. might have pursued.Israel is constraining American foreign policy in amazing and troubling ways by its actions. And a former senior CIA official and another senior Marine who are well-versed in both Israeli and broad Middle East affairs, agreed that serious strategists in Israel are more concerned about America tilting towards new bargains in the region than they are either about the challenge from Hamas or Hezbollah or showing that Olmert knows how to pull the trigger.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah rockets reach ever deeper into Israel, Israeli air strikes for the first time target central Beirut, and the IDF re-enters northern Gaza.
--David Kurtz
The Georgia lieutenant governor's race has to be the highest-profile election for lieutenant governor in U.S. history. Have there been any others that are even close?
--David Kurtz
A word from the other half:
Being from the "other side" politically, I am a Republican but not a 100% hardcore conservative. I often come to this website to find legitimate "left" thinking . . . I think your analysis of the Democrats celebrating too often and not being in there for the long fight is bang on. I just hope they don't listen to you.
--David Kurtz
Referring to the senior senator from his state, a junior U.S. senator once told me, "He's had his head above the clouds too long."
I'm beginning to think the same thing about Joe Lieberman after reading this piece in the NYT on his tough primary battle. I'm ambivalent about the Lieberman-Lamont race, but people won't stay ambivalent for long if the picture painted of Lieberman in this piece--wounded by the slight of facing determined opposition--is accurate.
The senior senator referred to above wisely retired soon thereafter. You wonder whether Lieberman's exit will be as graceful.
--David Kurtz
How to explain the Democrats getting knocked back on their heels by Arlen Specter’s FISA proposal? I don’t have a complete explanation, but here’s what I think is a significant part of the answer.
After public outcry over domestic spying and other secret, extra-constitutional programs and a Supreme Court decision squarely against the Administration, many of us—myself included—at a deep and perhaps unconscious level presume that the Administration will have to cede some ground, compromise, reign itself it in.
The louder you argue, the more humble you should be when proved wrong, right? Argue loudly and wrongly enough times, and you start to lose credibility, right? By the unwritten Queensbury rules many of us live by, admission of error, of defeat, of poor judgment is the right and noble thing to do.
Democrats seem to have a highly evolved (and perhaps misplaced) sense of sportsmanship: magnanimous in victory; chastened in defeat. Whereas Dems will rise to a political fight when they deem circumstances warrant, Republicans consider politics nothing but a fight, with peace the exception, not the rule.
And so it is that many Democrats are unprepared to face an adversary who has a fallback position situated just inches behind the frontline, and a fallback position just inches behind that, and so on indefinitely.
When the Dems overrun a Republican position, they celebrate like drunken Hessians, only to sober up and realize they have gained very little ground at all and that the Republicans are still fighting.
I think Republicans have the more accurate view of politics. It is an ongoing battle. Power is a moving target, hard to seize, harder still to hold on to.
So rather than viewing Hamdan as a sweeping victory to be relished as a vindication of principle, Dems need to see it, as Republicans do, as a starting point for negotiations. Negotiation, like diplomacy, is war by other means.
The Republicans have opened negotiations with a demand, in the form of Arlen Specter’s proposal, which is as much as they can hope to achieve, in an effort to tilt the range of possible outcomes in their favor.
Specter’s proposal dramatically expands presidential power at the very moment that many Dems and most commentators mistakenly perceive expansive executive power to be on the wane.
There is a lesson here, and a fight to be fought, if the Democrats will sober up.
--David Kurtz
The Washington Post editorial board nails Arlen Specter's capitulation on FISA and charts the path the Administration is taking to get Congress to legalize domestic spying.
--David Kurtz
TPM must draw 80s music fans. In response to my post below, readers have let me know that Toto is touring this summer and that the Go-Go's played L.A.'s Greek Theatre last night.
Rock on.
Forever.
--David Kurtz
If Rip Van Winkle had fallen asleep under a cedar tree in Lebanon in 1982 and awoke today, you could hardly blame him for thinking he had snoozed for only a few minutes.
Israel is still in Lebanon. Iran is America's great nemesis. Russia-U.S. relations remain tense. An imperial power (Britain/U.S.) is conducting a military campaign in a farflung locale (Falkland Islands/Iraq) in what is maybe its last gasp of imperialism. There is a gathering threat in the East (Japanese economy/North Korea). The news even includes mention of the death of a popular princess (Grace Kelly/Diana) in a car accident.
The only things missing are Survivor, Toto, and Air Supply.
When critics of the Iraq War suggested it would set back progress in the Middle East for a generation, I didn't take it to mean we would revert to a generation ago.
--David Kurtz
From Reuters:
The head of Italy's military intelligence agency was questioned by prosecutors for the first time on Saturday on suspicion of helping the CIA kidnap a terrorism suspect in Milan, judicial sources said.The development makes Nicolo Pollari the highest ranking official connected to the Italian investigation -- which has already led to the arrests of his No. 2 and another leader of his Sismi intelligence agency earlier this month.
--David Kurtz
Ah, serendipity. Reading Spencer Ackerman's much linked to TNR piece on House Intel Chair Pete Hoekstra's outlandish claim that al Qaeda fellow travelers have infiltrated the U.S. intelligence community, I was reminded of an intriguing essay titled "Stabbed in the Back," from the June issue of Harper's.
I went looking for the piece online to re-read it, but it wasn't up yet. Then, as if on cue, Harper's posted it Friday. If you haven't read Ackerman's piece, read it first, then go take a look at "Stabbed in the Back":
Every state must have its enemies. Great powers must have especially monstrous foes. Above all, these foes must arise from within, for national pride does not admit that a great nation can be defeated by any outside force. That is why, though its origins are elsewhere, the stab in the back has become the sustaining myth of modern American nationalism. Since the end of World War II it has been the device by which the American right wing has both revitalized itself and repeatedly avoided responsibility for its own worst blunders. Indeed, the right has distilled its tale of betrayal into a formula: Advocate some momentarily popular but reckless policy. Deny culpability when that policy is exposed as disastrous. Blame the disaster on internal enemies who hate America. Repeat, always making sure to increase the number of internal enemies.
In the final analysis, I'm skeptical of unified theories of anything, perhaps especially of history, but they can be useful tools to explain some phenomenon. If you fish, you know polarized sunglasses cut the glare on the water and let you see the fish. Similarly, the "Stabbed in the Back" hypothesis is a useful lens to filter 20th and early 21st century events and distill modern American nationalism. Especially now.
--David Kurtz
Hmmm.
WP: "The House Government Reform Committee has subpoenaed the former law firm of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff for records of any contacts he or members of his lobbying team had with the Bush White House."
--David Kurtz
In the last week I've heard a number of people ask why bloggers, or I guess spefically progressive bloggers, have devoted so little column space to the events in Israel-Palestine and Lebanon. And I've joked, as I've ventured onto this terrain, about how nothing is more likely to heighten the temperature of your in box like stating any opinions on this vexed subject.
But none of these lighthearted words can do justice to the sorts of email you get.
It's funny, if that's the word for it, because I'm much more accustomed to getting critical emails from hypernationalist and/or hypersensitive Jews taking me to task over this or that viewpoint I've expressed about the Middle East. (Of course, nothing compares to sublime ridiculousness of having a gentile right-winger warn me that my views on the Middle East verge on anti-semitism. For some, it seems, Bush-loyalty is the new sign of the covenant.) Just a week ago I was foolish enough to exchange a series of emails with a reader who was offended that I hadn't booted my guest blogger TPM Reader DK for having the temerity to print an email hostile to Israel as an example of the range of opinions he'd received on the subject.
For some of my Jewish friends and, it seems, more and more non-Jews of a certain political persuasion, there is just an inability to recognize that the dispossession of Arabs was an essential element to the fulfillment of the Jewish people's national aspirations in Palestine. (That was a blindness that a ben Gurion or a Dayan never made. Read their writings, their speeches, especially their letters. They understood this.) There is too often an inability or I suppose simply a willfull refusal to recognize the roots of Palestinian militant violence and terrorism (and I don't equate the two) in the fact that the population of the West Bank and Gaza have been living under military occupation for some forty years.
As some of you know, before I became a journalist I was studying to be an historian. And the topic of my doctoral dissertation was the nexus of economic relations and organized violence between Indians and English settlers in mid-17th century New England. And over several years as I researched and wrote and pulled together my ideas on the subject there were troubling and disconcerting moments because I could see the echoes and patterns of what happened there in the 17th Century in what happened between Jews and Palestinians in the 20th. There continues to be this dangerous obtuseness among the political classes in this country that 'terrorism' is just terrorism whether it's bin Laden's buddies trying to figure out how to blow up the world or Palestinian militants trying to drive settlers off the West Bank.
But on a day like today I see a different picture, though magified perhaps by the febrile intensity of email. It comes when I'm again exposed to the other side of the coin. American politics leans heavily in Israel's direction; and so does the American media. But there is out there a broad constituency of ignorant and malevolent hatred of Israel and, really, Israelis, that, I think, masks its malevolence even to itself through being awash its own self-righteousness. I think I understand the Palestinians' rage. In any case, I respect it. For this trash from Americans who only seem able to see Jewish evil in the midst of this protracted conflict I can't have anything but contempt. And it puts me on my guard.
--Josh Marshall
Walter Pincus on journalistic courage: "Journalistic courage should include the refusal to publish in a newspaper or carry on a TV or radio news show any statements made by the President or any other government official that are designed solely as a public relations tool, offering no new or valuable information to the public."
--Josh Marshall
Boy is this a stupid article. From the AP: Lieberman's in trouble with Lamont and Hillary's having no trouble with Tasini. Why? All because of money apparently. Lamont's a millionaire. Hillary's got a big war chest. Wicked stupid.
--Josh Marshall
"It's just like the good ol' days."
Justin Rood on the media's ecstatic reception of Valerie Plame Wilson.
--Paul Kiel
Why is CNN's John King still repeating the Republican bamboozle (for a detailed forensic debamboozlement see this post) that Joe Wilson 'said Dick Cheney sent him to Niger'.
I guess the work of debamboozlement is not over.
--Josh Marshall
For those of you who didn't think that Katherine Harris' Senate candidacy could yield any more surprises...
--Paul Kiel
I think David Ignatius strikes the right balance, understands the interplay of factors in what's now playing out in Lebanon. We don't know whether Iran 'green-lighted' the Hezbollah incursion into northern Israel a few days ago, as some are suggesting, with little or no direct evidence. But it is quite foolish to see what happened as an isolated incident, or merely a tit for tat with over what's happening in Gaza. There is an Iran-Syria axis. They are patrons of Hamas and Hizbollah. And everything here is connected. Our muscling with the Iranians over their nuclear program and the bedeviled situation in Iraq. These are all pieces on the same chessboard. Events transpire on many levels. And have many causes. But I think it is correct to see a good part of this as the soundings of groups allied with Syrian and Iran, and to a degree acting in concert with him, to strike a new balance of power in the region (in the context of Israeli withdrawals from occupied territory, growing Iranian power and American distraction and enervation in Iraq.)
With that said, I think Israel is entirely within her right to react strongly to these provocations.
But what you have every right to do isn't always wise to do, as Ignatius explains. A strong response is probably a prerequisite from the Israelis. But it's not sufficient and it can easily backfire. For the Israelis and for the US. They risk slipping into the same quicksand they did almost twenty-five years ago. Outside powers -- and that means the US and Europe -- have to be involved here.
(ed.note: Nothing like a post on the Middle East to raise the temperature of the email in box. If you disagree, I'd love to hear from you. I've been set straight by dissenting emails many times before. But attacking emails will just be ignored.)
--Josh Marshall
Finally. Mark Schmitt says what needs to be said about the Lieberman-Lamont race. Sorry to the gunners on both sides. But there aren't enough bloggers or blog readers in Connecticut to pull an unknown challenger to even in a primary challenge against a three-term incumbent senator. This is about Connecticut.
--Josh Marshall
Charges of being "evil" are leveled against a New York Senate candidate -- but this time, they're not aimed at Hillary Clinton. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Justin Rood
Always one of the very best, Anthony Shadid reports from Beirut. Give this a read. Very nuanced and detailed.
Late Update: More commentary on the situation in Lebanon from Ha'aretz.
--Josh Marshall
That is a bit weird.
TPM Reader DK points me to this article by Jonathan Landay on the White House's agreement to submit its warrantless wiretap program to thes scrutiny of the FISA court. Here are the second and third grafs (italics added) ...
By having the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court conduct the review instead of a regular federal court, the Bush administration would ensure the secrecy of details of the highly classified program. The administration has argued that making details of the program public would compromise national security.However, such details could include politically explosive disclosures that the government has kept tabs on people it shouldn't have been monitoring.
Pretty high up in the piece that's quite a throaway line if that's all it is. After all, the details could have included evidence of life on Mars too. Hell, anything's possible.
It sounds like Landay's pointing to the possibility that the White House has been using the program to monitor political opponents. (I'm not sure how else to interpret that line.) And you get the sense he's doing more than speculating.
--Josh Marshall
Ivo Daalder responds to my post yesterday about our policy toward North Korea. Turns out, yes, our policy toward North Korea is a fraud.
--Josh Marshall
More questions for Novak, from his tell-all.
And don't forget this TPM golden oldie, which shows pretty conclusively that Novak lied about his use of the term 'operative', all for the purpose of covering up the culpability of his sources.
Imagine that.
--Josh Marshall
We've got the 'complaint' in the Joe Wilson suit posted in our document collection, all 23 pages of it.
We'll have our analysis of what it contains up momentarily. Share your thoughts here.
Update: Here's our rundown of what the suit is about.
--Josh Marshall
Joe Lieberman's other opponent, Connecticut Senate GOP card sharp candidate Alan Schlesinger speaks out.
--Josh Marshall
TPM Reader SP chimes in ...
Hey Josh --the larger points in the current Israel/Palestine/Lebanon crisis are two: Olmert's apparent lack of "maturity" as PM for lack of a better word, and seeming inability to measure his govt's response, has escalated the situation close to a point of no return. given the harsh rhetoric and extreme measures being taken it appears the the situation is being run by the war-makers in the cabinet and there seems to be no countervailing voice of reason, moderation or diplomacy. the other is that the crisis has exposed in stark relief the US' utter inability to influence the situation. Bush has nothing to offer, having bought wholesale into the rhetoric of "terror"-he can't ask for moderation, he can't use any bargaining chips, he can't bully Olmert in any of the ways his predecessors have done.
this is a truly unfortunate turn of events, not the least from the point of view of most Israelis who supported Kadima-I doubt this is what they had in mind.
I don't agree wholesale with this comment. You can see my views here. But SP does get at a key issue here -- the perception of Olmert in Israel and around the region. Unlike most Israeli leaders, Olmert was not a career Army officer. Whether he is 'mature' or not, he doesn't have the leeway for restraint in the way Sharon might have. Not that Sharon was known for exercising restraint in many cases, certainly -- but he had much more room for maneuver, precisely because of that. No doubt, this greatly heightens the volatility of the situation.
--Josh Marshall
Where's the US? I think I see the escalation of hostilities in and around Israel a bit differently than some readers. One TPM Reader asked yesterday in heated tones why I hadn't written anything about the "atrocities" Israel was committing in Gaza and southern Lebanon. I take a different view of this. I don't see why Israel should or really can, in the context of withdrawing from occupied territories, sit still while de facto governments to the north and the south kidnap her soldiers. And I say that as someone who thinks Israel should get out of the occupied territories in Gaza and the West Bank and support the establishment of a true Palestinian state not at some vague point in the future but now.
Israel actually faces what the Bush administration has pretended America faces, hostile neighbors using terrorist and irredentist factions as proxies in their conflict with Israel.
But retaliation has consequences. How far does this creeping war creep? Into Lebanon? We're already at that point. Into Syria? We're close. Iran? Maybe not too far in the future. Is it in Israel's or America's interest to acquire more occupied territories? Other than retaliatory bombing or occupation of buffer zones, what the the strategic objectives?
This is spinning out of control very quickly. And we need to think right now about where this leads in a week and a month. For America's interests and Israel's the US can't afford to hold back and watch where this goes.
--Josh Marshall
TPM Reader Joe Wilson on Bob Novak ...
Robert Novak, some other commentators and the Administration continue to try to completely distort the role that Valerie Wilson played with respect to Ambassador Wilson's trip to Niger. The facts are beyond dispute. The Office of the Vice President requested that the CIA investigate reports of alleged uranium purchases by Iraq from Niger. The CIA setup a meeting to respond to the Vice President's inquiry. Another CIA official, not Valerie Wilson, suggested to Valerie Wilson's supervisor that the Ambassador attend that meeting. That other CIA official made the recommendation because that official was familiar with the Ambassador's vast experience in Niger and knew of a previous trip to Africa concerning uranium matters that had been undertaken by the Ambassador on behalf of the CIA in 1999. Valerie Wilson's supervisor subsequently asked her to relay a request from him to the Ambassador that he would like the Ambassador to attend the meeting at the CIA. Valerie Wilson did not participate in the meeting.
More to come, I'm sure.
--Josh Marshall
These are the moments I live for as a blogger. Yes, Lieberman-Lamont. Big issues, much drama and gnashing of teeth, and such. But let me find out the Republican challenger is a card counter who's lost tens of thousands of dollars at the casinos, is now banned from most of them and resorts to hitting the tables under assumed names. Now, that's a story I can dig my teeth into.
--Josh Marshall
The Shamed and Scandalized: A Capitol Tribute. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Justin Rood
I must admit I'd totally missed this, that Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) faces a contested primary next Tuesday. I'm always the last to know. Her challengers are Hank Johnson and another guy named John Coyne.
I don't think any polls have been conducted. But McKinney did lose a primary in 2002 before winning her seat back in 2004.
If you know more about this race, drop me a line.
--Josh Marshall
Is our North Korea policy a fraud? Or a joke? Or is it a fraud and a joke? Or maybe just a joke and a fraud? The possibilities, I suppose, are endless. But let me explain what I mean. And perhaps folks at America Abroad and others outposts in the blogosphere can help me out or set me straight.
If you look at our policy toward the North Koreans since they called the president's bluff almost four years ago now, it is basically that we will urge and rely upon the Chinese to pressure the North Koreans into acceptable behavior.
Yes, it's dressed up as diplomacy and multilateral talks and this and that. But that's the essence of it.
Yet what incentive do the Chinese have to help us in this matter?
There are some who believe in a malevolent, revisionist China, for whom North Korea, with her missiles and nuclear weapons, plays the role of a stalking horse. In this view, China will never rein in the North Koreans because they are in fact working together to pursue a policy of aggression toward the US and its allies in East Asia.
I don't believe that. But I don't think you need to believe that to question the basic premise of our policy.
Simply looking at China in textbook geopolitical terms, as an aspiring regional or even global power, not set on war but eager to advance its interests on the world stage, I just don't think it adds up.
China's big fear with North Korea is either that there will be some sort of crisis or collapse of the government that will send refugees streaming across the border or that the North Koreans will spark some sort of war that will at a minimum be a major headache and quite possibly knock the stability and prosperity of the region off the rails for years.
Clearly, those two possibilities need to be avoided. But the status quo of some missile sales and continued nuclear programs probably is a good shot at avoiding both. Really putting the screws to the North Koreans risks option one and possibly option two.
Now, what does China get out of the current slow-motion crisis? One thing is a nearly constant muffled begging from Washington that confirms China's role as a major power and provides the Chinese with a major lever in any bilateral dispute with the US. Actually solving the Korean crisis ends all that. So again, I think the status quo is better for China, in terms of buffing her role as a major player on the world stage.
Also note that the PRC internally has a troubled and ambivalent relationship with Chinese nationalism. The government stokes it, but is also clearly in some ways threatened by it. Transparently doing the bidding of the United States doesn't help in this regard. Nor does it necessarily help overseas. Nor does it make sense when you consider that China's real policy agenda is opposition to US 'hegemonism' or the perpetuation of a unipolar world in which the US dictates affairs in every region without any other countries acting as counterweights if not peers or competitors. On various levels the North Korea issue is an thorn, if not a running wound, in the side of what the Chinese term US 'hegemonism'.
In the not too distant past, we had trade and economic cards to play with the Chinese. They needed access to our markets, international organizations, and so forth. But a lot of that access has already been granted. And the massive debt we're building up with the Chinese gives them the lever not us. In any serious crisis with the PRC, I think our debt would become a serious issue much more quickly than our naval power.
The contrary argument to what I've said above is that China doesn't just want to be a regional or global power. She aspires to the prestige of being a respected player in international affairs, not a frightening renegade like Late Wilhelmine Germany, but a peer of Europe and the United States in the councils of the globe. But that seems to suggest the policy the Chinese are now pursuing, countering our UN proposal for stiff sanctions against the North Koreans with a resolution (also backed by Russia) which "deplores" North Korea's recent actions but includes no sanctions or non-voluntary policies.
In other words, China has an interest in preventing the situation from spinning out of control, either through North Korean belligerence or US-Japanese reaction. But in other respects, I think her interests are best served by stringing the issue along. Solving it costs her a lot and gains her little.
All of which suggests that our policy of begging the Chinese to solve our problem with the North Koreans makes no sense and is in fact a joke since it assumes Chinese interests in helping us that do not in fact exist.
--Josh Marshall
My first column at Time.com: On the trail of the Terror Alert bamboozlers. Give it a look.
--Josh Marshall
Ralph Reed and pal Jack sued by Texas Indian tribe. Here Ed Kilgore explains how Reed is swirling the bowl in Georgia too.
--Josh Marshall
TPM Reader TF on Boss Grassley: "And while Grassley is at it, why doesn’t he say that anything the Republicans don’t want to be a subject of the election discussion be out of bounds in all election advts and debates. Go ahead Democrats and make sure that every person in this country knows exactly where the candidates stand on SS Privatization."
--Josh Marshall
"I don’t think I agree right now there is a big push by anybody to set up personal accounts," says Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley. Apparently he hasn't spoken to the president or the Social Security chief in the House.
Grassley's point is that it's wrong for Democrats to discuss Social Security during the congressional campaigns this year.
The idea, I think, is that it's not fair for anyone to discuss this until the phase-out bill comes up for a vote.
--Josh Marshall
Oh, yes, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) might finally get around to finishing that promised Phase II of his investigation into pre-war Iraq intelligence, the bit that would probe how the administration handled the intel -- but you might have to wait until after the elections for that report....
--Paul Kiel
Following up on the Chairman Hoekstra quote below apparently he's now actually accusing members of the US intel community of working with and/or for al Qaida, just as his quote below suggests. I hear there's a big article on this about to pop. So I guess we'll be hearing more very soon.
--Josh Marshall
Travis County prosecutor Ronnie Earle draws the shades on his investigation of Tom DeLay. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Justin Rood
Question of the day: Do you expect the rate of terror alerts and 'foiled plot' arrests to spike in the run-up to the November election as they did in the lead up to the 2004 presidential?
--Josh Marshall
Feel safer?
From the Times ...
It reads like a tally of terrorist targets that a child might have written: Old MacDonald’s Petting Zoo, the Amish Country Popcorn factory, the Mule Day Parade, the Sweetwater Flea Market and an unspecified “Beach at End of a Street.”But the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, in a report released Tuesday, found that the list was not child’s play: all these “unusual or out-of-place” sites “whose criticality is not readily apparent” are inexplicably included in the official federal antiterrorism database.
The National Asset Database, as it is known, is so flawed, the inspector general found, that as of January, Indiana, with 8,591 potential terrorist targets, had 50 percent more listed sites than New York (5,687) and more than twice as many as California (3,212), ranking the state the most target-rich place in the nation.
“Nix’s Check Cashing,” “Ice Cream Parlor,” “Tackle Shop,” “Donut Shop,” and “Bean Fest” also made the list.
I've been forgetting to make another trip to Bean Fest. Beans!
--Josh Marshall
Treason canard 2.0.
House Intel Chief Hoekstra
on press leaks: I have no evidence, but probably al Qaeda or foreign spies are responsible for the leaks.
"More frequently than what we would like, we find out that the intelligence community has been penetrated, not necessarily by al Qaeda, but by other nations or organizations. I don't have any evidence. But from my perspective, when you have information that is leaked that is clearly helpful to our enemy, you cannot discount that possibility."
--Josh Marshall
The more you think about it, the more surpassingly amazing it is how big a fool you need to be to fall for the White House's song and dance today about the falling budget deficit.
The budget deficit last year was $318 billion.
In February, the White House 'estimated' (I use quotation marks because this is a standard trick for the Bush White House) the deficit for 2006 would be $423 billion.
Today they released a new estimate that it would be $296 billion.
In other words, between February and July tax cuts reduced the deficit by a whopping $127 billion.
Would you fall for this?
--Josh Marshall
Ivo Daalder analyzes this week's mainstream media nugget: Bush the multilateralist.
--Josh Marshall
Hey, did you know contributions to political campaign's are now tax deductible?
Me neither.
But on his campaign website, Rep. Greg Walden (R) of Oregon says contributions to his campaign are tax deductible. (Below is a snapshot from the frontpage of Rep. Walden's site.)
Maybe he got a special dispensation from the IRS? Inquiring minds ...
Late Update: Oregon state income tax gives you a small deduction (up to $50) for political contributions. Not the feds. But, hey, for Walden, details, details.
Even Later Update: Actually, the Oregan law has a tax credit, not a deduction. So it seems Walden is back to a plain fraudulent claim.
So Late It's Tomorrow Update: Seems the Walden tax policies have changed. The donate button now reads, "It's fast, easy & secure."
--Josh Marshall
Okay, I'm still agnostic on Lamont-Lieberman. But this ad's pretty funny.
--Josh Marshall
Don't believe Social Security phase-out is coming down the pike again next year?
This from a press release just out from from Finance Committee ranking member, Sen. Max Baucus ...
U.S. Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, today blasted the President’s renewal of a plan to privatize Social Security and slash benefits for millions of Americans. The Mid-Session Budget Review released by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) today included a proposal that would spend $721 billion – nearly $10 billion more than originally planned in the President’s original Fiscal Year 2007 budget – to turn Social Security into a system of private accounts with lower guaranteed benefits to Americans. The President’s proposal to privatize Social Security includes significant cuts in guaranteed benefits for the vast majority of Social Security recipients through the indexing of initial benefits to prices, rather than wages.
This is only one of several behind the scenes initiatives over the last few weeks aimed at laying the groundwork for phasing out Social Security next year. Is Social Security phase-out a good issue for Democrats in the mid-term elections? Yep, absolutely. But the president and his allies on the Hill really are getting ready to do phase out the program next year.
Don't pretend you weren't told in advance.
The press is ignoring it. And a lot of Dems across the country are too.
And as long as they do, candidates around the country can refuse to say where they stand on the issue until after election day. Tom Kean, Jr. in New Jersey is just one example.
But there's actually something you can do. Right now. Find out where the candidates in your state and district stand on the issue. Are they in favor of preserving Social Security or will they vote for phasing it out and replacing it with private accounts? Simple question. And you can get an answer.
--Josh Marshall
President Bush is out saying that his tax cuts are responsible for the deficit this year being lower than his economists predicted earlier this year and slightly lower than the actual deficit last year. But is someone going to mention that the tax cuts are the prime reason we have record deficits to begin with? President Bush came into office with surpluses. He ran up the deficits, structural deficits created by his tax cuts. Or have we forgotten that?
Late Update: There's a good editorial making this point in The New Republic a few weeks back. Unfortunately, it's behind their subscription wall. But I'll give you this snippet: "Halving a deficit you inherited would be something to brag about. Halving a deficit you created, not so much. You don't see Bush's former chief domestic policy adviser Claude Allen boasting that he has returned half the merchandise he filched from Target." And as the editors point out, this would be the case if the claim of reducing the deficit were true, which it turns out not to be. Oh well. News editor dorks who got taken in can seek absolution where?
--Josh Marshall
Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) keeps gunning in the Global War against Global Warming TV specials.
--Josh Marshall
Sen. Craig (R-ID) applauds the Bush administration for rounding up those dingbats in the warehouse outside Miami as key win in the War on Terror ...
In times of crisis, the Bush administration is relentless in the hunt for those who would harm our nation. Every day thousands of dedicated public servants stand on guard to protect us -- whether it's our privacy or our security, whether it's in Iraq or in the back alleys of our nation's inner cities -- and we owe each of them our thanks.
Nice to see Sen. Craig's got his head screwed on straight.
--Josh Marshall
Colorado House candidate, Rick O'Donnell, was forced to reveal today he wrote an essay eleven years ago calling for Social Security to be abolished and replaced with a "mandatory, private savings scheme." Today, he says, he's better informed. Now he says he wants to phase it out and replace it with prviate accounts.
The Rocky Mountain News is playing this like he's changing his position. But what's the change?
Someone ask this bozo what's the difference between his position then and his position now.
O'Donnell also says President Bush "bungled" Social Security phase-out last year by advocating the phase-out plan O'Donnell says he himself supports.
Who is this guy? I'm not sure I've ever seen a would-be pol who isn't even capable of successfully executing a flip-flop.
--Josh Marshall
Cunningham briber company, MZM, had a contract to help analyze Saddam's 'nuclear program'.
--Josh Marshall
More "good news" for Bob Ney's campaign. That and other news of the day in today's Daily Muck.
--Justin Rood
Looks like the Ann Coulter plagiarism scandal might be ending with a whimper.
--Paul Kiel
Responding to my post below about Lawrence Kaplan's revalation, Atrios says I've missed the real thrust of Kaplan's post. Kaplan isn't so much admitting failure or error, he says, as he is providing a rationale for a new policy moving forward which Atrios describes, more or less, as, They're unredeemable barbarians so let's just kill them all.
That may well be the case. I'm not sure what Kaplan's forward policy is. My point is to tease out what he's now forced or willing to concede about how we got into this mess.
But this does raise a related issue I'd like to pursue -- one that connects the neocons' folly on Iraq with their failure, discussed earlier, on the Korean peninsula.
Put simply, do we not detect a pattern in which the foreign policy neoconservatives strike out boldly on some foreign policy adventure, flop right down on their faces and then present the cause of their undoing as a novel insight wrestled from the maw of history when in fact, to everyone else except for them, this 'insight' was completely obvious and predictable from the start?
Kaplan says that America can't contain the Iraqi's "sectarian rage" nor "reprogram [the Iraqi's] coarsened and brittle cultures." As Louis Menand put it in The New Yorker, quite relatedly, when reviewing Francis Fukuyama's richly articulated discovery that regime change and preemption might not have been such a royal road to peace and democracy, "No duh!"
I mean, this was the whole premise of pretty much everyone who said that Iraq might be a hard place to 'democratize' by invading. Non-diversified economy based on natural resource extraction, lethal sectarian divisions in a country bundled together by the British. It was pretty much the conventional wisdom going in that it was only brutal dictatorship that held the place together.
Now, this is admittedly a dark, pessimistic view. One might simply say that Iraq has a history of sectarian conflict which makes it a challenging candidate for instant democratization. Or you might say that others have tried to run the place (namely the British) and had a rather tough time of it.
In other words, you can organize these facts along realist lines or anti-Imperialist lines or nationalist lines. And at the end of the day it all comes down to the same basic rub -- that Kaplan presents as something new under the sun what everybody else knew was obvious and was trying again and again, but alas in vain, to tell him and his buds four years ago.
Like Menand says, No Duh ...
Coming later, How is this all different from the Balkans? They don't get along there either, do they?
--Josh Marshall
Question of the Day: Can you name any part of the world, or our relationship with any other country in the world, in which our strategic posture is stronger or, by any measure, better today than it was in January 2001?
The best I can come up with is a couple of countries in the Caucusus and stretching into Central Asia. It's a stretch, I know. Other possibilities?
Late Update: My terminology in this posts seems to have created some unclarity or confusion. I'm not asking about the quality of ties in this or that bilateral relationship. I'm asking whether we are weaker or stronger. More or less able to secure our strategic interests, either through 'soft' or 'hard' power. So, in the case of China for instance, I would say we are clearly weaker than we were five and half years ago. This doesn't mean that I think China is a 'threat' in the sense that the China hawks do. But, among other reasons, our increased dependence on the Chinese because of the North Korea crisis, coupled with our growing national indebtedness to China and arguably the situation in the Middle East all make us weaker and the Chinese stronger, albeit of course in relative terms. We can hypothesize (i.e., fantasize) about what will be the case 10 or 20 years from now. But right now I don't think anyone can deny that the invasion and occupation of Iraq have sharply limited our options and leverage with Iran. This is what I'm getting at -- not whether mutual good feeling is better or diplomatic ties are strengthened (though these can be key components of national strength and security) but, in starker terms of power and leverage, where are we stronger? Where are we weaker? More able to secure our key interests or less so? Internationalists might say we get there through military muscle coupled with robust alliances. The Bush administration says we there through talking tough and the salutary effects of kicking the asses of small countries. But forget about means, after almost six years, what are the results?
--Josh Marshall
Let me have your attention for a moment.
There's a brutal, astonishing and final dispatch today from Lawrence Kaplan at the New Republic blog, The Plank. Let me reprint it in full ...
Even by the degraded standards of everyday life in Baghdad, this report from CNN's Nic Robertson comes as a shock:One international official told me of reports among his staff that a 15-year-old girl had been beheaded and a dog's head sewn on her body in its place; and of a young child who had had his hands drilled and bolted together before being killed.From its gruesome particulars, the report goes on to describe the fear that has gripped even the most hardened Iraqis during this latest round of sectarian bloodletting. Robertson's dispatch points to a revolting truth about the war in Iraq--one that American officers discovered long ago, but which has yet to penetrate fully the imaginations of theoreticians writing from a distant remove. The fact is, there is very little that we can do to dampen the sectarian rage and pathologies tearing Iraq apart at the seams. Did the Army make a mistake when it banished "counterinsurgency" from the lexicon of military affairs? Absolutely. Does it matter in Iraq? Probably not. How can you win over the heart and mind of someone who sews a dog's head on a girl? Would more U.S. troops alter Iraq's homicidal dynamic? Not really, given that, on the question of sectarian rage, America is now largely beside the point. True, U.S. troops can be--and have been--a vital buffer between Iraq's warring sects. But they cannot reprogram their coarsened and brittle cultures. Even if America had arrived in Iraq with a detailed post-war plan, twice the number of troops, and all the counterinsurgency expertise in the world, my guess is that we would have found ourselves in exactly the same spot. The Iraqis, after all, still would hav