A new rule for political debate

The other day, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid voiced an opinion on the Iraq war.

"The (Iraq) war can only be won diplomatically, politically and economically, and the president needs to come to that realization," Reid said in a news conference.

Later Thursday on the Senate floor, Reid said: "As long as we follow the president's path in Iraq, the war is lost. But there is still a chance to change course -- and we must change course." The war funding bill should contain a timeline to "reduce combat missions and refocus our efforts on the real threats to our security," he said.

It's a reasonably big deal when the leader of the Senate says something like that. Coverage and commentary are expected.

But I'm getting darned tired of the garbage from places like Wake Up America, which called Democrats "the Tokyo Rose of Iraq."

Or the "shut the hell up, you traitor!" letters compiled by Michelle Malkin.

Then there are the lesser offenses, like characterizing the timetables included in the war-funding bills as tantamount to surrender in Iraq or even the larger fight against terror -- even though the bills give Bush even more money than he asked for, the timelines don't kick in for at least a year, the Senate timetables aren't even mandatory, and the whole point of the bills is to refocus resources from the Iraq distraction so that we can more effectively combat terrorism.

Note the logic (or lack thereof): In debating the war, any suggestion that the war should be ended or cannot be won is treason and disloyalty. Thus the only valid debate is over how best to continue fighting the war -- not whether we should continue fighting it.

The "damned if you do, damned if you don't" logic lines that people set up are just ridiculous. If Democrats don't propose an immediate end to the war, they're liars and cowards; if they do, they're traitors. No matter what they do, war supporters get to slam them.

Such a logical setup -- and it is committed by people from all parts of the ideological spectrum -- should be accepted as proof of partisan framing and disregarded as a fallacy.

I think Reid is jumping the gun, inasmuch as the surge still needs time to prove itself -- the recent humongous carnage in Baghdad notwithstanding. But that's just my opinion, not received fact. Maybe I'm wrong and he's right. Heck, maybe we're both wrong and Bush is right, unlikely as that would seem.

In a democracy, it is perfectly acceptable to voice the opinion that the war is unwinnable. That is the only way to have a free and full debate over the war and thus arrive at the best policy. It is distinctly unAmerican to frame the issue in such a way as to disallow viewpoints you don't like.

The good news is that after four years of such rhetoric from rabid war backers, I think many, many people are getting heartily sick of it and recognize just how illegitimate the framing is -- and starting to wonder why such partisans fear opposing viewpoints so much that they try to drown them out rather than simply deal with them on the merits.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon confirms that Bush has been scaremongering on the effects of delaying the funding bills and the Secretary of Defense apparently gives comfort to Al-Qaeda by warning the Iraqi government that "the clock is ticking" on U.S. involvement.

Reid, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Unexpected vocabulary lessons

From MSNBC's "Peculiar Postings":

Doris Moore was shocked when her new couch was delivered to her home with a label that used a racial slur to describe the dark brown shade of the upholstery.

The situation was even more alarming for Moore because it was her 7-year-old daughter who pointed out “n----- brown” on the tag.

The culprit? An outdated translation program used by the Chinese manufacturer.

He explained that when the Chinese characters for “dark brown” are typed into an older version of its Chinese-English translation software, the offensive N-word description comes up.

“We got the definition from a Chinese-English dictionary. We’ve been using the dictionary for 10 years. Maybe the dictionary was updated, but we probably didn’t follow suit,” he said.

That's one comprehensive dictionary....

The comedy of errors needed for this to happen is pretty impressive.

1. Chinese manufacturer uses faulty translation program to make the initial error.

2. Wholesaler doesn't notice.

3. Couch goes to store owned by an Indian immigrant, who doesn't know what the word means.

But to top off the stupidity, there's this:

Moore is consulting with a lawyer and wants compensation. Last week, she filed a report with the Ontario Human Rights Commission....

Moore, 30, has three young children, and said the issue has taken a toll on her family.

Compensation? For a translation error? Lordy. It would probably be smart business sense for store or manufacturer to offer their apologies and perhaps a discount. But claiming "harm" from something like this is just goofy.

humor, race, politics, midtopia

Baghdad's Green Line?

Amid worsening violence in Baghdad, the U.S. military is resorting to an age-old tactic: lots of concrete.

U.S. soldiers are building a three-mile wall to protect a Sunni Arab enclave surrounded by Shiite neighborhoods in a Baghdad area "trapped in a spiral of sectarian violence and retaliation," the military said.

When the wall is finished, the minority Sunni community of Azamiyah, on the eastern side of the Tigris River, will be gated, and traffic control points manned by Iraqi soldiers will be the only entries, the military said.

This is an urban version of a tactic used in western Iraq, where troublesome cities have been surrounded by sand berms. It's had mixed success there -- reducing U.S. casualties, but not doing a whole lot to tamp down sectarian passions inside the town.

While this isn't exactly good news, in the end it's just another tool. The goal all along has been to tamp down the violence so that lasting security and infrastructure has a chance to establish itself. If a (temporary) wall makes that job easier, okay.

Still, can anyone say "Green Line"? That was the name of the unofficial dividing line between Muslim and Christian sections of Beirut during the Lebanese civil war. Initially a makeshift and informal line marking a "no-man's land" between rival militias, in places it developed into a fortified barrier that lasted for 15 years and became a symbol of the war and the city, and continues to affect the development of Beirut and the psyche of its residents.

The lesson, I think, is that temporary barriers have a way of becoming permanent if the underlying reason for the separation is not addressed. In addition, the line itself can become a focus, reason and justification for the separation. And the longer the separation goes on, the harder it is to reconnect the two halves when the wall finally comes down.

So let's hope this is truly a temporary measure, and not a sign that we're settling into a 15-year war.

Green Line, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Moderate Muslims, Part III

In two previous posts (here and here), I've highlighted words and deeds by moderate Muslims as a favor for people who claim they don't exist.

Here's another: Author Irshad Manji, a Muslim (and lesbian) who writes about the intersection of faith and freedom. She participated in an online chat where she answered questions about Islam. Notable excerpts:

Simply put, we don't need to change Islam. That's because Islam itself contains the raw materials to be both humane and reasonable. What we need to do is change the Muslim mindset to bust out of tribalism (strict hierarchies that equating debate with division and division with crime), and recognize that Islam's own scripture, the Quran, contains 3 times as many verses calling on us to think/reflect/analyze than verses telling us what's forbidden/acceptable. In short, re-interpretation is not just permitted; it's encouraged.

Yep -- an Islamic Reformation.

As to the imams, why are they the arbiters? I wish that non-Muslims would stop investing these guys with the authority to approve or disapprove of other Muslims. They're not the only creatures who count. Especially before the eyes of God.

This, too, goes back to tribalism, not Islam itself.

The Quran vigorously defends religious pluralism, including those who convert or choose not to believe AT ALL. When some Muslims wage war on converts - as many of many mullahs in Afghanistan recenty did - they are following a SELECTED and REPORTED saying of the Prophet Muhammad (known as the hadiths). Problem is, the Prophet reportedly said many things that contradict each other.

Which is why Islam needs the equivalent of a Council of Trent or the like, where they separate the "true" Hadiths from the suspect ones. Or else the Hadiths need to be demoted in importance.

The Quran contains plenty of pro-women passages. One could argue that women have many more rights according to the Quran than according to any other scripture before it. But the reason for such anti-women interpretations is tribal culture; in the case of Islam, ARAB tribal culture. (I know that's politically incorrect to point out in the age of multiculturalism; so be it.) In particular, the tribal tradition of honor requires women to give up their individuality in order to maintain the reputation of the men in their lives. This turns women into communal property. The way in which Islam has been propagated for the past several hundred years, the code of honor has become enmeshed in religous practices. Bottom line: Although this problem didn't come FROM Islam, it has become a problem FOR Islam.

From the point of view of the nonMuslim world, we need to learn to separate the Quran from the Hadiths, and Islam from the tribal cultures that dominate its membership in the public consciousness. Only then can we come up with realistic strategies to engage moderate Muslims, isolate the extremists and help the Islamic Reformation along.

religion, Islam, politics, midtopia

Coburn says Gonzales should resign

A full post on Gonzales' testimony will have to wait until tomorrow. I only caught part of it on the radio, and I haven't had time to delve into it as deeply as I'd like to.

But this is worth mentioning:

Republican as well as Democratic lawmakers challenged the embattled attorney general during an often-bitter five-hour hearing before the Judiciary Committee. Lawmakers confronted Gonzales with documents and sworn testimony they said showed he was more involved in the dismissals than he contended.

"The best way to put this behind us is your resignation," Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma bluntly told Gonzales, one conservative to another. Gonzales disagreed, rejecting the idea that his departure would put the controversy to rest.

It's also not a good sign that after weeks of preparation, and knowing what the questions would be, Gonzales said "I don't know" or "I don't remember" 71 times. That's not quite as many as Kyle Sampson produced, but it's still a lot -- although one could expect quite a few of those in daylong testimony, with many repeated questions.

Other Republicans appeared to be of a mind with Coburn, even if they stopped short of openly asking for Gonzales' resignation.

Lindsey Graham: Called most of Gonzales' explanations for the firings "a stretch."

Jeff Sessions: "I think it's going to be difficult for him to be an effective leader."

Arlen Specter: Gonzales' answers "did not stick together."

Charles Grassley: "Why is your story changing?"

More tomorrow.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Could Virginia Tech killer have been stopped from buying guns?

Sadly, the answer is apparently yes -- if our background-check system weren't being sabotaged.

I'm not a big gun-control advocate. I grew up shooting guns. Then I joined the Army, where I got to shoot really big guns: M16s, M60s, SAWs and, of course, the 105mm main gun of an M1 (that final detail dates me, because M1s have since been upgunned to 120mm). I have no problem with reasonable restrictions on firearms, but I don't think there should be hugely cumbersome barriers to gun ownership.

That said, sometimes gun nuts make me mad.

A judge's ruling on Cho Seung-Hui's mental health should have barred him from purchasing the handguns he used in the Virginia Tech massacre, according to federal regulations. But it was unclear Thursday whether anybody had an obligation to inform federal authorities about Cho's mental status because of loopholes in the law that governs background checks....

The language of the ruling by Special Justice Paul M. Barnett almost identically tracks federal regulations from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Those rules bar the sale of guns to individuals who have been "adjudicated mentally defective."

The definition outlined in the regulations is "a determination by a court ... or other lawful authority that a person as a result of marked subnormal intelligence, or mental illness ... is a danger to himself or to others."

There's nothing in Virginia state law barring the mentally ill from buying guns, unless they're committed to a psych ward. But federal law is tougher.

About that loophole:

George Burke, a spokesman for Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York, said millions of criminal and mental-health records are not accessible to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, mostly because state and local governments lack the money to submit the records.

McCarthy has sponsored legislation since 2002 that would close loopholes in the national background check system for gun purchases.

Initially states were required to provide all relevant information to federal authorities when the instant background checks were enacted, but a U.S. Supreme Court ruling relieved them of that obligation.

So it's not so much a loophole, as a lack of money. But there is nothing requiring states and localities to share information with the Feds, so without proper funding, many don't. Meaning the National Instant Criminal Background Check System has some big holes in its database.

McCarthy's efforts to change that have gone nowhere, thanks in part to opposition from groups like Gun Owners of America. Each time, her bill has passed the House but died in the Senate.

Notably, the NRA has not opposed the measures. That said, the NRA has not been entirely on the sidelines here. Besides fighting efforts to institute background checks at gun shows, consider the "Supreme Court ruling" referenced in the article.

That line is somewhat inaccurate. The 1997 case, Printz v. United States, involved temporary measures intended to facilitate background checks between the time the Brady Bill was passed (in 1993) and 1998, when the NICS database would be established. It was rendered moot when the NICS went online.

But the basic facts remain: The NRA funded the lawsuit, which opposed Brady Bill background checks. Their specific legal argument was essentially that it was an unfunded mandate on local police and sheriff departments, and they won on those grounds; but their purpose was to stop background checks. Since then, the NRA has fought aspects of NICS, notably the length of time that records can be retained after a purchase. It's down to 24 hours from the original 180 days. That means the FBI has just 24 hours after a purchase to find and fix a mistaken approval.

It's worth asking: If gun groups weren't so busy damaging the machinery of the background-check system, would 32 people be alive today? We're not talking gun bans -- we're talking about making sure we have a working system to keep guns out of the hands of people like Cho, on whom red flags have already been planted.

Gun Owners of America, in particular, should be ashamed of themselves.

Update: An article from CNN contradicts the premise of this thread (and the article it is based on), claiming that only involuntary committment to a mental ward would have put Cho into the NICS. One of them is wrong.

Update II: Using the NYT as a tiebreaker, the original story appears correct: he should not have been able to buy the gun, because while he was in accord with Virginia state law, he was ineligible under federal law.

The main problem, as noted, is reportage:

Currently, only 22 states submit any mental health records to the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement on Thursday. Virginia is the leading state in reporting disqualifications based on mental health criteria for the federal check system, the statement said.

Virginia state law on mental health disqualifications to firearms purchases, however, is worded slightly differently from the federal statute. So the form that Virginia courts use to notify state police about a mental health disqualification addresses only the state criteria, which list two potential categories that would warrant notification to the state police: someone who was “involuntarily committed” or ruled mentally “incapacitated.”

No matter where you stand on gun control, that disconnect needs to change.

Virgina Tech, gun control, politics, midtopia

Donkey on the witness stand

No, not a Democrat. A donkey:

The first witness in a lawsuit Wednesday between two neighbors was Buddy the donkey, who walked to the bench and stared at the jury, the picture of a gentle, well-mannered creature and not the loud, aggressive animal he had been accused of being.

The donkey was at the center of a dispute between oilman John Cantrell and attorney Gregory Shamoun that began after Cantrell complained about a storage shed Shamoun was building in his backyard in Dallas.

Only in Texas....

donkey, humor, politics, midtopia

Bad day for Republican ethics

Yesterday was a good day for Republicans on the ethics front. Today, not so much.

First, you have Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., giving up his seat on the influential House Appropriations Committee after the FBI raided his house in connection with the Jack Abramoff scandal. His wife, a fundraiser, was on retainer to Abramoff, and also worked on Doolittle's campaigns.

That said, his action is classy compared to that of Democrat William Jefferson, who you may recall had to be kicked off the Ways and Means Committee after his house was raided -- a raid, admittedly, that has thus far produced no actual charges.

Over in the Senate, meanwhile, a gutless anonymous Republican blocked a minor campaign-finance bill for unknown reasons, with the assistance of Sen. Lamar Alexander.

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), the lead sponsor of a bill that would end the antiquated practice of requiring senators to file their forms on paper, stood on the senate floor Monday and reminded members of a process that borders on the absurd.

Instead of filing forms electronically, as candidates for president do, senators print their reports and deliver them to the clerk's office. The staff scans them into a computer so they can be electronically transmitted to the Federal Election Commission. The FEC then prints the forms again and hires workers to type the data into a database so it can finally be made public online.

But before Feingold's bill could move forward, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) rose and announced, "Mr. President, on behalf of a Republican senator, I object."

The bill simply provides for senators to file their forms electronically like everyone else. Why anyone would object to such a common-sense measure -- much less do so anonymously -- is beyond me. There are only two explanations I can think of: the senator in question likes the lengthy delay the current inefficiency introduces between the filing of the report and its availability; or this is being used as leverage in negotations on another matter.

I suppose there's a third explanation: this is just part of a general GOP effort to gum up the works in Congress and make it hard for Democrats to claim any legislative successes.

That's a time-honored bipartisan tradition, but I'll be glad when the Senate ethics bill finally clears the conference committee and such holds become a thing of the past.

Update: And a day later, another Republican resigns a committee seat after another FBI raid:

Rep. Rick Renzi stepped down temporarily from the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday, after the FBI raided his family's business in connection with an ongoing federal investigation.

Agents took documents, the Arizona Republican said in a statement issued late Thursday night....

The Justice Department has been investigating Renzi for months, but the subject of the inquiry has never been made public. Media reports last fall gave conflicting versions, with authorities said to be looking into either a land swap involving a former business partner of Renzi or a Pentagon contract involving Renzi's father, a retired Army general.

Update II: The Sunlight Foundation has narrowed down the Senate hold culprit to 12 senators, and is calling all of them to try to narrow the list even further.

Update III: The Sunlight Foundation has now narrowed it down to three senators: John Ensign, David Vitter or Judd Gregg.

Renzi, politics, midtopia

Supreme Court backs partial-birth abortion ban

I wasn't entirely expecting this.

The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long- awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

I gave my thoughts on this case months ago, when the Supremes first accepted it for review, and it hasn't changed any since then. The procedure is exceedingly rare, and there are at least some cases where it is medically justified. So the question for me -- and the Court, apparently -- is whether there are alternatives to partial-birth abortion that are equally effective and safe. If so, then banning a specific, gruesome procedure is no problem. If not, the ban would effectively prevent women in certain situations from obtaining a medically necessary abortion.

The Court decided there were sufficient alternatives. Notably, the government suggested that if the fetus were killed first -- by lethal injection to stop the heart, say -- it could then be legally aborted.

This may be true, but then one may ask what is gained by banning PBAs. It will ban one particularly gruesome procedure, yes. And it marks a legal landmark of sorts -- the first upheld restriction on a particular kind of abortion. As such, one might view it as the first step toward a wider ban.

But in the end, it doesn't appear that this ruling will prevent any abortions at all -- doctors will simply use alternative methods. And the Court explicitly left open the door to lawsuits by women harmed by the ban -- though that after-the-fact form of redress isn't going to help anyone in their seventh month of pregnancy. Someone is going to have to actually suffer some harm before the ban can be challenged.

What's interesting is how the Court managed to ignore precedent to reach its ruling, specifically the Stenberg v. Carhart ruling in 2000, in which a nearly identical ban was struck down by the Court. While the Court explained that it did not in fact ignore Stenberg -- that it's ruling is merely a narrow procedural one -- it's still hard to see how there are any substantive differences between the law then and the law now. The only real difference, it would seem, is the makeup of the court: specifically, the departure of Sandra Day O'Connor and the arrival of Samuel Alito.

That's how it has always been, of course: what is constitutional depends heavily on the biographies of the Justices. And it's not even necessarily a bad thing, for that is one way that law evolves. Still, this is a stark reminder of the essentially political nature of the Court.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a stinging dissent, read aloud from the bench. Read it and the other opinions here (pdf).

And for a truly excellent, in-depth discussion of the case by a bunch of lawyers, head on over to Stubborn Facts. They do a much better job of it then I could ever hope to.

abortion, politics, midtopia

From your pocket to Edwards' head

I like John Edwards. I voted for him in the 2004 primaries and was glad when he became Kerry's running mate. I'm not sure I'm going to back him this time around, but I like his approach, his position on many issues and I've gone so far as to sign on to his blog network so I can get updates from his campaign.

But stuff like this makes me pull my hair out.

Looking pretty is costing John Edwards' presidential campaign a lot of pennies.

The Democrat's campaign committee picked up the tab for two haircuts at $400 each by celebrity stylist Joseph Torrenueva of Beverly Hills, California, according to a financial report filed with the Federal Election Commission.

FEC records show Edwards also availed himself of $250 in services from a trendy salon and spa in Dubuque, Iowa, and $225 in services from the Pink Sapphire in Manchester, New Hampshire, which is described on its Web site as "a unique boutique for the mind, body and face" that caters mostly to women.

Now, I'm not naive. I know the importance of looking good in politics. I know wealthy people develop expensive tastes. And amid grueling 14-hour days of campaigning, I have no objection to candidates indulging in a little pampering along the way. I also don't buy into the charge that Edwards is a hypocrite for living a lavish lifestyle while basing his campaign on fighting poverty. The dude made his money; he can spend it any way he wants, and being rich does not disqualify someone from caring about social issues.

But c'mon: $400 haircuts? The campaign has to know how bad that looks. Not to mention the practical question: Is this really the best use of campaign funds for someone running a distant third in the money race?

If he really thinks the cuts are worth it, great. But in that case I humbly submit that Edwards would be way better off paying for them out of his own pocket. He'll still look fabulous, and he won't have to deal with embarassing disclosure forms ever again.

Update: Clearly reacting to my massive influence, Edwards does as I suggested.

Edwards, politics, midtopia

Iran supporting the Taliban?

Take this one with a grain of salt at least as large as that used when the U.S. made similar accusations about Iranian involvement in Iraq.

U.S. military officials raised worries of a wider Iranian role in Afghanistan on Tuesday when Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in Washington that U.S. forces had intercepted Iranian-made mortars and plastic explosives intended for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Counterterrorism officials in Washington have said a handful of senior al Qaeda operatives who fled to Iran after the war in Afghanistan in 2001 may have developed a working relationship with a secretive military unit linked to Iran's religious hard-liners.

U.S. officials caution, however, that any Iranian link to fighting in Afghanistan, notably in providing weapons to Taliban fighters, remains cloudy.

As with suspected Iranian involvement in Iraq, it's a reasonable possibility. But as with Iraq, there are certain uncomfortable facts that need explaining, such as whether any such activity is condoned or controlled by the government, and why Shiite Persian Iran would go out of its way to arm Sunni Arab and Pashtun fundamentalists.

Especially considering how some of the earlier allegations turned out. Remember the Austrian sniper rifles? Supposedly 100 .50-caliber weapons sold to Iran were found in Iraq -- 100 literal smoking guns.

Except that turned out not to be true. The rifles' maker, Steyr-Mannlicher, called attention to an article in an Austrian daily, Wiener Zeitung, specifically debunking the story, then followed that up with a press release Tuesday driving the point home.

So while I can readily believe Iran is stirring the pot in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I require some decent proof before we take drastic action. CIA, get cracking. Or heck, just capture some insurgents or Iranians in the act of bringing weaponry across the border.

Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, politics, midtopia

The Onion on McCain

Ouch.

In what insiders say is an attempt to revitalize his flagging campaign and convince voters that he is still a straight-talking maverick, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) announced Sunday that he will subject himself to the same mental torment and physical abuse he endured nearly 40 years ago at the same Vietnamese camp where he was once held as a prisoner of war.

"On Saturday at approximately 2:40 a.m. I will fly over the capital city of Hanoi and have my plane's right wing blown off by a Russian missile," said McCain, adding that the force of the ejection from an aging A-4 Skyhawk should render him unconscious and break both of his arms and "preferably [his] right leg." "I will then be taken to a bug- and rat-infested cell where, with both nobility and grace, I will suffer the worst forms of human indignities."

McCain, once considered a shoo-in for the Republican presidential nomination, insisted that his upcoming stay at the Hanoi torture facility was simply a late addition to a previously planned trip to Southeast Asia, and has nothing to do with his faltering campaign.

Funny. Mean, but funny. Read the whole thing.

humor, McCain, politics, midtopia

Standoff over Iraq

In what the White House insisted was a "dialogue" instead of negotations, President Bush met with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid over the emergency appropriation bills for Iraq and Afghanistan.

During an hourlong meeting at the White House, the president told lawmakers directly he will not sign any bill that includes a timetable for a troop withdrawal, and they made it clear Congress will send him one anyway.

Hmm. Well, I hope the cookies were good. Otherwise that was a rather complete waste of time.

Okay, maybe not totally wasted: the Democrats got in at least one good dig:

Several officials said the session was polite. But they said it turned pointed when Reid recounted a conversation with generals who likened Iraq to Vietnam and described it as a war in which the president refused to change course despite knowing victory was impossible. Bush bristled at the comparison, according to several officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private. One quoted him as saying, "I reject" the comparison.

Actually, it was good simply to have direct talks on the issue so both sides could get a clear sense of the other's mood. Talking through the media is all very well, but there's no good substitute for face-to-face when money and lives are at stake.

NPR's Political Junkie was speculating that Congress would adopt the nonbinding Senate plan, and Bush might sign it. I agree with the former; the latter depends on how Republicans weigh the politics and how strong Bush's connection to reality is the day the bill lands on his desk.

Reid, Pelosi, Bush, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Dinosaur turns Democrat

This isn't big news, but it's interesting, in that you rarely see a switch like this after so long in the fold.

Maverick former GOP Rep. Pete McCloskey, who represented Northern California in Congress from 1967 to 1982 and ran unsuccessfully again last year, has announced that he's switching party registration and becoming a Democrat.

McCloskey, who was an original author of the Endangered Species Act, made his scorn for the modern Republican Party clear during his primary campaign against former GOP Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy last year. He contended that leaders like Pombo and former Majority Leader Tom DeLay had been corrupted by power.

After losing the primary bid, he endorsed the Democrat who eventually beat Pombo in the general election.

McCloskey is 79, and not exactly a major player. And he was always a bit on the independent side. He was the first Republican Congressman to call for the impeachment of President Nixon, and his opposition to the Iraq war led him to endorse John Kerry in 2004.

But it does indicate that the GOP has moved rightward enough to leave behind people like McCloskey, who at one time not only considered themselves Republicans but were part of the party's public face.

McCloskey, politics, midtopia

Oh, Wolfowitz

I've been too busy to write much about the other brewing scandal in Washington, that of Paul Wolfowitz and his girlfriend's cushy job. It's not because I'm a big fan of his; in fact, whenever I need a good "laugh or else I'll cry" moment, I hunt up links like this one to read up on arguably his finest moment: the trashing of Gen. Eric Shinseki:

In his testimony, Mr. Wolfowitz ticked off several reasons why he believed a much smaller coalition peacekeeping force than General Shinseki envisioned would be sufficient to police and rebuild postwar Iraq. He said there was no history of ethnic strife in Iraq, as there was in Bosnia or Kosovo. He said Iraqi civilians would welcome an American-led liberation force that "stayed as long as necessary but left as soon as possible," but would oppose a long-term occupation force. And he said that nations that oppose war with Iraq would likely sign up to help rebuild it.

Bwahahaha! Flat wrong on the first, and the second might have been true if we hadn't a) sent too few troops to keep order or b) prevented it.

Then throw in this:

Mr. Wolfowitz spent much of the hearing knocking down published estimates of the costs of war and rebuilding, saying the upper range of $95 billion was too high, and that the estimates were almost meaningless because of the variables. Moreover, he said such estimates, and speculation that postwar reconstruction costs could climb even higher, ignored the fact that Iraq is a wealthy country, with annual oil exports worth $15 billion to $20 billion. "To assume we're going to pay for it all is just wrong," he said.

Bwahaha! HA HA HA!

Oh, that Wolfowitz. What a kidder.

After manfully helping guide us into a bad war, he was rewarded with a chance to do real damage at the World Bank, where he was able to hector debtor nations to be more fiscally responsible while helping squeeze their economies with austerity measures and stiff payback schedules.

Actually, he hasn't been that bad at the World Bank. His anticorruption drive has drawn fire, but there's much to like about it, and while critics have a point about being careful not to intrude too much on a nation's internal affairs, it's hard to sympathize with countries complaining about crackdowns on bribery -- especially when they're countries like China, which doesn't actually need the money it borrows from the Bank.

Upon taking the helm of the bank, though, Wolfowitz had to find a new job for his girlfriend, a bank employee. That's fair. And I have no problem with the transfer being a promotion or opportunity: she should not see her career suffer simply because her boyfriend got promoted.

So while the details -- like her massive pay raises -- raised some eyebrows, it struck me as relatively small potatoes, even if it undercut Wolfowitz's anti-corruption agenda.

But this is just ridiculous.

The U.S. Defense Department ordered a contractor to hire a World Bank employee and girlfriend of then-Pentagon No. 2 Paul Wolfowitz in 2003 for work related to Iraq, the contractor said on Tuesday.

A spokeswoman for Science Applications International Corp., or SAIC, said the Defense Department's policy office directed the company to enter a subcontract with Shaha Riza, under which she spent a month studying ways to form a government in Iraq.

Wolfowitz, a key Iraq war architect who left the Pentagon in 2005 to become president of the World Bank, is already under fire for overseeing a high-paying promotion for Riza after he took the helm of the poverty-fighting global lender.

This isn't as egregious as it could be, because the contract paid expenses only, not a salary. And right now all we have is the claim of a contractor. But if this turns out to be true, it's unacceptable. The Pentagon had no business insisting that a contractor hire someone connected to a senior Pentagon official.

What remains to be seen as well is whether Wolfowitz himself had any hand in this. If he did, he will face more than ethical questions: he'll probably face criminal charges.

Wait, was that a tear? Nope. My mistake.

Wolfowitz, politics, midtopia

DeMint scores again

Central Sanity has a nice example of Republican Sen. Jim DeMint (a man I've started to really like, even though he's way too conservative for me on most things) again holding Democrats' feet to the fire on ethics and budgetary matters.

What makes it a win for the rest of us and not just partisan point-scoring is that it worked.

Under pressure from GOP conservatives, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee announced new rules Tuesday to overhaul the way lawmakers send taxpayer dollars to their districts and states.

The move by Appropriations Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., came as conservatives including Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., increased the pressure to change the much-criticized, often secretive way in which "earmarks" are inserted into appropriations legislation.

The rules would require all earmarks - the footnotes in bills that lawmakers use to deliver federal bacon to their states - be clearly identified in documents accompanying appropriations bills. The requesting senator, the recipient of the earmark and its purpose would have to be made public and posted on the Internet.

Senators would also be required to certify that neither they nor their spouses would benefit financially from any earmark.

Shame on the Dems for having to be prodded into it. Good that, having been prodded, they did the right thing.

ethics, politics, midtopia

More trouble for Gonzales

The Virginia Tech shootings have prompted a postponement of Alberto Gonzales' Congressional appearance, which may be a good thing for him; it'll give him time to come up with an explanation for this.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' assertion that he was not involved in identifying the eight U.S. attorneys who were asked to resign last year is at odds with a recently released internal Department of Justice e-mail, ABC News has learned.

That e-mail said that Gonzales supported firing one federal prosecutor six months before she was asked to leave....

It doesn't just contradict Gonzales' initial account, an explanation of which will be the focus of his appearance. It appears to contradict the testimony he has prepared for that appearance, in which he states the following:

Mr. Sampson periodically updated me on the review. As I recall, his updates were brief, relatively few in number, and focused primarily on the review process itself. During those updates, to my knowledge, I did not make decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign.

Except that:

The recently released e-mail from Sampson, dated June 1, 2006, indicated that Gonzales was actively involved in discussions about Lam and had decided to fire her if she did not improve. In the e-mail to other top Justice Department officials, Sampson outlined several steps that Gonzales suggested, culminating in Lam's replacement if she failed to bolster immigration enforcement.

"AG [Attorney General] has given additional thought to the San Diego situation and now believes that we should adopt a plan" that would lead to her removal if she "balks" at immigration reform, Sampson wrote.

The e-mail laid out other possible ways to deal with Lam short of dismissal. Gonzales supported the idea of first having "a heart to heart with Lam about the urgent need to improve immigration enforcement" and of working with her "to develop a plan for addressing the problem." Sampson said another alternative would be to "put her on a very short leash.

"If she balks on any of the foregoing or otherwise does not perform in a measurable way … remove her," Sampson wrote of Gonzales' suggested plan. "AG then appoints new U.S. [attorney] from outside the office."

Will we be treated to the spectacle of Gonzales "clarifying" his clarification?

Meanwhile, the House is considering granting immunity to Monica Goodling, the Gonzales aide that took the Fifth in order to avoid testifying, as the Justice Department refuses to comply with a Congressional subpoena and a reinterview with Kyle Sampson now has the House Judiciary Committee interested in Mary Beth Buchanan, the U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh, who Sampson said was consulted about the firings.

Update: The Senate apparently is investigating Sen. Pete Domenici's role in the firings as well.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

MAC puts hammer down on cabbies

One of the Muslim accomodation issues I wrote about last month has reached a resolution of sorts.

On an 11-0 vote Monday, Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) members voted to crack down on drivers refusing service, making Minnesota the first place in the country to decide how to treat Muslim cabbies who decline to transport alcohol- toting riders on religious grounds.

Starting May 11, any airport taxi drivers who refuse riders will face 30-day suspensions. Drivers will have their licenses revoked two years for a second offense.

This isn't a full resolution because some cabbies are considering suing on the grounds of religious discrimination.

One might ask what's the big deal, especially because the problem is rather small: Just 27 refusals of service out of 120,000 total rides during the holiday travel season. Why not just use the existing rules, in which a cabbie who refuses to accept a fare must go to the back of the taxi line and wait all over again?

The answer lies in another number: 75 percent, which is how many airport cabbies are Somali Muslims and thus likely to refuse an alcohol-carrying fare.

In some ways, this is the reverse of the Minneapolis Community and Technical College situation in the earlier blog entry. And the logic is the same: a minority can often reasonably be accomodated; but a majority must be watched lest it impose its views on the rest of us.

In the MCTC case, providing a footbath for Muslims is reasonable because it benefits everyone and Muslims are such a small minority of students that it cannot reasonably be argued that they are imposing their views or practices on nonMuslims.

In the taxi case, however, Muslims make up a strong majority of cabbies. Allowing them to discriminate against passengers carrying alcohol benefits only the cabbies and could make it very difficult for such passengers to get a ride, which makes it an unreasonable accomodation.

I suspect, however, we'll get to find out what a court thinks.

civil liberties, Minnesota, religion, politics, midtopia

Corzine was speeding, too

What a moron. Not only was New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine not wearing a seatbelt, he was going way too fast.

The sport utility vehicle carrying Gov. Jon S. Corzine was traveling about 91 mph moments before it crashed, the superintendent of state police said Tuesday....

The speed limit along that stretch of the parkway is 65 mph.

Hey, I speed, too. But rarely do I go 26 miles over the limit, and in any event I wear a seatbelt.

Let's just touch briefly on the arrogance of a governor disregarding laws that apply to us mere mortals. Especially when those same governors occasionally sign tough anti-speeding measures into law. One might even be tempted to make a political issue out of it.

Unfortunately, Corzine has lots of bipartisan company in the speeding department.

Republicans
South Dakota's William Janklow killed a motorcyclist while speeding. He was a four-term Republican governor, and was a member of Congress at the time of the accident.

South Carolina's lieutenant governor, Andre Bauer, has a long history of speeding violations.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry tried to get out of a speeding ticket in June 2000.

Democrats
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is a famous leadfoot.

As is Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.

That doesn't excuse any of it, of course. It simply demonstrates that power often leads to arrogance.

Still, Corzine's a special case. He might be perversely thankful he's seriously injured -- it's probably the only thing saving him from a severe political butt-kicking for being dumb and arrogant.

politics, midtopia

Day of silence

This just sucks.

At least 33 people are dead in what may be the biggest mass shooting in modern American history.

I'm done blogging for the day. I'll leave you with one thought: an event like this happens two or three times a day in Iraq, which has less than a tenth of our population. Give thanks you live here, even if we have to deal with the occasional armed nutjob.

My thoughts and best wishes are with the students, the victims and their families.

politics, midtopia

Prosecutor bias in Wisconsin

As Alberto Gonzales prepares to testify before Congress, expect the case of Georgia Thompson to get an extensive airing.

Opponents of Gov. Jim Doyle of Wisconsin spent $4 million on ads last year trying to link the Democratic incumbent to a state employee who was sent to jail on corruption charges. The effort failed, and Mr. Doyle was re-elected — and now the state employee has been found to have been wrongly convicted. The entire affair is raising serious questions about why a United States attorney put an innocent woman in jail.

The conviction of Georgia Thompson has become part of the furor over the firing of eight United States attorneys in what seems like a political purge. While the main focus of that scandal is on why the attorneys were fired, the Thompson case raises questions about why other prosecutors kept their jobs.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which heard Ms. Thompson’s case this month, did not discuss whether her prosecution was political — but it did make clear that it was wrong. And in an extraordinary move, it ordered her released immediately, without waiting to write a decision. “Your evidence is beyond thin,” Judge Diane Wood told the prosecutor. “I’m not sure what your actual theory in this case is.”

What was so unusual about this case? A list:

1. It wasn't even within the jurisdiction of the U.S. attorney who prosecuted it, Steven Biskupic -- it was in the domain of Wisconsin's other U.S. attorney, Erik Peterson.

2. Thompson was accused of improperly awarding a travel contract to a politically connected firm. This ignored the fact that the contract was competitively bid. The firm in question won the contract by the simple expedient of having the lowest bid.

3. Thompson was but one of seven members of a committee that awarded the contract, and she wasn't even aware that the firm was a major contributor to Gov. Doyle.

4. Biskupic leaked the investigation to the media in late 2005, in violation of federal guidelines.

5. The prosecution was timed perfectly to conclude just before the November elections.

Yeah, that looks good.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Gonzales: "I have nothing to hide"

The Justice Department has released the opening statement -- all 25 pages of it -- that Alberto Gonzales intends to read at the start of his testimony tomorrow before Congress.

Critics will not be mollified.

He boldly asserts that while the prosecutor firings may have been handled badly, they were not improper. He proposes a simple criteria for impropriety: "The
replacement of one or more U.S. attorneys in order to impede or speed along particular criminal investigations for illegitimate reasons." He then adds: "Our record in bringing aggressive prosecutions without fear or favor and irrespective of political affiliations – a record I am very proud of – is beyond reproach."

He might not get past that statement, because it's demonstrably untrue. We know that several of the prosecutors were criticized for being insufficiently zealous about prosecuting voter fraud. Given that the "voter fraud" initiative overwhelmingly focused on Democrats, included some really questionable cases with big political implications and turned up little to no evidence of such fraud, it's hard to see how that could be construed as a nonpartisan effort. And that's without referring to the disputed study that concluded Democrats were investigated or indicted seven times as often as Republicans. So it's hard to see how Gonzales can make his claim with a straight face.

He now acknowledges that he was kept briefed on the progress of the prosecutor firings, including discussion of specific names, while saying he did not make any decisions about who should be fired. His explanation is reasonable -- he basically viewed the prosecutors as presidential employees, so his input didn' matter -- but not only does this contradict his earlier statements, but it's kind of stunning that the head of the Justice Department would take no role and no apparent interest in the firings of a tenth of his prosecutors. As several observers have noted, such detachment would appear to be de facto proof that Gonzales failed in his responsibility to protect the independence of federal prosecutors.

In that context, his acknowledgement that he was "less than precise" with his earlier words reads like a euphemism for "I lied." Especially given his tortured parsing of his earlier words, in which "I knew my chief of staff was involved in the process" is supposed to have meant "I was being briefed by him, even though I just said I was not involved in any discussions."

He points to changes he is implementing, notably starting an investigation by Justice's internal watchdog and improving communication with the current crop of U.S. attorneys.

The one mistake he acknowledges making is that the firings should have been handled in a more "personal and respectful" way. But mostly he deflects criticism toward Kyle Sampson.

That takes up 7 pages. Then he segues into a discussion of national security, notably defending the various eavesdropping and investigative tools authorized by the Patriot Act. But while he cites a short list of accomplishments, he doesn't demonstrate how those are connected to the powers in question. He only addresses the FBI's abuse of National Security Letters in the context of "we're improving oversight." The interesting news there is that the FBI is conducting a comprehensive review of NSLs at all 56 FBI field offices -- a far more extensive look than the four-office sample that led to the discovery of NSL abuses. And, of course, the even more egregious use of "exigent letters" is banned.

He also, rather comically, argues for a revison of FISA -- a law that as White House counsel he considered irrelevant, overridden by the president's "inherent authority." Having openly violated FISA for years, it's pretty nervy to now ask Congress to revise it.

And then he closes with this line: "We all recognize that we cannot afford to make progress in the War on Terror at the cost of eroding our bedrock civil liberties. Our Nation is, and always will be, dedicated to liberty for all, a value that we cannot and will not sacrifice, even in the name of winning this war. I will not accept failures in this regard."

Pretty funny coming from the guy most instrumental in eroding those liberties.

The rest of the testimony is dedicated to fairly noncontroversial items, like fighting crimes against children, drug abuse, and so on.

Dan Froomkin has some other thoughts on the matter, with links to other good examples of Gonzales word torture, as well as Sen. Pat Leahy's dismissive response.

And then there's this piece from the Albuquerque Journal (h/t: Moderate Voice), suggesting that at least one of the prosecutors -- David Iglesias -- was fired after Sen. Pete Domenici pressured President Bush. It indicates repeated pressure and questioning of Iglesias by Domenici, notably an aggressive attempt to increase corruption prosecutions -- over Iglesias' demurrals -- after Iglesias indicted two prominent Democrats in 2005.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Conservatives want Gonzales gone

Just in Time for Gonzales' Congressional appearance:

In what could prove an embarrassing new setback for embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the eve of his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a group of influential conservatives and longtime Bush supporters has written a letter to the White House to call for his resignation....

"Mr. Gonzales has presided over an unprecedented crippling of the Constitution's time-honored checks and balances," it declares. "He has brought rule of law into disrepute, and debased honesty as the coin of the realm." Alluding to ongoing scandal, it notes: "He has engendered the suspicion that partisan politics trumps evenhanded law enforcement in the Department of Justice."

Among the signers are Bruce Fein and Richard Viguerie, prominent Republican activists; David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Bob Barr, a former Republican Congressman; John Whitehead of the conservative Rutherford Institute.

As the story notes, many conservatives have disliked Gonzales for other reasons for years. But this just underscores the lack of support Gonzales has anywhere outside the White House -- and the political costs of his continued presence atop Justice.

Here's the full text of the letter.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Sperm cells from bone marrow

Might this turn the gay-marriage debate on its head?

Women might soon be able to produce sperm in a development that could allow lesbian couples to have their own biological daughters, according to a pioneering study published today.

Scientists are seeking ethical permission to produce synthetic sperm cells from a woman's bone marrow tissue after showing that it possible to produce rudimentary sperm cells from male bone-marrow tissue.

The researchers said they had already produced early sperm cells from bone-marrow tissue taken from men. They believe the findings show that it may be possible to restore fertility to men who cannot naturally produce their own sperm.

So it's a fertility treatment, that just happens to allow lesbians to conceive a child biologically related to both parents. It's also part of a larger effort to take bone marrow stem cells and try to coax them to differentiate into different kinds of cells.

It won't work for gay male couples, because they lack ovaries and eggs.

Also, because of the lack of a Y chromosome, all children of such unions will be female.

The science is still very young; they haven't actually made viable sperm yet. But it's intriguing.

Update: I've come up with one wrinkle to this potential procedure that raises ethical questions. It appears that it could allow a woman to produce a child entirely by herself: combining an egg from her ovaries with sperm taken from her marrow.

I'm not sure that's exactly unethical -- it's really just a do-it-yourself sperm-donor kit -- but given the inbreeding problem, it's probably a very bad idea. It would be banned for the same reason cousins aren't allowed to marry.

gay rights, stem cells, science, politics, midtopia

Views on the surge

The latest play-by-play on whether Bush's last chance is working:

Killings are down significantly in Baghdad -- 1,586 in the past two months, down from 2,871 in the two months before that.

But that's still an unacceptably high number, and in part the killing has merely shifted to other, less well-defended areas -- killings elsewhere are up by 500 people in that period. Still, as proof of concept, it's not bad. The idea all along was to secure Baghdad and then expand that security outward to the rest of the country.

What it does demonstrate, however, is that it will take far more troops to get killings in Baghdad down to a reasonable level -- never mind reduce killings elsewhere. Which has always been the suspected weakness of the surge: that it's too small, and unsustainable even so.

Unsurprisingly, Charles Krauthammer swears the surge is working. His evidence is skimpy: mostly military claims that Anbar Province, once almost given up for lost, has now "turned the corner." Even if true -- and Krauthammer places a lot of significance on what could easily be taken as light-on-details military "happy talk" -- it has little to do with the surge. It is good news that 14 of 18 Sunni tribes in Anbar have finally gotten sick of Al-Qaeda; but it remains to be seen whether that situation will hold, it doesn't address the problem with native Iraq insurgents, and it's unclear whether it holds relevance for the Sunni/Shiite sectarian violence that has been the prime driver of violence of late. If you believe that AQ is largely responsible for that violence, great; if you believe the violence is more broadly rooted than that, trouble.

He also cites news reports that various neighborhoods in Baghdad are safer than they were a few weeks ago -- which dovetails well with the reduced death toll.

Ironically, both developments, in passing, destroy two arguments advanced by war supporters.

The killing data from Baghdad further drives a stake into the ridiculous idea that Baghdad is only slightly more dangerous than some major American cities, even the reduced death rate translates to about 9,500 killings a year in a city of 7 million. By comparison, New York City endured 596 murders in 2006.

And the "Sunnis turning on AQ" news contradicts the idea that if we withdraw from Iraq, it will became a haven for Al-Qaeda. This is further refuted by the aftermath of the Parliament bombing. The local AQ affiliate claimed responsibility for the attack, which drew bipartisan criticism from prominent Iraqis -- emphasized by an unprecedented Friday session of Parliament. There are still major questions over how the bomber gained access to the Parliament building -- dark actions that could mean more than the encouraging lip service paid today. But unanimous condemnation is a starting point.

Whatever reasons we have to stay in Iraq, preventing it from becoming a safe haven for terrorism is not one of them.

terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Scandal roundup

Where to begin?

In the prosecutor probe, the Justice Department released hundreds of documents that Congress had been seeking, forestalling a possible legal standoff. Only partly mollfied, the Senate Judiciary Committee authorized subpoenas for documents and testimony from Justice's William Moschella and Karl Rove aide Scott Jennings.

Meanwhile, new revelations abound in the e-mail probe. The White House, after first saying lots of e-mails may have been deleted, now says some of them could have been related to the prosecutor firings.

Then it turns out that the RNC stopped automatically deleting e-mails by White House officials in 2004, and in 2005 specifically took away Karl Rove's ability to delete e-mails. Breaking it down, that means:

1. Four years worth of e-mails (2001-2004) are gone (unless there were backups and forensic examination can recover them).

2. After 2004, the only way e-mails would have been deleted is if the officials themselves specifically deleted them.

3. After 2005, there should be a complete record of Rove's e-mails. So if they're missing, something's not right.

Amid it all, the White House not only continues to refuse Congressional requests to question Rove and several key aides. It is expanding its "executive privilege" authority to include the RNC e-mails, and has the chutzpah to try to use the e-mail scandal as leverage:

Now that Democrats are also demanding access to the political e-mail, the White House took steps on Thursday to use those latest demands as leverage to force Democrats to accept the White House’s conditions for making Mr. Rove and the others available.

In a letter to Mr. Leahy and Representative John Conyers Jr., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Fielding, the White House counsel, said the administration was prepared to produce e-mail from the national committee, but only as part of a “carefully and thoughtfully considered package of accommodations” — in other words, only as part of the offer for Mr. Rove and the others to appear in private.

Mr. Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, issued a tart reply: “The White House position seems to be that executive privilege not only applies in the Oval Office, but to the R.N.C. as well. There is absolutely no basis in law or fact for such a claim.”

Somehow, I don't think that will work. The more revelations emerge, the more the White House refusal to allow questioning looks like a desire to hide something rather than a principled stand on Constitutional issues.

Up until the latest revelations, the White House had at least a wobbly leg to stand on. No longer. The more they delay and obstruct and refuse to cooperate, the worse it's going to be for them and the more political hay Democrats will make. It'll be interesting how far Bush is willing to push a losing hand -- and how much patience Congressional Republicans will have with him doing so.

Update: a make-you-think post from Glenn Greenwald noting the peculiar history of missing and deleted documents in the Bush administration.

Okay, the federal government is a big place. And the missing documents involve all sorts of different agencies and levels of that government. And if the government were truly competent, things they claimed were destroyed would not surface later -- they would actually be destroyed.

Still, there's a pattern here. And if it's not deception, then its incompetence and a massive credibility problem.

Update II: Rove's lawyer says Rove did not intentionally delete his own e-mails, and believed they were being preserved.

Separately, the newly released Justice documents appear to contradict some of Kyle Sampson's Senate testimony.

The documents show that beginning in a January 2006 e-mail to White House Counsel Harriet Miers, Sampson proposed some of the administration's most senior lawyers to replace U.S. attorneys in San Diego, San Francisco, Michigan and Arkansas.

But he told Congress something else:

"On December 7th [2007], I did not have in mind any replacements for any of the seven who were asked to resign," Sampson said then, under questioning from Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y.

Now, we could be talking about the difference between having replacements in mind and having them actually lined up. But Sampson's testimony was still a bit misleading.

And another document showed that among the criteria used for ranking prosecutors was whether they were members of the conservative Federalist Society. Only one fired prosecutor was a member: Kevin Ryan, who everyone seems to agree was fired for cause.

Finally, the White House floated the possibility that as many as 5 million e-mails may have been lost when the White House converted from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Outlook in 2001 and 2002.

Deliberate? Maybe not. Hugely, mind-bogglingly inexcusable? Yes.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

N.J. Governor Corzine critically injured in crash

Don Imus claims another victim:

New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine was in critical condition Friday but expected to recover after his SUV crashed into a guard rail while heading to a meeting between Don Imus and the Rutgers women's basketball team.

Despite the "critical" designation, his injuries aren't life-threatening and he's expected to recover fully:

The crash on the Garden State Parkway broke the governor's leg, six ribs, his sternum and fracturing a vertebrae. Authorities were still searching for a pickup truck driver whose actions were blamed for causing it.

Corzine, 60, won't be able to resume his duties as governor for several days, if not weeks, and he won't walk normally for months, Dr. Robert Ostrum said performing surgery on the governor Thursday night at Cooper University Hospital.

While he's out, State Senate President Richard Codey will be acting governor. Luckily, he's got a lot of experience for a temporary replacement:

The acting governor, Codey, also served as acting governor for about 14 months before Corzine took office last year following former Gov. James McGreevey's resigning over an extramarital affair with a man.

Hmm. Maybe Codey's some sort of gubernatorial bad-luck charm....

Best wishes to the governor for a full and speedy recovery.

Update: Corzine apparently wasn't wearing a seat belt. Dumb.

Corzine, politics, midtopia

Rethink those truisms

A couple of doses of cognitive dissonance for certain quarters of the political sphere:

1. Trickle-down theory doesn't work in the real world. The most relevant fact: the reason we need to tax the wealthy is because that's where the money is: since 1980, the inflation-adjusted median wage has actually fallen, while incomes for those in the top 0.1 percent earn four times what they did then. It's not class warfare to tax that discrepancy. And as the article argues, it will not result in top earners working less or taking fewer risk. The rest of the article points out a long list of areas where trickle-down theory disagrees with both classic economics and real-world experience.

2. Voter fraud probe comes up empty. You may recall that worries about voter fraud were the rationale for what otherwise might look like political investigations of Democrats. Now it turns out that those worries were, charitably, overblown. After five years of investigating, the Justice Department has precious little to show for it.

Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year.

Most of those charged have been Democrats, voting records show. Many of those charged by the Justice Department appear to have mistakenly filled out registration forms or misunderstood eligibility rules, a review of court records and interviews with prosecutors and defense lawyers show.

That's not all. To keep the charade going a little longer, a federal panel edited a report on voter fraud, changing the conclusion from "little evidence" of fraud to "the pervasiveness of fraud is debatable."

And then there are the clear miscarriages of justice:

Mr. Ali, 68, who had owned a jewelry store in Tallahassee, got into trouble after a clerk at the motor vehicles office had him complete a registration form that he quickly filled out in line, unaware that it was reserved just for United States citizens.

Even though he never voted, he was deported after living legally in this country for more than 10 years because of his misdemeanor federal criminal conviction.

Fabulous.

Voter fraud is a crime. True fraud should be prosecuted vigorously. But it makes no sense to destroy people's lives for making mistakes, especially small ones. And it's just plain irresponsible for the White House and other Republicans to keep flogging the "widespread fraud" line when it's just not true -- and firing prosecutors for not being zealous enough in bringing nonexistent cases.

voter fraud, politics, midtopia

White House e-mails deleted

You know that brewing scandal over White House use of RNC e-mail addresses?

Well, it just got a lot, lot bigger:

Countless e-mails to and from many key White House staffers have been deleted -- lost to history and placed out of reach of congressional subpoenas -- due to a brazen violation of internal White House policy that was allowed to continue for more than six years, the White House acknowledged yesterday.

The problem:

Until 2004, all e-mail on RNC accounts was routinely deleted after 30 days. Since 2004, White House staffers using those accounts have been able to save their e-mail indefinitely -- but have also been able to delete whatever they felt like deleting. By comparison, the White House e-mail system preserves absolutely everything forever, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.

The part that will have administration critics salivating:

The leading culprit appears to be President Bush's enormously influential political adviser Karl Rove, who reportedly used his Republican National Committee-provided Blackberry and e-mail accounts for most of his electronic communication.

Now one could argue that the problem, while real, was inadvertent, not done with evil intent. And I'm sure the familiar sight of administration incompetence partly explains the problem.

But it stretches credibility to think that someone as highly placed as Rove would not have understood the very clear White House rules governing e-mail:

"Federal law requires the preservation of electronic communications sent or received by White House staff," says the handbook that all staffers are given and expected to read and comply with.

"As a result, personnel working on behalf of the EOP [Executive Office of the President] are expected to only use government-provided e-mail services for all official communication."

The handbook further explains: "The official EOP e-mail system is designed to automatically comply with records management requirements."

And if that wasn't clear enough, the handbook notes -- as was the case in the Clinton administration -- that "commercial or free e-mail sites and chat rooms are blocked from the EOP network to help staff members ensure compliance and to prevent the circumvention of the records management requirements."

So we're left with three possible explanations:

1. Karl Rove is an idiot;

2. Karl Rove thought the rules didn't apply to him;

3. Karl Rove deliberately circumvented the records laws.

The answer, for now, appears to be #2:

For Rove, a noted Blackberry addict who holds the position of senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, that would have meant switching from one device to another when alternating from White House business to Republican party business. Apparently he didn't bother.

I wrote in my earlier post that as a blogger with multiple e-mail accounts, I can understand how staffers could have inadvertently used the wrong account on occasion. But this isn't inadvertent misuse; this is blatant disregard for the rules.

And it's not just Rove. Fifty White House staffers were issued RNC communications gear, and apparently many of them also used the RNC gear for official business and improperly deleted messages.

And in classic Bush administration fashion, it's nobody's fault:

So is anyone in trouble? Apparently not. Stanzel was careful to apportion blame widely and generically. "This issue is not the fault of one individual," he said. He refused even to acknowledge that it is the White House counsel's office that is responsible for the establishment and oversight of internal rules of conduct. The White House counsel during Bush's entire first term, of course, was Alberto Gonzales, now the embattled attorney general.

There's more. Read the whole thing. And check out the related coverage. Particularly note the case of Rove aide Susan Ralston, who deliberately used RNC accounts to communicate with Jack Abramoff. And if you want another indication that the White House was fully aware of the situation and that transgressions were not inadvertent, read this:

In another e-mail exchange revealed during the investigation of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a White House official was described as warning that "it is better to not put this stuff in writing in [the White House] . . . email system because it might actually limit what they can do to help us, especially since there could be lawsuits, etc." Abramoff responded in an e-mail that the message in question "was not supposed to go into the WH system."

It's hard to read that as anything other than a deliberate circumvention of the law. The Democrats are going to have a field day. And deservedly so.

Update: Sen. Patrick Leahy blows a gasket. Yikes.

RNC, Rove, politics, midtopia

Two major attacks in Baghdad

Not good news:

A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria in a stunning assault in the heart of the heavily fortified, U.S.-protected Green Zone on Thursday, killing at least eight people, including two lawmakers, the American military said. At least 10 other people were wounded.

Thursday's attack came hours after a suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars tumbling into the Tigris River below, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed in that attack.

I'm kind of surprised the suicide bombers haven't targeted big bridges before this. It's an effective way to both kill people and paralyze the city.

The Parliament bombing is more troubling, considering the Parliament is deep inside the Green Zone. The bomber either got through several layers of security undetected -- which strikes me as unlikely -- or he had inside help. The implications of that could be huge.

It would appear the Parliament bomber was Sunni, because the dead were either Shiite or Kurd. In particular we can probably rule out Moqtada al-Sadr as a suspect, because six of the wounded were from his party.

Is this a comment on whether the "surge" is working? Not of the "smoking gun" variety. The Green Zone is a heavily fortified, high value target, so attacks there don't reasonably reflect security conditions elsewhere in the city. As for the bridge attack, not only is the surge still gathering steam, but it's pretty much impossible to prevent all attacks by suicide bombers. A checkpoint on the bridge might have helped stop that attack, but there's a limit to the number of potential targets the military can protect with limited forces. It's worth asking, though, if such a major piece of infrastructure was guarded -- and if not, why not. Baghdad is crisscrossed by rivers, notably the Tigris; lose enough bridges, and the city would essentially be cut in half.

All that said, inasmuch as this reflects a recent uptick in violence in Baghdad (after an initial decline), it could end up being part of a body of evidence that the surge produced only temporary benefits. But only time will tell.

Baghdad, surge, Iraq, politics, midtopia