Impeachment-- the Case in Favor

Elizabeth Holtzman in The Nation:

Failure to impeach Bush would condone his actions. It would allow him to assume he can simply continue to violate the laws on wiretapping and torture and violate other laws as well without fear of punishment. He could keep the Iraq War going or expand it even further than he just has on the basis of more lies, deceptions and exaggerations. Remember, as recently as October 26, Bush said, "Absolutely, we are winning" the war in Iraq--a blatant falsehood. Worse still, if Congress fails to act, Bush might be emboldened to believe he may start another war, perhaps against Iran, again on the basis of lies, deceptions and exaggerations.

There is no remedy short of impeachment to protect us from this President, whose ability to cause damage in the next two years is enormous. If we do not act against Bush, we send a terrible message of impunity to him and to future Presidents and mark a clear path to despotism and tyranny. Succeeding generations of Americans will never forgive us for lacking the nerve to protect our democracy.

HEAR HEAR.

Disrespect

Is it too much to ask for Bush to call the Democratic party by their proper name-- instead of the "Democrat party" slur?

Executive Gatekeeping

By ROBERT PEAR
Published: January 30, 2007

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 — President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy.

In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts.

The Child

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2007(The Politico) By The Politico's Josephine Hearn and Mike Allen.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday that President George W. Bush did not consult her before announcing his new strategy for the war in Iraq — a sign that, despite the cozy rhetoric, the relationship between Washington's two powerhouses has already had its share of friction.

In an interview, Pelosi also said she was puzzled by what she considered the president's minimalist explanation for his confidence in the new surge of 21,500 U.S. troops that he has presented as the crux of a new "way forward" for U.S. forces in Iraq.

"He's tried this two times — it's failed twice," the California Democrat said. "I asked him at the White House, 'Mr. President, why do you think this time it's going to work?' And he said, 'Because I told them it had to.' "

Asked if the president had elaborated, she added that he simply said, " 'I told them that they had to.' That was the end of it. That's the way it is."

She also said during the interview in her spacious Capitol suite that no one else in the White House had asked her what she would do, or what the administration should do about Iraq.

SOTU Lies

Glenn Kessler:

In his State of the Union address last night, President Bush presented an arguably misleading and often flawed description of "the enemy" that the United States faces overseas, lumping together disparate groups with opposing ideologies to suggest that they have a single-minded focus in attacking the United States.

Under Bush's rubric, a country such as Iran -- which enjoys diplomatic representation and billions of dollars in trade with major European countries -- is lumped together with al-Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat," Bush said, referring to the different branches of the Muslim religion.

Similarly, Bush asserted that Shia Hezbollah, which has won seats in the Lebanese government, is a terrorist group "second only to al-Qaeda in the American lives it has taken." Bush is referring to attacks nearly a quarter-century ago on a U.S. embassy and a Marine barracks when the United States intervened in Lebanon's civil war by shelling Hezbollah strongholds. Hezbollah has evolved into primarily an anti-Israeli militant organization -- it fought a war with Israel last summer -- but the European Union does not list it as a terrorist organization.

At one point, Bush catalogued what he described as advances in the quest for freedom in the Middle East during 2005 -- such as the departure of Syrian troops from Lebanon and elections in Iraq. Then, Bush asserted, "a thinking enemy watched all of these scenes, adjusted their tactics and in 2006 they struck back." But his description of the actions of "the enemy" tried to tie together a series of diplomatic and military setbacks that had virtually no connection to one another, from an attack on a Sunni mosque in Iraq to the assassination of Maronite Lebanese political figure.

In his speech, Bush argued that "free people are not drawn to violent and malignant ideologies -- and most will choose a better way when they are given a chance." He also said that terrorist groups "want to overthrow moderate governments."

In the two of the most liberal and diverse societies in the Middle East -- Lebanon and the Palestinian territories -- events have undercut Bush's argument in the past year. Hezbollah has gained power and strength in Lebanon, partly at the ballot box. Meanwhile, Palestinians ousted the Fatah party -- which wants to pursue peace with Israel -- from the legislature in favor of Hamas, which is committed to Israel's destruction and is considered a terrorist organization by the State Department.

In fact, many of the countries that Bush considers "moderate" -- such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- are autocratic dictatorships rated among the worst of the "not free" nations by the nonpartisan Freedom House. Their Freedom House ratings are virtually indistinguishable from Cuba, Belarus and Burma, which Bush last night listed as nations in desperate need of freedom.

Bush also claimed that "we have a diplomatic strategy that is rallying the world to join in the fight against extremism." But Monday, a poll of 26,000 people in 25 countries was released that showed that global opinion of U.S. foreign policy has sharply deteriorated in the past two years. Nearly three-quarters of those polled by GlobeScan, an international polling company, disapprove of U.S. policies toward Iraq, and nearly half said the United States is playing a mainly negative role in the world.

In his State of the Union address a year ago, Bush said that progress in Iraq meant "we should be able to further decrease our troop levels" but that "those decisions will be made by our military commanders, not by politicians in Washington, D.C." Bush now proposes to increase troop levels, after having overruled the concerns of commanders. In his speech last night, he sidestepped this contradiction, saying that "our military commanders and I have carefully weighed the options" and "in the end, I chose this course of action."

On domestic policy, Bush at one point said that "the recovery" has added more than 7.2 million jobs since August 2003. But the net number of jobs created since Bush became president in January 2001, is much lower -- just 3.6 million. The Bush administration's performance is fairly mediocre for the sixth year of a presidency, according to historical statistics maintained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nearly 18 million jobs were added by the sixth year of Bill Clinton's presidency -- and nearly 10 million were added at this point in Ronald Reagan's presidency.

Bush claimed credit for cutting the budget deficit ahead of schedule and proposed to eliminate it over the next five years. He did not mention that he inherited a huge budget surplus -- $236 billion in 2000 -- compared with a $296 billion deficit in the 2006 fiscal year, largely as a result of Bush's tax cuts and spending increases. Bush claimed that the No Child Left Behind Act has helped students to "perform better at reading and math, and minority students are closing the achievement gap." But states made stronger average annual gains in reading during the decade before the law took effect, education researchers have found, and half a dozen recent studies have shown little progress in narrowing the test-score gap between minority and white students.

More Unpopular Than Any President Since Nixon

Jan. 22, 2007 — President Bush faces the nation this week more unpopular than any president on the eve of a State of the Union address since Richard Nixon in 1974.

Nixon was beleaguered by the Watergate scandal; for Bush, three decades later, it's the war in Iraq. With his unpopular troop surge on the table, his job rating matches the worst of his presidency: Thirty-three percent of Americans approve of his work in office while 65 percent disapprove, 2-1 negative, matching his career low last May.

Only three postwar presidents have gone lower — Jimmy Carter, Nixon and Harry Truman. And only one has had a higher disapproval rating, Nixon.

For Bush, the bad news just starts there. Dismay over the unpopular war is dragging him down across the board, from his personal ratings to his position vis-à-vis the resurgent Democrats. It's all a remarkable comedown for a president who, shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, saw his approval rating soar to the highest for any president in polls since 1938.

Controlling Investigations Leading to a "Rolling Constitutional Crisis"

Krugman on the sudden firing of US Attorneys:

For a long time the administration nonetheless seemed untouchable, protected both by Republican control of Congress and by its ability to justify anything and everything as necessary for the war on terror. Now, however, the investigations are closing in on the Oval Office. The latest news is that J. Steven Griles, the former deputy secretary of the Interior Department and the poster child for the administration’s systematic policy of putting foxes in charge of henhouses, is finally facing possible indictment.

And the purge of U.S. attorneys looks like a pre-emptive strike against the gathering forces of justice.

Won’t the administration have trouble getting its new appointees confirmed by the Senate? Well, it turns out that it won’t have to.

Arlen Specter, the Republican senator who headed the Judiciary Committee until Congress changed hands, made sure of that last year. Previously, new U.S. attorneys needed Senate confirmation within 120 days or federal district courts would name replacements. But as part of a conference committee reconciling House and Senate versions of the revised Patriot Act, Mr. Specter slipped in a clause eliminating that rule.

As Paul Kiel of TPMmuckraker.com — which has done yeoman investigative reporting on this story — put it, this clause in effect allows the administration “to handpick replacements and keep them there in perpetuity without the ordeal of Senate confirmation.” How convenient.

Ya Think?

Bush says Saddam's execution looked like "kind of a revenge killing."

Gratitude

I think the Iraqi people owe the, the American people a huge debt of gratitude. That's the problem, here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq.

--George W. Bush, 60 Minutes, January 2007

Attaturk explains more about gratitude.

I Think It's Because He's a Psychopath

Bob Cesca-- Iraq Is Not Hilarious, Mr. President

I really can't cope with it anymore because it's just so damn wrong. We've all noticed this particular affectation over the years and many of us have written about it on the blogs: The president tends to grin and laugh when discussing deadly serious topics.

The most recent occurrences of the president's giggle-fits happen to have been documented during his 60 Minutes interview Sunday night (video via C&L). The smirking and smiling and laughing was so rampant that I almost completely overlooked not only the substance of his criminally misguided bullshit, but I also nearly missed Scott Pelley's repeated use of the pejorative "Democrat" form when discussing Democratic legislation and Democratic opposition to the war.

Bush Concedes Mistakes in Iraq

Hmm, not sure what this is all about:

Sat Jan 13, 5:26 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush acknowledged on Saturday that some of his administration's decisions during the Iraq war had contributed to instability there but he still believed he was right to topple Saddam Hussein.

Insisting it was crucial to U.S. interests to get the sectarian violence in Iraq under control, Bush told CBS in an interview that the strife there was a destabilizing force in the Middle East that "could lead to attacks here in America."

Pressed on whether actions by his administration had created further instability in Iraq, Bush said, "Well, no question, decisions have made things unstable."

But he added, "My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the correct decision in my judgment."

Bush gave the interview to Scott Pelley of CBS's "60 Minutes" news program, which will air on Sunday, after announcing a plan to send 21,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq's most violent areas.

In the speech announcing his revised Iraq strategy, Bush acknowledged mistakes, saying he should have increased troop levels earlier.

"I think history is going to look back and see a lot of ways we could have done things better. No question about it," Bush told "60 Minutes."

I don't see him admitting that HE made a mistake!

Power for Power's Sake

I once believed that the common thread here is presidential blindness -- an extreme executive-branch myopia that leads the chief executive to believe that these futile measures are integral to combating terrorism; a self-delusion that precludes Bush and his advisers from recognizing that Padilla is a chump and Guantanamo Bay is just a holding pen for a jumble of innocent or half-guilty wretches.

But it has finally become clear that the goal of these efforts isn't to win the war against terrorism; indeed, nothing about Padilla, Guantanamo Bay or signing statements moves the country an inch closer to eradicating terrorism. The object is a larger one: expanding executive power, for its own sake.

snip

I once believed that the common thread here is presidential blindness -- an extreme executive-branch myopia that leads the chief executive to believe that these futile measures are integral to combating terrorism; a self-delusion that precludes Bush and his advisers from recognizing that Padilla is a chump and Guantanamo Bay is just a holding pen for a jumble of innocent or half-guilty wretches.

But it has finally become clear that the goal of these efforts isn't to win the war against terrorism; indeed, nothing about Padilla, Guantanamo Bay or signing statements moves the country an inch closer to eradicating terrorism. The object is a larger one: expanding executive power, for its own sake.

Flipper Flopper

Children

I realize that the Bush White House looked at the Iraq Study Group with some disdain. So-called “elder statesman,” mostly friends of Bush’s dad, weren’t going to come in and tell the president how to wage his war, no siree. Within a few minutes of Bush thanking ISG members for their work, Bush made the panel instantly irrelevant. The report that was going to “change everything” went from front-of-the-bookstore to remainder-table-discount in a matter of days.

But far more troubling is the notion that the Bush administration has shaped its escalation plan in part to spite the ISG.

Although the president was publicly polite, few of the key Baker-Hamilton recommendations appealed to the administration, which intensified its own deliberations over a new “way forward” in Iraq. How to look distinctive from the study group became a recurring theme.

As described by participants in the administration review, some staff members on the National Security Council became enamored of the idea of sending more troops to Iraq in part because it was not a key feature of Baker-Hamilton. (emphasis added)

I had to read that a couple of times to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. The Bush gang decided to change course in Iraq, but went out of their way to “look distinctive” from the Iraq Study Group? Troop escalation wasn’t in the ISG report, so the Bush gang latched onto the idea because the ISG didn’t endorse it? As if this all some kind of exercise in Oedipal spite?

Exactly what kind of men-children are we dealing with here?

Bush Delusional, Like Hitler

Paul Craig Roberts:

Bush is like Hitler. He blames defeats on his military commanders, not on his own insane policy. Like Hitler, he protects himself from reality with delusion. In his last hours, Hitler was ordering non-existent German armies to drive the Russians from Berlin.

On the real goal of "the war on terror":

By manipulating Bush and provoking a military crisis in which the US stands to lose its army in Iraq, the neoconservatives hope to revive the implementation of their plan for US conquest of the Middle East. They believe they can use fear, "honor," and the aversion of macho Americans to ignoble defeat to expand the conflict in response to military disaster. The neocons believe that the loss of an American army would be met with the electorate’s demand for revenge. The barriers to the draft would fall, as would the barriers to the use of nuclear weapons.

Neocon godfather Norman Podhoretz set out the plan for Middle East conquest several years ago in Commentary magazine. It is a plan for Muslim genocide. In place of physical extermination of Muslims, Podhoretz advocates their cultural destruction by deracination. Islam is to be torn out by the roots and reduced to a purely formal shell devoid of any real beliefs.

Podhoretz disguises the neoconservative attack against diversity with contrived arguments, but its real purpose is to use the US military to subdue Arabs and to create space for Israel to expand.

Not enough Americans are aware that this is what the "war on terror" is all about.

(Jan. 9, 2007)

30% Approval

23% approval on Iraq.

Now TWPE Claims Extraordinary Powers to Peek in Our Mail

WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.

The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.

Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.

Hypocrisy on Playing Politics

In an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal, President Bush urges the new Congress to not “play politics as usual.”* He writes, “If the Congress chooses to pass bills that are simply political statements, they will have chosen stalemate. If a different approach is taken, the next two years can be fruitful ones for our nation.”

But three of the most egregious examples of partisan politicking in the 109th Congress — gay marriage, flag burning, and Terry Schiavo — were pushed by the President.

(snip)

Under Bush’s watch, the 109th Congress used valuable time to “play politics as usual.” It failed to raise the minimum wage, left nine out of 11 spending bills undone, and left unresolved a long list of national security priorities.

*Isn't this the biggest cliche, ever?

Botched Saddam Execution

The trial and punishment of Saddam Hussein could have helped heal Iraq-- if done right.

Instead, Saddam's execution appears to have been a ruthless, barbaric and lawless power-play.

It was bad enough that even the Bush administration is distancing themselves from it.

It's not too surprising, really, but it certainly is emblematic of the "democracy" that the US has brought to Iraq.

The Greatest Single Crime of the Bush Administration?

Clearly there is a long list of evils that the Bush administration has perpetrated, but it still boggles my mind that they brainwashed the US troops who invaded Iraq to think that they were avenging 9/11. 90% of the troops who invaded Iraq thought that they were going into Iraq to kill the terrorists who hit us on 9/11.

Think of the audacity and pure evil it took for the Bush administration and Pentagon to drum the fictitious Iraq-9/11 connection into soldiers minds-- and then the pure havoc this brainwashing led to, as the US slaughtered and tortured innocent Iraqis -- crimes that were deeply immoral in themselves but also acts that completely counter-productive to the stated goal of establishment of order and the building of a democracy.

Of course, at this point, it is almost easy to forget the audacity and pure evil it took for the Bush administration to promote the fake threat of Iraq's WMD and thus to start an unprovoked war.

Clearly, if they were going to lie about something so big, what can we put past them?

Troop Escalation ‘More Of A Political Decision Than A Military One’

CNN reports “President Bush is expected to announce his new Iraq strahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.giftegy in an address to the nation early next week.” According to the BBC, “The speech will reveal a plan to send more US troops to Iraq.”

Last night on NBC News, Jim Miklaszewski reported that the new strategy will be announced next Tuesday, and that an administration official

Lovely. Talk about playing politics. I have little doubt that adding more troops is just going to lead to a worse situation with more dead. But we have the president's HONOR and political reputation at stake here! Never mind the dead people!