Empathy
Touching (from WaPo) ...
Bush has appeared energized by the events of the past few weeks. Meeting with tribal leaders in Anbar province last Monday, the president even showed empathy when the sheiks complained about a lack of money from Baghdad, officials said. As governor of Texas, Bush said, he had asked for more federal funds from Washington -- and often did not get them, either.
--Josh Marshall
Arkansas Project
Ted Olson a likely nominee to replace disgraced outgoing Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
--Josh Marshall
Two Bangor Daily News editors recuse themselves from coverage of the Maine senate race over charges of conflicts of interest.
--Josh Marshall
After reporting to the White House and Congress last year, members of the Iraq Study Group, like all great super-groups, went their separate ways. After the president largely ignored its recommendations, the ISG pondered a reunion tour, but the White House reportedly intervened, imploring former Secretary of State James Baker not to reconvene the panel.
So, the U.S. Institute of Peace did the next best thing -- it convened the experts who advised the ISG, which led to a summer-long discussion among some two dozen former U.S. officials and ambassadors, former CIA analysts, and Iraq specialists from think tanks and universities. Their recommendations are poised to be released tomorrow.
In a report to be released Sunday, a panel of experts assembled by the U.S. Institute of Peace calls for a 50 percent reduction in U.S. forces in Iraq within three years and a total withdrawal and handover of security to the Iraqi military in five years.
"The United States faces too many challenges around the world to continue its current level of effort in Iraq, or even the deployment that was in place before the surge," the report says. " . . . It is time to chart a clearer path forward."
Given that Petraeus reportedly believes stability can be achieved in 10 years, and the Council on Foreign Relations' Stephen Biddle is talking about 20 years, I suppose the USIP plan for a mere five years might look appealing by comparison.
That is, if we had any reason to think conditions would be any better in 2012 than they are now.
--Steve Benen
A Rovian strategy gone awry
Yesterday, after the latest Osama bin Laden video was released, David Kurtz noted that both sides of the political divide "may be tempted to use bin Laden's words to some perverse advantage," but suggested everyone show some restraint. David explained, "Bin Laden is a crazy, evil man. No one should take any pleasure in trying to exploit his rantings for their own partisan purposes." Arguing the same point, I suggested, "Might we be better off not trying to make use of the rambling tirade of a monster who killed 3,000 Americans?"
Last night on PBS' The NewsHour, New York Times columnist David Brooks compared 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden's latest video message to "lefty blogs," saying the al Qaeda head is like "one of these childish people posting rants at the bottom of the page."
Brooks, supposedly one of the media's favorite "serious" grown-ups, is playing the same offensive game far-right activists have been playing for years: tying the 9/11 architect to the left. It's insulting and ridiculous, but Brooks' sentiment was echoed, aggressively, by the usual suspects.
I suppose this is all fairly predictable, and not worth getting too worked up over. Things haven't gone too well for the right when it comes to the military (stretched to the breaking point), counter-terrorism (increased terrorist attacks around the globe every year since 9/11), combating al Qaeda (which has used Iraq as a successful recruiting and fundraising tool), or U.S. foreign policy (our international standing has reached its lowest ebb in a generation), so I guess it makes them feel better to argue that fundamentalist terrorists and secular liberals share some kind of ideology. Whatever.
Having said that, it's probably worth noting, from time to time, that if Osama bin Laden were to sit down and write a gameplan for what he'd like to see the United States do since 2001, it would look eerily similar to the approach taken by the Bush administration over the last six years.
In this sense, Brooks' comments, and those from other far-right voices, are part of a classic Rovian strategy -- identify your rival's strength, and go after it vociferously. Indeed, the strident rhetoric and the nonsensical finger-pointing reeks of desperation, as if the president's political supporters hope that if they scream "OBL (hearts) Democrats" loud enough, no one will notice that Bush's presidency has been everything al Qaeda could have hoped for, and more.
It's kind of sad, when you think about it.
--Steve Benen
The easy way to silence critics
In light of the controversy surrounding the Pentagon's Iraq numbers, hilzoy explained the larger dynamic nicely:
Here are some of the things we know about these statistics: they don't include Sunni-on-Sunni violence, or Shi'a-on-Shi'a violence. They don't include car bombings. There are unexplained changes in the figures from one report to the next. They don't seem to take seasonality into account. [...]
[T]here is an easy way to resolve these issues. If the government were to release its figures, and explain the methodology behind them, then it would be clear whether they had been cherry-picked or not.... Explaining the methodology behind their numbers is obviously the best way for the administration either to put these sorts of doubts to rest once and for all, or else to prove that they are well-founded.
It's an idea that's making the rounds.
Members of Congress urged the Pentagon yesterday to declassify its data on sectarian killings, just days before General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, is expected to report a dramatic decrease in the level of violence between the Sunni and Shi'ite sects.
Does anyone seriously believe that if the internal data pointed to legitimate progress in Iraq, the administration wouldn't release it?
--Steve Benen
'Gutting our military'
Of all of Bush's misstatements from the 2000 presidential election, one of the most obviously-false attacks was on military readiness. Indeed, then-Gov. Bush blamed Clinton and Gore directly for "hollowing out" the military. "If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report, 'Not ready for duty, sir.'" BC00 campaign aides later acknowledged it was a bogus charge, but that didn't stop Bush from repeating it. A lot.
And now, seven years later, the next batch of Republican presidential hopefuls are doing the same thing.
"So much time was spent on other stuff in Clinton's years, good and bad, that the biggest mistake he ever made doesn't get the focus it deserves - and that is gutting our military," [Rudy Giuliani] said, not mentioning that the post-Cold War reduction in military spending started under the first President George Bush and continued under Clinton with bipartisan congressional support.
Fred Thompson made the same argument a couple of weeks ago, arguing that the U.S. must rebuild its military to fight global terrorism because leaders "took a holiday" in the 1990s.
I realize the GOP is in a bind. Bush has stretched the military to the breaking point, and Republican presidential candidates want to emphasize rebuilding the Armed Forces as part of their platforms. But to acknowledge the incredible strains on the current military is to implicitly hold the president to account for his irresponsible policies.
What to do? Blame Clinton, of course.
Nonsensical rhetoric notwithstanding, Giuliani and Thompson have identified the correct problem, but they're blaming the wrong president.
Four years after the invasion of Iraq, the high and growing demand for U.S. troops there and in Afghanistan has left ground forces in the United States short of the training, personnel and equipment that would be vital to fight a major ground conflict elsewhere, senior U.S. military and government officials acknowledge.
More troubling, the officials say, is that it will take years for the Army and Marine Corps to recover from what some officials privately have called a "death spiral," in which the ever more rapid pace of war-zone rotations has consumed 40 percent of their total gear, wearied troops and left no time to train to fight anything other than the insurgencies now at hand.
The risk to the nation is serious and deepening, senior officers warn, because the U.S. military now lacks a large strategic reserve of ground troops ready to respond quickly and decisively to potential foreign crises.... An immediate concern is that critical Army overseas equipment stocks for use in another conflict have been depleted by the recent troop increases in Iraq, they said.
I'd just add that Clinton fought two wars -- and won them both. What's more, when Bush sent troops into Afghanistan to rout the Taliban, he did so with the military Clinton left for him.
--Steve Benen
When football and politics collide
Oddly enough, this was one of the more talked-about news items of the day yesterday among conservative bloggers.
Are you still fans of Matt Hasselbeck and Mack Strong after they visited President Bush last week in Bellevue? Or have their political leanings turned you against them?
The [Seattle] Seahawks quarterback and fullback gave the 43rd president a No. 43 jersey with his name on it at a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser for Rep. Dave Reichert [R] at the Hyatt.
At the time, Hasselbeck called it a thrill and said it was a win-win, this opportunity to meet the president and get out of a team meeting. But as soon as he saw the picture of the two players with Bush, Gary Wright, the team's vice president of administration, said he was concerned about negative reaction.
Maybe in really red Republican states, it would not have been a big deal. But Washington is a blue state, and deep, deep Democratic blue in King County. So objections were raised, and Hasselbeck heard them and read them. He got nasty voice mails, e-mails and text messages.
Now, sports teams routinely meet with presidents at the White House after a championship, but this was a little different. Two Seahawks players attended a GOP fundraiser, where they decided, on their own, to honor the president.
Apparently, Bush isn't particularly popular in Seattle, where fans told Hasselbeck and Strong how offended they were with the gesture towards Bush. Then, conservative bloggers argued yesterday how offended they were by Seahawks' fans.
Apparently, the right's argument seems to be that entertainers like football players should be able to express political preferences without hearing vitriolic reactions from fans. It's a free country; going to a GOP fundraiser and applauding the president isn't a crime. Sounds reasonable enough to me.
But I am curious about those making the argument. If football players should be able to express their support for Bush, should the Dixie Chicks be able to express criticism of Bush? If Democrats in Seattle who are bothered by Hasselbeck and Strong are crazy, are conservatives who crushed the Dixie Chicks' CDs with steamrollers expressing mature political opposition?
Just asking.
--Steve Benen
Hagel to call it quits
In March, in one of the year's strangest political moments, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) called a "major" press conference to discuss his future political plans. The event, which most assumed would be a presidential announcement, drew much of the political press corps and live television coverage. "I'm here today to announce that my family and I will make a decision on my political future later this year," Hagel said, effectively making an announcement to let people know he'll make an announcement some other time.
"Later this year" has apparently arrived and Hagel's decided to call it quits. Election Central has all the details.
I'd just add, however, that this is not at all what the Republican leadership wanted to hear. Sure, Hagel has been a thorn in the party's side by breaking ranks on Iraq policy, but 2008 was poised to be a difficult cycle anyway for the party -- the GOP has 22 seats to defend next year, the Dems have 12. With an unpopular war, an unpopular incumbent president, and an unpopular party in general, Republicans need to keep retirements to a minimum in order to conserve campaign resources.
And yet, they're exiting stage right. Hagel joins Warner (Va.) and Craig (Idaho) among the GOP incumbents who've already announced their retirement plans.
--Steve Benen
An 'ass-kicking' talking point
I guess war supporters have settled on their new assessment of conditions in Iraq. Upon arriving in Australia a few days ago, the president insisted that "we're kicking ass" in Iraq.
In a speech to the American Enterprise Institute, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was apparently on the same page.
"My last visit convinced me more than anything else that the biggest benefit of the surge is to take the men and women on the front lines and change their attitude about their mission. They've gone from going around, waiting to be shot, to feeling like they're kicking their ass."
Kicking whose ass? Graham didn't say.
This need not be complicated. This week, the GAO documented the fact that Iraq has successfully completed three of the administration's 18 benchmarks. This hardly qualifies as "kicking ass."
Both Graham and Bush have been struggling with reality for quite a while, but it seems as if they've decided the cautious optimism no longer works, at least as far as public relations goes. Dems keep pointing to reality, and highlighting the fact that the policy isn't working. If Bush, Graham, and other war supporters concede publicly that the strategy is struggling, it would be perceived as a sign of weakness.
So, they swing for the fences. Don't believe your lying eyes -- the Iraq policy isn't just working; it's actually "kicking ass."
The AEI audience seemed to appreciate Graham's comments, and I don't doubt the GOP base and congressional Republicans got to pump their fists in the air a bit after hearing the president's remarks. There may even be some Americans who hear about this and think, "Well, if things were really going poorly, the president and his allies wouldn't seem so confident."
But that doesn't make it so.
--Steve Benen
"It's not a crime"
I think it's safe to assume the right will be less than pleased with Rudy Giuliani's interview with Glenn Beck yesterday:
GLENN: [I]sn't illegal immigration a crime in and of itself?
GIULIANI: No.
GLENN: Aren't you saying --
GIULIANI: Glenn --
GLENN: You're protecting criminals by saying that being treated as a criminal is unfair.
GIULIANI: Glenn, it's not a crime. I know that's very hard for people to understand, but it's not a federal crime.
GLENN: It's a misdemeanor but if you've been nailed, it is a crime. If you've been nailed, ship back and come back, it is a crime.
GIULIANI: Glenn, being an illegal immigrant, the 400,000 were not prosecuted for crimes by the federal government, nor could they be.... In fact, when you throw an immigrant out of the country, it's not a criminal proceeding. It's a civil proceeding.
Beck followed up by asking if illegal immigration should be a crime, prompting Giuliani to argue, "No, it shouldn't be because the government wouldn't be able to prosecute it."
Now, Giuliani isn't wrong. Illegal immigrants aren't imprisoned for being in the country; they're deported. There's simply no practical way to incarcerate every single person who enters the U.S. illegally.
But as far as the Republican base is concerned, the former NYC mayor, whose record on immigration was far too liberal for GOP tastes anyway, has given far-right activists just another reason to question his conservative bona fides.
--Steve Benen
Journalism 101
Here's an exercise for the day. Compare Karen DeYoung's September 6th Post article on the Iraq numbers with today's by Michael Gordon in the Times.
We've already discussed DeYoung's article here. While Gordon discusses conflicting opinions about what the military's numbers mean, he really never questions the numbers themselves.
One mild exception comes in this graf ...
Critics of the White House have pointed to the Government Accountability Office report released on Tuesday, which asserted that it was unclear whether sectarian violence had decreased. The report cited data on daily, nationwide attacks that had been assembled by Gen. David H. Petraeus’s command. But American military officials note that the G.A.O. assessment did not take account of August, when the most significant gains in reducing violence materialized not only in Baghdad, but also across Iraq.
Gordon himself might have noted that the statistics compiled by the Associated Press showed, on the contrary, a marked increase in civilian deaths in August.
I'd recommend reading both articles and making your own comparison. I think it's hard to come to any other judgment but that Gordon's is a remarkably credulous account. And while it notes some points of disagreement it treats them in the manner one would expect of a relatively evenhanded advocate on behalf of the numbers coming out of the Baghdad command. I cannot see any rationale or excuse for why the problems raised in DeYoung's report find no place in Gordon's.
This is another example of how the Post, as big a train wreck as it's been on the editorial side, has consistently been the superior paper on intelligence, military and foreign reporting (at least in the Middle East) during the Bush presidency.
--Josh Marshall
Not ready for prime time
Earlier this week, former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said it's not too late for Fred Thompson to compete for the GOP nomination, but to make up for lost time, the former senator must demonstrate "a command over policy issues." Fleischer added, "He's got to knock the policy questions out of the park."
Freshly minted GOP White House hopeful Fred Thompson puzzled Iowans yesterday by insisting an Al Qaeda smoking ban was one reason freedom-loving Iraqis bolted to the U.S. side.
"They said, 'You gotta quit smoking,'" Thompson explained to a questioner asking about progress in Iraq during a town hall-style meeting. [...]
Thompson's tale of a smokers' revolt baffled some in the audience of about 150 who came to decide whether the former Tennessee senator is ready for prime time.
"I don't know what that was about," said Jim Moran, 72, who had driven from nearby McCook Lake, S.D.
Thompson's been getting a lot of that lately.
In just the last couple of days, Thompson has had trouble explaining his position on Social Security; dismissed the significance of Osama bin Laden, describing him as "more symbolism than anything else"; said he believes "we better figure out a way" to combat al Qaeda (not that he necessarily knows how), and proposed a bizarre constitutional amendment on gay marriage, arguing that "zero" state legislatures "have affirmatively approved gay marriage," a claim that happens to be wrong.
No wonder this guy is ducking debates; he's nowhere near ready for prime time.
--Steve Benen
Who Disbanded the Iraqi Army?
Fred Kaplan raises an fascinating point in his new article about the disbanding of the Saddam-era Iraqi Army. We know Paul Bremer didn't come up with the idea. But who did? I'm not sure I realized this. But I guess we actually don't know. And with the near universal belief that it was the biggest blunder of the occupation, it does not seem likely that anyone will be coming forward any time soon.
Since the idea read so much from the pre-war AEI-Iraq Regime Change playbook, I think I'd just been assuming it had come out of the crew around Wolfowitz at the Pentagon. But Kaplan makes an admittedly circumstantial and speculative but in the end I think rather convincing argument that the idea came from Dick Cheney. And Cheney probably got the idea from Ahmed Chalabi -- one of the great charlatans and hucksters in the annals of American foreign policy history.
We're told that it's wrong too dwell too long on what's in the past when it comes to Iraq. And this is good advice in as much as the hard work of figuring out, conceptually and politically, how to end the nightmare in Iraq shouldn't be shunted aside for the comparative ease of cataloguing and knocking out of park all the lame-brained ideas and catastrophic screw ups going back to 2002.
That said, though, there's so much left to talk about. There is such a long list of misdeeds and crimes for which we have neither answers nor accountability. This is just one among many, though it is no doubt one of the most consequential.
--Josh Marshall
Over the Top, Even for the White House
Maybe there is a limit as to how far the White House will--or can--go to spin the situation on the ground in Iraq as positive.
On his way to the APEC conference in Australia this week, President Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq. Actually, the visit was limited to the confines of a U.S. base there. Iraq is too dangerous for the President to visit anywhere where Iraqis actually live. The very fact that the visit has to be a "surprise" for security reasons evidences the violence and instability within the country. But that wasn't going to stop a gung-ho White House speechwriter from touting the President's visit itself as proof that things are getting better in Iraq.
Here is a portion of the speech President Bush was to give today at the APEC conference. This is from the "as prepared for delivery" version of the speech which is released in advance to media organizations that cover the White House (emphasis mine):
On my way to this week’s summit, I stopped in Iraq’s Anbar Province. Last year, Anbar was an al Qaida stronghold and one of the most dangerous places in Iraq. Al Qaida terrorized the province, using torture and murder to keep the local population in line. Then, Sunnis who had fought with al Qaida against Coalition troops turned on the terrorists, and began fighting with Coalition troops against al Qaida. Together, Americans and Iraqis drove al Qaida from strongholds in the region. And today, because of their sacrifice, Anbar is one of the safest places in Iraq – so safe that the President of the United States can drop in to thank the troops for their courage in the fight to protect us all.
Someone must have spotted the sheer inanity of that line and rewrote it because in the speech the President actually delivered that section is gone, replaced with a more benign account of the President's visit:
You may have heard, on my way down here I stopped in Iraq--stopped in Anbar Province. Anbar was an al Qaeda stronghold. Their leaders of al Qaeda had announced that they were going to establish a safe haven from which to launch further attacks on my nation--for starters. It was a part of Iraq that was dangerous and, the truth of the matter is, the a lot of the experts in my country had said was lost to al Qaeda.I went there because al Qaeda has lost Anbar. The opposite happened. Anbar is a Sunni province that once had people joining al Qaeda -- they're now turning against al Qaeda. . . . And I was proud to go there.
Citing the President's brief stop in a heavily guarded U.S. encampment as proof of peace and stability in the country at large was too over the top, even for the White House.
--David Kurtz
Lewis's Charmed (Legal) Life
I'll have more on this over the weekend. But take a look at this new post on the Jerry Lewis (R-CA) investigation. First, 'budget shortfalls' led to the very unfortunate decision to slow down the investigation. Then a senior prosecutor was put in place by the acting US Attorney in LA to jumpstart the investigation. Now Main Justice has forced him into retirement.
Give this one a read. The DOJ shenanigans may not be over.
--Josh Marshall
Edwards
As we noted below, we interviewed Sen. Edwards today about terrorism and Iraq. We'll be bringing you those episodes of TPMtv on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. For now, we wanted bring you a quick preview, Sen. Edwards on the Petraeus Report and 'the surge' ...
--Josh Marshall
George Packer on Preparing for Defeat
In the upcoming issue of The New Yorker, George Packer surveys the failure of the surge:
The Petraeus-Crocker testimony is the kind of short-lived event on which the Administration has relied to shore up support for the war: the “Mission Accomplished” declaration, the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein, Saddam’s capture, the transfer of sovereignty, the three rounds of voting, the Plan for Victory, the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Every new milestone, however illusory, allows the Administration to avoid thinking ahead, to the years when the mistakes of Iraq will continue to haunt the U.S.The media have largely followed the Administration’s myopic approach to the war, and there is likely to be intense coverage of the congressional testimony. But the inadequacy of the surge is already clear, if one honestly assesses the daily lives of Iraqis. . . .
The balance of the piece looks at the road ahead and the very difficult decisions that the U.S. is avoiding making and has been avoiding for many months. If our options before ranged from bad to worse, they now range from worse to horrible.
--David Kurtz
OBL
As I skimmed the transcript of the new bin Laden tape with its discussion of global warming, subprime credit woes, Noam Chomsky, Richard Perle, the low tax nirvana of Islam and a bunch of other stuff, I could not help feeling sad again about how we gave this joker a new lease on life by invading Iraq. Hannah Arendt spoke of the 'banality of evil'. This may only rise to the level of the ridiculousness of evil. And perhaps not even that.
I don't gainsay the danger or destructive power of the man. I still remember Rick Hertzberg's quote just after 9/11 that the attacks were as brilliant as they were evil. (This is from memory: so I may have the precise words wrong. But he well captured the way in which the horror and evil of the attacks were matched by their diabolical ingeniusness.) But as an articulator of a vision, an expounder of "Islamofascism," or whatever the new trademarked word is now, he's about as coherent and comprehensible as a 9th tier blogger or one of those whacks sitting on a stoop in Union Square talking about fascism and Texas oil barons before they get overcome by the shakes or decide to start collecting more aluminum cans.
If my predictive powers are still working right, I'm sure I'll catch flack for taking such a mocking attitude toward this man who has so much American blood on his hands. But this, I think, is only the flip side of the vaunted perch we insist on giving him, a insistence that is a paradoxical part of Bushism. They are tacit partners in creating the world in which we now live.
--Josh Marshall
The Big Question
How will we determine the whereabouts of the new bin Laden puppet who has taken over al Qaeda?
--Josh Marshall
Osama Bin Laden: Terrorist and Political Pundit
In his latest public statement, Osama bin Laden (or someone purporting to be him) wades pretty deep into U.S. domestic politics, according to a transcript of his remarks obtained by ABC News:
He says to the American people, "you made one of your greatest mistakes, in that you neither brought to account nor punished those who waged this war, not even the most violent of its murderers, [former Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld…""You permitted Bush to complete his first term, and stranger still, chose him for a second term, which gave him a clear mandate from you -- with your full knowledge and consent -- to continue to murder our people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then you claim to be innocent! The innocence of yours is like my innocence of the blood of your sons on the 11th -- were I to claim such a thing."
Bin Laden says President Bush's words echo "neoconservatives like Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Richard Perle."
"People of America: the world is following your news in regards to your invasion of Iraq, for people have recently come to know that, after several years of tragedies of this war, the vast majority of you want it stopped. Thus, you elected the Democratic Party for this purpose, but the Democrats haven't made a move worth mentioning. On the contrary, they continue to agree to the spending of tens of billions to continue the killing and war there."
Now, here's the thing. Both sides of Iraq debate may be tempted to use bin Laden's words to some perverse advantage. Bush Administration supporters (and, in fairness, no one has exploited bin Laden's statements quite like the Bush Administration) will try to extract some measure of satisfaction that if bin Laden is against us, we must be doing the right thing. Iraq War opponents might be tempted to note that bin Laden is calling out the Democrats for not stopping the war. Whatever. Bin Laden is a crazy, evil man. No one should take any pleasure in trying to exploit his rantings for their own partisan purposes. The only legitimate political point to be made is why is this guy still free to spout such noxious rhetoric six years after the September 11 attacks.
--David Kurtz
John Edwards: The TPM Interview
John Edwards was at NYC's Pace University today for what his campaign billed as a major policy speech on counter-terrorism. Josh got a chance to sit down with Edwards for an interview following the speech. They discussed the "War on Terror" and the road ahead in Iraq. We'll have video of some of the interview shortly.
--David Kurtz
The Dog Ate It
Alas, there won't be a report from General Petraeus, at least not a written report.
Late Update: Over at The Horse's Mouth, Greg has more on the report and the rhetorical jostling over who exactly is responsible for it, the White House or Gen. Petraeus.
--David Kurtz
Edwards Takes Hard Line on Pakistan
Following on Sen. Barack Obama's lead, former Sen. John Edwards suggested in a speech today that as President he would not hesitate to conduct U.S. counter-terrorism operations on Pakistan soil if the Pakistani government refused to take action itself.
--David Kurtz
Advice and Consent: The Bush Way
Yesterday, the White House announced it would nominate E. Duncan Getchell, Jr., to a seat on the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. But as the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports today, Getchell was not on a list of five possible nominees submitted to the White House by Virginia Sens. John Warner (R) and Jim Webb (D). Instead, Getchell had appeared on an earlier list submitted to the White House by Warner and then-Sen. George Allen (R), who Webb defeated last year:
"Today, despite our good faith, bipartisan effort to accommodate the president, the recommendations that Senator Warner and I made have been ignored," Webb said last night."The White House talks about the spirit of bipartisanship. . . . The White House cannot expect to complain about the confirmation of federal judges when they proceed to act in this manner," Webb added.
Webb said he and Warner jointly interviewed more than a dozen attorneys, received ratings of candidates from bar groups and submitted five "outstanding" names.
Warner is not happy either, the paper reports:
Warner said in a terse statement, "I steadfastly remain committed to the recommendations stated in my joint letter with Senator Webb to the president, dated June 12, 2007, and I have so advised in a respectful, consistent manner in my consultations with the White House senior staff."
The White House and the Senate leadership worked out a deal before the summer recess that the President would not make any recess appointments provided that the Senate moved on some of the President's nominations. It's not clear whether this is one such nomination, but the irony would be rich if it were.
One other point to be made. As the Times-Dispatch notes, a third of the 4th Circuit seats are open at the moment, which has left the reliably conservative appeals court evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. So the appointment of a Federalist Society member like Getchell, if confirmed, would help sway the idealogical bent of the court back to where the GOP base would like it to be--staunchly conservative.
--David Kurtz
The Making of a President 2008
Fred Thompson: "we better figure out a way" to combat al Qaeda.
Perhaps before "we" run for President?
Late Update: The video, from ABC's "Good Morning America":
--David Kurtz
We Need Your Help (Iraq/Surge Edition)
There's quite a lot to be said analyzing, interpreting, even advocating about the 'surge' and what we should be doing or not doing in Iraq. But in the last few days my main attention has gone to trying to pick apart the bamboozling statistics we're getting on the one hand and to find some reliable ones on the other. And like one of the intel analysts quoted yesterday in the Post, I find that once you pull away the first level of transparently bamboozling numbers you find that there simply aren't any reliable statistics at all.
The whole debate is a mix of apples and oranges comparisons, numbers tossed around whose provenance is never clearly explained and so forth. And the folks with guns on the ground in Iraq -- the US military, the Iraqi 'government', etc. -- who are best placed to compile numbers are actively taking steps to conceal them.
The one set of numbers we've found that appears to go back some way (a couple years) and have a consistent methodology are those compiled by the Associated Press from police reports about deaths in Iraq. To further the confusion, though, the AP seems unwilling to assemble these numbers together in one place, so you need to go back and piece together the separate monthly numbers from individual stories.
So far, with some sleuthing yesterday by myself and Spencer Ackerman, we've got these numbers.
Jan 07: 1,604
Feb 07: 1,552
March 07: 1,572*
April 07:
May 07: 2155
June 07: 1640
July 07: 1760
August 07: 1809
To be clear, we don't think there's something magical about the AP's methodology. I can imagine various problems with measuring civilian death rates from police reports. The key is that appears to be a reasonable methodology and they appear to have used the same methodology going back to mid-2005. So these numbers give us at least some starting basis to measure change over time.
Here's where we need your help. There's a real needle in a haystack quality to finding these AP statistics. You can see the ones we have above. If you'd like to help, we're trying to track down the numbers for 2006. If you can find them, send us an email with the subject "Iraq Numbers". In the email include the month, the number, the citation of the article where you found the number and the sentence -- word for word -- in which the number appears. If you have a link to an article online, all the better. If it looks like we've got one of the numbers for 07 wrong, by all means let us know that too.
We're also working on investigating a couple other sets of numbers, so if you know of some, we'd like help on that front too. Again, we're looking for sets of numbers that give some view into what's happening in Iraq. We're looking for ones that go back for some period of time into the past and use a consistent methodology.
--Josh Marshall
Today's Must Read
Gen. David Petraeus gives a subtly defiant interview to the Boston Globe in a preview to his highly anticipated testimony before Congress next week.
--David Kurtz
Romney: Good Help Is Hard to Find
First Craig, now this. From the Salt Lake Tribune ...
A top Utah fund-raiser for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign - who has links to an organization facing a civil lawsuit alleging child abuse - is no longer part of Romney's state finance team.Robert Lichfield of La Verkin, who founded the umbrella group called the Worldwide Association of Specialty Schools, brought in some $300,000 earlier this year for Romney during a single Utah event and has donated tens of thousands to the former Massachusetts governor and other Republicans in recent years.
Lichfield is named in a federal lawsuit charging that students of the "behavior modification" schools with ties to WWASPS were subjected to "physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse." The suit had 140 defendants at last count.
...
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Utah, alleges brazen acts of child abuse, including that students of the various programs had been forced to eat their own vomit, clean toilets with a toothbrush and brush their teeth afterward, were chained or locked in dog cages, kicked, beaten, thrown and slammed to the ground and forced into sexual acts.
--Josh Marshall
Shrine
Blogger makes pilgrimage to Larry Craig bathroom. With camera phone.
Late Update: Hard-hearted TPM Reader B notes that the 2008 Republican convention is being held in Minneapolis. So everyone should get a chance for their own pilgrimage of grace.
--Josh Marshall
Go Read It
Don't miss this. I'm just starting to read it now. "The Myth of AQI: Fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq is the last big argument for keeping U.S. troops in the country. But the military's estimation of the threat is alarmingly wrong." It's in the Washington Monthly. And it's by Andrew Tilghman who was an Iraq correspondent for Stars and Stripes in 2005 and 2006.
Go read it.
--Josh Marshall
Yes, We're That Stupid
It's sometimes fun to wonder whether, knowing all we know today, we'd fall for another version of the Iraq/WMD bamboozle if another came down the pike. I'm afraid the answer has to be: absolutely.
Look no further than the present debate about the success of the 'surge'. I think Karen DeYoung's piece in today's Post -- regrettably on A16 -- settles once and for all that the numbers we're hearing are basically a scam.
It's worth beginning by noting what appears to be the universal consensus that the strategic aim of the surge -- political reconciliation -- has been a complete flop. No progress and things have gotten much worse. That leaves a debate about tactical successes, which for better or worse, we're judging by various body counts. As I've struggled to get my head around this discussion I've looked -- mainly in vain -- for numbers going back some period of time with a consistent methodology since an apples to apples comparison over some period of time is the only way to make any sort of reliable judgments about change, improvement or decline.
What comes up again and again though is one basic disconnect -- the military command in Baghdad says civilian casualties have dropped dramatically. Independent press tabulations say the numbers are high and getting higher.
DeYoung's article gives us a couple bits of information that help us start to unravel the mystery. First, the military command in Baghdad is in a spat with the GAO, which the generals accuse of using a flawed methodology. (GAO's analysis basically disagreed with them on all particulars.) DeYoung's piece includes the very telling detail that the GAO is using the same methodology that the CIA and the DIA favor. So it would seem that it's not only a question of the government versus outside observers. The military command in Baghdad sounds like it's completely isolated even within the US government on how to compute the numbers.
That doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.
We also learn from DeYoung's article that as a basic matter of categorization, the Petraeus/White House numbers don't include the deaths of people killed by our friends (new Sunni allies in al Anbar). They don't include deaths of people killed by members of their own sect (Sunni-on-Sunni, Shia-on-Shia, etc.). They count or don't count based on things like where a person has been shot in the head.
One intelligence analyst told DeYoung, "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian. If it went through the front, it's criminal."
It's a little difficult to tell from the immediate context of the quote whether there's a little embellishment or whether that's literally true in every case about the methodology being used. But taken together what we can glean about the methodology -- which I take it is itself classified -- is that it is a classic case of presupposing the result in the methodology itself. DeYoung actually has a good quote in her piece from the Iraq Study Group that concisely explains the problem: "Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals."
Indeed.
You decide that the 'problem' is 'sectarian violence' -- not an improbable analysis in itself. Then you systematically devise a manner of counting that cuts away all sorts of carnage and mayhem that doesn't fit within an extremely narrow interpretation of the 'problem.' And voila, things are improving.
Frankly, it reminds me, painfully, of the rush of polling analyses prior to the 2004 election which showed, quite convincingly, that the numbers actually showed Kerry winning. You just had to properly weight them for Party ID!
The truth is that once you take a screwdriver and saw to the numbers smart people can come up with a lot of ways to fool others and themselves, in many ways all the more so if the people doing the counting have a highly articulated theory behind their reasoning.
Whether this is deception or self-deception is a minor subtheme to the story. The headline is that these numbers appear to be a joke.
--Josh Marshall
Who Needs Fred Thompson?
Even without Fred Thompson (who was unfortunately tied up with a previous engagement (Leno)), there was still plenty of fun-filled phoniness and flummery to go around in last night's FOX News-sponsored Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire. In case you missed it, we bring you the highlights in today's episode of TPMtv ...
--Ben Craw
Faith v. Facts
We learned this week from Robert Draper's new book that the Decider remained convinced until as late as 2006 that Iraq had had WMD right up until the U.S. invasion:
Though it was not the sort of thing one could say publicly anymore, the president still believed that Saddam had possessed weapons of mass destruction. He repeated this conviction to Andy Card all the way up until Card’s departure in April 2006, almost exactly three years after the Coalition had begun its fruitless search for WMDs.
Compare and contrast that point of view (article of faith) with what we learned today from Sidney Blumenthal about what President Bush had been told about Iraqi WMD by then-CIA Director George Tenet in the fall of 2002:
On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.
Blumenthal talked to "two former senior CIA officers" who provided accounts of what Tenent briefed to Bush:
"Tenet told me he briefed the president personally," said one of the former CIA officers. According to Tenet, Bush's response was to call the information "the same old thing." Bush insisted it was simply what Saddam wanted him to think. "The president had no interest in the intelligence," said the CIA officer. The other officer said, "Bush didn't give a fuck about the intelligence. He had his mind made up."
It's no surprise that this President is not one to test his beliefs and conclusions against the facts, neither the old facts nor the newly emerging facts. In the strange twilight of the Bush Presidency, the new revelation about what the President was briefed on and when about WMD falls into that category of things we thought we knew but for which we lacked all of the hard evidence.
--David Kurtz
Fingers Were Wagged
CNN has some background on that meeting the senate Republicans had yesterday on Sen. Craig (R-ID) ...
Republican senators held what one participant called a "passionate" and "spirited" closed-door discussion Wednesday afternoon about how their leaders responded to the sex scandal involving their colleague Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, CNN has learned.At least three senators complained their leaders "rushed to judgment" while others defended the leaders for quickly pulling their support from the disgraced senator, according to one Republican senator in the room and two GOP aides familiar with the meeting.
"We had to discuss it," the senator said.
Sen. Ted. Stevens of Alaska, whose home was recently raided as part of a federal corruption probe, stood up to say it's wrong to prejudge these matters.
He was joined by Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Sen. Michael Enzi of Wyoming, who also "wagged their finger" at the leadership, in the words of one of the aides. (Related: Craig may not resign)
But many more senators stood to defend the leaders, even greeting Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky with applause when he was introduced to discuss the topic at the weekly Senate Republican policy luncheon in the Capitol.
I'll give Stevens some credit for a certain odd consistency on this one. He does seem to be an odd exception to the GOP's new 'zero tolerance' policy on wrongdoing.
--Josh Marshall
What Happened to Chertoff?
The rumored short list of potential attorney general nominees doesn't include DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff any longer.
--David Kurtz
The In-Again, Out-Again Mr. Craig
I could not care less if Larry Craig is gay or bisexual. And there is a real tragedy in the fact that his career is ending -- when you really cut to the chase -- because he's gay. The fact of his public hypocrisy doesn't diminish the tragic dimension of this. It just shoots it through with a lot of irony when you consider that he is probably as committed as anyone to rejecting this defense on his own behalf. As Matt Yglesias suggested a couple days ago, by continuing to deny his sexuality at this stage he moves from the tragic to the ridiculous, though those two states are much more often mixed than we probably realize or want to believe.
All that said, I can only imagine the veritable muck nirvana that must have gone on behind the scenes into the last 48 hours of turnabouts. What did Craig need to put on the table to get his colleagues and his Minority Leader to acquiesce in his return? And what did they put on the table to make him pack it in again?
And to paraphrase the horror movie genre, is Craig really gone even now or has he merely entered the shadowy ranks of the unresigned, destined to walk the earth for eternity tormenting his party?
--Josh Marshall
Question for Craig
Is he resigning with full and adequate advice of counsel?
--Josh Marshall
A Long Shot
Apparently the push-back from the Senate GOP leadership has convinced Larry Craig to soften his stance about staying in the Senate--but he hasn't completely given up retaining his seat. It would take a confluence of unlikely events--successful withdrawal of his guilty plea and a quick dismissal of the case--for Craig to be able to resolve (or would that be re-resolve?) his legal case by September 30, a reality that Craig's spokesman is now acknowledging.
--David Kurtz
Switching Sides
TPM Reader JB gets it ...
I'm surprised there hasn't been more commentary in the press and blogosphere regarding the fact that, in simplest terms, whatever "progress" we are making in Iraq is a function of the fact that we have switched sides. I don't think the U.S. public, or even the media, are really grasping the fact that we are fighting for Saddam's people now, and the Shia are rapidly becoming the primary target (along with the mystical "Al Queda"). The silence on the topic is a little eerie.
--Josh Marshall
EC Debate Roundup
Mitt Romney says the surge is "apparently working," and then John McCain out-hawks him: "The surge is working." That and more highlights from last night in today's Election Central Debate Roundup.
--Eric Kleefeld
Today's Must Read
The Hill explores the relationship between Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Alaska businessman Bob Penney. An earmark here. A sweetheart land deal there. Pretty soon you're talking real muck.
--David Kurtz
Airport Boycott
Passed on without comment:
Supporters of Sen. Larry Craig with the American Land Rights Association are calling for a boycott of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Airport.The Battle Ground (Washington) based association says airport police who arrested the senator in a men's room sex sting are responsible for weakening private property rights in the West. Craig is a Republican member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Late Update: More on the boycott from the website of the American Land Rights Association (.pdf):
By ambushing Senator Larry Craig, the Minneapolis St Paul Airport Police have effectively declared war on the West. They are primarily responsible for greatly weakening private property rights and Federal land use advocates in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and in Congress. We are urging you to make all your flight arrangements avoiding the Minneapolis-St Paul Airport for at least the next year and probably longer. We’ll keep you posted as the boycott develops. Urge your friends, neighbors and fellow workers to try to avoid any flights that take them through Minneapolis St Paul Airport. We must inflict economic pain on the airport authorities to get them to change their behavior. -----And they must apologize to Senator Larry Craig.
--David Kurtz
Thompson Officially Announces Candidacy
Former Sen. Fred Thompson went on Leno to make the official announcement, which will air tonight.
--David Kurtz
Follow Up on Loose (American) Nukes
I've heard from two sources who I believe to be knowledgeable on the issue. And they feel confident that this mishap, in which the Air Force briefly lost track of several nuclear warheads which were inadvertently flown over the United States, really was just an accident.
But a pretty damn serious accident.
We'll bring you more as we hear it.
--Josh Marshall
Approaching Parody
They say you can judge how a candidate might run the country by how well he's able to run his presidential campaign.
What if he can't even manage an exploratory committee?
Two more high level staffers have just bailed on Fred Thompson's campaign.
--Josh Marshall
Remember Who We're Dealing With
Does that story of those five nukes on that B-52 have something to do with Iran? Larry Johnson thinks it might.
--Josh Marshall
Gotta Say It
Okay, Sen. McConnell has now sanctioned Sen. Craig's bizarre decision to recant his guilty plea and his resignation.
What's Sen. Craig got on Mitch McConnell?
--Josh Marshall
History's First Resignation Flip-flop
We thought it was all over when Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) announced his resignation Saturday following the eruption of his airport bathroom sex scandal. But stop right there - was it a resignation, or just the statement of an intent to resign? Now Senator Craig is saying he might not resign after all. What's really going on here behind the scenes? It just so happens that thanks to a couple bizarre twists (in case this story hasn't given you enough), we're privy to the backroom details, in today's episode of TPMtv ...
--Ben Craw
Ted Stevens: Worst of Global Warming Over
Ted Stevens, Republican Senator from Alaska and noted climate specialist:
Stevens, while acknowledging the impact of global climate change, said he believes the worst may be over."We're at the end of a long, long term of warming. 700 to 900 years of increased temperature, a very slow increase. We think we're close to the end of that. If we're close to the end of that, that means that we'll starting getting cooler gradually, not very rapidly, but cooler once again and stability might come to this region for a period of another 900 years," Stevens said.
In explaining to KTUU why he had softened his previous hard-line stance on global warming, Stevens said:
"Evolved to the point, I think there is a contribution of mankind to the warming cycle. But I've also been convinced now by our scientists that that the basic cycle itself is a natural one that been going on as I said for 700 to 900 years and we have to learn to live with that," Stevens said.
Thanks to Uncle Ted, Alaskans who feared bearing the brunt of some of the most dramatic climate changes can rest easy now. (Thanks to TPM Reader TM for the link).
--David Kurtz
Booted Over a Speeding Ticket?
Stan Brand, famed DC ethics investigation attorney, went on the Today Show this morning to defend Sen. Craig (R-ID), who has retained him to handle his senate Ethics Committee investigation. And he made what seems at least on first blush to be a pretty good point: at no time in the senate's 200+ year history has the senate disciplined one of its members for a misdemeanor/petty offense not connected to his official duties. In other words, according to Brand, the whole idea of an ethics investigation should be ruled on its face.
First, I'm interested to know whether Brand's history is accurate, but because of his expertise in this area and the central place he's giving it in Craig's defense, I strongly suspect that it is, at least narrowly speaking. Second, there's a possible rejoinder to Brand's argument. Separate from his guilty plea, Craig did apparently flash his senate business card to the arresting officer in an apparent effort to abuse his position to get special treatment. That probably does violate senate rules, and rightfully so. But if we substitute the sex sting arrest for a 100+ mph speeding ticket (to which it might be a legal equivalent), it's hard to imagine that flashing the card would get more than a feather-slap from Craig's senate colleagues. Third, perhaps Craig's senate colleagues will argue that he pled down to a lesser offense. So it's not really the disorderly conduct charge that's relevant. To which I would say, maybe, but that's a stretch.
So why is there an ethics investigation exactly? The answer seems clear, if on two levels. First, Craig's senate colleagues want to engineer a soft expulsion from the senate. That's obvious enough. And second, he was trolling for gay sex in a public restroom. And in the GOP catechism that's not just a felony but a capital offense.
Of course, we know all this. But it is worth putting it there in black ink.
--Josh Marshall
Craig PR Push Begins
In a swipe at the GOP Senate leadership, Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) sent one of his attorneys, Stan Brand, onto the Today show this morning to call for the complaint against Craig filed with the Senate Ethics Committee by the GOP leadership to be dismissed.
Late Update: Craig's lawyers have followed up now with a letter to the Ethics Committee:
Lawyers for Senator Larry Craig of Idaho delivered a letter to the Senate ethics committee Wednesday asking the committee to reject a complaint relating to his guilty plea in an airport sex sting operation. The move opens a potentially ugly battle between Craig and the Republican leadership, as Craig reconsiders his plans to resign from the Senate.
--David Kurtz
Ohio Congressman Found Dead
Citing a Republican leadership aide says, the AP is reporting that Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-OH) was found dead in his apartment Wednesday (via CNN).
Late Update: The Hill has sources who say the cause of death was an apparent heart attack.
--David Kurtz
Bizarre, Sad, Bizarrely Sad
I was debating whether to post on this. Then TPM Reader DR pushed me over the edge ...
I don't know about you, but if you ever wondered if CNN was in trouble, just look at what's on the front page of CNN.com as I write this;It's beyond ridiculous, with all the news of significance going on in the world, THIS is what they choose to lead their webpage?
I've noticed this a lot recently on CNN, especially since their redesign. It's not an issue of not fronting enough 'good for you' serious news versus tabloidy stuff. It's more that they increasingly feature 'weird but true' stories as their lead. Not sure what that's about.
Late Update: A quick survey of the other major news sites shows most are fronting the German terror arrests, which unlike the ones we usually have over here seem like the real deal.
--Josh Marshall
Sen. Craig (R-ID) making calls to senate colleagues to round up support.
--Josh Marshall
Numbers
Surge architect Fred Kagan takes on the GAO Report ...
The assertion that there is no "clear and reliable evidence that the level of sectarian violence was reduced" will surprise those who have been listening to American and Iraqi officers alike brief that the levels have been falling for months--as well as those who have walked the streets of formerly war-torn neighborhoods in Baghdad.
--Josh Marshall
I Didn't Inhale
But, of course, Craig isn't mounting that sort of bold defense that admits he is what he is and denounces the "pre-Stonewall morality fable" unfolding here. Instead, he's rather implausibly denying that he ever went in for anonymous gay sex. At this point, Craig becomes a liar and a buffoon in ways that seem to be firing offenses on their own terms.
Perhaps this is not the best part of me. But I must confess that quite apart from the larger issues of public and private, public acceptance of homosexuality and Republican politics, I am in favor of an aggressive defense on Craig's part simply because I cannot resist the novelistic clash of pathos, hypocrisy and ridiculousness of seeing Craig's effort to 'clear his good name' torpedoing the White House's September Petraeus propaganda campaign.
--Josh Marshall
Today's Must Read
The Pentagon's pattern: pushing dubious Iraq data on the GAO--and the public.
--David Kurtz
Decider, Arab Leadership Training Edition
President Bush on Iraqi independence and democracy ...
"[Maliki's] learning to be a leader. And one of my jobs as the president and his ally is to help him be that leader without being patronizing. At some point in time, if I come to the conclusion that he can't be the leader—he's unwilling to lead or he's deceptive—then we'll change course. But I haven't come to that conclusion. As a matter of fact, his recent actions have inspired me."
--Josh Marshall
EC Morning Roundup
A key Obama supporter might take a greater role in the campaign: Oprah Winfrey. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Eric Kleefeld
Reed Hundt on the Gore-Bashing reporters of 2000 and why they still have jobs.
--Josh Marshall
Au Contraire, Mon Craig!
From TPM Reader DL ...
I’ll preface this by saying that I am, like RS, a criminal defense lawyer in a state other than Minnesota. I disagree with the analysis RS provided regarding Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) and his ability to withdraw his guilty plea. It appears that the plea was accomplished by a written form without an actual court appearance, so there will be no “transcript” of the proceedings to challenge. Presumably this plea form and procedure has been vetted by the MN courts previously. The form provides a place where Craig waived his right to counsel, and given that the man is a U.S. Senator I suspect a judge will be skeptical about claims that he didn’t understand his options. There are two other points arguing against allowing him to withdraw his plea that have not received enough coverage:1. The written plea agreement provided that the more serious charge (Interference with Privacy – a Gross Misdemeanor) be withdrawn. How did that come about? Either Craig or a lawyer on his behalf negotiated this with the prosecution – either case is not consistent with Craig’s characterization of the sequence of events.
2. The written plea agreement signed and mailed to the court by Craig contains a specific sentencing agreement providing that the 10-day jail term be suspended, that there be 1 year of unsupervised probation, etc. Like the issue of the dropped charge, this must have required some negotiation by Craig or someone on his behalf and demonstrates a deliberate strategy by Craig.
Finally, courts have a compelling incentive not to allow people to withdraw their guilty pleas after sentencing, because many defendants who receive stiff sentences from the judge will change their minds and take their chances at trial (ask any defense lawyer and he or she will tell you about plea bargains that looked good up until the moment the judge hammered their client at sentencing).
And TPM Reader NS seems to concur ...
I am an ex-criminal defense lawyer in Minnesota so I am only commenting based on my memory of how pleas are handled here. Generally reader RS's is correct in that if a guilty plea is handled at arraignment/first appearance the questioning about the waiver of rights is short. However often on a plea to any sort of misdemeanor greater than traffic, judges often required that a pro-se party read and complete a plea petition, which accurately described all the rights that are being waived, including the right to trial, right to confront witnesses, right suppress evidence, and the right to an attorney.Also more to the point, according to the MSM, Larry Craig apparently completed his plea by mail after submitting a 3 page plea agreement. While I have not seen the agreement, I would guess that it contains a detailed statement of the facts alleged, an extensive and detailed explanation of his rights, and explicit acknowledgement that by signing and submitting of the plea agreement to the court he is freely and knowingly waiving those rights and admitting to the facts alleged.
Just days ago, the Minnesota Court of Appeals issued an opinion explaining the standard for a guilty plea to be valid, it must be accurate, voluntary, and intelligent (i.e., knowingly and understandingly made). Once a guilty plea has been entered, there is no absolute right to withdraw that plea. But Minn. R. Crim. P. 15.05, subd. 1, allows a defendant to withdraw a guilty plea upon a timely motion and showing of manifest injustice. The burden is on the defendant to demonstrate that the refusal to allow him to withdraw his plea is manifestly unjust. It is manifestly unjust to refuse to allow the defendant to withdraw a plea if that plea is not accurate, voluntary, or intelligent. (Munger v. State, A06-1563 (Minn. App. 8-28-2007))
While I don't know the ins-and-outs of how the courts apply the Manifest Injustice" standard, it would seem under the circumstances Craig's attorney would have to show that after reading the 3 page plea agreement, Craig didn't understand what he was doing and it was manifestly unjust to accept his plea of guilty.
--Josh Marshall
Withdraw the Plea? Maybe He Can
From TPM Reader RS ...
I'm a criminal defense lawyer in Oregon, so nothing I say would be dispositive on the law in Minnesota. That said, withdrawing a plea on a misdemeanor is far from impossible. The primary factor in Craig's case is that he didn't have a lawyer. For example, in Oregon, the judge should take extra time with an unrepresented (or pro se) defendant, to make sure they are "knowingly" waiving their right to counsel. This "colloquy" between the judge and the defendant usually consists of the judge informing the defendant of the types of things a lawyer can do for that defendant which the defendant probably can't do for himself (legal arguments, challenges to the complaint, etc.).It wouldn't surprise me, however, if the misdemeanor judge didn't take the time to do that. If it's a big docket, if the judge is pressed for time, if the judge doesn't know any better, if the defendant appears capable, if there's no jail time or immigration consequences, all of these factors would impact the time and care that the judge would take with a pro se defendant.
Craig's lawyer will want to get a transcript of the plea and sentencing. (I haven't heard about one floating around the internet, but that will change shortly, I imagine. Depends I guess whether it was tape-recorded or a court reporter was used. Most jurisdictions have switched to tape-recordings, as far as I know.) The lawyer will then parse it carefully, for any misstatements the judge may have made, but the primary focus will be on the discussion between Craig and the judge on his decision to waive counsel.
Legally, it probably doesn't matter that Craig didn't know (as you alluded to earlier) that his statements could be suppressed or that he had factual defenses to the crime. But I would expect the lawyer to emphasize those things at the motion hearing anyway, because they could be persuasive, if not legally significant.
Again, I want to emphasize that it all depends on the transcript of the plea and sentencing and what Craig was told prior to his decision to waive his right to an attorney.
--Josh Marshall
Yep, Weirder Still
In the post below I mentioned how Roll Call obtained a voice mail that Sen. Craig left on a line he thought was his lawyer's. I've now found the Roll Call article (sub.req.) And there's an interesting little nugget packed in to the reportage (italics added).
Craig spokesman Dan Whiting confirmed Tuesday that the incoming phone number identified by the cell phone where the voice mail was left is in fact the Senator’s cell number. The cell phone’s owner, who requested anonymity, said Craig’s number has shown up on his phone as a missed call a handful of times over the past several weeks, but said that this was the first time the Senator left a message.
Now, the call appears to have been to Craig's lawyer, Billy Martin. But I thought the story was that Craig only retained Martin at the end of last week. Possibly, the author of the Roll Call piece meant days rather than weeks, in which case it means nothing. But if Craig's been in contact with Martin for several weeks that means there's an important part of the story we haven't yet heard.
--Josh Marshall
Arlen!
I'm really not sure I've ever seen such a bizarre story. Via McJoan at DailyKos I found this story at the Idaho Statesman, which, well ... there's really no explaining this ...
Roll Call, a Capitol Hill political newspaper, posted a voice mail tonight that Craig may have inadvertently left at a wrong number Saturday morning. In it, Craig says he changed the wording in his speech and that "this thing could take a new turn or a new shape."Whiting confirmed that the message is Craig's. Here is the transcript of the message:
"Yes, Billy, this is Larry Craig calling. You can reach me on my cell. Arlen Specter is now willing to come out in my defense, arguing that it appears by all that he knows that I have been railroaded and all that.
"Having all of that, we have reshaped my statement a little bit to say it is my intent to resign on Sept. 30. I think it is important for you to make as bold a statement as you are comfortable with this afternoon, and I would hope you could make it in front of the cameras.
"I think it would help drive the story that I’m willing to fight, that I’ve got quality people out there fighting in my defense, and that this thing could take a new turn or a new shape, it has that potential. Anyway, give me a buzz or give Mike a buzz on that. We’re headed to my press conference now.
"Thank you. Bye."
For what it's worth I went to the Roll Call site and I didn't see any story about this. But setting that aside, it appears that Craig's precise phrasing really was highly significant and intentionally so. And it seems from the message that Arlen Specter was the one who got Craig charged up to try to stay in the senate.
Late Update: TPM Reader BR wonders about Arlen: "What the hell is Specter thinking? Is he trying to destroy the Republican party? Nothing could be worse for them then drawing this out or attracting any further attention to the situation. Or did Specter offer friendly encouragement not thinking Craig would take him seriously? Certainly a bizarre development. I hope he does reconsider though, and that LaRocco forcibly removes him next year."
Hard to say. I don't think it could have been quite the misunderstanding theory BR broaches. Because Specter did make a statement a couple days ago saying that he hoped Craig could fight the charges and be able to remain in the senate. At the time it struck me as a bizarre comment -- even by Arlen Specter standards -- because after all Craig had just resigned, or so we thought. But now it all fits together. What Specter was thinking with regards to the GOP, that I really can't say.
--Josh Marshall
More on Craig's (un)resignation
I would be remiss if I did not mention that after Craig's weekend 'resignation' a number of TPM Readers wrote in to say that his resignation didn't seem nearly as firm or unequivocal as press reports were portraying it. I understood the logic of the parsing, but I still didn't buy it.
What did make me wonder was the legal team Craig signed on -- Craig has hired two vey big team DC lawyers, Billy Martin (crisis management and miscellaneous) and Stan Brand (ethics investigation).
Now, I'm actually not even sure if they go ahead with an ethics investigation once you've resigned. But if they did, who cares?
On the criminal law front, what is there to fight about? Craig is like a senatorial Wile E. Coyote. He's fifteen feet out past the edge of the cliff on the criminal procedure front. The only reason he hasn't fallen yet is that he hasn't looked down.
I've now spoken to a couple DC defense attorney friends who both say that a good defense attorney could have gotten the whole thing thrown out just on the basis of the interrogation. But as far I know, a guilty plea is virtually impossible to take back. Not impossible -- there's always an exception. But my sense is that to even have a shot at it you need some massive procedural flaw in what happened. Changing your mind or not being gay doesn't count.
All of which is to say that the extent of Craig's lawyering up should have been the tell that this story wasn't quite over.
--Josh Marshall
More Fun Times
I fear the fun may not last long. But for the moment, well, I can work with this. As we noted below, Sen. Craig (R-ID) now appears to be signaling that he's considering not resigning. The Politico has a story up confirming this and another story on how GOP strategists and Craig's senate colleagues are investigating mind control techniques and sorcery to force Craig's departure before David Petraeus arrives in town.
--Josh Marshall
State Secrets
Is the D.C. Madam attempting to raise the graymail defense? Or is it the throw-everything-against-a-wall-and-see-what sticks defense? From the WaPo:
The woman accused of being the D.C. Madam now argues that the fact that Muslim men used her elite, Washington-based escort service before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks might have played a role in the government's effort to prosecute her.Deborah Jeane Palfrey says she might need to divulge classified information that has sensitive national security implications -- perhaps including the identities of Middle Eastern customers -- to defend herself against the charges. She is asking a federal judge for a hearing behind closed doors to discuss the information as it relates to the government's charges.
I'm not sure where this is going. A grand unified theory of scandal, perhaps? Warrantless wiretapping of Muslim men after 9/11 led to the interception of information indicating some Muslim men used a D.C. escort service, which led to the investigation of Palfrey, which led her to divulge that Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) was a client of her escort service. Therein may be a defense for Vitter: If I resign, the terrorists have won.
--David Kurtz
Yep
TPM Reader KB understands the nexus between imperialism and 24 hour cable ...
If Sen. Larry Craig reconsiders and steps all over Gen. Petraeus' week of surge, Bill Kristol's head will explode. That Penatagon media war room they set up will be useless in the face of this cable TV zoo.
--Josh Marshall
Craig: Maybe I'll Resign, Maybe I Won't
I'd heard some rumblings about this. But I couldn't quite get myself to believe it. But Sen. Larry Craig is now saying he may not resign after all.
"The outcome of the legal case in Minnesota and the ethics investigation will have an impact on whether we're able to stay in the fight — and stay in the Senate," says Craig's spokesman.
--Josh Marshall
EC Happy Hour Roundup
Bill Richardson tells a joke — and this time, it's funny. That and other political news of the day in today's Happy Hour Roundup.
--Eric Kleefeld
Back to the Future
What might the 'miracle' in al Anbar have to do with the coming attack on Iran? Spencer Ackerman explains.
--Josh Marshall
Another Point on Iran
As we prepare to be ginned up into a 'debate' about whether we should embark on an insanely misguided war with Iran (since we don't have our hands full as it is), it is well to remember one of the many -- but one of the most important -- lessons of the Iraq catastrophe.
When applied to Iran, that lesson, I believe, is as follows ...
There is no question of our policy to Iran. That is to say, no question of the issue in the abstract or the issue if conducted in the hands of sane and/or experienced foreign policy practitioners. There is only our policy over the next eighteen months as conducted by George Bush and Dick Cheney. For that reason, even hypotheticals or abstract discussions about threats of force to prevent the progress of the Iranian nuclear program are profoundly misguided and dangerous.
Given the track record, who would trust these incompetents to expand our military involvement in the Middle East for almost any reason whatsoever? And relatedly, who would trust that a 'threat of force' as a leverage to diplomacy is not what it has usually been with the Bush White House: a feint toward diplomacy to leverage the use of force?
It's like handing a drunk the keys to yet another car. Where he says he's going is really beside the point.
--Josh Marshall
Nuts Enough
de Borchgrave: Sarkozy came away from Kenebunkport convinced that Bush is nuts enough to attack Iran.
--Josh Marshall
The Likely Trigger
You may have noticed the Iran boomlet over the last few days, the pitter-patter of rumors and hints that either a major military action or an Iraq-style PR/agitprop roll-out is set to start this week. Spencer Ackerman is looking into this over at TPMmuckraker.com. And his reporting suggests that the 'source' of all this chatter is an order Dick Cheney has sent out to his proxies at the right-wing thinktanks to start laying the ground work for war with Iran. In the short run, the aim is to open up a new front in his struggle with Bob Gates and the Joint Chiefs (who think two wars are enough for now). In the medium term, the goal is getting the war started well ahead of the end of Bush's term.
For the moment, however, my attention is fixed on one of those 'hints', Reuel Marc Gerecht's piece in the current Newsweek, in which he argues that war with Iran is most likely to come not because of Bush-Cheney warmongering or a breakdown in negotiations but rather "an Iranian provocation."
It is worth stepping back for a moment to savor this claim in its full flavor. Clearly, this must be the kind of 'provocation' comparatively weak states again and again through history seem to make against extremely powerful states -- just before the latter provides a thorough beating to the former. One can of course think of various examples over the decades and centuries.
As the agitprop engines start churning again, it is worth stepping back and considering an undeniable fact. Iran is not a rival power to the United States. The idea that Iran is a threat to the United States in conventional military terms is laughable. A terrorist threat? Sure. But that's a very different kind of threat.
Another point: Iranian meddling in Iraq. Some points are so obvious that to state them seems almost redundant. But what exactly are we doing? This isn't to put our efforts in Iraq and Iran's on equal terms. The mullah's regime in Iran is brutish, illiberal and thuggish (though the comparison was a bit more helpful before Dick Cheney was our poster-boy of the rule-of-law, western civilization and democratic values). Like most people I put intervention based on my ideals on a different footing with that of those whose ideals I don't agree with. But to say that Iran -- which has deep historical and religious ties to Iraq and is ... well, right there -- is meddling while we've been occupying and running the country for four years is just silly. You may say that these are just aggressive ways of phrasing the issue and these fact are all known. So what's the difference? But the slow build up of lies and misdirections, over time, affects our thinking and our ability to reason at all coherently.
Whatever else we decide about Iran, we would do ourselves a big favor by wiping away the cobwebs of lies, distortions and various ways of up being down. We're running Iraq. We want it to model itself after us and suit our interests. The Iranians don't want that and they're trying to throw sand in our gears. And we're going to threaten them to try to make them back down. And since they are a revisionist power we don't want them to exist anyway so we may just attack them regardless. These are all terms and explanations that at least have some bare relation to the situation at hand. They might be too cynical about our national aspirations and ideals if it weren't for the fact that the people controlling the US government today don't believe in our national ideals. So it's the same difference anyway.
--Josh Marshall
Anybody for a Friedman? Half a Friedman and Change?
Gen. Odierno: Next three to four months in Iraq will be crucial.
"I think the next three to four months are critical. I think that if we can continue to do what we are doing, we'll get to such a level where we think we can do it with less troops."
--Josh Marshall
Body Count Bamboozlement 1.0
Much of this numbers game over Iraq truly approaches the level of parody. Civilian deaths are down. But that's because those numbers don't count car bombings. Why not? Because car-bombings are presumptively the work of 'al Qaeda' and that's different from sectarian violence.
Whittle this all down and an amazing amount of the 'surge' does appear to be an exercise in selective bean-counting and clever redefinitions. Kevin Drum's done some excellent numerical debamboozling on this. But I've yet to see one place where we can see all these numbers made sense of on a true apples to apples basis.
--Josh Marshall
The Big Bamboozle
As we gear up for the big 'Surge' debate, we look at the various administration mouthpieces parroting 'surge' success numbers that appear to be directly contradicted by the statistics actually coming out of Iraq. The bamboozlement is so brazen even Wolf Blitzer is calling them on it. See the details in today's episode of TPMtv ...
Here are the articles we reference in today's episode:
AP: More Than 1,800 Iraqis Killed in August
LAT: Iraqi civilian deaths climb again
NYT: Civilian Death Toll Falls in Baghdad but Rises Across Iraq
--Josh Marshall
Mixed Messages
We've become so desensitized to Bush Administration bamboozlement that it's almost easy to overlook the ironic juxtaposition of the White House pumping up claims of improvement in Iraq while the President makes yet another secret trip there this weekend in which he is unable to leave the confines of a U.S. base.
That's not to say that once American officials start publicly announcing their trips in advance and venturing into Iraqi-controlled territory we can conclude that Iraq has improved. These guys would not hesitate to stage such trips just to drive home the point that Iraq is now safe and stable. But the fact that the Administration cannot engage in those kinds of theatrical stunts tells you all you need to know about how bad the situation in Iraq really is.
--David Kurtz
GAO Iraq Report Released
Most of the conclusions of the report--in summary, there has been scant political progress in Iraq--have been known for several days now. The final version is now publicly available.
--David Kurtz
White House Website Scrubbed of FOIA Reference
Last month, the White House argued in federal court that its own Office of Administration was not subject to FOIA, even though the White House website said otherwise. The White House website has now been changed.
--David Kurtz
Today's Must Read
The Iraq War is spawning its own lexicon, and just as in Vietnam some of the richest new terms are euphemisms which unintentionally highlight the absurdity of the situation. Today we are introduced to the "mini-benchmark."
--David Kurtz
Too Many Lies to Count
You may have noticed a that few days ago it was revealed that President Bush, in a surreal turn, denied knowing how exactly the pre-war Iraqi military came to be disbanded. Paul Bremer gave the New York Times some letters and documents to help remind him.
A previously undisclosed exchange of letters shows that President Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in May 2003 of a plan to “dissolve Saddam’s military and intelligence structures,” a plan that the envoy, L. Paul Bremer, said referred to dismantling the Iraqi Army.Mr. Bremer provided the letters to The New York Times on Monday after reading that Mr. Bush was quoted in a new book as saying that American policy had been “to keep the army intact” but that it “didn’t happen.”
The dismantling of the Iraqi Army in the aftermath of the American invasion is now widely regarded as a mistake that stoked rebellion among hundreds of thousands of former Iraqi soldiers and made it more difficult to reduce sectarian bloodshed and attacks by insurgents. In releasing the letters, Mr. Bremer said he wanted to refute the suggestion in Mr. Bush’s comment that Mr. Bremer had acted to disband the army without the knowledge and concurrence of the White House.
I don't remember the precise specifics. But in pretty much all the books on the Iraq fiasco it's clear that this was a decision that came with Bremer from Washington. And my recollection at least is that this very much came out of the Chalabi/Feith/Wolfowitz 'clean slate' approach that dominated the early days of the occupation. So the idea that Bremer somehow came up with this on the fly or that the Americans were forced to confirm some sort of fait accompli flies in the face of all the evidence and, it would seem now, ample documentary evidence in Bremer's possession.
--Josh Marshall
EC Morning Roundup
Bill Richardson attributes the Iowa caucus to the Constitution — and God. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Morning Roundup.
--Eric Kleefeld
Okay, So War with Iran
I've written before that there is a very real threat that the Bush administration could go for double or nothing and launch a major military campaign against Iran in the next 18 months. But I had largely discounted this weekend's rush of rumor and sketchy details about the possibility of an imminent attack. Among other reasons, I have a well-grounded skepticism about stories about US politics I read fully-formed and attributed in the British press before any American publications seems to have caught wind of it. But maybe I've dismissed this too quickly. Todd Gitlin and George Packer have more.
--Josh Marshall
The Full Bamboozle
Even with the power of propaganda and a befuddled media, it amazes me that we can be going into a major military policy debate with so little clarity on a few basic statistics upon which much of the debate is going to turn.
Are military deaths up or down? Are Iraqi civilian deaths up or down?
'Success' and 'failure' are quite subjective and they may be judged on various criteria. But these numbers, even if they don't tell the whole story, are concrete and readily ascertainable -- at least in the case of military deaths.
Here for instance is a post at DailyKos referencing an exchange between CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA). The congressman rattles off a series of statistics from the approved Republican talking points about declining numbers of casualties. And Blitzer runs down the list demonstrating pretty clearly that Boustany's numbers -- and thus the numbers pretty much all president's supporters are dishing -- are simply false on their face.
So here we have that classic sort of modern media moment in which we have a debate wherein both sides arguments are fairly and equally represented -- one side with a series of bogus 'facts' and another with actual facts. Both sides get to make their case. And you can decide between them.
I actually got to thinking about this a couple days ago when I read this article on the McClatchy newswire. The headline reads
"U.S. combat deaths drop by half during 'surge'"
The article begins ...
U.S. combat deaths in Iraq have dropped by half in the three months since the buildup of 28,000 additional troops reached full strength, surprising analysts.U.S. officials had predicted the increase would lead to higher American casualties as the troops "took the fight to the enemy." But that hasn't happened, even though U.S. forces have launched major offensives north and south of Baghdad.
This seemed a little different than what I'd heard. So I went and looked at icasualties.org, the site that keeps track of these numbers and, as far as I know, is widely respected in terms of its statistics.
And here are the numbers they show going back to January ...
August 82
July 79
June 101
May 126
April 104
March 81
February 81
January 83
Now, nowhere in the article did I see a specific explanation of the "drop by half". But I don't see any way to interpret these numbers that makes the McClatchy article even close to right.
If memory serves, the 'surge' came up to full strength in early June. And there clearly has been a decline in troop deaths, although a relatively modest one. And not close to half. What's more, if you look at the numbers over the course of the year, the big picture seems to be a relatively stable baseline of just over 80 fatalties a month with a bump up during the months when the surge was coming up to strength.
In other words, this 'drop by half' headline seems doubly wrong -- both in the big picture of the context of the drop and the small picture of the amount of the drop. In fact, it seems so far off that I'm still trying to think if there's some specific way they're interpreting these numbers that hasn't occurred to me. For instance, are they using a technical definition of combat personnel rather than all military personnel in country? Who can help me here?
Late Update: I'm not sure this is it. But I'm hearing some suggestion that the issue here may be what I speculated -- namely, that the issue is the definition of 'combat deaths'.
Here are the numbers of fatalities, again from icasualties, broken out by 'hostile' and 'non-hostile'.
Hostile Non-Hostile Total
Jan 78 5 83
Feb 71 10 81
Mar 71 10 81
Apr 96 8 104
May 120 6 126
Jun 93 8 101
Jul 67 12 79
Aug 55 27 82
So, the claim still doesn't quite add up. But here at least you can see what they're pointing to. From a high point in May, the number of combat fatalities has dropped to about half what they were. It hard not to notice though that as the number of combat fatalities has dropped the number of non-hostile fatalities seems to be rising dramatically. August had 27, almost one per day. Since the beginning of the war only two months have had more -- May 03 and Jan 05. Has the counting methodology changed?
Even Later Update: These month by month numbers aside, the real story appears most clearly in these year by year comparisons provided by Kevin Drum. Short version: the run-up and run-down in casualty numbers seems far more likely to be caused by the repeated seasonal pattern than the 'surge'.
--Josh Marshall
EC Labor Day Roundup
Fred Thompson advisor Mary Matalin explains why Thompson is skipping a debate to appear on Jay Leno: More people will be watching Jay Leno. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Labor Day Roundup.
--Eric Kleefeld
The Muck Gap Demystified
In last Thursday's episode of TPMtv we explored the striking disparity in the number of scandal and muck cases between Democrats and Republicans. The GOP continues its dizzying dominance in the category, extraordinary considering its minority status in congress. After receiving a welter of viewer mail about the names we included on our list we take a moment in today's episode of TPMtv to elucidate our methodology and even add a couple names we missed the first go around ...
--Ben Craw
The Bulldozer and the Big Tent
This week at TPMCafe we'll be hosting the first week of a month of great Book Clubs. Getting things started: Todd Gitlin's The Bulldozer and the Big Tent: Blind Republicans, Lame Democrats, and the Recovery of American Ideals.
In the book, Gitlin offers a landscape view of the Bush years and argues that liberals need a "big tent" Democratic Party to counter the bulldozer GOP. Gitlin explains in his introductory post:
The Democrats have no choice but to remain a big-tent party. The Republicans made the mistake of turning themselves into a bulldozer party, but they couldn’t bulldoze reality fast enough to keep from falling into a ditch. Now, if we don’t blow it, there’s a new center of gravity coming into American politics—not a flabby center of splitting differences, not a blah-blah of bipartisanship, but a new story and replenished values.Read Gitlin's full post for more, and check in all week at the Book Club for an all-star discussion with Digby, Matt Yglesias, Heather Booth, Ed Kilgore, Mark Schmitt and our very own Josh Marshall.
--Andrew Golis
Putting the numbers in context
For all the debate this week about civilian casualities and sectarian violence in Iraq, Newsweek's Babak Dehghanpisheh and Larry Kaplow provide some often overlooked context.
Thousands of other Sunnis like Kamal have been cleared out of the western half of Baghdad, which they once dominated, in recent months. The surge of U.S. troops—meant in part to halt the sectarian cleansing of the Iraqi capital—has hardly stemmed the problem. The number of Iraqi civilians killed in July was slightly higher than in February, when the surge began. According to the Iraqi Red Crescent, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has more than doubled to 1.1 million since the beginning of the year, nearly 200,000 of those in Baghdad governorate alone. Rafiq Tschannen, chief of the Iraq mission for the International Organization for Migration, says that the fighting that accompanied the influx of U.S. troops actually "has increased the IDPs to some extent."
When Gen. David Petraeus goes before Congress next week to report on the progress of the surge, he may cite a decline in insurgent attacks in Baghdad as one marker of success. In fact, part of the reason behind the decline is how far the Shiite militias' cleansing of Baghdad has progressed: they've essentially won.
As Matt Yglesias added, "Maybe Bush can change his line to the idea that if we just keep staying the course for 4 or 5 more years, casualties will drop massively because everyone will already be dead or displaced. Or maybe someone can explain to me again about how we can't leave Iraq because of the ethnic cleansing that'll happen without us around."
--Steve Benen
Craig vs. Vitter - redux
It looks like the Republicans have settled on a talking point.
A GOP leader Sunday denied a double standard in pushing Sen. Larry Craig to resign after a sex sting guilty plea, while remaining silent over GOP Sen. David Vitter's involvement with an escort service.
A senior Democrat said a double standard by Republican leaders is exactly what occurred.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., the Senate Republican campaign chairman, said Craig "admitted guilt. That is a big difference between being accused of something and actually admitting guilt."
While Ensign was repeating the line on ABC, Ed Gillespie, White House counselor and a former chairman of the Republican Party, was on Fox News making the same argument. "The fact is that Sen. Craig pled guilty to a crime, and therefore was convicted of a crime," Gillespie said. "Sen. Vitter has not been charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one. So there's a pretty big distinction here."
This may not be wisest strategy. For one thing, confronted with evidence that he made use of a prostitution service, Vitter conceded immediately that he'd "sinned." I'm not an expert in the subject, but as I understand it, paying for sex is a crime, and Vitter publicly acknowledged that he'd violated this law. He would have been subject to criminal charges, but the statute of limitations ran out. For the GOP, that makes the "pretty big distinction" fairly small -- Craig pleaded guilty to a recent crime, Vitter admitted guilt of a less recent crime.
Moreover, the whole argument seems premised on strained legalisms. Remember when the president urged Republicans to hold themselves to the highest moral standard? "We must always ask ourselves not only what is legal, but what is right," Bush said in 2001. "There is no goal of government worth accomplishing if it cannot be accomplished with integrity."
So much for that idea.
--Steve Benen
Lamborn lashes out
As a rule, members of Congress try to avoid threatening their constituents, especially on tape. It's one of the reasons a new controversy out of Denver is so bizarre. (via)
A local couple is complaining that U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn left them two threatening voice mails after they wrote a letter criticizing his fundraising.
Jonathan Bartha and Anna Bartha told The Denver Post that Lamborn said there would be "consequences" if they did not withdraw their letter.
"We felt very threatened and intimidated, and quite frankly, scared," Anna Bartha said. "It was just not anything we would ever anticipate an elected official would pursue or a way that an elected official would conduct himself."
Apparently, Jonathan Bartha, who works for James Dobson's Focus on the Family, and his wife Anna, were disappointed when Lamborn voted against stricter dog-fighting laws. They wrote a letter to the editor, identifying themselves as conservative Republicans, and noting that Lamborn accepted campaign contributions from the gambling industry.
It prompted Lamborn to call the Barthas personally, leaving a message that said, "[T]here are consequences to this kind of thing, but I would like to work with you in a way that is best for everyone here concerned." Shortly thereafter, Lamborn left another message in which he said, "I'd rather resolve this on a Scriptural level but if you are unwilling to do that I will be forced to take other steps, which I would rather not have to do."
FEC records confirm Lamborn accepted the donations from the gambling industry, but the Colorado Republican apparently insists he returned the contributions. The Denver Post added, "He did not say when and The Post said there is no federal record of them being returned."
One really has to wonder what on earth guys like Lamborn are thinking.
--Steve Benen
Petraeus gets a hand from the media
Yesterday, Kevin Drum explained that independent of Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus has run a masterful, methodical p.r. campaign that effectively "outplayed" Democrats and other opponents of the president's war policy. Atrios held lawmakers at least partially responsible, because they "have chosen to play along."
But in order to really change the conventional wisdom, Petraeus needed a hand from a pliant press corps. Greg Sargent makes the case today that the media made Petraeus' media blitz a success by buying into faulty assumptions.
...I think it's necessary to add another explanation for the apparent success of Petraeus' PR push: The media, in some cases out of incompetence and in others by design, helped him get away with it, and indeed actively enabled it.
If you step back and survey the totality of media's performance this summer on the Iraq debate, it becomes a good deal clearer just how awful it's all been -- and just how complicit these failings were in helping to shift the debate.
It's persuasive stuff; take a look.
--Steve Benen
EC Sunday Roundup
With Hillary Clinton now joining the pack, the top six Democratic candidates have pledged to shun rogue primary states. That and other political news of the day in today's Election Central Sunday Roundup.
--Eric Kleefeld
The Craig Saga is over, isn't it?
As political scandals go, Sen. Larry Craig's (R-Idaho) was incredibly efficient. The story broke late Monday; Craig resigned early Saturday. The start-to-finish timeline was almost impressive.
That is, if it is finished.
After his speech yesterday, a CNN correspondent asked Craig if he stood by his claim of innocence. "Absolutely," he said, adding: "We'll be fighting this like hell."
At first blush, this sounded a bit like O.J. vowing to catch the real killer, but Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) indicated this morning he'd actually like to see Craig clear his name, withdraw his guilty plea -- and stay in the Senate.
"I'd like to see Larry Craig go back to court, seek to withdraw his guilty plea and fight the case," Senator Arlen Specter said on 'Fox News Sunday'. Drawing on his earlier experience as District Attorney of Philadelphia, Specter said, "On the evidence Senator Craig wouldn't be convicted of anything. And he's got his life on the line and 27 years in the House and Senate, and I'd like to see him fight the case because I think he could be vindicated."
Specter also said it was not too late for Craig to change the status of his resignation.
"He said he intends to resign. When you have a statement of intent to resign that intent could change," he said. "And if he could change the underlying sense of the case, feel of the case." ... If he went to trial "he wouldn't be convicted of anything. And if he went to court, was acquitted, all of this hullabaloo would have no basis."
Sure, if we want to get technical about it, Craig did, in fact, say, "[I]t is my intent to resign from the Senate, effective September 30th," which I suppose could suggest Craig has left himself a little wiggle room. And sure, I don't doubt that Craig's new legal team will do everything possible to get the senator's plea changed and challenge the whole mess in court.
But as a practical, political matter, Specter's vision of a Craig comeback seems more than a little far-fetched. The party turned on him, his constituents are glad to see him go, Idaho's governor is already mulling his replacement, and the political world is ready to move on.
Yesterday was a period, not a comma. Craig's done.
--Steve Benen
Gerstein and ‘new big ideas’
The Washington Post's Dan Balz ponders seven key questions in the presidential race, and coming in at #6 is, "Do ideas matter in this election?"
Joe Lieberman aide Dan Gerstein comes up with the single most Broderesque response imaginable.
Dan Gerstein, a centrist Democrat and strategist, said: "The reality is both parties are brain-dead -- they have no new big ideas to deal with the challenges we face today. Which is why I continue to believe that there is an opening for an independent, reform-oriented campaign to run against politics as usual and on a solutions-driven message."
It's hard to overstate how difficult it is to take this kind of analysis seriously. Listen to the standard stump speech of any of the leading Democratic presidential hopefuls, and you'll be inundated with ideas -- some of them big (healthcare, Iraq, an overhaul of U.S. foreign policy), some of them new (energy policy, combating global warming), and some of them old that haven't gotten the attention they deserve (poverty, domestic security, education, trade, taxes). And it's not just the politicians -- progressive think tanks sympathetic to Democrats (Center for American Progress, among others) are teeming with detailed policy proposals on every issue under the sun.
I'll gladly concede that the Republicans' vision of the future is considerably thinner, and that the big, new ideas they are offering -- war with Iran, privatizing Social Security, privatizing public schools -- are awful. But for anyone to suggest that Dems are "brain-dead" is silly -- they're itching to implement a sweeping new policy agenda and are fighting for the power to implement it.
For that matter, this Unity08-like notion that a third party will swoop in to save us with a "solutions-driven message" is equally inane.
But just as importantly, Gerstein seems to buy into the notion that campaigns are driven by the power of big, new ideas. Way back in 2005, Jonathan Chait explained why this just isn't the case.
The central assumption is that politics revolves around issues and ideas--rather than things like personality, tactics, and outside circumstances--and that the party that wins is the one that presents a more compelling vision of the future. [...]
Alas, this sort of thinking assumes a wildly optimistic level of discernment by voters. Polls consistently show that large swaths of the voting public know very little about the positions taken by candidates. In 2000, the National Annenberg Election Survey found that just 57 percent of voters knew Al Gore was more liberal than Bush, 51 percent knew he was more supportive of gun control, and a mere 46 percent understood that he was more supportive of abortion rights. "The voting behavior literature, which is massive, shows that people are not particularly idea-driven," explains Berkeley political scientist Nelson Polsby. "They don't know what the fashions are, with respect to what ideas go with other ideas."
Gerstein's analysis seems custom made to please the editorial board of the Washington Post, but that doesn't make it true.
--Steve Benen
When panic starts to set in
Let's see, Sen. John Warner of Virginia is retiring, giving Democrats another key pick-up opportunity next year. Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho is resigning, and the DSCC is talking about making a serious run at that seat, too.
Looking ahead, Dems also appear to be in a good position to pick up seats in Colorado, New Hampshire, and Minnesota, with Maine, Oregon, New Mexico, Nebraska, and even Kentucky very much in play. Dems go into the cycle with a cyclical edge -- the GOP has 22 seats to defend in 2008, the Dems have 12 -- and the rest of the political landscape, at least at this early date, seems tilted in their direction.
And how are Republican insiders responding to this landscape? With dread and panic.
"It's always darkest right before you get clobbered over the head with a pipe wrench. But then it actually does get darker," said a GOP pollster who insisted on anonymity in order to speak candidly. [...]
Republican campaign operatives are privately fretting about a political environment that could remain deadly for their party.
"About the only safe Republican Senate seats in '08 are the ones that aren't on the ballot," a GOP operative with extensive experience in Senate races said. "I don't see even the rosiest scenario where we don't end up losing more seats."
At least they've stopped looking at the political world through rose-colored glasses.
--Steve Benen
"Yeah, I can't remember"
In most interviews and press conferences, the president seems almost allergic to contemplation. Bush avoids discussion of his legacy, his previous decisions, his place in history, even what he might do after his presidency ends.
Robert Draper, however, a former writer for Texas Monthly, spent hours with the president at the White House, getting Bush to open up on these subjects for an upcoming book, which Draper agreed to share with the New York Times. It led to an NYT piece today that is almost impossible to read without feeling incredibly frustrated.
On the subject of his life after the White House:
First, Mr. Bush said, "I'll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol' coffers." With assets that have been estimated as high as nearly $21 million, Mr. Bush added, "I don't know what my dad gets -- it's more than 50-75" thousand dollars a speech, and "Clinton's making a lot of money."
Then he said, "We'll have a nice place in Dallas," where he will be running what he called "a fantastic Freedom Institute" promoting democracy around the world. But he added, "I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch."
Bush sure is an impressive one, isn't he?
This might have been the most maddening revelation:
Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein-era military, "The policy was to keep the army intact; didn't happen."
But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush's former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, had gone ahead and forced the army's dissolution and then asked Mr. Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush said, "Yeah, I can't remember, I'm sure I said, 'This is the policy, what happened?' " But, he added, "Again, Hadley's got notes on all of this stuff," referring to Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser.
Let's not brush past this too quickly. The disbanding of the Iraqi army was one of the biggest mistakes of an administration burdened by near-constant missteps, one that was largely responsible for the creation of an Iraqi insurgency. On the subject, Bush sounds like a confused child -- he didn't understand the decision, he's not sure how the decision was made, and asked for his reaction to the decision, Bush is left to conclude, "Yeah, I can't remember."
Finally, there was this gem:
[Bush] said he saw his unpopularity as a natural result of his decision to pursue a strategy in which he believed. "I made a decision to lead," he said, "One, it makes you unpopular; two, it makes people accuse you of unilateral arrogance, and that may be true. But the fundamental question is, is the world better off as a result of your leadership?"
Does Bush really want an answer to that "fundamental question"?
--Steve Benen
