Running from the "evangelical" label

Conservative partisans like to taunt liberals for shunning the "liberal" label. "What are you ashamed of?" they ask. "Is there something wrong with being a liberal?"

No. But conservatives have spent the better part of 20 years actively trying to turn "liberal" into a dirty word. Not by addressing the principles of liberalism -- which might not be possible anyway because liberal covers a pretty wide swath of ground. No, they did it by using "liberal" to describe any words or deeds committed by anyone on the left side of the spectrum, thus tarring every liberal with the actions of their most extreme members -- including many people who are so far left that they wouldn't be considered liberals by either themselves or mainstream liberals.

Which is why it is not hard to find people who seriously believe that all liberals are socialists or communists. That's plain ignorant, but it's a mark of the demonization campaign's success. It's been so successful, in fact, that rather than deal with that baggage liberals have tried to find new undemonized terms such as "progressive".

That's why I found this New York Times article pretty interesting. Turns out that conservative evangelicals are facing the same problem.

The evangelical movement as it is known today emerged in the 1940's and 50's as a middle way between what many Christian leaders perceived as theological liberalism in the mainline Protestant denominations and the cultural separatism of the fundamentalist movement.

Today, with the term, "evangelical" often equated with "fundamentalist," many in the movement are even discussing whether the label evangelical should be jettisoned completely, said David Neff, editor of Christianity Today, an evangelical magazine.

"I did sit in a room with a number of key leaders, some Christian college presidents, some representatives of major college ministries," he said. "They were seriously discussing whether the word evangelical should be used anymore, or should we call ourselves classic Christians or historic orthodox Christians."

Will liberals now ask "Hey, what are you ashamed of? Is there something wrong with being an evangelical?" I hope not.

Will conservative partisans now stop the taunting? I hope so. That's the great thing about reckless polemics: eventually they come back to bite you in the ass.

evangelical, politics, midtopia

Rumsfeld roundup

The pro-Rumsfeld generals are starting to speak up. So far we have:

1. Richard Myers, former chairman of the joint chiefs.

2. Tommy Franks, who led the invasion of Iraq;

3. Michael DeLong, who was the No. 2 officer at Central Command.

None of this is particularly surprising; Myers was closely linked to Rumsfeld, and it was Franks' war plan that Rumsfeld adopted.

Separately, my earlier attempt to quantify the number of generals necessarily left off the number of retired generals. According to the Pentagon, there are about 8,000 active and retired generals.

None of that invalidates David Ignatius' estimate that 75 percent or more of senior officers oppose Rumsfeld.

Also today, David Brooks called Rumsfeld a "past-tense man" and suggested he needed to resign. The relevant quote:

Rumsfeld the reformer never adjusted to the circumstances of wartime. Once the initiator of new ideas, he now strangles ideas. Once the modernizer, he's now the dinosaur. Amid the war on terror, he has unleashed a reign of terror on his subordinates.

If you just looked at his résumé, you might think he was the best person to lead the Pentagon in time of war, but in reality he was the worst because his whole life had misprepared him for what was to come. He was prepared to fight organizations. He was not prepared to fight enemies.

Now the bureaucracy he assaulted is rising up against him. In other times their enmity would be a mark of accomplishment, but now it's a symptom of failure. He has become a past-tense man.

Meanwhile, former ambassador Richard Holbrooke says the criticism is highly unusual, and adds that the evidence against Rumsfeld appears overwhelming (see the excellent walkthrough at the Moderate Voice).
Should be an interesting week.

Myers, Franks, Delong, Holbrooke, Brooks, Rumsfeld, politics, midtopia

Happy Easter

Had an egg hunt this morning. Not to mention the Peep research.

Enjoy!

Peeps, Easter, midtopia

Help the rich, hurt the middle class

While Republicans push to permanently bury the estate (er, "death" ) tax, they appear willing to sock it to the middle class.

Unless Congress takes action, one in four families with children — up from one in 22 last year — will owe up to $3,640 in additional federal income tax come next April.

Few of them realize that their taxes have increased, because Congress has not voted to raise taxes. Instead, Congress let a tax break expire. That break limited the alternative minimum tax, which takes back part of the tax cuts sponsored by President Bush.

That's right. While we argue about a tax that only affects the top 1% of estates, we ignore a tax that everyone agrees is broken and affects far more people.

This makes sense why?

I've argued before that the estate tax makes sense -- or at least, repealing it now doesn't make sense. It's a matter of priorities.

In addition, if AMT doesn't get fixed, it'll be because Congress decided to protect a tax break for dividends instead. The difference:

The A.M.T. will cost Americans who earn $50,000 to $200,000 nearly $13 billion more next April. That is about how much people who earn more than $1 million will save because of the break on investment income like dividends and capital gains.

The next time someone starts talking about why we need to eliminate the estate tax or reduce taxes on investment income or fix anything else in the tax code, tell them "Fix the AMT first; then we'll talk."

taxes, alternative minimum tax, estate tax, AMT, politics, midtopia

Palestine civil war watch

Unpaid members of Palestinian security forces occupied goverment buildings and demanded that they get paid at once -- a demand that the cash-strapped Hamas-led government, hit with a suspension of financial aid from the United States and the EU, is totally unable to meet.

Russia, breaking with the West, promised immediate aid. And Hamas voiced the hope that Arab governments would step in to help, too.

There are a lot of interlocking factors at work here. For instance:

1. The protesters are mostly members of Fatah, Hamas' political rival. So the protest could be a sign of impending clashes -- or simply an attempt to put political pressure on Hamas.

2. If Russia comes through with the aid, and Arab governments do to, than our suspension of aid will have greatly increased their influence at our expense. The worst thing for the West would be for the Palestinians to discover they don't need us.

3. Hamas is unlikely to tolerate being forced to capitulate on recognizing Israel due to financial and political pressure from the West. Even if they do so, will they mean it?

I think suspending the aid so quickly was a mistake. It showed a lack of faith that the Palestinian people could hold Hamas responsible, and it has worsened a bad situation.

What we should have done was gone to Hamas behind the scenes and said "look, you have to recognize Israel's right to exist by such-and-such a date or we will suspend our aid." That would make it clear that actions have consequences, but it would have given them time to review their position without being backed into a corner and having to lose face, as well as maintaining our influence through their continued dependence on Western financial aid.

In dangerous situations, it's good policy to make sure you always have at least one bullet left. Now, having used our one and only bullet, we can only sit back and hope for the best.

Fatah, Russia, Hamas, Palestine, politics, midtopia

U.S. seeks sanctions against Iran

The United States will ask its allies to freeze Iranian assets, impose visa restrictions and perhaps apply some trade sanctions if Iran does not abandon its nuclear program.

And why not? Iran is enriching uranium (though its claims are overblown and it's years away from acquiring strategic amounts of weapons-grade material), and their president is a nutcase. A basic rule of thumb: don't let nutcases have nukes, especially when they've been caught redhanded violating the treaties they say give them the right to have nukes.

Wouldn't it be nice if sanctions caused the Iranians to capitulate? Yep. Unfortunately, even setting aside the question of Iranian psychology, the U.S. will have trouble getting sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council, what with Russia and China opposing the idea. We should still try; it will at least get that debate over with so we can consider other options. But it's a long shot.

Why? Well, the best way to make Iran pay attention without unduly harming Iranian civilians is to cut off military sales and aid. That -- and Iranian oil and trade -- is why Russia and China oppose sanctions: they're Iran's major arms suppliers, and they'd be the ones taking the big economic hit.

Might the West agree to compensate them for the lost trade in exchange for not opposing sanctions? That might work with Russia, which has plentiful oil of its own, but not China: China's economy is thirsty, and Iran's oil is not easily replaced. As well, both see their relationship with Iran as a key one for the future, giving them an oil-rich ally in a volatile region. They're not going to jeopardize that if they can help it. And both would prefer to make their money on trade rather than take handouts from the West.

Maybe careful diplomacy can persuade Russia that Iran getting nukes is just a short step away from a nuclear Beslan. But there's very little we can offer China that will speak louder than Iran's oil.

If either Russia or China refuses to budge, there's not much we can do other than use the IAEA to build the case against Iran and try to build a sanctions regime that bypasses the U.N.

Which is why a military strike must remain an option. An option of last resort, to be sure -- let's exhaust every other avenue first -- but an option nonetheless. Because it may well be that the threat of force -- and, if it comes to that, the use of force -- is the only thing that can make Iran pay attention.

sanctions, nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

Piling on, and some perspective

Another general joins the anti-Rumsfeld fray.

Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., who led troops on the ground in Iraq as recently as 2004 as the commander of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, on Thursday became the fifth retired senior general in recent days to call publicly for Mr. Rumsfeld's ouster. Also Thursday, another retired Army general, Maj. Gen. John Riggs, joined in the fray.

"We need to continue to fight the global war on terror and keep it off our shores," General Swannack said in a telephone interview. "But I do not believe Secretary Rumsfeld is the right person to fight that war based on his absolute failures in managing the war against Saddam in Iraq."

Swannack has actually been critical of Rumsfeld for a while, so he doesn't really count as new -- though this may be the first time he's actually said Rumsfeld should be fired.

By my tally this makes at least nine former generals who want Rumsfeld gone:

Major generals: Paul Eaton, John Batiste, John Riggs, Charles Swannack,
Lt. generals: Gregory Newbold, William Odom
Generals: Anthony Zinni, Wesley Clark, Colin Powell

Those are split between Army and Marine generals.

We can probably add in Gen. Eric Shinseki as well, plus several active and retired generals who have indicated disapproval of Rumsfeld but declined to be named.

To be fair, this represents a small fraction of all the generals in the military.

The linked chart shows 2002 officer strength by pay grade; To see how that corresponds to rank, check here.

As you can see, in the Army and Marines there are about 380 generals. Now half of those are brigadiers, which can be discounted; they're not usually in on the senior strategy discussions. Neither are most of the 124 major generals, but we need to acknowledge them because four of the critics listed above were major generals, and some of them worked with the Joint Chiefs and/or were offered higher responsibilities.

So depending on how you slice it (and this is a very rough approximation, because they didn't all retire at the same time), the critics represent:

5.2 percent of those with a rank of major general or higher;
6.2 percent of those with a rank of lieutenant general or higher;
28.6 percent of those with a rank of general.

There are vastly more retirees than active-duty generals, but on the other hand active-duty generals are unlikely to speak out and many retired ones won't, either, even if they agree that Rumsfeld should go.

What does it mean? Hard to say, because the sample size is so small. It seems that the more contact generals had with Rumsfeld, the more they opposed him, but that's not exactly proven. If that is the case, the question is whether that's because he was shaking up the Pentagon with his reform program, or because he was blindly arrogant and micromanaging the war planning and execution. People will pick the answer they like best, of course, but I would point to a few key things:

1. The generals were right, and Rumsfeld wrong, about many of the specifics regarding Iraq.
2. Many of the generals support the war in Iraq, but criticize Rumsfeld's handling of it;
3. Most of these generals do not qualify as "disgruntled"; many held or were offered senior positions under Rumsfeld.

So while they may have multiple axes to grind, I think the balance of evidence suggests that it was Rumsfeld's mistakes, not his reforms, that have pushed these generals to go public.

UPDATE: Columnist David Ignatius has joined the call to replace Rumsfeld. But what makes his column relevant to this post is what he says about Rumsfeld's support within the military.

Rumsfeld has lost the support of the uniformed military officers who work for him. Make no mistake: The retired generals who are speaking out against Rumsfeld in interviews and op-ed pieces express the views of hundreds of other officers on active duty. When I recently asked an Army officer with extensive Iraq combat experience how many of his colleagues wanted Rumsfeld out, he guessed 75 percent. Based on my own conversations with senior officers over the past three years, I suspect that figure may be low.

When you alienate 75 percent of your officer corps, it's not because your reform program is ruffling a few feathers.

Ignatius, Rumsfeld, generals, politics, midtopia

Vitamins trouble pharmacist's conscience

Apparently some pharmacists in Seattle have moral issues with antibiotics and vitamins:

According to the complaint, someone at the Swedish pharmacy said she was "morally unable" to fill a Cedar River patient's prescription for abortion-related antibiotics.

(snip)

The complaint also includes an incident from November 2005 in Yakima, in which a pharmacist at a Safeway reportedly refused to fill a Cedar River patient's prescription for pregnancy-related vitamins. The pharmacist reportedly asked the customer why she had gone to Cedar River Clinics and then told the patient she "didn't need them if she wasn't pregnant."

As the same subject is debated here in Minnesota -- thanks to a bill sponsored by the ubiquitous Tom Emmer -- how far are we willing to go in allowing pharmacists to let their conscience be their guide?

With a few narrow exceptions, I don't think we should pass a law compelling all pharmacists to dispense every single medication customers demand. By the same token, I don't think pharmacists should have special legal protection for refusing to do so. They're free to refuse, and their employer is free to fire them.

The exception I see is those rare cases where, for instance, it's a small town with only one pharmacy and no competition for fifty miles. Even then, mail-order prescriptions would solve most of the problem. But there will be times when a patient needs medication right now, and they should be able to get it. If it comes down to a choice, a pharmacist's conscience does not trump a patient's health or well-being.

A hat tip to Moderate Left for the initial link.

Minnesota, pharmacists, politics, midtopia

Generals 6, Rumsfeld 1

A sixth retired general has now gone public with his opposition to Rumsfeld.

Retired Maj. Gen. John Riggs sees fault in the handling of the military's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I think he should step aside and let someone step in who can be more realistic," Riggs told NPR's Michele Norris on Thursday.

Riggs served in the Army for 39 years, attaining the rank of three-star general. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions as a helicopter pilot during Vietnam.

It's not too hard to figure out at least one reason Riggs dislikes Rumsfeld. He was demoted and forced to retire last year, ostensibly for "misuse of contractors." But the infractions were considered so minor they didn't go on his record, and the real reason appears to be that Riggs often and sometimes publicly argued that the Army was overstretched and needed to be enlarged, by tens of thousands of troops.

Related posts here and here, and here is a guest post I did for The Reaction that lays out a more comprehensive case for Rumsfeld's resignation.

UPDATE: The White House has reiterated its support for Rumsfeld.


White House, general, Riggs, Rumsfeld, politics, midtopia

DeLay in line for White House job?

You just can't make this stuff up.

The White House is looking at a list of cost-cutting candidates to head the Office of Management and Budget, and Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, may be on it.

The former House majority leader, who announced he will resign from Congress and is under a state indictment on political money laundering charges, is listed as a possible replacement for Josh Bolten, the U.S. News and World Report said.

Why yes, I think that'd be a brilliant idea. Why shouldn't they appoint a man who is under indictment? Why shouldn't they reward a guy who quit Congress because he feared he couldn't win re-election in his heavily Republican district?

Then again, this is the same administration that turned a man who got outpolled by a dead guy into the goofiest attorney general in history.

My guess is that sanity will prevail and DeLay will not get the job, nor any job, while still under indictment. But sanity and the administration aren't always closely related concepts.

Related post: The Ballad of Tom DeLay

OMB, DeLay, politics, midtopia

A different kind of security problem

While the U.S. grapples with leaks, debates over use of intelligence and whether we should be eavesdropping on American citizens without warrants, actual secrets are waltzing out into the world through a more mundane method: theft.

Afghan cleaners, garbage collectors, and other workers from the Bagram base arrive each day offering purloined goods, including knives, watches, refrigerators, packets of Viagra, and flash memory drives taken from military laptops. The drives, smaller than a pack of chewing gum, are sold as used equipment.

Aside from the obvious question -- what are packets of Viagra doing lying around a U.S. military base? -- this petty pilferage represents a surprising security hole.

A reporter recently obtained several drives at the bazaar that contained documents marked ''Secret." The contents included documents that were potentially embarrassing to Pakistan, a US ally, presentations that named suspected militants targeted for ''kill or capture," and discussions of US efforts to ''remove" or ''marginalize" Afghan government officials whom the military considered ''problem makers."

The drives also included deployment rosters and other documents that identified nearly 700 US service members and their Social Security numbers.

How is this happening? Human failings.

Workers are supposed to be frisked as they leave the base, but they have various ways of deceiving guards, such as hiding computer drives behind photo IDs that they wear in holders around their necks, shop owners said. Others said that US soldiers sell military property and help move it off the base, saying they need the money to pay bills back home.

Yeep. It may be difficult to stop petty theft, but why are computer drives containing sensitive information left lying around to be stolen? Why are they not accounted for? Whatever happened to information security?

Detailed stuff like this is what poses real, operational threats to security, by providing actionable details for enemies to unravel. It seems a bit ludicrous to complain about things like revealing the existence of a CIA prison network or NSA spying program when stuff like this is going on.

leaks, Bagram, Afghanistan, politics, midtopia

Conyers accused of ethical violations

Rep. John Conyers, D.-Mich., has been accused of improperly using his Congressional staff to babysit his children and work on political campaigns, including his wife's.

Sydney Rooks, whom Conyers hired as a legal adviser in his Detroit office, recalls the lawmaker brought his two young sons into her office several times, saying, "Rooks, they're your responsibility for right now. I'll be back later."...

(snip)

Deanna Maher, who was deputy chief of staff in Conyers' Downriver office, says her baby-sitting duties turned into a stint as a full-time nanny. "He handed me the keys to his car and his house, [said] take care of my child Carl and everything," Maher told CNN from her western Michigan home.

Maher says she moved into Conyers' Detroit home. She took care of his elder son for several weeks, she says, while the congressman was in Washington and his wife attended law classes in Oklahoma.

Maher, Rooks and two other staffers have filed complaints with the House ethics committee.

If true this is disappointing, though not in a "hang him high" sense. Misusing staffers is a petty offense compared to corruption or bribery. Having staffers do campaign work would violate campaign finance laws, but the seriousness of that would depend on the extent of the work.

Of course, the likelihood of this ever being resolved is very small, because the House ethics committee is pretty much nonfunctional.

It was also disappointing -- if predictable -- to see Democrats borrow a GOP tactic and use the "disgruntled former worker" defense:

Sam Riddle, a spokesman for Monica Conyers, said the councilwoman "denies that any of the congressman's staff helped with her campaign." Riddle called the former staff members "disgruntled employees who couldn't cut it in the work force."

At least he categorically denied the charge. But the "disgruntled" defense should be done away with. The motivation of those making charges is irrelevant; what matters is whether their charges have any merit. Claiming a critic is merely "disgruntled" is a way to imply the charges are baseless without having to directly address them. That may be smart in a legal sense, but it's the weasel way out.

ethics, Conyers, politics, midtopia

Closing the circle

In a recent post about voter ID requirements, I agreed with Katherine Kersten that a voter ID requirement was reasonable -- providing, I added, there was a fallback provision so that people without IDs could still vote, using provisional ballots, for example.

What I failed to do is explain exactly what the current voter ID bill, sponsored by Rep. Tom Emmers and supported by Kersten, says.

Here's the text of the bill.

It requires a photo ID, period. No fallback options. No ID, no vote.

That constitutes an unreasonable barrier to voting, especially given that there's no evidence that voter fraud is a widespread problem now. If someone shows up to vote, they should be allowed to vote. If they don't have ID, their vote will only count once their right to vote has been confirmed. But they should not be turned away for lack of ID.

Given that shortcoming of Emmers' bill, it should either be amended or rejected.

vote fraud, voter ID, Minnesota, Kersten, Emmers, politics, midtopia

Definitely Diverse

If you've got a spare moment, check out Diverse and Contradictory. I know the owner, and while he started out a bit slowly the site is rolling along nicely now.

His stated purpose is building a movement of individualists, which strikes me as guaranteed lifetime employment if he can ever get it to pay. But his Credo is worth reading, and he's got some interesting takes on subjects like lobbying and immigration reform and privacy.

politics, midtopia

Sen. Bachmann exposed

A couple of blogger scoops about the flagbearer for discrimination in Minnesota.

Over at Always Right, Usually Correct, a conservative calls Bachmann a "coward" for refusing to face the truth face to face.

And Great Plains View notes a letter to the Pioneer Press debunking Bachmann's claim that she consulted her family before launching her anti-gay-marriage crusade.

With Phil Krinkie challenging her for the GOP nomination in the 6th Congressional District, I have high hopes that Bachmann won't be going to Washington. Now if only she can get voted out of the state Senate, too....

Minnesota, Krinkie, Bachmann, politics, midtopia

Military recruiters chased off campus

Some people just don't get it.

Four military recruiters hastily fled a job fair Tuesday morning at UC Santa Cruz after a raucous crowd of student protesters blocked an entrance to the building where the Army and National Guard had set up information tables.

Members of Students Against War, who organized the counter-recruiting protest, loudly chanted "Don't come back. Don't come back" as the recruiters left the hilltop campus, escorted by several university police officers.

For a detailed discussion of why everyone, including antiwar activists, should want the military recruiting on campus, see here. It's in everyone's best interest.

As for this specific case, I oppose the war in Iraq. But these students have made the mistake of confusing the war with the warrior.

"We're saying it's not OK to recruit on high school campuses, it's not OK to recruit on university campuses,'' Marla Zubel, a UC Santa Cruz senior and member of Students Against War, said. "In order to stop the war, you have to make it more difficult to wage war."

Nonsense. The military is a tool. If you object to the way it is used, take it up with the tool user. Don't damage the tool so it can't be used at all. I'm sure the survivors of the Asian tsunami were glad we had a globe-spanning military, as were the survivors of Hurricane Katrina. As were the residents of Kosovo.

Moreover, the students are trampling on the First Amendment rights of the recruiters and students interested in a military career.

But at least one student, Cody James, said he was disappointed that he couldn't get in to speak with the military personnel.

"It's frustrating,'' said James, a senior majoring in politics. "I'm not a Republican. I'm not a conservative. I don't support the war. It's about finding a career."

The way to counter speech you don't like is with persuasive arguments, not by drowning it out. Don't like the war? Protest the war. But don't deny other citizens their rights, and don't turn everyone in a uniform into scapegoats.

Students Against War, protest, campus, military, recruiters, politics, midtopia

Do any generals actually support Rumsfeld?

Another recently retired general says Donald Rumsfeld has to go.

The retired commander of key forces in Iraq called yesterday for Donald H. Rumsfeld to step down, joining several other former top military commanders who have harshly criticized the secretary of defense's authoritarian style for making the military's job more difficult.

"I think we need a fresh start" at the top of the Pentagon, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004-05, said in an interview. "We need leadership up there that respects the military as they expect the military to respect them. And that leadership needs to understand teamwork."

He joins retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton and Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni all of whom have spoken out against Rumsfeld in recent weeks. You could add to that list William Odom and Wesley Clark, as well as criticisms from the likes of Gen. Charles Swannack and Col. Paul Hughes.

Plus a lot of still-active officers, apparently; Batiste said that many of his peers felt the same way.

Batiste isn't some underachiever:

He was offered a promotion to three-star rank to return to Iraq and be the No. 2 U.S. military officer there, but declined because he no longer wished to serve under Rumsfeld. Also, before going to Iraq, he worked at the highest level of the Pentagon, serving as the senior military assistant to Paul D. Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of defense.

Of course, Bush didn't listen to these guys when they were in the military. Why would he listen to them now?

UPDATE: Colin Powell has joined the chorus against Rumsfeld. This isn't particularly surprising -- it was well known that he didn't like Rumsfeld's approach -- but up until now he had kept relatively quiet on the subject. Does this constitute a tipping point?

UPDATE II: If you're looking for posts discussing generals that support Rumsfeld, try here and here.

Powell, Rumsfeld, Odom, Batiste, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Busy busy busy

The site's on pace for it's third consecutive 100-visitor day, thanks to links from the Daou Report, the Moderate Voice and the Reaction.. If the pace keeps up, the site will get its 2,000th visitor today.

The most popular post at the moment is ConBoy: The Ballad of Tom DeLay. Check it out if you haven't yet.

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by to check out Midtopia.

politics, midtopia

Misusing intelligence

In yet another revelation that serves to debunk administration claims that they were innocent victims of bad intelligence regarding Iraq, we now learn that they ignored inconvenient reports regarding Iraq's bioweapons capacity.

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.

A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.

The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories.

This wasn't a matter of the intelligence being in dispute:

The technical team was unequivocal in its conclusion that the trailers were not intended to manufacture biological weapons. ... "There was no connection to anything biological," said one expert who studied the trailers.

Yes, earlier, preliminary examinations by military intelligence did conclude that the trailers had biological applications. But those conclusions should have been trumped, or at least balanced, by this one. Instead, this report was ignored and the earlier reports played up and repeated with growing enthusiasm.

This was a postwar incident, so it doesn't speak directly about the intelligence situation during the runup to the war. But it's reasonable to conclude that postwar administration practices were similar to prewar practices -- in this case, trumpeting "evidence" that supported the administration case while ignoring evidence that contradicted it.

That may be human nature, but it's an inexcusable basis for going to war.

Bush, bioweapons, intelligence, WMD, trailers, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Competing to replace Cunningham

The special election to replace Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R.-Calif., will go to a runoff.

In the heavily Republican district, and out of a field of 18 candidates, Democrat Francine Busby took 44 percent of the vote. Her likely opponent appears to be Brian Bilbray, the GOP-endorsed candidate, who got 15 percent.

Turnout wasn't very high, and 18 candidates meant a seriously split vote. So Busby's margin doesn't say much about how the runoff will go.

But does anyone see the irony in the GOP endorsing Bilbray, a former congressman who is now a lobbyist, to replace a man who was forced to resign thanks to his too-close ties to campaign donors? Isn't Bilbray part of the problem?

I suppose electing a lobbyist could be seen as improving government efficiency by cutting out the middle man....

Bilbray, Busby, Cunningham, politics, midtopia