Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) intends to block the nomination of former Rep. James Rogan (R-CA) to the federal bench because of his role in the impeachment of President Clinton.
In an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) gave a scathing, to put it mildly, commentary on George Bush and his administration.
This is one of the most arrogant, incompetent administrations I’ve ever seen personally or ever read about.
…This administration in my opinion has been as unprepared as any administration I’m aware of, not only the ones that I have been somehow connected to and that’s been every administration — either I’ve been in Washington or worked within an administration or Congress or some way dealing with them since the first Nixon administration. I would rate this one the lowest in capacity, in capability, in policy, in consensus — almost every area, I would give it the lowest grade.
…And you know, I think of this administration, what they could have done after 9/11, what was within their grasp. Every poll in the world showed 90 percent of the world for us. Iran had some of the first spontaneous demonstrations on the streets of Tehran supporting America. They squandered a tremendous amount of opportunity.
Hagel has always been outspoken and very critical of the Bush administration since the Iraq war began; however his comments yesterday are by far the most severe I have heard him or any Republcan ever make about Bush.
The full speech can be read here.
This is a video of the suspect, Leeland Eisenberg, being arrested.
6:34 PM: It’s over. Video will follow soon.
5:41 PM: This is a picture from CNN of the hostage that was released a few minutes ago.
5:35 PM: A female hostage has just been released. Appears to be 25 - 30 years old
5:16 p.m. Herman Ejarque, the co-owner and manager of the nearby Governor’s Inn in Rochester, N.H., said in a telephone interview that a relative of the suspect had come into the inn about 2 o’clock this afternoon after being interviewed by police. The man’s relationship to the suspect was not clear — he is either the son, step-son or son-in-law. He talked with the inn’s front-desk receptionist, Chelsea Coul, telling her he was cold and looking for a cup of coffee but the town had been evacuated and everything was shut down.
The man told Ms. Coul that the suspect’s wife had sought a divorce a few months ago and that he was unemployed and “hasn’t been in the right state of mind” for three months. Ms. Coul said the man told her that the suspect had been drinking for 72 hours and that he needed help and quoted the suspect as saying, “I don’t know what to do with my life.”
The man told Ms. Coul that the suspect had asked him where he could buy roadside flares. What happened next is not clear.
MSNBC reporters indicate all presidential candidates that have offices in the area have closed.
5:14 PM: The network is running commercials now. I’ll take a brief break and will start a new post for any additional updates.
4:59 PM: MSNBC - According to Rochester, NH police log for the week of April 3rd, Leland Eisenberg, a man who lives in the area, on Milton Rd., was charged with two counts of stalking.
“Somebody in the area is demanding to talk to Hillary Clinton.”
4:53 PM: MSNBC - The suspect has been tentativly identified as Leland Eisenber [sic], a local man, in his mid-40’s, and according to his son-in-law is someone who wanted to be hospitalized
4:40 PM: Press Conference - Capt. Paul Callaghan, Rochester Police Department
The situation is still fluid. the area is stablizied. they have adequate resources to handle the situation. FBI, ATF, and Secret Service participating with local authorities.
It is a hostage situation and is inappropriate to provide details on how many hostages or any other details of the ongoing investigation.
He cannot confirm the identity of the suspect.
When asked if a bomb threat currently existed, he responded “ased on information received, we have stablizied the area, which is about four or five blocks.
There have been no reported injuries.
Continues to emphasize it is a fluid investigation.
54-sworn officers (local) are working the situation.
End 4:46 PM
That is a rather cryptic summariztion of what Capt. Callaghan said — typing fast and not able to hear most of the questions asked, just responses.
4:37 PM: MSNBC is reporting that according to sources (suspects son) the suspect had been drinking earlier today and entered the office with intention of causing a scene.
Excerpt of original post from the Caucus followed by updates:
3:26 PM ET: A man claiming to have a bomb strapped to his chest walked in to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign offices in Rochester, N.H., today and took hostages, police and witnesses said.
Senator Clinton was not in the building at the time. She was scheduled to speak at the Democratic National Committee meeting in Vienna, Va., afternoon, but she canceled that appearance after receiving the reports that at least two volunteers were being held captive.
Bill Shaheen, a co-chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s New Hampshire and national campaign, said in a telephone interview at 2:40 p.m. that the two hostages are both staff members in the Rochester campaign office, one of 16 offices that Mrs. Clinton has around the state.
Updates as posted by the Caucus:
4:20 p.m. MSNBC is reporting that the son-in-law of the suspect walked into a restaurant and while he ordered coffee, told witnesses that his father-in-law had gone to a hardware store and bought roadside flares.
4:10 p.m. Mitt Romney’s campaign released a statement saying they have asked all the campaign field offices to “lock all exterior doors and be on alert for any suspicious individuals.”
“We’ve also reminded all Romney campaign employees in Boston and across the country to be cognizant when entering or exiting staff offices so as not to allow anyone into offices who is not authorized.”
“Everyone is keeping those involved in the situation in our thoughts and prayers right now as well, with hopes of a safe resolution.”
3:42 p.m. WMUR-TV in New Hampshire is reporting that two hostages have been released from the campaign offices, but it is unclear whether there are still hostages inside. According to the Associated Press, at least one hostage remains in the building.
ABC News reported that the suspect is a man who is known locally and has a history of mental illness. The network also reported that the man had
told his son today, “Watch the news.”
The suspect has not been identified publicly and there is no information available on his son.
3:35 p.m. The Rochester police received a call shortly after 12:30 p.m. alerting them to a possible hostage situation, according to Captain Paul Callaghan. It took only a short time to realize the threat was real and the Rochester Police, as part of a routine procedure, contacted the neighboring Dover and Durham police departments for assistance.
The New Hampshire State Police bomb squad unit was also called in to help deal with the situation.
The streets around Mrs. Clinton’s headquarters were sealed off and the area evacuated, including St. Elizabeth Seton School, which includes children in grades 1 through 8. Captain Callaghan said buses were arranged to transport the childrten and they were all cleared out within the last half-hour.
“We have stabilized the situation in the area around the office,” Captain Callaghan said.
He would not comment on reports that one hostage had been freed or how many remained in the building.
As Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani could not effectively and efficiently manage a simple matter of his security detail’s travel expenses, which is in stark contrast to what Giuliani claims on his campaign web site (see video).
As Americans select the next president I believe they need a proven leader and problem solver. During this campaign, when I talk about the goals I set as president, whether it’s restoring fiscal discipline or improving security, I’ll be making promises based on a proven record…We made government smarter, smaller and more effective…Improving public safety was the essential first step to New York City’s resurgence. We implemented pioneering strategies that measured crime in real time and allowed for the immediate deployment of police officers.
I’m running for president because I know how to get things done. I proved it in New York and now we need to get things done in Washington.
So, Rudy can immediately deploy police officers, but his profound restoration of fiscal discipline resulted in poor financial management within the police department forcing officers to bear the burden of travel expenses related to defined continuing security operations. His fiscal discipline was so profoundly sound and efficient that the security operations could not be financed from within its own department, rather transfers from other agencies were required. And his well-structured expense payables operations required a two-month cycle to reimburse employees.
I think its a great idea to take Rudy’s proven-record as Mayor and implement it throughout the government. Recipients of Social Security benefits could get their checks from the Department of Defense or maybe the Department of the Interior six-weeks to two-months late.
 |
| Mayor Rudolph Giuliani |
As everybody knows, Rudy Giuliani is plagued with account after account of corruption and scandal, which in turn requires numerous responses. Nobody — politician or otherwise — has an infinite supply of reasonable excuses and plausible deniability to defend a long-standing background of impropriety and corruption. When a cover-up strategy is employed, at some point the “excuses” given reach an incredulous level and/or expose other problematic areas. It is clear Giuliani’s campaign has reached that threshold as it tries to defend Rudy in his Shag Fund scandal.
Via Josh Marshall:
Earlier this evening we noted that the new line from the Giuliani camp is that the Shag Fund’s convoluted financing was put in place to help the cops on Rudy’s security detail. Giuliani spinmeister Joe Lohta told the AP that “was necessary because the police officers did not make a lot of money and their department took up to two months to repay them for their travel expenses. So Giuliani’s office got a credit card and paid it off with funds from the various agencies.”
Lohta gave a little more detail to Newsday. Lohta told the paper “the practice started when officers on his security detail complained that the police department was slow to reimburse them for rental cars and lodging.”
Focusing on the scandal, Josh appropriately and accurately notes it does not “tell us anything about why the expenses were squirreled away in the budgets of obscure city offices.” However, the excuse given also delivers a blow to the one of the two foundations of Giuliani’s campaign — national security (9/11 hype) and his stellar record of executive management as Mayor of New York City. Giuliani’s rationale shows profound poor management from multiple perspectives, all of which Rudy should have been aware of, and if he was the superior executive he proclaims to be they would not have been issues.
Assuming the response is true, it is clear Giuliani’s management did not provide adequate policies and procedures to accommodate basic travel expenses at a relatively minute level. It’s not like the city suddenly encountered a major issue that resulted in an unexpected high volume of travel. Providing security for the mayor was a known factor, and if there were some additional security requirements as presented, it certainly would not have been on a scale to disrupt the entire administrative process.
If expense reimbursement took two months to process, then a major management area in his administration (e.g., expense payables, accounting, etc.) was by definition dysfunctional. Proof of poor management of the administrative functions is only bolstered by the shifting of funds from various agencies. Any junior-level undergrad majoring in business, finance, or accounting could rip this entire scenario to pieces.
Then there are the human resources issues. We know most local law enforcement officers are not compensated in the six-figure range, therefore why were these security officers expected to bear the burden up front of known travel costs? The Mayor’s security requirements were known in advance, therefore why weren’t the officers provided properly allocated credit cards allowing them to do their basic jobs? And furthermore, based on the excuse given, one could easily infer that Rudy was not properly compensating law enforcement officers in general.
If Saint Rudy of 9/11 could not manage simple issues such as travel for his security detail, is he qualified to manage the entire U.S. government and the trillions of dollars associated with it?
 |
| Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) |
Did the rapture come and I missed it? Something finally woke Patrick Leahy up.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, ruled today that "White House claims of executive privilege and immunity in the Senate’s investigation of the mass firings of U.S. Attorneys are overbroad, unsubstantiated, and not legally valid."While it’s not clear to me what legal implications Leahy’s ruling may have other than procedural, at least the issue has been moved from cryogenic storage to a thawing table.
More than five months ago (June 13 and July 26) the Committee issued subpoenas to, amongst others, White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, former White House political director Sara M. Taylor, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and White House deputy political director J. Scott Jennings. The White House promptly declared Executive Privilege to everything under the sun and refused to let most of those subpoena even appear before Congress to formally exert their claim. Limited testimony was given by Taylor and Jennings.
Since the White House thumbed its nose at Congress, other than exchanging strong letters and meaningless rhetoric, nothing has been done to challenge the administration’s claims. Of course, some of that inaction is directly related to Alberto Gonzales. The Justice Department is responsible for prosecuting contempt citations, and Bush ordered Gonzales to not allow any prosecutor to pursue contempt charges (iirc).
In his ruling today, Leahy said:
“I have given the White House’s claims of executive privilege and immunity careful consideration,” wrote Leahy. “I hereby rule that those claims are not legally valid to excuse current and former White House employees from appearing, testifying and producing documents related to this investigation. Accordingly, I direct Mr. Bolten, Mr. Rove, Ms. Taylor and Mr. Jennings to comply immediately with the Committees subpoenas by producing documents and testifying or face possible contempt citations.”
According to Roll Call (subscription), the Committee could issue contempt citations for each person that does not comply — including Karl Rove — as early as December 6. The House Judiciary Committee has already approve contempt citations, therefore the next step is for each committee to get full approval of their respective Houses. The House does not require a super-majority vote, therefore approval is all but assured. If a 60-vote super-majority approval is required in the Senate, my guess is Leahy’s citations will be DOA.
Mike Gravel may be president by the time Congress actually gets around to prosecuting anybody.
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best, CNN deserves a rating of -10. Quite simply they are next to impossible to watch. I had that impression after watching the last Democratic debate, but decided to hold my opinion until after the GOP debate last night. And while their debates are generally horrendous, Wolf Blitzer’s moderation, as demonstrated in the Democratic debate is on par, at best, with Chris Wallace and Brit Hume of Fox News. I was elated that Anderson Cooper moderated last night’s debate. Not because Cooper’s moderation skills are so high (he doesn’t know what follow-up is), but just pleased that Blitzer was not in charge.
When it comes to debates, CNN has dropped to the pitiful depths of Fox News’ approach to jouranlism. Forget journalism. Ratings and entertainment are far more important.
Last night CNN failed to address the most compelling issues, but instead asked questions that fuel polarization between voters and appealed to only the most radical elements of the Republican party. There was basically no focus on asking questions that would allow a viewer to compare the respective parties and candidates. If you were looking for pure red meat, did not care about the issues facing both parties and wanted to watch a third-party instigate a fight between two candidates, last night’s debate scored 10+.
In Salon, Walter Shapiro provides an excellent analysis:
[W]hat sent me into a free fall of depression was CNN’s instinct for the fatuous in choosing the debate questions. It is a disgrace that in a two-hour debate (it felt longer) there was not a single question about the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the powder keg in Pakistan or Iran. The fault is not with the earnest YouTubers who sent in questions. The blame entirely rests with Anderson Cooper (a debate host who seemed incapable of asking a relevant follow-up question) and his CNN cohorts, who seemed more concerned with goosing the ratings than with grasping the world that the next president will inherit.
I found it almost impossible to watch all of the last Democratic debate on CNN. Not because Blitzer generated answers that differed from my views, but instead it was the manner in whiich he framed the questions, the pressure he put on candidates in follow-up questions when they didn’t give an answer he wanted, and the lack of follow-up to answers that should have been probed more. For example, when he asked Hillary Clinton if she supported giving drivers license to undocumented workers, she said “No.” Blitzer did not ask her why she changed her position from the MSNBC debate two-weeks earlier and why did it take her two weeks to make a decision. When asking Barack Obama the same question he pointedly grilled Obama for a simple yes/no answer and refused to accept Obama’s attempt to explain his answer.
Matthew Yglesias captured it perfectly:
Wolf Blitzer’s main interest is in asking questions designed to put Democrats on the wrong side of public opinion, even if those questions are about things like driver’s licenses or “merit pay” for teachers that aren’t really under federal purview. Efforts to reframe those questions by putting those topics in the larger context of immigration policy more generally or education more generally are derided as cowardly dodges. The point, after all, is to force a choice — piss off an interest group, or say something that could be used in a GOP attack ad.
Former Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), who lead the Republican’s failed political coup d’etat against former President Clinton, died today at age 83.
I have only watched about half of last night’s Republican debatet, but based on what little I saw and the tidbits I’ve picked up this morning, Mike Huckabee appears to have hit a home run. He’s very conservative, which the GOP base is finally figuring out and seems to be making a difference in the polls. If he did as well on all of his answers as he did when asked if he believed every word of the Bible, his opponents don’t stand a chance. His answer on the bible was incredibly good. I’ll get the exact words later.
A new Iowa poll that came out just hours before the debate has Huckabee ahead of Mitt Romney 28 - 25, and Giuliani at 12. Fred Thompson rings in at 11 and based on what I have seen of the debate thus far, I would be surprised if that doesn’t drop.
Here are a few things I picked up this morning.
Mike Huckabee is super conservative, believes in biblical literalism, doesn’t believe in evolution. But, man, that answer to the Bible question was good. Just judging in pure political terms, he knocked that one out of the park.
Made Rudy and Mitt look like idiots that wanted to be anywhere else but on that stage.
"On style, I think that the most presidential tonight were John McCain, who has found his voice again. … And I thought Rudy Giuliani. But the candidate I think that the spotlight was shining on tonight and who really emerged as the most authentic and human was Mike Huckabee. Huckabee continually responded to questions with a compassionate, sort of human quality that I think will appeal to a lot of people in their homes"
Huck gave clear, thoughtful answers to questions about the death penalty, the Bible and immigration. He also had the funniest line of the night, per the WWJD? death penalty inquiry. "Jesus Was Too Smart to Ever Run for Public Office, Anderson." Huckabee also looked more the statesmanlike than his frontrunner counterparts, who sniped about sanctuary cities, illegal workers and more.
Jane Hamsher: Huckabee — good debate prep
Each candidate had an ad they submitted to the debate — and oddly enough, Fred Thompson used his ad to simply attack Romney and Huckabee — with nothing said of himself. Funny — it just shows that his campaign is in desperate mode. Thompson seemed like through the whole debate he was unable to string together coherent thoughts. He definitely missed his cue cards tonight!
The Washington Post’s article on the debate seems to be more driven by what the national polls reflect than by the content or substance of the debate. After the opening sentence, they dedicate the first 387 words of their 1,397 piece (28 percent) to Giuliani and Romney. If you don’t believe the article was poll driven check this out. This is how many times each candidate’s name appears in the article.
Romney - 16
Giuliani - 12
McCain - 9
Huckabee - 8
Tancredo - 4
Paul - 3
Thompson - 2
Hunter - 1
The New York Times plays a ratings game, but not nearly as bad as the Post. The first 70 words of their 1,215 word article (six percent) are dedicated to Giuliani and Romney. Mike Huckabee is mentioned in the third sentence. Here’s the name-count breakdown.
Romney - 18
Giuliani - 13
Huckabee - 8
McCain - 7
Thompson - 4
Hunter - 1
Tancredo - 1
Paul - 1
I’ll watch the rest of the debate a little later, but the consensus seems to be Huckabee won hands down last night.
In a Chicago Sun-Times op-ed, The Rev. Jesse Jackson has made allegations that the Democratic candidates, with the exception of John Edwards,”have virtually ignored” African Americans in the 2008 campaign process.
[T]he Democratic candidates — with the exception of John Edwards, who opened his campaign in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward and has made addressing poverty central to his campaign — have virtually ignored the plight of African Americans in this country. The catastrophic crisis that engulfs the African-American community goes without mention. No urban agenda is given priority. When thousands of African Americans marched in protest in Jena, La., not one candidate showed up.
I can’t attest to the credibility of Rev. Jackson’s allegations, which are for the most part very generalized and ambiguous. The only specific incident Jackson cites is related to the Jena 6 matter.
I know John Edwards has campaigned extremely hard for the disenfranchised and impoverished. I know he has advocated the needs of the poor and made countless trips through poverty-stricken areas across the nation trying to draw attention to the need, but as Greg Sargent accurately noted the other day, the press does not give him fair coverage. Even the New York Times‘ public editor published a piece admonishing his paper for giving Edwards “scant coverage”
With respect to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the other Democratic candidates, I am not aware of any allegations of gross neglect as Rev. Jackson claims in his op-ed. That doesn’t mean anything except I’m not aware of any real neglect other than by most GOP candidates, which has been unconscionable. But, if things are as bad as Jackson attempts to portray, is it not reasonable to presume there would be numerous complaints from multiple sources? And would they not have a certain level of specificity?
I by no means intend to imply that my knowledge of what each campaign is doing (or not) is comprehensive; however, I am quite likely more aware of the candidates’ activities and positions on the issues than the average American voter. Taking that into consideration, the most frequent ethnic issue I continue to hear is: “Is Barack black enough?” Moreover, I hear that question raised by Chris Matthews more than any other source. And frankly, I find the question to be repugnant, irrelevant, and downright stupid. If the next president will be elected on the basis of whether that person is black, white, or green “enough,” then we have a seriously dysfunctional society.
No one can legitimately argue that ethnic or gender discrimination does not exist, but I believe the majority of Americans do not condone those types of discrimination.
One can only make assumptions about most of Rev. Jackson’s statements because he does not suggest a single solution for any issue. He does not make a specific request, nor does he reference specific incidents, except as noted on the Jena 6 issue. Rev. Jackson’s complaints are so broad and generalized that he seems to be demanding presidential candidates have two custom platforms: one for African-Americans and another for whites, which literally turns We the People on its head.
Patterns of discrimination are sharply etched. African Americans have, on average, about half of the good things that whites have, and double the bad things. We have about half the average household income and less than half the household wealth. On the other hand, we’re suffering twice the level of unemployment and twice the level of infant mortality (widely accepted as a measure of general health).
Policies on health care, employment, wages, and the judicial system should be established to promote the general welfare of all the people. If Rev. Jackson is concerned about discrimination and is positioning himself as an advocate of the disenfranchised, he failed to meet the objective. He does not address the plight of amongst others: homosexuals, Hispanics, Native Americans and whites. Accept it or not, white people are discriminated against, albeit not to the extent African-Americans endure. I don’t have statistics or references to prove my posit, but I believe the predominant factors related to discrimination in general are economic. I have little doubt that the lower the economic class is, the greater the prevalence of discrimination. A turquoise man in the lowest economic classification will have a greater probability to be the victim of discrimination, than for example, Vernon Jordan or Warren Buffet
And what about religious discrimination? Jackson does not mention it. What better example to cite than Mitt Romney’s view that the ratio of people who are Muslims is not high enough to merit a Cabinet position in his administration.
The level of commitment by the current Democratic presidential candidates with respect to social issues that promote the general welfare for all the people is unprecedented in modern politics. Not since Lyndon Johnson have Democrats or Republicans proposed the level of social changes that are basically common to the platforms of all the current Democratic candidates.
Is Rev. Jackson serving as a true advocate of equal rights or is he attempting to raise the level of rhetoric to serve his personal interests? If the answer is the latter, then Rev. Jackson should consider some reflective time on inclusiveness. Rhetoric that attempts to pit two specific races against each other is counter-productive and indicative of 40-year-old tactics. Listening to a few of Barack Obama and John Edward’s speeches may be insightful.
To emphasize a few points,, I quickly wrote an over-the-top fictional tale-of-woe, but debated at some length whether I should include it in this post. By including it, I obviously made a decision. The outlandish tale, but unfortunately all too realistic for many, follows the jump.
I raise my point/issue after the tale-of-woe.
In an interview with Charlie Rose a few days ago, Karl Rove said Congress was responsible for staring the war in Iraq, not George Bush. After all these years, I thought George Bush and Dick Cheney could not get the war started fast enough, and to learn last night Congress is responsible…well, I’m just dumfounded. (Short video here. Full video here.)
KARL ROVE: One of the untold stories about the war is why did the United States Congress, the United States Senate vote on the Iraq War Resolution in the Fall of 2002?
CHARLIE ROSE: Why?
KARL ROVE: This administration was opposed to it. I’m going to talk about that in my book.
CHARLIE ROSE: Well tell me, give me…
KARL ROVE: No I’m not going to…
CHARLIE ROSE: Come on - give it to me…give me something.
KARL ROVE: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: Give me something.
KARL ROVE: No. I just did. I just told you the administration was opposed to voting on it in the Fall of 2002.
CHARLIE ROSE: Because?
KARL ROVE: Because we didn’t think it belonged within the confines of the election. There was an election coming up in a matter of weeks. We thought it made it too political. We wanted it outside the confines of it. It seemed to make things move too fast. There were things that needed to be done to bring along allies and potential allies abroad.
Karl Rove is absolutely correct that the White House was concerned about the potential impact the prelude to war might have on the elections, but their concern was just the opposite of what Karl stated in the interview. Instead, the White House desperately wanted to put war with Iraq at the forefront of the 2002 election. They made all kinds of public statements heralding the war, established unconstitutional plans to invade Iraq as quickly as possible if Congress did not approve the war, and pressured Congress to pass the resolutions to invade Iraq.
First, this is straight from the White House.
President Bush in a September 24, 2002 photo-op with the Cabinet* in the Cabinet Room:
Thanks for coming. We just had a very productive Cabinet meeting. We realize there’s little time left in — before the Senate and the House goes home, but we’re optimistic a lot can get done before now and then. Congress must act now to pass a resolution which will hold Saddam Hussein to account for a decade of defiance.
President Bush from the Rose Garden* on October 2, 2002
Today I’m joined by leaders of the House and the Senate from both political parties to show our unity of purpose in confronting a gathering threat to the security of America and to the future of peace.
I want to thank [Hastert and Gephardt] for…building bipartisan support on this vital issue. I also want to thank [Warner, Lieberman, McCain and Bayh] for introducing this resolution which we’ve agreed to on the floor of the Senate this morning.
President Bush from the Roosevelt Room*, October 10, 2002 (emphasis in original)
President Bush Pleased with House Vote on Iraq Resolution
I would like to thank the members of the House of Representatives, just as I thanked Speaker Hastert and Leader Gephardt a few minutes ago, for the very strong bipartisan vote authorizing the use of force in Iraq if it becomes necessary.
I’m also pleased with the progress being made in the Senate, and I look forward to a final vote soon.
In August 2002, the White House had Timothy Flannigan, then head of the Office of Legal Counsel, to issue a legal opinion giving President Bush the authority to invade Iraq without the approval of Congress. (Charlie Savage, Takeover, pp. 156-157). If Congress didn’t pass the resolution the White House, especially Dick Cheney, was prepared to move forward without Congressional approval.
Savage further writes:
When Congress returned in September [2002] for a few last weeks...before the mid-term election, administration officials abruptly demanded that Congress immediately approve a hypothetical invasion of Iraq, just in case Bush later decided that diplomacy had failed and war was necessary…At the same time, administration officials escalated alarming rhetoric about the threat posed by Iraq, warning that “the smoking gun” for Iraq’s alleged weapons programs and its alleged links to Al Qaeda could come in the form of a “mushroom cloud.”
Note: This sudden surge had been crafted by the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) which had been secretly formed in August 2002 to coordinate a strategy for coming confrontation with Iraq. Its members included Andrew Card, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Condoleezza Rice, and Stephen Hadley.
The proposed hurry up vote on the eve of the first election since 9/11 presented a win-win scenario for the White House: If Democrats voiced caution or skepticism about the proposed war resolution, then the GOP could portray them as weak on terrorism ahead of the election, and if Democrats supported the bill, then the Bush-Cheney administration would fortify its powers by eliminating even the suggestion that it might later need to ask for permission to launch any war against Iraq.
Book stores and libraries will have to put Karl Rove’s book in the fiction section.
Zogby conducted an interactive poll (web based, no phones) that has Hillary Clinton losing to every Republican presidential candidate. The poll also shows Obama and Edwards would defeat or tie every Republican.
I would not put any confidence in the poll until Zogby can provide additional evidence the methodology used is credible. It was basically a straw poll. Zogby’s poll is no different than if I had put up a poll here and then published the results as scientifically credible.
Maybe Zogby has some new science to apply to the poll that he hasn’t discussed yet or maybe it’s part of a test phase that will lead to something more credible in the future. But putting credibility in an interactive poll that surveys "individuals who have registered to take part in online polls" probably has mathematicians laughing in univerisities around the globe..
The poll results are here.
The Arab world is not buying into the Annapolis Middle East peace talks. Their opinion? Photo-op.
Arab commentators on Wednesday dismissed the relaunch of Israeli-Palestinian talks as a U.S.-staged media event unlikely to lead to Middle East peace.
Some argued that U.S. President George W. Bush’s real aim in convening Tuesday’s conference in Annapolis, Maryland, was to rescue his image after failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, or to persuade Arab states their deadliest foe was Iran, not Israel.
What else are they supposed to believe when George Bush committed a measly three hours of his time, which include a meal?
Reuters has a long list of commentaries.
Update: Analysis from the Washington Post. Maybe Mr. Bush has finally found something more compatible with his capabilities. Answering the phones.
The outcome of Bush’s new effort, in the twilight of his presidency, will depend greatly on the personal commitment he is willing to invest in the unfolding process, according to officials and experts on the Middle East.
"At this point, he’s come to an event and he’s made a speech," said Dennis Ross, the Middle East peace envoy of Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. "The investment will come if he starts engaging in serious diplomacy."
White House officials reject the frequent criticism that Bush has been disengaged from the Middle East peace process, while waging war in Iraq and focusing on other issues. In an Associated Press interview yesterday, Bush described himself as "very engaged, up to the moment” in bringing Israelis, Palestinians and the representatives of more than 40 countries to Annapolis to launch his most serious attempt at Middle East peacemaking.
"I work the phones, I listen, I encourage, I have meetings. I do a lot of things," Bush said in the White House interview, shortly after returning from Annapolis.
Dick Cheney has returned to work and is pleased to be reunited with his "Top Secret" rubber stamp.
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