Outside in the Distance a Wildcat Did Growl

I'm still dealing with my grief over the absurd concept that the once-revered U.S. Senate would actually choose to explicitly condemn a newspaper ad drawing attention to the unquestionable betrayal of our heritage by some combination of bush and petraeus. Suddenly we have a kinder-Senate. I wonder if they're getting graham-crackers and milk and enforced rest times?

Pathetic is putting it far too kindly. Maybe I said that before. Regardless, it's worth repeating. The world of real news and ferment, i.e., the Internet, is full of opinions quite different from what you'd get if you settled for Today, Russert, Katie, and the like.

Exhibit A here is from Scarecrow via Firedoglake:

Today’s WaPo has an article about MoveOn, but it’s really about the pitfalls of being a truth teller in a Beltway Establishment drowning in its own duplicity and lack of accountability.

The 22 Democrats who voted to condemn the truth tellers and provide the most dishonest Administration in my lifetime with a political distraction need a verbal flogging, but before that, they need a few reminders:

MoveOn did not lie to get the country into a needless, bloody war; Bush/Cheney did.

MoveOn did not fabricate a phony link between Saddam and 9/11; Bush/Cheney did.

MoveOn did not fail to plan for an extended occupation; did not fail to protect Iraq’s national treasures, did not fail to secure Saddam’s conventional arms caches or prevent them from falling into the hands of those likely to resist the invasion; did not disband the Iraq Army, putting thousands of trained/armed soldiers on the streets with no jobs — Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld did.

MoveOn did not install a pro-Iranian government in Baghdad and then profess shock that Iran was gaining too much influence; Bush/Cheney did.

MoveOn did not inflame Iraqis by authorizing torture and failing to set humane rules for Iraq detentions at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo — Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld did.
MoveOn did not authorize the presence of 20,000 to 30,000 armed mercenaries and did not force the Iraqis to accept their presence without any legal accountability to Iraq and did not fail to follow up with any legal accountability in the US — Bush/Cheney and the current acting Attorney General did.

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And Helen Thomas is not to be missed - I sure wish there was more from her. I've not found a way to be sure I get to enjoy all of her product. But this as always is appreciated:

As if there were any doubt, a new book titled “Dead Certain” asserts that President Bush is deeply convinced that he did the right thing by invading Iraq.The book, by Robert Draper, national correspondent for GQ magazine, is important, as the president — who does not like to “navel gaze” — uses his interviews with the author to explain himself and some of the public perceptions of his presidency.

Most of them seem right on.

Draper said Bush is revered by his staffers, who are pained that not everyone shares their admiration for their boss.

Yet Draper writes that some of Bush’s qualities could also be viewed “less glowingly: the quickness as brusque impatience, the plain speech as intellectual laziness, the strategic vision as disrespect for the process, the boldness as recklessness, the strength as unreflective certainty.”

Woven in the book is the fact that Bush is not afraid to say he has “cried without shame” after meeting with families who have suffered losses in the war. But does he cry also for the Iraqis whose thousands of dead are not officially counted by the Pentagon?

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And then there is this one, entitled "The Fall of the Godmongers." And that's not the half of the title, frankly. But I delighted in the epic swings of this writer's work, only a sample of which I am including here. In essence, he's here to tell us that because the appetite of the fundamentalist right is effectively inquenchable, their failure is inevitable. That is a theory I'd love to have proven. I'm not sure I am fully convinced yet, but I sure enjoyed the terrific word-storm in the meantime. As with all of the links here, I encourage you to follow up. I'm at best giving excerpts.

Oh yes, by all means please take a moment to look around, ye who might be feeling a bit hopeful and optimistic right now.

Because indeed, you’ve got your wonderful and ever-accelerating green movement, your lovely mixed-blessing organic food movement and your rejuvenated attention to solar power and sustainable buildings and organic cotton and free-trade coffee and clean energy and CFLs and urban recycling and sleek gorgeous modern vibrator design to make hip women of the world swoon.

We’ve got urban smoking bans and Smart cars and women finally rising to the most powerful positions in the land. We’ve even got an increasing awareness (BushCo, the Middle East, and China gruesomely excepted) of industrial pollution and global warming, all maybe indicating a subtle but still profound shift away from traditional modes of waste and war and our everlasting thirst for death and all possibly pointing to a happy delicious karmic sea change toward light and health and love for all beings everywhere for all time, as the butterflies and bunnies and birds all hum and smile and sing. Mmm, utopian.

But wait, why stop there? While we’re wearing these swell rose-colored glasses of momentary progressive bliss, let us go one big step further.

Because right now, there is perhaps no greater item we as a struggling human ant farm can be grateful for, no single social emetic we can look to for inspiration or hope or a happy tingly sensation in our collective groinal region indicating a possible move away from our long-standing Dick-Cheney-in-hell attitude of shrill bleakness, alarmism and religious righteousness than the simply wonderful implosion of the evangelical Christian right that’s happening right now in America.

Do you know this clenched and panicky group? Of course you do. They’re the throngs of megachurch lemmings Karl Rove masterfully manipulated and rallied and whored to Bush’s very narrow advantage in two elections.

They’re the ones who’ve made all the headlines and influenced all sorts of laws and national policy changes lo, this past half-decade concerning everything from stem cell research to gay marriage to evolution, sanitized school textbooks to failed abstinence programs to RU-486 restrictions to silly anti-science rhetoric, the ones who gasped in horror at a woman’s bare nipple and made a disgusting mockery of Terri Schiavo and actually applauded when John Ashcroft spent $8,000 of taxpayer money to throw some heavy drapery over the shamefully exposed breasts of the bronze (female) Spirit of Justice statue in the Hall of Justice. And so on.

They are, in short, responsible for a great many of the most notable social and intellectual embarrassments in America since the new millennium took hold, and rest assured, we and the rest of the civilized world shall recall their bleak accomplishments for much of our natural born lives, and shudder.

Now then, your evidence of a new hope? Your reason for rejoicing? Right here: It seems the remaining core of politicized evangelicals, far from realizing its diminished influence and far from realizing the GOP has largely imploded and far from sensing, therefore, that it might perhaps be time to dial down some of its more unpopular, virulent agenda items, this group is actually aiming to step up its dogmatic demands from various GOP candidates this next election.

That’s right. They want more. Or rather, less.

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But then again, the cheerful upside is tough to resist. Jerry Falwell is dead. Pat Robertson is so politically dead he’s become nothing more than a sad punch line, a guy who makes the devil himself smile every time he opens his “gays-caused-9/11″ mouth. Then there’s the truly spectacular list of scandals and meltdowns and moral collapses that have befallen the “family values” party. Indeed, while cultural conservatives have certainly won a few nasty battles (and they’ll doubtlessly win a few more), they’re very much losing the war.

But when you come right down to it, the Great Truism has been validated once again: Righteous fundamentalism, be it Christian, Islamic, or otherwise, has the seeds of its own destruction built right into its very framework, a priori and de facto and by default. Powered by the deeply joyless engines of fear and shame, it can never quench its own impotent desires.

And for that, we can all praise Jesus indeed.

The Human Mind Can Only Stand So Much

Just when I thought my outrage meter was pegged and thus no longer operative, we get the U.S. "Senate" tripping over themselves today in pretended furor over the idea that our brush-cutting, AWOL weasel of a president has more exciting poll numbers than they do. Do you think Senate staffers have by now managed to draw their attention to the fact that those "exciting" numbers actually connote highly un-popular?

In case you missed it, that Senate, which at times in past included a few wizened and savvy old farts with a mind of their own (were Proxmire to be reincarnated today it would be a battle I suspect to prevent cults from evolving around him), made time today to censure MoveOn. This is over the Petraeus/Betray-us ad in the NY Times last week.

I kid you not.

That would be the very same body that has, among so many other recent failures of heart, soul, and conscience been unable to extend the right of Habeus Corpus to Guantanamo detainees, link war-funding to a sensible drawdown policy, require the white house to comply with their own conditions for maintaining the expanded occupation ("surge"), or even find a way to subpoena reluctant executive branch testimony. I have numerous wild critters in my back yard with more spine than this, and for that matter critters with no physical spine but far stronger principles.

And it must be stipulated that this latest round of right-wing frenzy follows the pattern of careful orchestration that includes constant pressure to redefine the political coordinates. Simple version: any set of principles that do not incorporate full enshrinement of the likes of Haliburton, Blackwater, AT&T, Verizon, Big Pharmacy, Exxon-Mobil, and Conoco-Phillips et al as inner-circle decisionmakers (i.e., lobbyists, sole-sourced billion-dollar extortionists, and felons in violating privacy laws) in the federal government, with highly-secured and secret access and control, is propagandized as far left-wing. DDE would of course be fully culpable based on his prescient cautions about the military-industrial complex under this set of rules. Doubtless both Prox and Dwight would be on the board of directors of MoveOn.

The bottom line? MoveOn is marginally left of what I would suggest should be considered the centerline in American politics. There's no way MoveOn is a "left-wing" operation. Yes, they're more adventurous and less slavishly pro-corporation than, say, Hilary Clinton (but who, to her credit from what I gather may be the only mainstream Pres candidate to actually treat this MoveOn soap opera appropriately). But it would probably be fair to call them "liberal" (oh, horrors!) or "left-leaning." "Left-wing"? Oh, please. Beware the kool-aid the mainstream media - and the shrieking repube machine - with very few exceptions are addicted to these days and please don't imbibe yourself.

Why is it that I keep hearing about individual repube Senators having the ability by themselves to hold up pieces of legislation yet something like this happens? This is a power limited to only one party?

And why do I keep hearing that "we" do not have the votes to overcome a filibuster, yet I have not heard word one of any actual filibuster activity occurring? If they're so hot to filibuster, I want to see those inflated asses out there and on camera, bloviating about whatever they choose. Suggested options: their drug-and-sex-addled vacations with Rush Clueless, the going rates for selling out a vote, how they go about earmarking some pork for their own state, how scary their personal military service was, and how that embedded depleted-uranium fragment feels late at night. But by all means give them their time on the stage - we could use some full-on eye-contact with these folks who have been such consistent cheerleaders for sacrificing our military to keep george from ever having to admit he made an error. Bring 'em on indeed.

And what about that old "nuclear option" on the filibuster that the pubes threatened a while back?

The good news is that at least in the blogosphere there are far more wonderfully-composed polemics and diatribes than I could possibly compose or link to. There is a good deal of fire on this issue, and rightly so.

Let's start here, sort of at the source, i.e. Eli Pariser (name familiar I hope). And, oh yes, I have indeed signed petition - for that matter, on first reading of ad last week, I made another donation to MoveOn.

Via TPM Election Central, Eli Pariser of MoveOn.org says what needs to be said about today’s posturing in the U.S. Senate:

“No wonder public approval of Congress is tanking. They’re so out of touch with reality that they can find time to condemn an ad but they can’t do what most Americans want — vote to end this war.”

Democratic senator/presidential candidate Chris Dodd gets it right, too:

“It is a sad day in the Senate when we spend hours debating an ad while our young people are dying in Iraq. Now that the Senate has twice voted on this ad, it is time to move on and vote to end the war.”

(Kudos also to Markos, who knew the right response to this manufactured controversy from the moment it began.)

As Jane noted below, MoveOn.org has a petition you can sign if you want to help get the focus of Congress back where it belongs. Oh, if you want to chip in to help MoveOn send a thank-you gift to Sen. Mitch McConnell — or, more accurately, to the voters of his state — you’ll get a chance to do that right after you sign the petition.

Which is entirely appropriate, since the weak, blustering Republicans letting the bloodshed in Iraq go on while playing tough-guy against straw men (or newspaper ads) is exactly the kind of “betrayal of trust” that MoveOn.org is trying to bring to the public’s attention.

And then there is Paul Begala (h/t Firedoglake), who takes no prisoners when it comes to the issue of that snivelling draft-dodging let-others-die-to-save-my-face coward in the white house and his damaged-chromosome history regarding "respect for the military."

Before a single Democrat condemns MoveOn's ad, they should insist that George W. Bush and the Republican Party repudiate the anti-military smears on war heroes that have been the hallmark of Mr. Bush's political career.

Too many Democrats still think Mr. Bush's presidency is on the level. Let's be clear. Mr. Bush is not leading a serious, sober discussion about public discourse during a war. He wants to divide progressives and score political points. We should not let him. Throughout his career he's been willing to tolerate and benefit from vicious lies about military men. We should not concede that he is legitimately angry now.

Mr. Bush is, as he likes to say, a loving guy. But by golly the MoveOn.org ad criticizing Gen. David Petraeus has him madder than Larry Craig in a pay toilet.

When a "reporter" asked him a loaded question about the MoveOn ad (not mentioning, for example, that Petraeus wrote an op-ed in support of the Bush Iraq policy a few weeks before the 2004 election), Bush swung for the fences. But then again, he's always been pretty good at T-Ball - and this was definitely teed up for him.

He slammed MoveOn, repeating language he used Wednesday in a meeting with right-wing columnists, saying that criticizing Petraeus is tantamount to attacking the entire US military, and expressing astonishment that leading Democrats have not attacked MoveOn as courageously as Bush has.

Before Democrats fall all over themselves to agree with a president whose trust and honesty rating from the American people is even lower than his IQ, let's look at the real record of Bush's cowardice when it comes to speaking out against attacks on military heroes:

In the 2000 South Carolina primary, George W. Bush stood next to a man described as a "fringe" figure - a man who had attacked Bush's own father - at a Bush rally. With Bush applauding him, the man said John McCain "abandoned" veterans. McCain, who was tortured in a North Vietnamese POW camp, was incensed. Five U.S. Senators who fought in Vietnam, including Democrats John Kerry, Max Cleland and Bob Kerrey, condemned the attack and called on Bush to repudiate it. When pressed on it at a debate hosted by CNN's Larry King, Bush meekly muttered that he shouldn't be held responsible for what others say. Even when he's standing next to them at a Bush rally.

In the 2002 campaign, draft dodger Saxby Chambliss ran an ad with pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, then said Sen. Max Cleland lacked courage. Max Cleland left three limbs in Vietnam as an Army captain. Mr. Bush's political aide, Karl Rove, later refused to disavow the ad, saying, "President Bush and the White House don't write the ads for Senate candidates."

Also in the 2002 campaign, the PAC for the Family Research Council, a close Bush ally, ran an ad in South Dakota that pictured Sen. Tom Daschle and Saddam Hussein. "What do Saddam Hussein and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle have in common?" the ad asked. Apparently, they both opposed drilling in the Arctic wilderness. First, I had no idea that supporting drilling in the wilderness is a family values issue. Second, I have seen no reporting on the late Iraqi dictator's position on Alaska drilling. But I do know Tom Daschle is an Air Force veteran. Mr. Bush never disavowed the smear.

But perhaps the worst was what was done to John Kerry. Kerry earned five major medals in combat: the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. And yet supporters of Bush and Cheney decided to smear his war record. The despicable, dishonest Swift Boat attacks alleged that Kerry fabricated reports that earned him the Bronze Star. The Swifties also suggested that Kerry's wounds were insignificant - and that one was even self-inflicted. Kerry's wounds were certainly more serious than Mr. Bush's, who suffered a cut on his finger from popping a beer can while avoiding his duty in the Alabama National Guard. At the 2000 GOP convention, rich, white Republicans were photographed gleefully putting Band-Aids with purple hearts on their chubby cheeks. Mr. Bush refused to condemn the attack - blandly noting he didn't like 527 groups generally - and later nominated one of the men who financed the smear to be Ambassador to Belgium.

Mr. Bush is a coward and a bully. He knows he'll never be the kind of hero his father was. He knows he lacks the heroism of John Kerry or Max Cleland, so he overcompensates with bluster and bravado. In fact, he told bloggers recently that he wishes he were fighting in Iraq. The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin reported that Bush told a blogger in Iraq that he'd like to be carrying a 50-pound pack and an M-16, but, "One, I'm too old to be out there. And, two, they'd notice me."

So Mr. Bush is too old to fight in Iraq, and he was too rich and well-connected to fight in Vietnam. But he's itchin' for a fight with a progressive interest group. Does anyone believe he'd have the same outrage if a right-wing group were attacking war heroes? Of course not.

Rich White Trash

I feel compelled to replicate the entirety of this great post by TRex at FDL. First of all, there's this thing about bush's reputed reading, including disparaging remarks about audio-books. That hits me right where I read, since as any dutiful reader-recipient here knows, I just in the last couple years have added audios to my own repertoire; I wouldn't dare hide that bit. What do you mean it isn't reading?!?

But that's merely a sidebar. This post says too many wonderfully cranky and apt things too well to dwell on that one nit. George as "unsung genius" and reader of 87 books this year (how many times did he count "The Pet Goat"?) are just simple examples of what ought to draw you in to this enthusiastic ode to the president and commander-in-chief that never was.

Turning it over now to a maestro (TRex titles it, in a stroke of genius, "Stay the Corpse"):

Every now and then, I hit a wall. There comes a point in every political blogger’s life, I think, when you’ve soaked up as much Bush idiocy, rank incompetence, duplicity, deceit, and downright dumb-assery as you can reasonably stand. I am saturated with Teh Stoopid.

This makes it especially difficult for me to swallow this latest PR line about how actually our Toddler in Chief is an unsung genius, whose keen and canny intelligence and practicality are obscured by his “scruffy charm”. “Scruffy Charm” here being shorthand for a grown man who chews with his mouth dangling so far open that scraps of food fall freely from his maw.

“He’s read 87 books this year,” sigh the fawning press releases.

Right.

Okay, let’s get something straight here, gang. Listening to books on tape while you’re pulling your pud on the stationary bike or jogging around some underground track at Quantico is not reading, especially given that The Decider has the attention span of a brain-damaged gnat and doubtless tuned out every other word while he was daydreaming about, oh, I dunno, a giant robot replica of himself that roams the desert outside Vegas and shoots lasers from its eyes.

President Bush no more held 87 books in his hands and read every page than OJ Simpson broke into that Vegas hotel room with a gun over the weekend because he was still trying to catch The Real Killers. Get real. The Commander Guy’s head is so pointy he can’t even read a “No Smoking” sign without asking Josh Bolten to help him sound it out.

Watching this Robert Draper interview on Bill Maher is an interesting exercise. Draper, the author of Dead Certain, seems to be trying to have it both ways, to encourage us to somehow find it in our hearts to see the Everyman in the president, but he can barely keep his own upper lip from curling into a sneer of open disgust at the jumped-up Rich White Trash parvenu currently taking up space in the Oval Office.

But just for shits and giggles, as they say, here are some excerpts from Draper’s book:

He was edgy that day. Earlier that morning, Bush had decided that a major address slotted for next week was going to have to wait another month. The subject was Iraq, and he was, frankly, unsure of what to say on the subject.

Frankly, I find this amazing, since Bush only ever gives one speech, as I wrote here:

It can’t be easy to be a speechwriter for George W. Bush. In fact, to my thinking, it’s right up there with Superfund toxic cleanup worker, Saddam Hussein body double, and cat-food taster in the running for Worst Job Ever. Given that Preznint Pustule only ever makes one speech, it seems like it wouldn’t be that hard of a job, but the devil’s in the details, of course. Anyone who’s ever tried to write a poem with one of those magnetic poetry kits will understand just how mind-bendingly difficult it must be to write a speech for Dubya.

I’m guessing it goes a little something like this: You go to the White House break-room refrigerator and take the square that says, “9/11″ and line it up with the one that says “terror”, drag over “NOOK-ya-ler”, “cut and run”, and “tax cuts”. You’ve got to fight the urge, these days, to use “stay the course” since Karl Rove kicked it under the fridge. (Of course, Rummy and Joe Lieberman keep trying to dig it back out, blow off the lint and dog-hairs and stick it back up there, but then Ken Mehlman flounces through and throws it on the floor again.) …

And so forth and so on. But back to Dead Certain…

His hot dog arrived. Bush ate rapidly, with a sort of voracious disinterest. He was a man who required comfort and routine. Food, for him, was fuel and familiarity. It was not a thing to reflect on.“

The job of the president,” he continued, through an ample wad of bread and sausage, “is to think strategically so that you can accomplish big objectives. As opposed to playing mini-ball. You can’t play mini-ball with the influence we have and expect there to be peace. You’ve gotta think, think BIG. The Iranian issue,” he said as bread crumbs tumbled out of his mouth and onto his chin, (Ewwwwwwww-ed.) “is the strategic threat right now facing a generation of Americans, because Iran is promoting an extreme form of religion that is competing with another extreme form of religion. Iran’s a destabilizing force.”

Oh, that’s rich. Here is the man who charged headlong into Iraq in spite of the fact that he knew full well that there weren’t any WMD’s there, disbanded the army and the government, and has presided over the biggest foreign policy cock-up since the Crusades, a disastrous invasion and occupation that has left a once sovereign nation a burning, abandoned husk, and he’s calling Iran a destabilizing force.

And that’s where I have to bail before I become so angry that I punch a wall and turn my fist into a maraca. It find it frankly amazing that the DC Dems think it’s okay to leave President Turnip-Head sitting there in office until the end of his term. “Impeachment wouldn’t be worrrrrrth it,” sighs Grandma Pelosi from her perpetual state of frozen ennui.

Does it not occur to anyone within the incestuous confines of the Beltway that having a president who makes Terri Schiavo look breathtakingly astute on foreign policy issues is a terrible danger to everyone in the country and by extension the world? How stupid are we all going to look if Bush and his pro-apocalypse BFF’s like Joe Lieberman actually get to launch their strikes against Iran? Or what if there’s another huge hurricane? Or a massive West Coast earthquake? Are you all okay with Bush and his appointees presiding over a major disaster? What about a terror strike?

I don’t get it. Why is he still there? Why, God, why?

Cracked Bells and Washed-out Horns

Alan Greaseball hasn't been taken out yet? - unbelievable! This guy probably has the goods on at least a couple dozen mob-wanna-be's who had to settle for "elected" politics over the last 20 years. And he was complicit in and/or supportive of some of the most ruinous fiscal policy choices in recent times, and hence a potential target in so many ways there also. Yet he's been "allowed" to publish a book, The Age of Turbulence. Go figure.

My admittedly limited research strongly supports the proposition that his new book is basically another desperate attempt to salvage some sort of one-toke-over-the-line history. I recently read Exhibit A, i.e., Center of the Storm, G. Tenet, at great pain to my reading pleasure and equanimity. The chance of slotting Greenspan's book into my already over-stretched schedule seems slight.

Unsurprisingly, the book title itself seems chosen to start the case for (largely undeserved) absolution. Turbulence, sure, but you were there Alan. It didn't just happen to you. You were a progenitor. You did a relatively decent job of being steady and a source of confidence for years. But truthfully - you overstayed and badly violated our trust by enthusiastically enabling george's outrageously regressive and deficit-exploding fiscal policies. I am still suspicious that you were in your last years in office subject to serious mental enfeeblement or even possibly dementia. There were plentiful indications.

Alan, have you sought help? Your last years did unconscionable wrong to your country. If you are still sentient enough to grasp that simple fact, professional aid seems essential. Not to mention proper absolution. You can't buy penance through this book.

Desperately grasping for some value from the old fool, I excerpt here from Noquarterusa:

For those still wondering why President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney sent our young men and women into Iraq, the secret is now “largely” out.

No, not from the lips of former secretary of state Colin Powell. It appears we shall have to wait until the disgraced general/diplomat draws nearer to meeting his maker before he gets concerned over anything more than the “blot” that Iraq has put on his reputation.

Rather, the uncommon candor comes from a highly respected Republican doyen, economist Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, whom the president has praised for his “wise policies and prudent judgment.” Sadly for Bush and Cheney, Greenspan decided to put prudence aside in his new book, The Age of Turbulence, and answer the most neuralgic issue of our times—why the United States invaded Iraq.

Greenspan writes:

“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”

Everyone knows? Would that it were so. But it’s hardly everyone. Sometimes I think it’s hardly anyone.

There are so many, still, who “can’t handle the truth,” and that is all too understandable. I have found it a wrenching experience to be forced to conclude that the America I love would deliberately launch what the Nuremburg Tribunal called the “supreme international crime”—a war of aggression—largely for oil. For those who are able to overcome the very common, instinctive denial, for those who can handle the truth, it really helps to turn off the Sunday football games early enough to catch up on what’s going on.

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Oil? Oil? It doesn't take a tin-hat to figure that out. Sadly, there is an embarrassingly large portion of our population that can still find the prospect that they might some day be drinking-a-beer-with-him and that he might come up with a "cute" nickname for them (insulting, if they paid attention) sufficient to play dumb to all facts.

I need to book-end that last with this from Ian Welsh, posting at FDL:

So Alan Greenspan has a new book coming out on Monday. And it says nasty things about the Bush administration. Welcome to the club Alan - the club of Bush enablers who write books once they aren’t in power, in a pathetic attempt to pretend they weren’t culpable in Bush’s mess. But back when it mattered, back when you were in charge of the Fed, when you were lionized as the Maestro… oh, back then, when you could have actually, I don’t know, oh, done something concrete to oppose Bush’s policies, did you? No, no you didn’t.

Let’s see what Uncle Alan is saying in his book, say about tax cuts…
Though Mr. Greenspan does not admit he made a mistake, he shows remorse about how Republicans jumped on his endorsement of the 2001 tax cuts to push through unconditional cuts without any safeguards against surprises. He recounts how Mr. Rubin and Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, begged him to hold off on an endorsement because of how it would be perceived.

“It turned out that Conrad and Rubin were right,” he acknowledges glumly. He says Republican leaders in Congress made a grievous error in spending whatever it took to ensure a permanent Republican majority…

…Today, Mr. Greenspan is indignant and chagrined about his role in the Bush tax cuts. “I’d have given the same testimony if Al Gore had been president,” he writes, complaining that his words had been distorted by supporters and opponents of the cuts.

How precious is that. Take a look at the top chart - has the government ever reduced spending in recent history? Greenspan can’t claim economic illiteracy. He knew that. Yet he shilled for tax cuts anyway.

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I don't know how many friends Mr. G is going to be able to hope for when his time comes . . .

Fresh Thinking

We've probably all been stunned and disappointed more than a few times lately (especially, say, in the last nine months or so?) by how little Congress has been able to do in curbing the criminal cabal in the white house. There has been an admirable amount of outrage expressed, at least if you include the InterNet in your news sources (the other "sources" give signs of being increasingly irrelevant - Couric? Russert - you must be joking!!) over the spinelessness of our elected officials. The flimsy pushback all seems to involve this whiny tone about how it might involve fighting over votes.

Give me a break.

Even impeachment, improbable a course as that might seem, strikes me as absolutely essential and appropriate, especially given that we seem to be faced with some of the most clearly impeachable crimes by the executive branch in American history. An impeachment proceeding might not proceed to what the alert populace knows is the appropriate outcome of imprisoning a multitude of obvious criminals, given all the invested interests and corruption inherent in the now-fully-enshrined military-industrial-complex Dwight D warned us about, but it is necessary even so. Beyond the obvious, it is essential that the process be pursued imho to preserve the whole validity of the impeachment apparatus as a critical part of our government.

But for the moment, I find this another very appealing and clear-headed statement of principle and approach that our elected officials need to be forced to grapple with. Otherwise, I believe there will be numerous Democratic candidates that I know I will not be alone in actively opposing for re-election when their turn comes around (remember Leiber-schwein?).

This is from Mark Kleiman, at The Reality-Based Community, with appealing byline "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts" (posting in full):

There's been lots of hand-wringing about what Senate Democrats should do about Iraq, all of it premised on the idea that they need either a filibuster-proof (60-vote) majority or a veto-proof (67-vote) majority. To which I can only say, "Huh? Howzzat again?"

Anything that can be ridden on the Defense Appropriations bill (or on a continuing resolution) doesn't need 60 votes in the Senate. It needs 51 votes in the Senate, or 218 in the House, that will stand firm.

Take, for example, the Webb Amendment, forbidding troops from being required to serve tours in Iraq longer than the spells between tours. If passed, it would force a troop drawdown by spring.

The Democrats should offer the Webb Amendment when the Defense Appropriation comes up. If the Republicans want to filibuster, fine. Don't pull the amendment. Just let them keep filibustering. As long as the amendment is on the floor, there can be no vote on the bill itself. Keep calling cloture votes, one per day. After a few days, start asking how long the Republicans intend to withhold money to fund troops in the field in order to pursue their petty partisan agenda.

If the Republicans in the Senate hold firm, it's their stubbornness that's holding up the bill. If they fold, and the bill gets to the President's desk and he vetoes it, then pass the same damned bill again. And start asking how long the President intends to block funding for troops in the field in order to pursue his petty partisan agenda.

As of October 1, there's no money to fund the war. So the usual move is to pass a continuing resolution, which keeps the money flowing until the appropriation passes. Fine. Pass a continuing resolution with the Webb Amendment attached. If the CR runs into a filibuster or a veto, ask how long ...

Really, this isn't very hard. With the voters overwhelmingly interested in getting us the hell out of Iraq, the Democrats can make full use of the power of the purse without worrying about a backlash, especially with Webb as the public face of the campaign.

Footnote Plan B is to pass the amendment in the House and let the Senate conferees accept the House version. Then it goes back to the Senate for a straight up-or-down vote, with the Republican dead-enders in the position of directly voting against money to fund the troops in the field. Not a vote I'd care to defend, especially if I were up for re-election next year.

Pretty straightforward, really, if you are willing to play it straight-up as an electee. If not, it is hard not to suspect your motives - corporate ownership as one obvious example. Too many K-Street lobbyist obligations that take priority over the American people? Cowardice seems another strong possibility - although there seems possibility of also recruiting some of the numerous cowards on the R side right now who are regretting and running from their sleazy cheerleading for Bush in the past.