Report: GSA head violated Hatch Act

When last we left Lurita Doan, she was being investigated for (among other things) using her office for improper political purposes, in violation of the Hatch Act.

Now the investigation is over. It's conclusion? She broke the law.

An Office of Special Counsel report has found that General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan violated the Hatch Act, which bars federal officials from partisan political activity while on the job, sources say.

The report addresses a Jan. 26 lunch meeting at GSA headquarters attended by Doan and about 40 political appointees, some of whom participated by videoconference. During the meeting, Scott Jennings, the White House deputy director of political affairs, gave a PowerPoint presentation that included slides listing Democratic and Republican seats the White House viewed as vulnerable in 2008, a map of contested Senate seats and other information on 2008 election strategy.

According to meeting participants, Doan asked after the call how GSA could help “our candidates.”

Now for the bad news:

After Doan responds, the report will be sent to President Bush with recommendations that could include suspension or termination. The president is not required to comply with the suggestions.

Yes, you read that right: punishment is entirely up to the president. This is the Bush administration, so I suppose it's quite possible she won't suffer any adverse effects. But I just can't bring myself to be that cynical. Look for her to resign or be fired sometime in June.

Lurita Doan, politics, midtopia

Dems go with common sense on war funding

On Friday, I laid out what sort of war-funding bill Congress had to assemble.

Now it looks like they're doing exactly that.

In grudging concessions to President Bush, Democrats intend to draft an Iraq war-funding bill without a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and shorn of billions of dollars in spending on domestic programs, officials said Monday.

The legislation would include the first federal minimum wage increase in more than a decade, a top priority for the Democrats who took control of Congress in January, the officials added.

While details remain subject to change, the measure is designed to close the books by Friday on a bruising veto fight between Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress over the war. It would provide funds for military operations in Iraq through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.

Good. Get it done, and start preparing for the next round, in September.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Generals say "no" to torture

If you haven't read this yet, you should. It's written by a pair of retired generals: Charles Krulak (former Marine Corps commandant) and Joseph Hoar (former head of U.S. Central Command).

Fear can be a strong motivator. It led Franklin Roosevelt to intern tens of thousands of innocent U.S. citizens during World War II; it led to Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt, which ruined the lives of hundreds of Americans. And it led the United States to adopt a policy at the highest levels that condoned and even authorized torture of prisoners in our custody.

The observed effect on military morals:

As has happened with every other nation that has tried to engage in a little bit of torture -- only for the toughest cases, only when nothing else works -- the abuse spread like wildfire, and every captured prisoner became the key to defusing a potential ticking time bomb. Our soldiers in Iraq confront real "ticking time bomb" situations every day, in the form of improvised explosive devices, and any degree of "flexibility" about torture at the top drops down the chain of command like a stone -- the rare exception fast becoming the rule.

To understand the impact this has had on the ground, look at the military's mental health assessment report released earlier this month. The study shows a disturbing level of tolerance for abuse of prisoners in some situations. This underscores what we know as military professionals: Complex situational ethics cannot be applied during the stress of combat. The rules must be firm and absolute; if torture is broached as a possibility, it will become a reality.

But even if the use of torture could be strictly controlled, it would hurt our cause:

The torture methods that Tenet defends have nurtured the recuperative power of the enemy. This war will be won or lost not on the battlefield but in the minds of potential supporters who have not yet thrown in their lot with the enemy. If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave or imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it.

It also hurts our soldiers.

This is not just a lesson for history. Right now, White House lawyers are working up new rules that will govern what CIA interrogators can do to prisoners in secret. Those rules will set the standard not only for the CIA but also for what kind of treatment captured American soldiers can expect from their captors, now and in future wars. Before the president once again approves a policy of official cruelty, he should reflect on that.

These are not new sentiments. But they are increasingly being expressed by people such as Krulak and Hoar, military professionals who understand the repercussions of such policies. Let us hope that at last the message gets through.

torture, politics, midtopia

Specter: Gonzales may resign

It may just be wishful thinking, but that's what Sen. Arlen Specter said yesterday on "Face the Nation", in response to a question about this week's planned vote of no-confidence in the attorney general.

Mr. Specter noted that no-confidence votes were rare, adding, “I think that if and when he sees that coming, that he would prefer to avoid that kind of an historical black mark.” Mr. Specter, of Pennsylvania, would not say how he would vote on a resolution.

Most Senate Democrats and five Republicans have called on the attorney general to resign, but President Bush, who considers Mr. Gonzales one of his most trusted advisers, has steadily supported him.

It seems obvious that such a vote would easily pass, assuming all that was needed was a simple majority. Most Democrats and at least five Republicans would vote yes, and there could be a sizable number of other GOPers that would support it, too.

The White House has denigrated the move as a political stunt and today Bush reiterated his support for Fredo. But the reality is that Gonzales' ability to lead his department would be seriously impaired by such a public rebuke, especially if the vote is lopsided. At that point you have to start wondering why Bush places personal loyalty to incompetent lapdogs above the good of the people and the efficient administration of justice.

Between the no-confidence vote and the upcoming testimony of Monica Goodling, it promises to be yet another bad week for the AG.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

How's it going in Afghanistan?

For an interesting and balanced take on the war in Afghanistan, check out NBC News correspondent Jim Maceda:

So, how IS it going in Afghanistan? Are we winning or losing the war? Or the peace? I see no pat answer. No 10-second sound bite. We are winning some hearts, but losing other minds. We are bringing a sense of peace to parts of the country where we have soldiers at least, but the Taliban is still intimidating whole towns, elsewhere, with death threats posted on residential doors at night, with school burnings, ambushes and roadside bombs. We have defeated Taliban and al-Qaida militants in dozens upon dozens of battles this year, but their suicide bombers keep on coming – and exploding – from inside the Pakistan border, where they are trained and equipped.

Some have called this ‘reaching a tipping point’. Perhaps that’s the best answer: Afghanistan IS balanced between good and bad, war and peace, winning and losing. Some days, in some ways, look very positive indeed. But winning in Afghanistan still appears no better than a 50-50 bet. It could go either way. There are still too many reasons why Afghans could see a low-burn guerilla war that kills thousands of civilians – as well as several hundred American and allied soldiers - every year for years to come.

Sobering stuff, but unsurprising. As long as the tribal regions of Pakistan provide a safe haven for Taliban forces, the war will never actually end no matter how much military success we have. The best we can probably hope for is a low-level conflict that will increasingly be fought by Afghan security forces rather than NATO troops.

Many of the same descriptions could be applied to Iraq. But there is at least one key difference between Afghanistan and Iraq: There is far more political resolve to fight a long war in Afghanistan because the government -- weak and corrupt though it may be -- supports us, and we didn't invade the country under false pretenses.

We also don't have sectarian violence to deal with because there are no sects: nearly the entire country is Sunni (84%) Muslim (99%). The worst split is ethnic: majority Pashtuns and minority Tajiks, Uzbeks and others. But those splits aren't as deep or as pathological as the bloody scrimmage going on in Iraq.

It also shows how much more politically sustainable a war is when we're not doing nearly all the fighting ourselves. A justifiable war attracts meaningful international help, which spreads the burden of combat and builds reinforcing political supports.

The fighting in Afghanistan demonstrates that we have the political and military will to fight a long war when the need and justification are made apparent. And Iraq demonstrates what happens when the government fails to make such a case.

Iraq, afghanistan, politics, midtopia

Bush, Congress hit impasse on war funding

This is getting a bit silly.

The White House and Congress failed to strike a deal Friday after exchanging competing offers on an Iraq war spending bill that Democrats said should set a date for U.S. troops to leave....

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said they offered to grant Bush the authority to waive the deadlines. They said they also suggested they would drop billions of dollars in proposed domestic spending that Bush opposed, in exchange for his acceptance of identifying a withdrawal date.

That, by the way, is the Democrats making the obvious concession that they denied they were making a week or so ago.

Bush, for his part, flat refused anything that had deadlines for withdrawal, even if he could waive them. He also indicated he would consider benchmarks for the Iraqi government that would include negative consequences if the Iraqis failed to meet them -- although the details on that score were very vague.

In general, I'm with Bush on this one. The timetables need to be dropped for the time being to give the surge time to work. And the domestic funding has no business being used as a bargaining chip: it shouldn't have been in the bill in the first place.

It's May 18, people; time to stop playing games. The Democrats need to pass (and Bush needs to sign) a bill that does the following:

1. Contains no timetables;

2. Funds the war only through September, at which time the state of the surge and Iraqi political compliance can be assessed;

3. Contains hard benchmarks for the Iraqi government to hit, with generous support if they hit them and negative consequences if they don't.

Reopen this fight when there's meaningful data to fight about.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Another Republican calls for Gonzales to quit

Ever able to read the shifting political winds, Minnesota's own Norm Coleman has joined the list of Republicans calling for Alberto Gonzales' ouster.

The link identifies the six GOP senators who now want him to quit, as well as six others who have said he should probably quit while stopping just short of calling for his resignation.

The last straw for Norm: revelations that the Justice Department had a list of at least 26 prosecutors it was considering firing -- not the relative handful it has admitted up until now -- and that former Minnesota U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger was on it.

The list isn't a huge deal by itself. It makes sense that the department would consider a larger group of candidates for replacement before settling on a small number to actually can. But Gonzales' testimony last week that the firing effort was limited to the 8 (oops, 9) identified so far was either misleading, a lie, very poorly phrased or an indication that he was totally unaware of the scope of the discussions occurring under his authority.

There's also the question of how a prosecutor ended up on the list. I look forward to analyses matching the names on the list with their prosecutorial history to see if a trend emerges.

Meanwhile, the Senate may hold a nonbinding no-confidence vote on Gonzales next week -- a move that could attract bipartisan support. The White House denounced it as a PR stunt, but it's far more than that: it will be a public display of how little support Gonzales has. It will also force many senators that have been silent up until now to declare a position. I don't think many of them will come down on Gonzales' side, and the White House knows it.

There's also this interesting exchange about the dramatic confrontation in John Ashcroft's hospital room:

Q Let me just follow up on that. Yesterday, Kelly asked the President straight up about the report of when Gonzales was counsel and sending Andy Card down to the hospital. The President refused to answer, saying it was a national security issue. No part of her question had anything to do with national security issues.

MR. FRATTO: No, there are two points there. One is the discussion of classified programs; and the second is deliberative discussions among and between advisors to the President -- and neither of which is an open window for us to look into and talk about.

Now, I think the President -- I think that's the point that the President was making. It puts us in a difficult communications position, because we understand there are questions out there and it's difficult for us from the podium. But that's not something that we can get into, and we're not going to get into.

Q He can unilaterally declassify, so --

MR. FRATTO: He could, but I think he'd prefer to put the safety and security of Americans ahead of that interest.

Q How does it jeopardize the safety and security of Americans, to say whether --

MR. FRATTO: Any time we talk about --

Q -- to say whether he ordered those guys to go to the hotel room?

MR. FRATTO: The hospital room --

Q I'm sorry, hospital room.

MR. FRATTO: -- according to the reports.

Q -- former acting Attorney General.

MR. FRATTO: Any time we talk about classified programs you're opening the door, and we need to be very careful in how we talk about it.

A nice example of invoking "national security", "executive privilege" and (most wretchedly) "the safety and security of the American people" to avoid answering a question that has nothing to do with any of those.

Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Wolfowitz agrees to leave

Big surprise.... He leaves at the end of June. President Bush, meanwhile, has promised to move quickly on naming a successor.

Among those mentioned as a possible replacement for Wolfowitz were former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who was Bush's former trade chief; Robert Kimmitt, the No. 2 at the Treasury Department; Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson; former Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa; Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.,; Stanley Fischer, who once worked at the International Monetary Fund and is now with the Bank of Israel; and former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.

That list seems filled with pure speculation. But let's go through them.

Volcker would be an interesting, noncontroversial pick, and likely to attract bipartisan support. And his experience investigating the United Nations oil-for-food scandal may indicate that he'll continue Wolfowitz's anti-corruption drive.

Paulson would be a mistake, unless Bush just likes playing "musical Treasury chairs". There's no real good reason to shake up Treasury one more time simply to fill a slot at the World Bank.

Kimmitt would be a solid choice. He's a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, has ambassadorial and foreign policy experience and previously served on a World Bank arbitration panel. He's shown an ability to get along with other countries throughout a long career.

I'm not sure why Bush would consider Jim Leach, since he's a liberal Republican who opposed the 2002 Iraq war resolution and even opposed the president's 2003 tax cut. This sounds like a case of Leach supporters floating the name, not anything eminating from the White House.

Lugar would be a more business-as-usual pick for Bush -- a fiscal and social conservative who could probably be counted on to continue Wolfowitz's policies. There's also a bit of political calculation involved. Lugar is 75, and thus unlikely to run for the Senate again. Giving him another job would let the Republican governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, appoint a Republican replacement. Lugar just won re-election, so the successor would serve for nearly six years and have the advantage of incumbency when s/he stands for re-election in 2012 -- thus increasing the odds that the seat will stay in GOP hands.

Stanley Fischer I don't know much about. He's an economist, served as chief economist at the World Bank under Bush's dad before moving over to the International Monetary Fund. Sounds qualified, but I have no idea what his politics are.

Of course, I half expect Bush to nominate Harriet Miers just to prove he can....

World Bank, Wolfowitz, politics, midtopia

The food-stamp diet

This is a pretty good read:

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) stood before the refrigerated section of the Safeway on Capitol Hill yesterday and looked longingly at the eggs.

At $1.29 for a half-dozen, he couldn't afford them.

Ryan and three other members of Congress have pledged to live for one week on $21 worth of food, the amount the average food stamp recipient receives in federal assistance. That's $3 a day or $1 a meal. They started yesterday.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.), co-chairmen of the House Hunger Caucus, called on lawmakers to take the "Food Stamp Challenge" to raise awareness of hunger and what they say are inadequate benefits for food stamp recipients. Only two others, Ryan and Janice Schakowsky (D-Ill.), took them up on it.

Ryan's shopping list for the week:

Yellow cornmeal	$1.43
2 jars strawberry preserves	4.80
1 jar chunky peanut butter	2.48
2 packages angel-hair pasta	1.54
Chock Full o’ Nuts coffee	2.50
3 cans tomato sauce	4.50
2 containers cottage cheese	3.00
1 loaf wheat bread	0.89
1 head of garlic	0.32
Total:	$20.66

He could have added some extra calories by forgoing the coffee; I think he's going to regret that particular choice.

The story also notes the irony of eating poor: that the cheapest foods are also the unhealthiest, which is why the poor have trouble with obesity, cholesterol and other diet-related ills.

"No organic foods, no fresh vegetables, we were looking for the cheapest of everything," McGovern said. "We got spaghetti and hamburger meat that was high in fat -- the fattiest meat on the shelf. I have high cholesterol and always try to get the leanest, but it's expensive. It's almost impossible to make healthy choices on a food stamp diet."

Looking at the politics of it, the stunt -- while compelling -- is still something of a stunt. The $21 a week is an average, for starters; the neediest people get more. Second, food stamps were never intended to cover 100% of food costs; they're a supplement. Third, food stamps aren't the only programs available to the hungry. There are food shelves, local food programs and private charities as well.

In addition, the lawmakers are doing this in hopes of adding $4 billion to the $33 billion food-stamp program -- which would boost that $21 weekly average up to a whopping $23.50 or so.

Still, people do go hungry, even if nobody actually starves. And the healthy-eating challenges deserve to be addressed somehow. A few bucks spent helping the very poor buy fresh vegetables now might prevent far more expensive taxpayer-provided health care down the road.

food stamps, hunger, politics, midtopia

More Republicans call for Gonzales' head

Two more Republican Senators want Alberto Gonzales gone: Chuck Hagel and Pat Roberts.

"The American people deserve an attorney general, the chief law enforcement officer of our country, whose honesty and capability are beyond question," Hagel said in a statement. "Attorney General Gonzales can no longer meet this standard. He has failed this country. He has lost the moral authority to lead."

"When you have to spend more time up here on Capitol Hill instead of running the Justice Department, maybe you ought to think about [resigning]," Roberts told The Associated Press.

Democrats, meanwhile, continued the full-court press. Four Democratic senators sent Gonzales a letter asking him to square Jim Comey's description of a dramatic confrontation over the NSA wiretapping program -- complete with threats to resign -- with Gonzales' February 2006 testimony that there had "not been any serious disagreement" over it.

Rereading the testimony (Part I and Part II), one sees that Gonzales was being very careful in his language:

SCHUMER: There was dissent; is that right?

GONZALES: Of course, Senator. As I indicated, this program implicates some very difficult issues. The war on terror has generated several issues that are very, very complicated.

SCHUMER: Understood.

GONZALES: Lawyers disagree.

SCHUMER: I concede all those points. Let me ask you about some specific reports.

It's been reported by multiple news outlets that the former number two man in the Justice Department, the premier terrorism prosecutor, Jim Comey, expressed grave reservations about the NSA program and at least once refused to give it his blessing. Is that true?

GONZALES: Senator, here's the response that I feel that I can give with respect to recent speculation or stories about disagreements.

There has not been any serious disagreement -- and I think this is accurate -- there has not been any serious disagreement about the program that the president has confirmed. There have been disagreements about other matters regarding operations which I cannot get into.

I will also say...

SCHUMER: But there was some -- I'm sorry to cut you off -- but there was some dissent within the administration. And Jim Comey did express, at some point -- that's all I asked you -- some reservations.

GONZALES: The point I want to make is that, to my knowledge, none of the reservations dealt with the program that we're talking about today. They dealt with operational capabilities that we're not talking about today.

As you can see, Gonzales was very careful to only talk about the then-current iteration of the NSA program -- without mentioning that the program existed in that form only because of the vehement objections described by Comey. So did he lie? No. Did he mislead? Yes. Deliberately? Unclear. He was obviously trying to suggest that the reports about Comey's actions were somehow inaccurate, without coming right out and saying it (which would have been a lie). And it's also clear that he didn't want to openly and candidly discuss the process that led to the NSA program then in operation. But dodging questions isn't the same thing as lying. And some of the blame for the lack of clarity also lies with Schumer, who didn't try to nail Gonzales down on what he meant by "they dealt with operational capabilities that we're not talking about today."

As far as relevance to his continued tenure, however, I'm not sure this has any. Gonzales didn't actually lie, and the underlying history (was there disagreement?) isn't very important, so it's not a legal or moral issue. To the extent that Congress doesn't like having its questions dodged this could be a political issue, but Congress is already mad at him about much worse acts; this isn't going to move the needle much one way or the other in that regard.

Next up: Monica Goodling's immunized testimony a week from now, on May 23. I'm going to try to listen to most of it.

politics, midtopia

Things of note

Items that caught my eye today:

Prince Harry won't be going to Iraq; the British army decided that doing so posed too much danger not just to Cornet Wales but also to those around him, figuring insurgents would move heaven and earth to get their hands on him. I can't fault their reasoning, but it does raise the question of what sort of conflict the military will let him fight in. And if the answer is "none", one wonders what he's doing in the military.

A team of scientists working with the Hubble space telescope think they have directly sighted dark matter. Using gravitational lensing they mapped out the density of a couple of galaxy clusters 5 billion light years away -- and found that the centers of mass didn't correspond to visible objects (you can see the ring of dark matter in the photo). The evidence in favor of dark matter is firming up. All that's left is the pesky matter of explaining what the heck it is.

Paul Wolfowitz is negotiating a deal for his resignation as head of the World Bank. I'm still more interested in the junkets he arranged for his girlfriend when he was with the Pentagon. But while I think he did some good at the World Bank and the calls for his head have more than a little corrupt politicking behind them, it's hard to feel sorry for a figure so central to our misadventure in Iraq. Buh-bye.

dark matter, Hubble, Prince Harry, Wolfowitz, politics, midtopia

Jerry Falwell dies

Mr. Moral Majority meets his Maker.

I'm not going to pretend to miss him. Oh, there was the entertainment value of his blustering, but that hardly made up for the actual damage he did. Although in the long run it's a wash, as the declining influence of he and his kind make clear. He gave people a good look at what the religious right stood for -- and it wasn't pretty.

Still, I'm not big on bashing the dead, so I'll just keep silence. I hope there's an afterlife for you, Mr. Falwell. If there is, I'm curious to know if it's the one you expected.

Falwell, religion, politics, midtopia

Stupid teacher tricks

They don't get much stupider than this.

Staff members of a Murfreesboro elementary school staged a fake gunman attack during a school trip, telling them it was not a drill as children cried and hid under tables.

Usually it's the playground bullies who are responsible for terrorizing kids. I guess they've been put out of business by the teachers.

Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who was present, said the scenario was intended as a learning experience and only lasted five minutes.

Oh, okay; it only lasted five minutes. That makes it all better.

The details:

During the last night of the school trip to Fall Creek Falls, a state park about 130 miles southeast of Nashville, staff members convinced the 69 students that there was a gunman on the loose.

The students were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. After the lights went out, about 20 kids started to cry, said 11-year-old Shay Naylor.

"I was like, 'Oh My God,' " Shay said Saturday. "At first I thought I was going to die. We flipped out. (A teacher) told us, 'We just got a call that there's been a random shooting.' I was freaked out. I thought it was serious."

A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, even pulled on locked door and pretended to be suspicious subject....

"The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them," said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip.

I can understand one teacher thinking this was a good idea. It's hard for me to comprehend how all the teachers on the trip came to that conclusion.

The best part is that by crying wolf -- especially the "this is not a drill" part -- the teachers have pretty much ensured that in the event of a real emergency, some students will simply disbelieve their warnings and disregard their instructions. Great work.

One caveat: Almost all of the details in the story come from kids (who aren't necessarily the most reliable witnesses) and their parents (who weren't there). The school is investigating, and perhaps a different picture will emerge. But I don't imagine it will be substantially different. The kids were terrified, that seems clear. Whatever happened, it was misguided at best and downright mean at worst.

education, politics, midtopia

Meet the new war czar

After a month of searching, a "war czar" has been found.

President Bush on Tuesday chose Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the
Pentagon's director of operations and a former leader of U.S. military forces in the Middle East, to oversee the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan as a war czar.

Lute seems like a fine soldier, but he's way down the administration's wish list for the position. The authority and doability of the job aside, it's unclear whether such a relative unknown will have the personal force and charisma necessary to break logjams and keep everybody moving in the same direction.

There's also the question of whether we should put much trust in anyone who helped oversee combat in Iraq between 2004 and 2006, years in which the situation there spiraled out of control. There's always the question of whether to blame the generals or their political overseers, and Lute wasn't the overall commander in the theater. But at first blush it's not a great recommendation.

Here's what some military folks think of the pick. They think Lute's a fine officer, but wonder how a three-star general is going to order around four-star generals and Cabinet members.

And here's an interview (pdf) Lute did with Charlie Rose in January 2006, when he was director of operations for Centcom.

In it he says Al-Qaeda is weakening and losing support as a result of the war. But the example he gives has nothing to do with Iraq; he cites the bombing of a wedding in Amman, Jordan, and the collapse in AQ support afterward. Is anyone surprised that when AQ attacks Muslim targets, those Muslims don't like it?

He also discusses -- in a sort of premonition of his new job -- the need to fight networks of terrorists with networks of agencies and governments:

The other thing I would point to, Charlie, is the importance of taking this on, not simply as a military fight, but as a multi-agency fight where different arms of the government, the intelligence arm, the military arm for sure, the State Department, diplomatic arm, economic arm, those who bring law and order systems into a post-conflict scenario, that all these arms come together in an integrated networked way.

That's what he's been hired to do. Let's hope he is able -- and allowed -- to do a good job.

Update: Here's the video of part II of Charlie Rose's interview of Lute, conducted a few days after the interview I link to above. The segment with Lute starts around the 38-minute mark.

This time he discusses the strain on the military from our deployment in Iraq, in which he argues that while the soldiers' private lives are strained, most of them want to return to Iraq and, as a long-term upside, we're developing a large core of combat veterans. The first argument is a little bit of "happy talk." Our troops tend to be motivated, but dedication to the mission starts to wane after the third or fourth tour. The second part, while true as far as it goes, assumes those veterans stay in the service.

He also talks up the Iraqi army, a confidence that was proven to be a bit misplaced in the year that followed. He heaped praise on Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad -- a charter member of the neocon club who departed a year later (amid mounting chaos) to become our ambassador to the United Nations, a post about as important to this administration as the embassy in Liechtenstein (which is actually handled by the ambassador to Switzerland). He also discusses the military and political changes needed to succeed in Iraq.

He comes across as smart, but his role as spokesman and obvious cheerleader damages his credibility and doesn't give a true sense of the man.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Lobbying reform runs into hurdles

Attempts are afoot in Congress to weaken the lobbying reforms passed with such fanfare in the first days of the 110th Congress.

The culprits? Democrats.

Now that they are running things, many Democrats want to keep the big campaign donations and lavish parties that lobbyists put together for them. They're also having second thoughts about having to wait an extra year before they can become high-paid lobbyists themselves should they retire or be defeated at the polls.

The growing resistance to several proposed reforms now threatens passage of a bill that once seemed on track to fulfill Democrats' campaign promise of cleaner fundraising and lobbying practices....

They include proposals to:

* Require lobbyists to disclose details about large donations they arrange for politicians.
* Make former lawmakers wait two years, instead of one, before lobbying Congress.
* Bar lobbyists from throwing large parties for lawmakers at national political conventions.

First, the bill has not been voted on yet. What we're seeing here are the behind-the-scenes disputes about the final language, and how to reconcile it with the Senate version.

That said, let's be clear: If the Democrats fail to deliver on this promise, they will and should be toast in 2008. If there's one thing voters wanted when they voted in November, it was a real clean-up of Washington's money culture. The Democrats promised to do so, and if they back away from key provisions it will simply have been a lie. Maybe all that money is nice now that they're in power; but they won't remain in power long if they don't take steps to lessen the lure of its siren song. And quickly.

ethics, politics, midtopia

Gonzales roundup

Sheesh, I go away for a few days and everything goes bonkers.

Yesterday, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty -- one of the people involved in the U.S. attorney firings -- said he would resign.

He says he always intended to spend no more than two years in the post, and by the time a successor is found he will nearly have hit that milestone. But it seems pretty clear that the prosecutor brouhaha contributed to his decision.

Alberto Gonzales said a lot of nice things.

"Paul is an outstanding public servant and a fine attorney who has been valued here at the department, by me and so many others, as both a colleague and a friend," Gonzales said.

Let me be a little more precise. He said a lot of nice things yesterday. Today, Gonzales wasn't quite so complimentary.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday he relied heavily on his deputy to oversee the firings of U.S. attorneys, appearing to distance himself from his departing second-in-command....

"At the end of the day, the recommendations reflected the views of the deputy attorney general. He signed off on the names," Gonzales told reporters after a speech about Justice Department steps to curb rising violent crime.

"The one person I would care about would be the views of the deputy attorney general, because the deputy attorney general is the direct supervisor of the United States attorneys," Gonzales said.

So after months of Congress asking a simple question -- who ordered the firings? -- Gonzales has finally provided an answer: McNulty.

Except that there's mounds of evidence that the actual driving forces were Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling, and all McNulty did was sign the final list. Plus, if Gonzales was so interested in the opinion of the man who oversaw the prosecutors, why did he never consult Jim Comey?

As House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers put it, "With this Justice Department, the buck always stops somewhere else, and the fall guy is always the last guy out of the door."

Now, that's hardly a failing that's limited to Justice, or Republicans, or the current administration. Lesser mortals always take bullets for top officials. But Gonzales appears prepared to sacrifice the entire top leadership of the department, if necessary -- and he is so not worth it.

Speaking of Jim Comey, he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, and dropped this bombshell:

On the night of March 10, 2004, a high-ranking Justice Department official rushed to a Washington hospital to prevent two White House aides from taking advantage of the critically ill Attorney General, John Ashcroft, the official testified today.

One of those aides was Alberto R. Gonzales, who was then White House counsel and eventually succeeded Mr. Ashcroft as Attorney General.

“I was very upset,” said James B. Comey, who was deputy Attorney General at the time, in his testimony today before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I was angry. I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me.”

Besides being distasteful, what's the bombshell? This story has been told before.

The New York Times link above lays out the events of the night in gripping detail. But the Washington Post sums up their significance..

The White House three years ago reauthorized a controversial surveillance program, parts of which the Justice Department found to be illegal, overriding the objections of top department officials after failing to get a seriously ill attorney general John D. Ashcroft to sign off on it from his hospital bed, Ashcroft's former deputy told a Senate panel today.

So the White House wanted the Justice Department to say the eavesdropping program was legal. Justice refused. The White House went so far as to send Gonzales to pressure an ailing Ashcroft to sign off on it from his hospital bed, and when both he and Comey refused, the administration decided to reauthorize the program anyway. Only the threat of mass resignations at Justice averted that move.

Justice's approval was not required by law. But its refusal to say the program was legal offers powerful evidence that the program broke the law. Rather than accept the rule of law, the administration ignored the advice of its own lawyers and did what it wanted to do anyway.

The only high-ranking legal mind that decided the program was legal: Alberto Gonzales. The same Gonzales who pressured a sick man to sign a form. The same Gonzales who came up with the legal justification for torture. The same Gonzales who appears to have been almost absent as a manager at Justice, consumed as he was with being a full-time lapdog for Bush. The same Gonzales who lied to Congress, and when confronted with his contradictions retreated into "I don't know" mode about significant departmental events.

Resign already, Fredo.

McNulty, Comey, Gonzales, politics, midtopia

Iraq and the GOP

Speaking of Iraq, a group of moderate House Republicans have warned President Bush that the Iraq war is deeply damaging the Republican Party, and he cannot count on support from that quarter for too much longer.

The meeting between 11 House Republicans, Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, White House political adviser Karl Rove and presidential press secretary Tony Snow was perhaps the clearest sign yet that patience in the party is running out. The meeting, organized by Rep. Charlie Dent (Pa.), one of the co-chairs of the moderate "Tuesday Group," included Reps. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), Michael N. Castle (Del.), Todd R. Platts (Pa.), Jim Ramstad (Minn.) and Jo Ann Emerson (Mo.)....

Davis, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, also presented Bush dismal polling figures to dramatize just how perilous the party's position is, participants said. Davis would not disclose details, saying the exchange was private. Others warned Bush that his personal credibility on the war is all but gone.

Ya think?

The one thing everyone seems united on -- including Senate Democrats and me -- is that the House war-funding bill, which only provides money through July, is a bad idea, doomed to yet another sustainable presidential veto. Let's hope the House and Senate versions pass quickly, and they toss out the bad stuff in conference committee. That would leave a bill that funds the war through September -- giving us time to assess the "surge" -- while providing timetables that the Iraqi government must meet. Get it passed and to the president's desk in the next two weeks. If he vetoes that, the blame is entirely on his head. Bush seems to recognize that, publicly agreeing to "negotiate" on benchmarks.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Troubles in the Green Zone

The Moderate Voice has a comprehensive post on the political situation in Iraq. The summary:

Not only do Iraq lawmakers plan to surge away from their desks for a looonnnnnng vacation this summer (two months) while American troops fighting in and for their country won’t get similar R&R, but it now turns out that a majority of lawmakers are singing the old familiar song: “Yankee Go Home” — to the tune of a demand for a U.S. withdrawal timetable.

The source: A survey of Iraqi lawmakers that found more than half of Parliament wants a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, the happy talk from the Iraqi national security adviser notwithstanding.

And I must join in touting this essay by Jason Steck on the surge. It, and the comment thread, are purely excellent. I disagree with some of his assessments, but I concur with his explanation of the surge and some of his ideas for assessing its success or failure.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

The distaff side of misogyny

Coyote Angry has a wonderfully funny and barbed post on how sexism really hasn't worked out that well for men. My favorite part:

Another lightbulb moment was seeing a middle eastern woman on television gloating about her wonderful, dearly departed martyr husband and how "Sheik Osama" had sent her a big, fat wad of cash. Beautiful strategy....encourage the men to blow themselves up and you get the payoff AND the love and respect of your community, you're set for life and no annoying male to spoil it for you. The men apparently have not figured this one out yet. Hey martyr guys.....you're being played.

Few people do rants as well as she does. Give it a read.

politics, midtopia

The Book of Mitt

Will the candidacy of Mitt Romney produce -- dare I say it -- a teachable moment?

I've written before about my perspective on the state of Islam, the existence of moderate Muslims and the illogic of people who say "Islam, not Muslims, is the problem."

First, to make such a claim one must ignore all the real-life examples of moderate Muslims -- such as the moderate Muslim who helped the British foil a plot to bomb transatlantic jetliners. If they exist, it stands to reason that there can be moderate interpretations of Koran.

Second, the holy books of most major religions contain violent passages, passages depicting horrific punishments for nonbelievers or outsiders, passages rife with misogynism, racism and fourth-grade ethics. That's what you get from books written between 1,400 and 4,000 years ago.

It makes no sense to point to such passages in the Koran and say all Muslims are violent or evil without applying the same logic to Christians and Jews and Hindus. The latter have (mostly) managed to overcome the violence and tribalism built into their books; it stands to reason that Muslims can, too -- and have.

Which brings us to Romney. Because in his case I'm starting to see the roles reversed: Some liberals/Democrats bashing Mormonism (using sites such as this one) and conservatives/Republicans defending him.

All of which, with luck, gives us an opportunity to pause and think. Liberals should realize that by adopting the tactics of Islamaphobes, they become no better than those they oppose. Conservatives should realize that if the tactic is illegitimate when directed at Romney, it's also illegitimate when directed at Muslims.

Some bloggers point to time as an important distinction: Christianity's violence is in its past, while Islam's is in the present. They are right, but that still does not make Islam the problem; the problem is certain medieval interpretations of Islam that still hold sway in some areas. Instead of attacking Islam as a whole, we should be attacking those vile interpretations. That way we get to be intellectually consistent, logically correct, and as a practical matter it minimizes the number of enemies we have to deal with (some Muslims instead of all Muslims).

As for Romney, he's not in my top five list of candidates I would vote for. I find his new-found conservative views both wrong and a fine example of gross pandering. But who the heck cares if he's a Mormon? Even if he was deadset on creating a Mormon version of Sharia law, does anyone seriously think he could do so? You think the distinctly non-Mormon Congress and courts would go along with him, not to mention the American populace and those trial lawyers that Republicans love to hate? I have yet to see any plausible scenario wherein Romney's faith could have any meaningful impact on his presidency, and thus be a legitimate factor in his presidential campaign.

If we can absorb that lesson in tolerance (and the limits of power) and then transfer it to other religions, Romney's campaign will have performed a public service, win or lose.

religion, Romney, politics, midtopia