If you get a chance on the second showing this evening, watch the second segment on CNN's AC360 this evening. It's about the surge vote. The primary theme? Democratic weakness. The commenters -- Amy Walter of the Cook Report. and John Harris of politico.com. Two nonpartisan analysts. Beside them -- anti-constitutionalist lawyer John Yoo and Marty Peretz writing an anti-Dem editorial on the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Great segment.
--Josh Marshall
An adviser to Dem Senate leader Harry Reid tells us that Dems are likely to fall short in the vote on escalation tomorrrow.
--Greg Sargent
It's amazing what it's come down to. On the senate floor this afternoon, Sen. Sessions (R-AL), in arguing against the surge resolution, gave an entirely new rationale for the invasion of Iraq: We invaded Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein from being able to say that he'd won the 1991 Gulf War.
Hear it for yourself ...
--Josh Marshall
According to CNN, only one senator who's running for president has decided to blow off Saturday's surge resolution vote.
Who?
John McCain.
--Josh Marshall
House votes to condemn escalation, 246-182, with 17 Republicans defecting to join Dems against "surge."
--Greg Sargent
Lieberman predicts constitutional crisis ...
Even as our troops have begun to take Baghdad back step-by-step, there are many in this Congress who have nevertheless already reached a conclusion about the futility of America’s cause there, and declared their intention to put an end to this mission not with one direct attempt to cutoff funds, but step by political step. No matter what the rhetoric of this resolution, that is the reality of the moment. This non-binding measure before us is a first step toward a constitutional crisis that we can and must avoid. Let me explain what I mean by a constitutional crisis. Let us be clear about the likely consequences if we go down this path beyond this non-binding resolution. Congress has been given constitutional responsibilities. But the micro-management of war is not one of them. The appropriation of funds for war is. I appreciate that each of us here has our own ideas about the best way forward in Iraq, I respect those that take a different position than I, and I understand that many feel strongly that the President’s strategy is the wrong one. But the Constitution, which has served us now for more than two great centuries of our history, creates not 535 commanders-in-chief, but one—the President of the United States, who is authorized to lead the day to day conduct of war. Whatever our opinion of this war or its conduct, it is in no one’s interest to stumble into a debilitating confrontation between our two great branches of government over war powers. The potential for a constitutional crisis here and now is real, with congressional interventions, presidential vetoes, and Supreme Court decisions. If there was ever a moment for nonpartisan cooperation to agree on a process that will respect both our personal opinions about this war and our nation’s interests over the long term, this is it.We need to step back from the brink and reason together, as Scripture urges us to do, about how we will proceed to express our disagreements about this war.
We must recognize that, while the decisions we are making today and we are about to make seem irretrievably bound up in the immediacy of the moment and the particular people now holding positions of power in our government, these decisions will set constitutional precedents that will go far beyond this moment and these people. President Bush has less than two years left in office, and a Democrat may well succeed him. If we do not act thoughtfully in the weeks and months ahead, we will create precedents that future Congresses, future Presidents, and future generations of Americans will regret.
Right now, as the battle for Baghdad begins, this institution is deeply divided. However, we should not allow our divisions to lead us to a constitutional crisis in which no one wins and our national security is greatly damaged. We are engaged, as all my colleagues know, in a larger war against a totalitarian enemy – Islamist extremism and terrorism – that seeks to vanquish all of the democratic values that it is our national purpose to protect and defend.
Whatever our differences here in this chamber about this war, let us never forget the values of freedom and democracy that unite us and for which our troops have given and today give the last full measure of their devotion. Yes, we should vigorously debate and deliberate. That is not only our right, it is our responsibility. But at this difficult juncture, at this moment when a real battle, a critical battle is being waged in Baghdad, as we face a brutal enemy who attacked us on 9/11 and wants to do it again, let us not just shout at one another, but let us reach out to one another to find that measure of unity that can look beyond today’s disagreements and secure the nation’s future and the future of all who will follow us as Americans.
--Josh Marshall
Second GOP Senator likely to support Dems' push tomorrow to get a vote on anti-escalation resolution.
Update: Now that Warner will vote for cloture tomorrow, that means we have three GOP Senators likely to support it: Senators Warner, Snowe, and Collins.
Late update: We now have a fourth GOP Senator who's expected to back cloture.
--Greg Sargent
Tony Snow says that the administration is working to produce a transcript of Sunday's background briefing on the Iran threat in Iraq -- you know, so the public can see exactly what was said. Really, they are.
--Paul Kiel
Amanda Marcotte, formerly the head blogger for the Edwards Campaign, will be joining us at TPMCafe next week to discuss her recent experience in political culture clash.
--Andrew Golis
GOP Senator Susan Collins expected to break ranks tomorrow and support the Dems' anti-escalation resolution.
--Greg Sargent
GOP leaders urging Senators to vote against letting new anti-escalation resolution go to a vote.
--Greg Sargent
Today's Must Read: the opponents of the administration's prosecutor purge get their first victory -- Karl Rove's former aide is bowing out.
--Paul Kiel
More details emerge (from the Times ...)
A United States attorney in Arkansas who was dismissed from his job last year by the Justice Department was ousted after Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, intervened on behalf of the man who replaced him, according to Congressional aides briefed on the matter.Ms. Miers, the aides said, phoned an aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales suggesting the appointment of J. Timothy Griffin, a former military and civilian prosecutor who was a political director for the Republican National Committee and a deputy to Karl Rove, the White House political adviser.
Later, the incumbent United States attorney, H. E. Cummins III, was removed without explanation and replaced on an interim basis by Mr. Griffin. Officials at the White House and Justice Department declined to comment on Ms. Miers’s role in the matter.
--Josh Marshall
It's times like these you've just got to miss that dear lady Molly Ivins.
Meet our new friend, Georgia State House Rep. Ben Bridges (R), chairman of the retirement committee in the state house.
Bridges is now in a bit of trouble for 
spilling the beans about evolution being the product of a Pharisee Jew conspiracy to bamboozle normal Americans and destroy Christianity.
“Indisputable evidence — long hidden but now available to everyone — demonstrates conclusively that so-called ‘secular evolution science’ is the Big-Bang 15-billion-year alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion,” reads the letter that went out under Bridges' name. “This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic ‘holy book’ Kabbala dating back at least two millennia.”
It seems that the actual author or analyst, I guess you might say, was a fellow named Marshall Hall, the husband of Bridges campaign manager, Bonnie Hall. Then they sent it out over Bridges' signature to state legislators in Texas, California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio. And they didn't stop by letting the cat out of the bag on evolution. They also blew the whistle on all this hokum about the earth revolving around the Sun.
Barnes' memo pointed fellow state legislators to the information at fixedearth.com which rails against the “a mystic, anti-Christ ‘holy book’ of the Pharisee Sect of Judaism” and claims that “the earth is not rotating … nor is it going around the sun.” They've even caught on to the "centuries-old conspiracy" on the part of Jewish physicists to destroy Christianity.
Now, it was down in Texas that things 
started to spin out of control. Warren Chisum (R), House Appropriations Committee Chairman in the Texas state House, took the memo from his friend Bridges and used the House operations system to distribute the memo throughout the legislature. (Here's Chisum's cover letter and the Bridges' memo.)
The ADL caught wind of the Bridges memo and now Chisum says he's "willing to apologize if I've offended anyone" if anyone got their big nose bent out of shape.
Reports the Dallas Morning News: "Mr. Chisum said he hadn't looked at the Web site and didn't realize that he was distributing that type of material. He expressed chagrin that he didn't vet the material more carefully."
Indeed, even Bridges is now saying that he didn't have anything to do with the memo.
Hall doesn't agree. He said he wrote it and got Bridges' approval to send it out. "I gave him a copy of it months ago,” Hall, who is a retired high school teacher told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “I had already written this up as an idea to present to him so he could see what it was and what we were thinking.” And of course the two have teamed up to ban the teaching of evolution in Georgia back in 2005. So, Bridges' denials are ringing a tad hollow.
And the views expressed in his memo are just too compelling for Bridges to deny outright.
Asked if he agreed with the Kaballah evolution conspiracy theory and the earth's lack of motion, he told the Atlanta Journal Constitution, “I agree with it more than I would the Big Bang Theory or the Darwin Theory. I am convinced that rather than risk teaching a lie why teach anything?”
(ed.note: Additional research provided by Eric Kleefeld.)
--Josh Marshall
GOP Rep. recycles phony Lincoln quote on House floor during debate over escalation.
--Greg Sargent
From TPM Reader JA ...
Our Republican Congressman Fred Upton just came out as anti-surge. It’s front page of the local paper. I called his office ... to say thank you and the aide who answered the phone sounded worn out. I know this guy, his name is ... and he said that it was so nice to hear something positive. They had already gotten 80 angry phone calls and only four good ones. Is this worth a mention so that people in this district who are talkingpointsmemo readers can call in and give support to Fred?
--Josh Marshall
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) is holding a presser on what the Republican response will be to the Democrats' Saturday vote on the anti-surge resolution. Details soon.
--Paul Kiel
Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA): Without the 'surge', US currency may read "In Muhammed We Trust".
(Flashback: Rep. Goode warns that America will be overrun by Muslim hordes.)
Update from GS: A top official at a Muslim group points out the obvious: Muslims don't worship Muhammad, and wouldn't want "In Muhammad We Trust" stamped on their money, either.
--Josh Marshall
Sen. Schumer issues a further warning to the White House over the US Attorney purge as Sen. Kyl blocks efforts to repeal the USA Patriot Act provision giving the White House the ability to appoint US Attorneys without Senate approval.
(ed.note: We've got a lot more coming on the significance of the firing of US Atty Carol Lam in the midst of her historic indictment of the #3 man at the CIA. We'll be bringing you this shortly. There's much more there than people realize.)
--Josh Marshall
It's been a bittersweet year. I turned thirty seven knowing it was the age my mother was when she died. I lost my father and became a father. In many ways, it was too much packed into one year.
So today I'm ready to welcome thirty-eight. And I'm looking forward to a less eventful year.
In the very near future I'll be explaining some exciting new additions to TPM we'll be rolling out in the coming weeks.
--Josh Marshall
Sen. Reid (D-NV) calls their bluff ...
REID: THE SENATE WILL VOTE ON IRAQ THIS SATURDAYWashington, DC—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today released the following statement, announcing that the Senate will vote this Saturday on whether to move forward to debate the President’s escalation of the war in Iraq.
“For nearly four years, the Republican-controlled Senate stood silent on the President's flawed Iraq policies and watched as the situation deteriorated into a civil war. The American people have chosen to change course. Democrats have chosen to change course. Unfortunately, Senate Republicans have chosen obstruction. Almost every Republican who expressed concern about the escalation chose to block the Senate from debating the issue.
“Today, Democrats offered Republicans another chance for compromise, suggesting the Senate debate one resolution in favor of escalation and one resolution opposed to escalation. Once again, Senate Republicans refused.
“Democrats are determined to give our troops and the American people the debate they deserve, so the Senate will have another Iraq vote this Saturday. We will move for a clear up or down vote on the House resolution which simply calls on Congress to support the troops and opposes the escalation.
“Those Republicans who have expressed their concern over the Senate’s failure to debate the war in Iraq will have another opportunity to let their actions speak louder than their words.”
--Josh Marshall
David Brooks heaps scorn on the people who were right about the Iraq War, thus proving our Doctrine of Pundit Infallibility.
Update: Check this out: Back in 2003 Brooks predicted that war foes wouldn't admit they were wrong about Iraq
--Greg Sargent
As Brent Wilkes boldly proclaims his innocence, House Democrats push for U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, who's presided over the Duke Cunningham investigation, to stay on the case.
--Paul Kiel
Today's Must Read: the full glory of the Pentagon's pre-war planning for post-war Iraq revealed!
--Paul Kiel
Look at this.
All the other administration bamboozlement aside, we're now supposed to believe that the central allegation in that Baghdad Iranian arms briefing was false. Not just in the real world sense, but even in the Bush administration sense. That is to say, the administration didn't authorize him to say the arms transfers were authorized at the highest levels of the Iranian government. He just screwed up. He said something he wasn't supposed to say.
Do we believe this? This is the kind of goof that starts wars. Government officials are fired for screw-ups of far less gravity. Is this unnamed 'official' getting fired? And why has it taken three days for anybody to say this briefer went beyond its brief.
--Josh Marshall
Alleged (but with a ton of totally compelling evidence, believe me) Cunningham briber Brent Wilkes speaks!
--Josh Marshall
House GOP: Media is "liberal" to let voters know what's actually happening in Iraq.
--Josh Marshall
I had meant to link to this a couple days ago when it debuted. But the Personal Democracy Forum has just opened a new site about the online politics of the 2008 presidential race -- techpresident.com.
--Josh Marshall
President Bush explains that you don't need to support his policies to be patriotic. But you do have to fund them.
--Josh Marshall
We've been trying to bring you news in real time this morning on President Bush's comments on the Iran weapons issue and how those comments are being repeated, vouched for and interpreted by reporters. Some of the points and critiques we're making require a lot of unpacking and explanation. So let me try to review the key points in this post.
First, let me state what I take to be one of the most important lessons of the lead-up to the Iraq War and the debate over weapons of mass destruction. One reason there was too little scrutiny of even the least controversial of the White House's claims is that a climate was created in which it was viewed as untoward, irrational or simply naive to critically pick apart the details of these claims as long as it was clear that the alleged bad guys were bad guys.
Why focus on the minutiae of the details as long as the big picture is clear? Why be a nitpicker when the people in question are such bad guys? These were the unstated terms of the debate.
In retrospect, of course, there were vast gaps in the claims and many of them were fairly obviously false if you just yanked on a few dangling threads.
Often, seemingly subtle or minor errors in reasoning or gaps in evidence turned out to have huge implications.
With that lesson in mind, carefully consider what we're hearing from the White House on this issue of Iranian arms.
Defense department officials presented evidence of Iranian manufactured super-IEDs that were being used against US troops. There's also long been evidence that the Qods force of the Iranian Republican Guards are operating in Iraq. And it is being claimed that Qods force personnel are responsible for bringing these super IEDs into Iraq.
Let's assume for the moment that all these points are true.
President Bush says "with certainty" that Qods forces are giving these weapons to fighters for use against American troops. The only question, he says, is whether the leaders of the Iranian government at the highest level directly told them to do so. CNN's Barbara Starr says that this is the same thing that Gen. Pace is saying.
But they're actually not saying the same thing. And President Bush's remarks are intentionally framed to duck the key issue of who the Iranians are really arming and why.
First, as Juan Cole has discussed at length, there's a logical disconnect in these claims since the Iranians are supporting their Iraqi Shi'a coreligionists and most of our casualties are from the Sunni insurgents they oppose. So are we supposed to believe that Iran is arming their mortal enemies, the Sunnis?
Indeed the only direct evidence the administration has been willing to publicize comes from December when we found Qods force personnel at the headquarters of our allies, Abdel-Aziz al Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), delivering weapons to Hakim's group.
From Agence France Presse ...
He added that the Al-Qods force's top operations officer was detained in December in the compound of leading Shiite politician Abdel-Aziz Hakim with an inventory of weapons to be shipped, including mortars and sniper rifles.Hakim's party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, told the Americans that the weapons were meant for their protection, he added.
"We assess that these activities are coming from the senior levels of the Iranian government," he said, noting that the Al-Qods brigade reports to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei.
This would hardly be surprising since the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been SCIRI's prime sponsor for a quarter century. And remember, the SCIRI folks are our allies in Iraq.
Now, given the black market traffic in arms in Iraq right now, it's not at all a stretch to believe that weapons are dispersing from Iranian proxies like SCIRI (who we're holding up as our allies) through black market channels to Sunni insurgents who are in turn using them against US troops. Indeed, it seems like a more probable theory than the conclusion that the Iranians are acting in concert with the Sunni militants who are involved in an on-going campaign of indiscriminate slaughter of Iraqi Shi'a civilians.
So, to summarize, as Gen. Pace said, we seem to know that Iranian-made weapons are turning up in Iraq and being used against Americans.
For context, how many US-made weapons do you think are now being used against US forces. Indeed, how much US weaponry sent to Iraq specifically by the US are in turn being used by insurgents against US forces.
What Pace said was "We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran. What I would not say is that the Iranian government, per se [specifically], knows about this. It is clear that Iranians are involved, and it's clear that materials from Iran are involved, but I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit."
And look what President Bush is saying ...
As of late this afternoon, we're being told that the briefers in Baghdad went beyond what they were supposed to say and that the president is now dialing the claims back. In fact, President Bush is intentionally giving Americans the impression that we know something we don't -- that the Qods force is providing weapons for use against U.S. forces. This makes all the difference in the world. So even as Wolf Blitzer says just after 5 PM this afternoon that President Bush is "backing off" the claims, he's actually still trying to fool Americans into believing something that we not only can't prove but that is more than likely false.
A reporter friend told me recently that the administration is saying on background that the really slam-dunk evidence they're not yet able to release. But as I told this person, after the experience of 2002 and 2003, mere self-respect prevents me from putting any credence whatsoever in such claims.
If they had the evidence we'd be seeing it. But without any solid evidence, the president still wants to fool the American public into believing these bogus claims.
After the Iran war, we'll probably be walked back and shown that President Bush never really said that the Qods force was giving these weapons to the people using them against US troops. He didn't fib. We just didn't listen closely enough. He was just saying that the Qods folks gave them to someone. But he wasn't saying who. So before all our soldiers die and before the president makes yet a million more screw ups for which we'll pay for decades into the future, let's look closely at what he's actually saying.
--Josh Marshall
Full frontal bamboozlement: in remarks at Brookings, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns just went beyond what President Bush said in remarks on Iranian arms transfers into Iraq.
--Josh Marshall
Barbara Starr gets bamboozled by President Bush and the DOD press operation.
--Josh Marshall
Here's our update on President Bush's misleading statements this morning on Iranian weapons transfers.
--Josh Marshall
Interested in seeing the internal talking points that went out to House Dems for use in the debate about escalation? We have them for you right here.
Update: Two more House GOPers break ranks, come out in favor of anti-escalation resolution.
Late update: Another House Republican breaks ranks, joins Dems against "surge."
Later update: And another four Republicans join Dems against escalation.
--Greg Sargent
We're going to have an extensive report momentarily, with video, on the accusations the president made this morning regarding Iranian complicity in the transfer of arms used to kill Americans.
Let me briefly explain how it looks to us.
The president is intentionally dodging the key issue of whether the arms in question are going to people killing Americans because of decisions by the Iranian government or its agents or whether they are getting there through black market transfers. If you listen to what the president says the statement is intentionally crafted to ignore this issue while seeming to address it. This wording is not off-hand.
What the president wants people to think is that the only remaining question is whether the orders are coming from the highest eschelons of the Iranian government or whether an arm of the Iranian government is freelancing. CNN at least seems to have been taken in by the dodge, reporting that the president is saying the same thing as Gen. Pace. That's not our understanding. Again, the president's statement today was intentionally misleading. We'll have more to unpack it shortly.
Late Update: Here's our update.
--Josh Marshall
Bush: To be patriotic you don't have to agree with my policy, but you do have to support it.
--Josh Marshall
President Bush refuses to answer any questions whatsoever about the Libby trial. No answers on pardons, the trial, complicity of administration officials. Nothing.
--Josh Marshall
We're just listening to the Bush press briefing today. And he's telling reporters that he knows absolutely that the Iranian Republican Guards are responsible for sending in the weapons that are now being used against US troops. There are some delicate word games involved. But that's what he's saying.
He's saying he knows as a certainty something that his own Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is not willing to say he believes.
--Josh Marshall
Everybody should read this article in today's Times about the new crackdown in Baghdad. The plan is basically to reverse ethnic-cleanse the city, evicting the new tenants of neighborhoods that have been already cleansed and then resettling the evictees.
Under the general’s plan, people who have illegally occupied homes will have 15 days to leave. While they are there, he said, they must protect the home, not steal from it or damage it.“Anyone who does not follow this law will be treated according to the antiterrorism laws,” he said, adding that the government would set up committees to determine ownership.
We have a fair degree of experience at this point in how to attempt or in many cases not even to attempt such cleansing reversals in the Balkans. One almost never attempts such a plan until you're definitely in a post-war period. Doing it in the midst of an escalating cycle of sectarian violence seems like a recipe for disaster. The Times quotes Samantha Power describing the plan "as either a public relations ploy that would never be enforced, or worse, a prelude to more sectarian cleansing and catastrophe."
--Josh Marshall
It never hurts to get an early start.
With nearly two years to go until Election Day 2008, the DSCC is already attacking GOP Senators up for relection with new ads faulting them for stalling debate on escalation.
--Greg Sargent
Today's Must Read: a new report from the European Parliament details the extent of U.S. renditions of suspected terrorists.
--Paul Kiel
Kevin Drum asks an excellent question: Why was Libby the only one to lie in the Plame investigation. Not once or twice but again and again, frequently under oath. Was it related to being tied to Cheney? He felt he had no choice?
--Josh Marshall
You won't want to miss this one. The GOP strategy for evading debate over escalation has now been revealed.
--Greg Sargent
Ahhh. We found the part in the Wilkes indictment about Duke Cunningham's hookers at lobbyist expense.
You come up with your own earmark joke. I won't stoop so low.
For the highlights of Hookergate, see our Hookergate File.
--Josh Marshall
This is one for the ages, from the House Iraq debate today. It's Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), one of true jokers of the House GOP, explaing why voting for the anti-surge resolution is actually a vote to 'stay the course' in Iraq, what the Democrats were attacking the president for doing as recently as last fall ...
--Josh Marshall
You knew it was coming: Hillary and Obama traded blows today on Iraq. Who's right?
--Greg Sargent
The Wilkes/Foggo indictment is not a disappointment. Here's our first blush summary from Paul Kiel. Don't miss Dusty Foggo's touching pledge of undying fealty to Duke Cunningham briber Brent Wilkes: "I am now, have been in the past, and will continue to as long as I breath [sic] - be your partner."
Late Update: And it gets better! Shirlington Limo, the DC limo outfit that reportedly served as the hooker mobile for Duke Cunningham, Wilkes and the rest of the crew makes an appearance in the additional indictment of Brent Wilkes and John Thomas Michael.
Later Update: Better still! Then there was the time when Wilkes threatened to "disappear" a Pentagon program officer in Panana who wasn't coughing up the contracting money quickly enough.
--Josh Marshall
We've just added the Wilkes and Foggo indictments to the TPM Document Collection. See them here. Our report shortly.
--Josh Marshall
"No more blank checks for President Bush on Iraq."
That was Nancy Pelosi today on the House floor, telling House members why they should support the resolution against escalation. If you want to watch her in real time, we have video of her speech here.
And if you want to watch John Boehner respond to Pelosi by saying that America didn't start the Iraq war, we have video of that here.
--Greg Sargent
We've got the text of the Foggo and Wilkes indictments. We'll be publishing them shortly.
--Josh Marshall
Tony Snow does his best to explain the signficance of Sunday's PowerPoint on Iran... and fails.
--Paul Kiel
Brent Wilkes, Dusty Foggo indictment watch...
Ousted federal prosecutor Carol Lam to hold press conference this afternoon.
--Paul Kiel
Did McCain really say that a "Tet"-like offensive in Iraq could make Americans favor the war?
--Greg Sargent
Minority Leader Boehner's (R-OH) speech today in the House is really worth a close listen. When did this war start? The Iraq War, that is? Not in Iraq. Not even on 9/11. It turns out it started with the Iranian hostage crisis.
--Josh Marshall
Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace is again knocking down Pentagon claims that the Iranian government is behind those super-IEDs being used in Iraq. Now again today in Jakarta.
Late Update: Tony Snow got kicked around like crazy on this this morning in the press briefing. The upshot of Snow's comments seemed to be that the press is forcing this Iran weapons "narrative" on the White House. More on that soon.
--Josh Marshall
Just amazing. Newsweek is actually still flogging the bogus Pelosi plane story.
--Greg Sargent
Romney: "Freedom will make the new American dream possible."
No word on the old American dream.
--Josh Marshall
Wilkes and Foggo indictments coming today, it seems. Remember, Foggo was the #3 at the CIA until the recent shake-up that also took out former CIA chief Porter Goss. Goss installed Foggo when President Bush appointed Goss. For more on Foggo, see the Foggo file at TPMmuckraker.
--Josh Marshall
In most of the press reports I've seen on the administration's no-names-allowed press briefing on Iranian arms transfers to Iraq, reporters have noted skepticism about the administration's credibility. But I've seen few press reports which specifically note what seems to be the biggest hole in the administration's argument -- namely, that Iran supports the Shi'a militias but most of our troops are being killed by Sunni insurgents. As Juan Cole notes, the numbers simply don't add up. That doesn't mean that Iranian made weapons aren't killing American troops. What it suggests is that they're getting into insurgent hands through black market channels rather than through the Iranian government itself. (Consider: How many weapons in Iraqi insurgent and militia hands do you think were made in the USA?)
Perhaps there's some reason why this seeming gap in the administration argument isn't really a gap at all. But it at least seems worth a lot more explanation. And I'm not seeing it.
--Josh Marshall
Finally! Real live Congressional debate on escalation!
In the House of Representatives, discussion of the Dems' anti-"surge" resolution is underway.
--Greg Sargent
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on the drumbeat for war against Iran ...
QUESTION: I mean, Sean, sort of a follow-up on all these questions. In a general sense, the big (inaudible) at the moment we've seen, you know, cover of Newsweek, cover of Economist saying Iran could be next, a lot of speculation about military action. Can you give me any reaction to that?MR. MCCORMACK: It seems to be the news media that is whipping up that storyline, not us.
Precious.
--Josh Marshall
Today's Must Read: McClatchy pokes more holes in the administration's story of why seven federal prosecutors were purged last December.
--Paul Kiel
I get asked this question at least once a day now and often more. And I keep answering individually. So let me try to address this in a post. Does Connecticut have a recall procedure that Nutmeg state voters can use to recall their faithless senator, Joe Lieberman?
No. They don't.
In fact, as far as I know no state has such a law because it would be clearly unconstitutional. Members of Congress are federal officeholders and the federal constitution, not state law or state constitutions, defines the nature and term of their tenure.
So that's it. No recall. No nuthin'.
The only thing to do about Joe Lieberman is elect more Democrats in 2008.
That could even be the 2008 slogan: Do it for Joe!
--Josh Marshall
Sens. Dodd (D-CT) and Menendez (D-NJ) to introduce bill banning torture and reinstituting habeas corpus.
--Josh Marshall
Same candidate, totally different spin.
See how Rudy Guiliani's campaign doctors planned to sell the candidate to New York City voters back in 1993 despite 450 pages of dirt on the guy.
--Paul Kiel
Among politics-watchers (and the Giuliani campaign particularly) there's a meme floating around that holds that Rudy Giuliani can overcome conservative resistance to his social liberalism and/or social issue flip-flops by emphasizing what I guess you'd call the leadership principle and his diehard support for War on Terrorism and the Iraq War.
That makes sense to the extent that most of Rudy's potential Red state audience doesn't know much about him beyond the 9/11 hagiography. And it makes more sense to the extent that that focus can separate the 'War on Terror' from the War in Iraq -- something conservatives have never liked doing.
But there seems to be a basic problem built in to this idea. Do Republicans really want to go into 2008 with a presidential candidacy whose raison d'etre is diehard support for the Iraq War and President Bush's version of the War on Terror, which it would inevitably be? That sounds like perilous political territory on multiple counts unless a lot changes over the next eighteen months.
--Josh Marshall
The audio released today of Richard Armitage chatting it up with Bob Woodward about Joe Wilson's wife.
Update: Unfortunately, we're having a buggy day here at TPM. So to see the post, go to TPMmuckraker and scroll down.
--Paul Kiel
Hillary camp develops starkly contrasting approaches to dealing with John Edwards and Barack Obama on Iraq.
Update: A Hillary backer writes in to point out alleged inconsistencies in Obama's assessments of her early war support.
--Greg Sargent
Stuart Rothenberg has some advice for Dems: Aim for a 60-seat Senate majority by 2010.
--Greg Sargent
Joe fixin' to come out of the Republican closet? TPM Reader GD points out this Joe Klein prediction from this weekend's Chris Matthews show ...
This is just a guess, but it's an educated and a reported guess. The Democrats in the Senate are getting really, really angry at Joe Lieberman, especially because he's been accusing them of undermining the troops' morale. And Joe Lieberman isn't too happy with the Democrats, either. I think there's going to be an explosion and perhaps a party switch pretty soon.
Not hard to imagine after what we heard in the recent New Yorker profile. But is he willing to bet on a Republican comeback in 2008?
--Josh Marshall
Good catch by Newshog blog. Today in Australia, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Peter Pace, declined to stand behind the assertions of that background Iranian IEDs briefing in Iraq.
--Josh Marshall
New York Times just can't stop painting Hillary as calculating and political.
--Greg Sargent
Still not convinced?
You can see the Pentagon's famous Iranian IEDs PowerPoint presentation for yourself right here.
--Paul Kiel
With all the intensifying intel bamboozlement about Iranian arms transfers to Iraqi insurgents, the essential question is still being ignored. Let me stipulate to my extreme skepticism about the administration's new campaign of charges about Iranian arms transfers into Iraq -- for specifics see this post and Juan Cole's detailed discussion. But let's consider the matter as though the stream of allegations were true.
Would it matter? Or to be more precise, what would be the answer to these three questions: 1) Would it tell us anything we don't already know about the clerical regime in Iran? 2) Is the volume of arms sales a necessary or suffiicient cause of our predicament in Iraq? and 3) Would successful aggressive action against Iran materially improve our current situation in Iraq?
The answer to #1 seems clearly to be, no. We've announced publicly on numerous occasions that we're hostile to the Iranian regime. And we occupy the countries to the east and the west. So it's not surprising that the Iranians would try to make our work in Iraq more difficult. And the people most eager to expand the war into Iran -- especially those folks -- consider the Iranian regime a hostile, aggressive and threatening player in the region. So, on all counts, there are no surprises here.
Question #2 seems even easier to answer. No one believes that whatever small flow of Iranian roadside bomb parts there might be has caused the chaos in Iraq. It might have upped the kill rate for these nasty weapons by, say, 10%, thus throwing a bit more gas on the fire. But the fire is already raging out of control. If Iran is helping kill American soldiers that might be a grievance we note for payback at a point when we're not otherwise occupied. But on the key point, it's clear that Iranian help with IEDs wouldn't be causing the problem. It would at best be aggravating the problem.
The answer to question #3, of course, flows immediately the answer to #2. Since it's not causing the problem, ending it wouldn't solve the problem. It wouldn't even significantly help.
Assume the best possible outcome to the sort of action that the Vice President and his clique appear to be angling for. We attack Iran -- either in crossborder raids or aerial bombing campaigns. The Iranians are duly chastened and stop all assistance, financial and military, to paramilitaries in Iraq. And this accomplishes? For our situation in Iraq, not much. We go from the IEDs of early 2007 back to the old style IEDs of 2006. In other words, for the outside chance of a temporary and marginal degradation of the quality of the IEDs used in Iraq we run all the risks of digging ourselves deeper into the current quagmire , getting still more American soldiers killed and further stoking anti-American animus in the region with the likely outcome of solidifying the regime in Tehran for decades to come. And after all that fun is done with we're back to the same situation in Iraq that we can't figure out a way to resolve today.
Hawk or dove, who denies that Iraq, solving the situation in Iraq is the singular issue of American foreign policy today. And who can honestly say that tangling with Iran helps us achieve that end in any meaningful way? Iran is a distraction. More specifically, this new Iran bogey is an effort to distract us or find a scapegoat for the administration's failure in Iraq. And let's not forget that the underlying charge is likely another fraud.
--Josh Marshall
A copy of the final version of the resolution by House Dems condeming escalation has just been sent our way. It's here.
--Greg Sargent
After you read those Times and Post articles about the DOD briefing in Baghdad about Iranian supplied IEDs killing US troops, read Juan Cole's explanation of why the story is bunk. Cole isn't saying that there can't be any arms transfers, though he clearly has his doubts. But the numbers just don't add up. Because the Iranians would be giving them to Shi'a militias and our soldiers who are getting killed by IEDs are still being killed overwhelmingly by Sunni insurgents. See the details.
--Josh Marshall
You know that, after a brief period of investigation, the committee of four ministers appointed to counsel anti-gay gay Pastor Tedd Haggard discovered that Haggard was in fact "completely heterosexual."
"It was the acting-out situations where things took place," explained Pastor Tim Ralph.
Anyway, Ralph and his fellow pastors have told Haggard to leave Colorado Springs to heal since presumably the gay scene there is too hot and heavy for Haggard's heterosexuality to maintain itself. But Susie Bright doesn't think even getting out of town is going to keep Haggard from falling off the heterosexual wagon some time within the next year.
And if you don't think so either, she's even set up a betting pool so you can put down money on the date.
Proceeds go to a San Francisco-based LGBT youth group.
--Josh Marshall
ABC on Obama, or what's coming down the pike: "Obama's foreign policy proposals are just one target for his critics, who have many questions for the senator, including whether his church on the South Side of Chicago -- which preaches a message of black power -- is too militant to be accepted by mainstream America."
TPM Reader RKR thinks the ABC reporters may be picking up on this article on Obama's church in the whacked right-wing sheet Investor's Business Daily.
--Josh Marshall
Two senior officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who opposed many questionable management and spending decisions by the agency's former director are being moved to lower-ranking positions effective Thursday, officials said. . . .The transfers are widely seen within ATF as demotions. They come seven months after the sudden departure of Carl J. Truscott, the former director, who clashed with Domenech and other senior executives over spending and management practices.
An inspector general's report issued after his departure showed that Truscott -- who previously served as head of President Bush's security detail at the Secret Service -- engaged in a wide-ranging pattern of questionable expenditures on a new ATF headquarters, personal security and other items. The report also said that he violated ethics rules by forcing employees to help his nephew prepare a high school video project.
Domenech took over for Truscott after he resigned and reversed a decision to include a costly engraved quotation from Bush's speech to Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks at the new headquarters entrance.
SOP for the Bush Administration.
--David Kurtz
Larry Johnson has some of the backstory on Doug Feith's claims today on Fox News. More here and here.
--David Kurtz
TPM Reader BW on Odom ...
Failure is a tough sell. Odom admits that, but he does not fully understand the implications. The Democrats in Congress are not especially stupid, but they are necessarily anxious about withdrawal, because they are sensibly fearful of being blamed by the Republicans for “losing Iraq”.The worst kinds of Republicans control almost the whole news Media. The punditocrisy has backed this stupid war completely. The narrative, which will be fed to the American People, by this propaganda machine will not be favorable to a Democratic Congress.
And, withdrawal from Iraq will be followed for months and years by a series of events catastrophic to American interests in the region. Stability will not magically reappear. At best, Iran may assume control of much of Iraq; at worst, Iran and Saudi Arabia will fight a prolonged proxy war.
Odom is wrong to attribute the dire situation entirely to the mere fact of the war. In fact, the conduct of the war by the U.S. has largely created the chaos in Iraq. The corrupt and incompetent conduct of the war has created the chaos in Iraq. Bush’s corrupt and incompetent conduct of the occupation and reconstruction has created the chaos in Iraq.
Everywhere, political punditry from the Right concentrates on ignoring, or distracting from, the massive contribution to Iraqi chaos made by Bush’s conduct of the occupation and reconstruction. And, too many on the Left help them in this effort, prattling on about “age-old” conflicts between Shia and Sunni, with scarcely a word about how the institutions of secular society were ground to dust, leaving only ancient tribal affiliations.
The critical work of the Congress in the next 6 months is to build the narrative, which places the responsibility for the course of the Iraq War on its conduct. The narrative, favored by the self-destructive left, of a war that was doomed from the outset, is welcomed by the Right, which wishes to gloss over the corruption, malfeasance and incompetence. I am no fan of Hillary's (or Kerry's) conspicuous calculation, but Hillary is right to remind Democratic Primary voters that the mistakes in Iraq belong to Bush. Squabbling over which Democrats have uttered mea culpas on their support for the Iraq War at the outset does not build a political majority. Focusing attention on Bush's conduct of the war, and how the conduct of the war has contributed to the hopelessness of the current situation -- there Bush's responsibility is unambiguous and unshared.
With the foundation afforded by a narrative of Iraq failure, which clearly fixed blame on the incompetence and corruption of Republicans, the Democrats might be able to sell the idea that it is too late in Iraq, to recover. And, with that foundation, the Democrats will be able to get the country out of Iraq, without destroying themselves.
The story of how Bush conducted the war, and how that conduct led to the on-going fiasco and catastrophe, which is Iraq, is the story ALL Democrats should be telling, over and over, until nothing else can be heard in this country, and the U.S. gets out, out, out.
--Josh Marshall
Picking up on David's wise recommendation to read the Odom column (see links immediately below), here's one particularly salient point from it. It really sums up everything: "Why are so many members of Congress swallowing the claim that prolonging the war is now supposed to prevent precisely what starting the war inexorably and predictably caused?" Here Odom is talking about the influence of Iran in Iraq.
To me, even more critical is this short paragraph ...
1) We must continue the war to prevent the terrible aftermath that will occur if our forces are withdrawn soon. Reflect on the double-think of this formulation. We are now fighting to prevent what our invasion made inevitable! Undoubtedly we will leave a mess -- the mess we created, which has become worse each year we have remained. Lawmakers gravely proclaim their opposition to the war, but in the next breath express fear that quitting it will leave a blood bath, a civil war, a terrorist haven, a "failed state," or some other horror. But this "aftermath" is already upon us; a prolonged U.S. occupation cannot prevent what already exists.
To me this sums up everything.
--Josh Marshall
OK, class. Today's homework assignment is reading Gen. William Odom's op-ed in the Washington Post. I've highlighted Odom's analysis in the past, and he remains possibly the most cogent observer of the Iraq disaster.
--David Kurtz
Greg Sargent has pulled up Sen. Clinton's floor speech on the Iraq War resolution from October 10, 2002. It's worth a refresher as Clinton tries to finesse her vote now.
Which brings me to another point.
Why is she trying to finesse her vote?
Seriously.
On the substance of it, would she really cast the same vote today knowing what we know now? I can't believe she would. Does she regret, therefore, casting that vote? She won't say that exactly, which leads one to conclude that she has political reasons for not saying so.
But what political reasons?
Again, seriously.
Here Clinton finds herself where many if not most Americans do: supported the war initially and are now dubious. So what political backlash would she suffer for traveling the same arc as a significant percentage of voters? Arguably, very little.
The backlash she is getting is from the left, which remains angry about her vote. But does holding fast to that position now deflect criticism from the left? No, just the opposite. It invites more criticism.
Maybe I'm oversimplifying this, but since I can't figure out why she would hew to this position for political reasons, I circle back to the substance of the issue. Would she cast that vote again knowing what she knows now? Maybe she would. But, again, I doubt it. She's too smart for that.
I'm left with thoroughly unsatisfying explanations; such as, she's too stubborn to admit a mistake. Thoughts?
--David Kurtz
Adam Liptak has a nice piece today based on Dick Cheney's handwritten notes from the Ford Administration:
RETURNING to the White House after the Memorial Day weekend in 1975, the young aide Dick Cheney found himself handling a First Amendment showdown. The New York Times had published an article by Seymour M. Hersh about an espionage program, and the White House chief of staff, Donald H. Rumsfeld, was demanding action.Out came the yellow legal pad, and in his distinctively neat, deliberate hand, Mr. Cheney laid out the “problem,” “goals” while addressing it, and “options.” These last included “Start FBI investigation — with or w/o public announcement. As targets include NYT, Sy Hersh, potential gov’t sources.”
Another option was immediate grand jury indictments of the New York Times and Hersh.
The more things change . . .
--David Kurtz
Barack Obama takes a hit from, of all places, down under:
PRIME Minister John Howard has launched a broadside against US presidential hopeful Barack Obama, warning his victory could destroy Iraq and prospects for peace in the Middle East.Mr Howard's stinging attack against the popular Democrat, who formally launched his bid for the Democratic candidacy overnight, also appears to commit Australian troops to staying in Iraq well into 2008.
Only days after saying Australia's alliance with the US was about more than his personal friendship with US President George W Bush, Mr Howard warned that an Obama victory would be a boost for the terrorists.
The man who wants to be the first black US president has pledged to withdraw US troops from Iraq by March 2008, a timetable Mr Howard believes is dangerous.
"I think that would just encourage those who wanted completely to destabilise and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for (an) Obama victory," Mr Howard told the Nine Network.
"If I was running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats."
Wow. What do our Aussie readers make of this?
Thanks to TPM Reader TD from Sydney for the tip.
Update: Some commentary on John Howard's remarks from Tim Dunlop:
It’s one thing to be feeling the pressure at home about his own unpopular policy on Iraq; it is quite another to let that pressure get to him to the extent that he felt it necessary to publicly smear a United States Senator, the entire party who currently control the Congress of the United States, and the American people themselves. And all this fresh off him telling us all that we couldn’t expect to withdraw troops from Iraq without suffering some consequences for the alliance. Does he seriously think this will go unremarked in Washington?
Late Update: From TPM Reader AB:
Speaking as an Australian: Howard's comments were largely for domestic consumption. He's floundering lately - the opposition ALP has a new leadership team that's making him look very very small. He's been caught out on the wrong side of a pile of issues, including climate change and the Australian David Hicks (who's still in Gitmo after 5 years, still no trial). Add to this the Iraq war, which had majority opposition from day one, and he's feeling the pressure. There's an election due later this year.
--David Kurtz
