From Remarks by President George Bush, Prime Minister of Ireland Bertie Ahern, and President of the European Commission Romano Prodi on Saturday:
Q Thank you. Mr. President, you don't appear to be a very popular fellow here in Europe. Do you have any explanation for your poor poll standings? And is that something that should concern Americans?PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, Hutch, I must confess that the first polls I worry about are those that are going to take place in early November of this year. I -- listen, I care about the image of our country. We've got a country that we've just got two-and-a-half trillion dollars worth of trade, or $2.2 trillion worth of trade with the EU. Obviously, something positive is happening.
I don't like it when the values of our country are -- are misunderstood because of the actions of some people overseas. As far as my own personal standing goes, Hutch, my job is to do my job. I'm going to do it the way I think is necessary. I'm going to set a vision, I will lead, and we'll just let the chips fall where they may.
In this White House Pool Report, notes are passed. Highlight:The White House will soon be releasing some documents related to the turnover of power in Iraq, including a photo release of the note that Rumsfeld handed to Bush this morning notifying him of the handover. The note was written by Condi Rice, handed to Rumsfeld and passed to Bush.
Here's what it said: "Mr. President, Iraq is sovereign. Letter was passed to Bremer at 10:26 a.m. Iraq time -- Condi."
That's the end of the note, but Bush wrote, "Let Freedom Reign!'' with a black sharpie across the bottom.
(Wonkette)
A book written by a top CIA counterterrorism official alleges that the Bush administration has bungled the war on terror, and because of poor decisions the United States faces a choice in Iraq and Afghanistan "between war and endless war."Written by a high-level counterterrorism expert and published under the name "Anonymous," the book "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror" is unique in that it was written by an official still working for the CIA.
And with the book slated to be released next week, the author has already appeared -- in shadow -- on a Sunday political talk show to defend his work.
On ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopolous," the author accused some senior officials in the U.S. intelligence community of "a great deal of moral or bureaucratic cowardice" in dealing with the war on terror.Although he was relatively muted on the topic of George Tenet, the outgoing director of the CIA, the author was unsparing in his criticism of the Bush administration's decision to wait a month after the September 11, 2001, attacks before going to war in Afghanistan.
"We were facing a government, the Taliban, which was basically a rural insurgency trying to govern cities, and al Qaeda, which is a 20-year-old insurgency. If you were going to hit them, sir, you had to hit them on the 11th or the 12th or the 13th."
"By the time the 7th of October rolled along, most of those forces had been dispersed into the countryside, into Pakistan, into Iran, overseas to other countries. There was no 'there' left when we went there," he said.
In his book, the author labeled the invasion of Iraq a "Christmas gift" to Osama bin Laden and said the country has become a "Mujahadeen magnet" attracting Muslims from around the world to fight the occupying U.S. forces. (CNN)
Now that Bush can say "condom" (see #130), Cheney blazes ahead:
A brief argument between Vice President Cheney and a senior Democratic senator led Cheney to utter a big-time obscenity on the Senate floor this week.On Tuesday, Cheney, serving in his role as president of the Senate, appeared in the chamber for a photo session. A chance meeting with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, became an argument about Cheney's ties to Halliburton Co., an international energy services corporation, and President Bush's judicial nominees. The exchange ended when Cheney offered some crass advice.
"Fuck yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.
[...]
There is no rule against obscene language by a vice president on the Senate floor. The senators were present for a group picture and not in session, so Rule 19 of the Senate rules -- which prohibits vulgar statements "unbecoming a senator" -- does not apply, according to a Senate official. Even if the Senate were in session, the vice president, though constitutionally the president of the Senate, is an executive branch official and therefore free to use whatever language he likes. (the Washington Post, via Wonkette)
Sure, we believe the VP should be able to utter a phrase including "fuck" when it is appropriate - though the Senate floor is not the first place that comes to mind when we imagine appropriate venues. What we take issue with is the grand morality espoused by this Administration, and the many, many ways that Bush et al. use their sense of exceptionalism only when it is convenient for them.
Update, via the Washington Times:
The U.S. vice president is defending his use of profanity during a sharp exchange with Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., the Washington Post reported Saturday.Dick Cheney said he "probably" used an obscenity during an argument Tuesday on the Senate floor with Leahy, after Leahy apparently needled him about his relationship with the scandal-plagued Halliburton Corp.
"I expressed myself rather forcefully, felt better after I had done it," Cheney told Neil Cavuto of Fox News.
Cheney said those who heard the putdown agreed with him.
"I think that a lot of my colleagues felt that what I had said badly needed to be said, that it was long overdue."
From “Bush Backs Condom Use to Prevent Spread of AIDS” in the New York Times:
President Bush said on Wednesday for the first time that the United States should "learn from the experience" of countries like Uganda in fighting AIDS and embraced the use of condoms to prevent its spread, a sensitive issue among conservative groups that have fought the adoption of any strategy that does not focus on abstinence.Announcing some modest changes to government financing for antiretroviral drugs in front of a church-affiliated group here, Mr. Bush also argued for sexual abstinence. But in his comments, he appeared to be offering something to both sides in the debate: his base of social conservatives as well as moderates in crucial election states like Pennsylvania, who have argued that Mr. Bush has been too slow to embrace effective methods of preventing AIDS.
"We can learn from the experiences of other countries when it comes to a good program to prevent the spread of AIDS, like the nation of Uganda," Mr. Bush said. "They've started what they call the A.B.C. approach to prevention of this deadly disease. That stands for: Abstain, be faithful in marriage, and, when appropriate, use condoms."
The approach was working and was a "practical, balanced and moral message," Mr. Bush said.
He was quick to add that "in addition to other kinds of prevention, we need to tell our children that abstinence is the only certain way to avoid contracting H.I.V."
[…]"I can't believe the president actually used the C-word," said Amy Coen, the president of Population Action International, which has long backed birth control and AIDS prevention in underdeveloped countries. "That's not one that comes easily to him. But it's one thing to use the word and another thing to actually fund it."
See White House transcript here.
From the Michigan Land Use Institute, via Helpful Reader Eric, "Bush Campaign Chair Fabricated Job Loss Number"
On April 8 Marc Racicot, President George W. Bush’s national campaign chairman, startled Michigan by announcing what sounded like an ominous fact. After dedicating the Bush-Cheney campaign’s state headquarters near Detroit, Mr. Racicot said that if Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s proposal to raise vehicle fuel mileage standards went into effect Michigan would “lose 105,000 jobs.”Mr. Racicot’s statement, meant to diminish Mr. Kerry’s standing in a swing state crucial to the campaigns of both candidates, was picked up by the state and national media. His comment was reported in the Detroit Free Press, The Detroit News, ABC News, and other print, broadcast, and Internet media.
But according to an investigation by the Great Lakes Bulletin News Service, Mr. Racicot’s assertion is at best a serious misrepresentation of a Pennsylvania economist’s two-year-old study, and at worst a deliberate fabrication. It also ignores the fact that many experts believe that improving fuel mileage would actually create more jobs, not eliminate them, and that the United Auto Workers supports Mr. Kerry and does not see his proposals about fuel efficiency as a threat to its members.
President George W. Bush's efforts to build democracy in Iraq are underpinned by a misguided view of America's own democracy. He believes that American democracy works because Americans are innately good people, believing in values of tolerance and respect for others and guided by religious faith.In his view, Americans don't need checks and balances so much as reminders of basic American values and America's overriding moral mission to bring freedom to the world. Similarly, abuses of power, as at Abu Ghraib prison and beyond, do not represent the failure of the system, but rather the deviant behavior of a few bad people.
In a speech last month, former Vice President Al Gore articulated a very different vision of American democracy, one that derives not from the Bible but from the U.S. Constitution. The founding fathers of the United States assumed that unrestrained power is dangerous. It not only enables bad people to commit abuses; it tends to corrupt ordinary, generally decent people. As James Madison said in the Federalist Papers: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary ... A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."
The "auxiliary precautions" decided upon were America's system of checks and balances, by which Congress, the president and the courts each check each other, as do the states and the federal government, to ensure that the power of the government is both limited and controlled.
These are not simply theoretical differences about the core of American democracy. They have profound implications for how we think about and control the role of the United States in the world.
If, in the president's view, the goodness of Americans and the nobility of our mission are self-evident, then the failure of peoples around the world to see the struggle in Iraq the same way we do means that they are "enemies of freedom." Fighters opposing American power, even if they are residents of occupied countries, do not merit the protections of international law. Institutional restraints on the exercise of power by Americans in detention centers and prisons can, in this view, safely be relaxed. Moreover, constitutional protections can be denied even to American citizens, arrested in the United States, when they are suspected of being "enemy combatants."
From James Madison's point of view, on the other hand, the abuses of Abu Ghraib would have been entirely explicable. The founding fathers, and great American leaders ever since, understood that without institutional restraints, voluntarily followed and supported by the top leadership, such abuses are virtually inevitable. This doesn't mean that Americans are "bad" people, just that they are human - like Iraqis, Afghans, Germans, Japanese, and every other nationality and race.
If the struggle against terrorism were to be carried out consistently with the institutional theory embedded in the U.S. Constitution, America's leaders would be well aware of the potential for abuse - even by decent patriots. They would have ensured not only that the Constitution was upheld at home, but that the more limited protections embodied in international law would have been conscientiously applied to people living under American occupation, or otherwise within U.S. control.
Behind the debate about the conduct of the war in Iraq, and the occupation, is a larger divide - between those Americans who believe that their unique virtues should permit them to act above the law, and those who believe that people in authority, necessarily imperfect, must be constrained by institutions and by law. Those who understand and believe in the theory of the American Constitution should reject the Bush administration's political theory of personal good and evil. We must continue to insist that the United States is a "government of laws and not of men."
Robert O. Keohane, professor of political science at Duke University, and Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, in the International Herald Tribune.
Democrat John Kerry picked up the endorsement on Monday of 48 Nobel Prize-winning scientists who attacked President Bush for "comprising our future" by shortchanging scientific research."The Bush administration has ignored unbiased scientific advice in the policy-making that is so important to our collective welfare," the 48 scientists, who have won Nobels in chemistry, physics and medicine dating back to 1967, said in an open letter released by the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign.
The scientists, who included 2003 chemistry winners Peter Agre and Roderick MacKinnon, accused the Bush administration of undermining America's future by reducing funding for science and turning away scientific talent with restrictive immigration policies. (Reuters via Wired News)
From yesterday's Boston Globe, "The ire of the Irish":
Twenty years ago, when Ronald Reagan visited his ancestral village in County Tipperary, most Irish people – uncharacteristically – bit their tongues.Reagan’s support for right-wing dictators and guerrillas in Central America and for the apartheid government in South Africa, not to mention his determination to put more missiles in Europe, made him wildly unpopular in the land of his forebears. Still, the Irish welcomed him to Ballyporeen, and cheered him when he took a sip from a pint of Guinness at a pub renamed in his honor – even though, truth be told, some Tipperarymen privately grumbled that a Secret Service agent took the first sip and that Reagan merely used the pint as a photo prop.
But things change, even in a country where it used to be said there was no future, just the past happening over and over again. The Ronald Reagan Pub in Ballyporeen is for sale. And next Friday, when George W. Bush touches down at Shannon Airport for a United States-European Union summit, many Irish people are expected to give him their equivalent of a Bronx cheer instead of the traditionalcead mile failte, or a hundred thousand welcomes. There were about 10,000 demonstrators when Reagan visited Ireland; Irish police say they are preparing for at least 10 times that number next week.
Determined to keep an expected crush of protesters away from Bush, the Irish police are mounting the biggest security operation in the country’s history – which, on an island that endured a fierce 30-year Irish Republican Army insurgency, says something.
From today's British Medical Journal, via Helpful Reader Eric, "Bush plans to screen whole US population for mental illness"
A sweeping mental health initiative will be unveiled by President George W Bush in July. The plan promises to integrate mentally ill patients fully into the community by providing "services in the community, rather than institutions," according to a March 2004 progress report entitled New Freedom Initiative. While some praise the plan's goals, others say it protects the profits of drug companies at the expense of the public.Bush established the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in April 2002 to conduct a "comprehensive study of the United States mental health service delivery system." The commission issued its recommendations in July 2003. Bush instructed more than 25 federal agencies to develop an implementation plan based on those recommendations.
The president's commission found that "despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed" and recommended comprehensive mental health screening for "consumers of all ages," including preschool children. According to the commission, "Each year, young children are expelled from preschools and childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviours and emotional disorders." Schools, wrote the commission, are in a "key position" to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at the schools.
"Consumers of all ages"?! Oh yeah, that bodes well...
The commission also recommended "Linkage [of screening] with treatment and supports" including "state-of-the-art treatments" using "specific medications for specific conditions." The commission commended the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) as a "model" medication treatment plan that "illustrates an evidence-based practice that results in better consumer outcomes."
Notice that again we're talking about the "consumer", not the "patient".
[. . .]But the Texas project, which promotes the use of newer, more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs, sparked off controversy when Allen Jones, an employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General, revealed that key officials with influence over the medication plan in his state received money and perks from drug companies with a stake in the medication algorithm (15 May, p1153). He was sacked this week for speaking to the BMJ and the New York Times.
The Texas project started in 1995 as an alliance of individuals from the pharmaceutical industry, the University of Texas, and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas. The project was funded by a Robert Wood Johnson grant—and by several drug companies.
Mr Jones told the BMJ that the same "political/pharmaceutical alliance" that generated the Texas project was behind the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission, which, according to his whistleblower report, were "poised to consolidate the TMAP effort into a comprehensive national policy to treat mental illness with expensive, patented medications of questionable benefit and deadly side effects, and to force private insurers to pick up more of the tab" (http://psychrights.org/Drugs/AllenJonesTMAPJanuary20.pdf).
[. . .]
Olanzapine (trade name Zyprexa), one of the atypical antipsychotic drugs recommended as a first line drug in the Texas algorithm, grossed $4.28bn (£2.35bn; 3.56bn) worldwide in 2003 and is Eli Lilly's top selling drug. A 2003 New York Times article by Gardiner Harris reported that 70% of olanzapine sales are paid for by government agencies, such as Medicare and Medicaid.
Eli Lilly, manufacturer of olanzapine, has multiple ties to the Bush administration. George Bush Sr was a member of Lilly's board of directors and Bush Jr appointed Lilly's chief executive officer, Sidney Taurel, to a seat on the Homeland Security Council. Lilly made $1.6m in political contributions in 2000—82% of which went to Bush and the Republican Party.
Jones points out that the companies that helped to start up the Texas project have been, and still are, big contributors to the election funds of George W Bush. In addition, some members of the New Freedom Commission have served on advisory boards for these same companies, while others have direct ties to the Texas Medication Algorithm Project.
From today's AP wire via Yahoo! News:
"In the White House's underground shelter, with reports of a jet closing in, Cheney authorized the Air Force to shoot down hijacked planes. Cheney said Bush earlier had given him the authority to do so.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - For want of a small change to the Illinois election law, President Bush's name is not supposed to be on the state's November ballot, but officials said one way or another, it will be there.The glitch arose because the Illinois legislature adjourned earlier this week without extending the Aug. 30 deadline for presidential candidates to be certified by the state elections board and qualify for the Nov. 2 ballot.
The relatively late dates of this year's Republican Party convention, running Aug. 30 to Sept. 2, mean that Bush will not be the official nominee until after the deadline set in state law. Eight other states had the same problem but fixed the date. As a result Illinois, is the only state where Bush could be left off the ballot.
But Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, indicated the problem must be fixed somehow. "President Bush has to be on the ballot," he said.
Illinois' Democratic-majority legislature is expected to hold an overtime session soon that will require a three-fifths majority to enact any legislation -- including a change in the ballot rule.
"We're confident he is going to be on the ballot," said Illinois Republican Party spokesman Jason Gerwig. "There are plenty of options out there to ensure that he is. This isn't a last-ditch effort."
Gerwig said that if the legislature fails to act, the party is prepared to appeal to the elections board, the state attorney general and, finally, the federal courts.
So why didn't the Republican National Committee simply schedule the convention to take place before the Illinois deadline (and the deadlines of eight other states)? They should have been able to manage it - their conventions have been held before August 30th for over 150 years. Here's a hint: the upcoming Republican National Convention is also the first to be held in New York City in over 150 years.
Some Illinois Democrats skipped the high road on this one - they attached several advantageous riders to the bill to get Bush on the ballot. It's the kind of thing that makes politics look more like a slugfest than statesmanship, but it's hard to forget that Illinois Republicans wouldn't be on the wrong end of the legislative billy club if Bush and the RNC hadn't been so ready to exploit September 11th.
Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that Saddam Hussein had "long-established ties" with al Qaeda, an assertion that has been repeatedly challenged by some policy experts and lawmakers.The vice president offered no details backing up his claim of a link between Saddam and al Qaida.
"He was a patron of terrorism," Cheney said of Hussein during a speech before The James Madison Institute, a conservative think-tank based in Florida. "He had long established ties with al Qaeda."
CNN
June 14, 2004
There is "no credible evidence" that Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq collaborated with the al Qaeda terrorist network on any attacks on the United States, according to a new staff report released this morning by the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.Although Osama bin Laden briefly explored the idea of forging ties with Iraq in the mid-1990s, the terrorist leader was hostile to Hussein's secular government, and Iraq never responded to requests for help in providing training camps or weapons, the panel found in the first of two reports issued today.
Washington Post
June 16, 2004
President Bush on Thursday insisted Saddam Hussein had a relationship with al-Qaeda but said his administration never asserted that the former Iraqi president had a role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks."The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda," Bush told reporters after a meeting with his Cabinet.
Reuters
June 17, 2004
From Remarks by President Bush and President Karzai of Afghanistan in a Press Availability (June 15), via the White House:
[...]Q Mr. President, thank you. Just to follow up on John's question. In Afghanistan, things are improving, as you've mentioned. In Iraq, we're about to transfer sovereignty. And even domestically, the economy is booming. Why is it that you're having trouble pulling ahead of your opponent, John Kerry?
I know you don't pay attention to the polls, but we are four-and-a-half months from election day.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes.
Q What can you do to improve your political standing as the campaign moves forward?
PRESIDENT BUSH: You see, I think you answered your own question.
We are four-and-a-half months from election day. In other words, there's a long time before the election. I'm just going to do my job, Stretch. My job is to continue to lead. My job is to say to the American people, follow me, the world is going to be better. The world will be more free, the world will be more peaceful, the world will be -- America will be a stronger country because our economy will improve; America will be a better country because we're calling upon the compassion of our fellow citizens to help a neighbor in need.
Ah, so that's what he's been doing all this time. Leading us all down the rabbit hole.
Via the New York Times and brought to our attention by Helpful Reader Eric, "Study Ranks Bush Plan to Cut Air Pollution as Weakest of 3":
A research firm that the Bush administration commissioned to analyze its plan to lower emissions from coal-fired power plants compared the plan with two competing legislative proposals and concluded in a report released Wednesday that the administration's plan was the weakest.At the invitation of the environmental coalition Clear the Air, the international research firm Abt Associates, which often conducts studies for the Environmental Protection Agency, used the same methodology in assessing all three. It found that the administration's plan, called the Clear Skies Act, would save as many as 14,000 lives but that the other bills would save more - 16,000 in one case and 22,000 in the other.
The findings, included in a report, "Dirty Air, Dirty Power," were immediately attacked by industry groups as a "repackaged" argument that focused on only one source of emissions. The administration's chief environmental policy adviser echoed the criticism, saying that the administration plan provided benefits as part of an overall strategy to meet air quality standards that were more stringent than ever.
"You can't just look at power plants alone to understand the program," said James L. Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "You could say Clear Skies doesn't go as far as the other bills, but Clear Skies combined with our new standards on diesel goes further than both."
But officials from Clear the Air said the report provided evidence that the administration's approach to curbing emissions from power plants did not do enough soon enough, and in the process, saved power companies from spending huge sums on technologies that would reduce emissions.
They predicted that the analysis could become part of the presidential campaign. The report said that under current policies, nearly 24,000 people died each year as a result of power plant emissions, with the largest numbers in three closely contested states, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida.
More than two dozen members of the military and diplomatic elites from both US political parties are uniting to launch an assault on the Bush administration's conduct of foreign policy, claiming in a letter to be published this week that it has isolated the nation.
The 26-member group, known as Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, includes several people appointed to important positions by Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Among them are former US ambassadors to Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union and a former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, as well as retired Marine General Joseph P. Hoar, who commanded US forces in the Middle East under former President Bush.Their letter, to be published on Wednesday, represents an unusually broad attack on a president in an election year from the ranks of the career diplomats inside the Washington beltway.
It is likely to deepen doubts reflected in recent polls that the nation, under the leadership of President George W. Bush, is on the wrong course.
[...]
The US group, which includes both Democrats and Republicans, will claim that Mr Bush's unilateral foreign policies - particularly in the Middle East - have alienated long-time allies while increasing hatred for the US around the world.
The group will not formally endorse John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, though several members have done so on their own. (Financial Times)
This goes beyond the slippery slope - it's just plain wrong:
On his recent trip to Rome, President Bush asked a top Vatican official to push American bishops to speak out more about political issues including same-sex marriage, according to a report in the National Catholic Reporter, an independent newspaper.In an online column posted Friday night, John Allen Jr., the newspaper's correspondent in Rome and the dean of Vatican journalists, wrote that Bush had made the request in a June 4 meeting with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state. Allen, citing an unnamed Vatican official, wrote: "Bush said, 'Not all the American bishops are with me' on the cultural issues. The implication was that he hoped the Vatican would nudge them toward more explicit activism."
Allen wrote that others in the meeting confirmed that Bush had pledged aggressive efforts "on the cultural front, especially the battle against gay marriage, and asked for the Vatican's help in encouraging the U.S. bishops to be more outspoken." Sodano did not respond, Allen reported, citing the same unnamed sources. (from the New York Times via the Seattle Times)
Press Conference of the President After G8 Summit
Savannah, GeorgiaQ Mr. President, the Justice Department issued an advisory opinion last year declaring that as Commander-in-Chief you have the authority to order any kind of interrogation techniques that are necessary to pursue the war on terror. Were you aware of this advisory opinion? Do you agree with it? And did you issue any such authorization at any time?
THE PRESIDENT: No, the authorization I issued, David, was that anything we did would conform to U.S. law and would be consistent with international treaty obligations. That's the message I gave our people.
[...]
Q Mr. President, I wanted to return to the question of torture. What we've learned from these memos this week is that the Department of Justice lawyers and the Pentagon lawyers have essentially worked out a way that U.S. officials can torture detainees without running afoul of the law. So when you say that you want the U.S. to adhere to international and U.S. laws, that's not very comforting. This is a moral question: Is torture ever justified?
THE PRESIDENT: Look, I'm going to say it one more time. If I -- maybe -- maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law. That ought to comfort you. We're a nation of law. We adhere to laws. We have laws on the books. You might look at those laws, and that might provide comfort for you. And those were the instructions out of -- from me to the government.
Ah. So we're supposed to be comforted by the fact that Bush instructed the Defense Department to conform to U.S. law when interrogating prisoners in Iraq. (You think he'd be upset that DOD apparently didn't listen. But no.)
Meanwhile, in Cuba, the U.S. has held its "unarmed combatants" in violation of U.S. and international law for more than two years. Apparently, those he has labeled terrorists from the battlefields of Afghanistan do not deserve rights while those he has labeled terrorists from the cities of Iraq do.
His appalling inconsistency when it comes to human rights does not give us comfort.
We can't pretend otherwise: if we had the Internet twenty years ago, we would have been working on 525 Reasons to Dump Reagan. It would have been in vain, but we would have done it anyway, and it would have looked something like this:
#517 - Safety, Schmafety: He Just Fired 11,000 Striking Air Traffic Controllers#431 - Savings & Loan Deregulation: This is Going to Bite Us in the Ass
#389 - The War on Drugs: Just Say No to Treatment Funding
#262 - Out of the Hospital and into Homelessness: Cutting Funding for the Mentally Ill
If we carried on into his next term (possibly renaming the site 525 Reasons to Regret Reagan) we could have added:
#521 - Inattention to AIDS#436 - Dismantling the Fairness Doctrine
#358 - After Five Years He Finally Gets Around to Dealing with Apartheid
#391 - "Star Wars" Missile Defense: Expensive and Ineffective
#270 - Ideology on the Bench: His Court Appointees Scare the Hell Out Us
And, of course,
#145 - The Iran-Contra Affair: Implausible Deniability
We understand respect for the dead and have sympathy for those who lost a loved one, but we also respect history, and we don't understand the amnesia and overblown mythologizing that gripped so many media outlets earlier this week. Assessments of Reagan's legacy are finally starting to focus on his actions and policies rather than subjective praise his social skills, and naturally comparisons between Reagan and George W. Bush abound.
Reagan's mantle is likely to be publically draped on Dubya's shoulders at the Republican National Convention in September. It doesn't fit perfectly - after all, Reagan did get a majority of the popular vote, and he tended to kept his military incursions quick and theatrical - but it fits well enough.
There was also an unmistakable corporate flavor here [at the G-8 summit].In return for renting mobile phones, Cingular Wireless was permitted to hawk its hardware from a sprawling booth with a giant inflatable model of its X-shaped symbol.
But the human rights and other groups that usually circulate at G-8 summits were absent.
One group that has been a fixture at previous summits, the international aid group Oxfam, said it was told not to come.
At the G-8 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, two years ago, organizers officially allowed such outside groups to have a presence at the media headquarters like the convention center in Savannah. The group was on hand to praise or pan developments, said Lindsey Cruz, a group spokeswoman.
Last year, organizers allowed Cruz to attend the G-8 in Evian, France as a journalist for Oxfam's magazine, Exchange. The organizers knew Cruz was also handing out press releases, too, but looked the other way, she said.
But the American organizers turned her group down, Cruz said. First, they told Oxfam the G-8 would not admit freelance journalists. When she protested, they told her they would bar publications owned by non-governmental groups like Oxfam.
Bennett said the summit planning committee decided to exclude non-governmental groups because of space limitations and because the summit was designated a "national security special event.'' That put the Secret Service in charge of admission, and meant access was "based on need,'' he said. (via today's Guardian)
Remarks by President Bush and Prime Minister Martin of Canada in Photo Opportunity
Dunbar House Sea Island, Georgia
2:58 P.M. EDTPRESIDENT BUSH: I'm so honored to have a chance to visit with you again, Mr. Prime Minister. I look forward to our discussions. We've got great relations, and relations with Canada are, as far as I'm concerned, very important relations.
And we will continue our discussions on mad cow and soft wood lumber. You've always been a strong advocate of Canadian interests, of course, and I appreciate that. Hopefully we can resolve the mad cow quickly, that you've asked me to do, and that we will continue to work on a soft wood lumber agreement that's beneficial to both countries.
Canada is a great friend, and you've been very cooperative at figuring out ways to cooperate in the war on terror. The Prime Minister has got a clear vision about the dangers that face the free world, and for that I'm grateful, too. So I look forward to our discussions, sir.
From today's New York Times, "Lawyers Decided Bans on Torture Didn't Bind Bush":
A team of administration lawyers concluded in a March 2003 legal memorandum that President Bush was not bound by either an international treaty prohibiting torture or by a federal antitorture law because he had the authority as commander in chief to approve any technique needed to protect the nation's security.The memo, prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, also said that any executive branch officials, including those in the military, could be immune from domestic and international prohibitions against torture for a variety of reasons.
One reason, the lawyers said, would be if military personnel believed that they were acting on orders from superiors "except where the conduct goes so far as to be patently unlawful."
"In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign," the lawyers wrote in the 56-page confidential memorandum, the prohibition against torture "must be construed as inapplicable to interrogation undertaken pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority."
[. . .]
The memo showed that not only lawyers from the Defense and Justice departments and the White House approved of the policy but also that David S. Addington, the counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney, also was involved in the deliberations. The State Department lawyer, William H. Taft IV, dissented, warning that such a position would weaken the protections of the Geneva Conventions for American troops.
The March 6 document about torture provides tightly constructed definitions of torture. For example, if an interrogator "knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent even though the defendant did not act in good faith," the report said. "Instead, a defendant is guilty of torture only if he acts with the express purpose of inflicting severe pain or suffering on a person within his control."
The adjective "severe," the report said, "makes plain that the infliction of pain or suffering per se, whether it is physical or mental, is insufficient to amount to torture. Instead, the text provides that pain or suffering must be 'severe.' " The report also advised that if an interrogator "has a good faith belief his actions will not result in prolonged mental harm, he lacks the mental state necessary for his actions to constitute torture."
The report also said that interrogators could justify breaching laws or treaties by invoking the doctrine of necessity. An interrogator using techniques that cause harm might be immune from liability if he "believed at the moment that his act is necessary and designed to avoid greater harm."
[. . .]
The March memorandum also contains a curious section in which the lawyers argued that any torture committed at Guantánamo would not be a violation of the anti-torture statute because the base was under American legal jurisdiction and the statute concerns only torture committed overseas. That view is in direct conflict with the position the administration has taken in the Supreme Court, where it has argued that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are not entitled to constitutional protections because the base is outside American jurisdiction.
I am obligated as a journalist to use the word "alleged" when writing about Jose Padilla, the former Chicago gangbanger the government says turned terrorist. He allegedly received terrorist training in Afghanistan. He returned to the United States as an alleged al Qaeda operative. He allegedly planned to detonate a dirty bomb and also allegedly hoped to use natural gas to bring down some apartment buildings in New York or another city. There, I have done my journalistic duty.The government, on the other hand, is not similarly constrained. Although it has locked up Padilla for two years, although for a long time he was held in isolation and not allowed to see a lawyer or anyone else, he has never been charged with a crime or found guilty in a court of law. The worst I can do is libel the man. The government, though, has cast him into the contemporary version of a dungeon.
This is not to say that Padilla is innocent. The government not only maintains he is a dangerous terrorist but now says he has confessed to much of the above -- and, if it matters any, I believe the feds. But while I accept the government's case, I cannot accept the insistence that it can, when it so chooses, keep a U.S. citizen -- and Padilla is one -- detained for as long as it sees fit. If the man committed a crime, then try him. It's the American way.
The Bush administration takes the position that it can hold Padilla, and others it designates as enemy combatants, for as long as it wants, where it wants and, within reason, how it wants. Torture and summary execution are out of the question, the government conceded in April when it argued its case before the Supreme Court -- but not what could amount to life in prison without trial. In fact, until March, Padilla was not even able to see a lawyer.
A lawyer, it turns out, is precisely what the government wanted to avoid. In a news conference this week, James B. Comey Jr., Attorney General John Ashcroft's deputy, outlined a bit more of the case against Padilla and explained why he had been held in isolation and denied counsel for so long. "He would very likely have followed his lawyer's advice and said nothing, which would have been his constitutional right. He would likely have ended up a free man, with our only hope being to try to follow him 24 hours a day, seven days a week and hope -- pray, really -- that we didn't lose him."
This is an astounding statement. First, the conjecture that Padilla would have been freed suggests that the government's case is something short of open-and-shut. Second, as we all know from watching "Law and Order," the invariable entry of a lawyer into the interrogation room always complicates the case, often ending the questioning right there and then. Yet, somehow, prosecutors make their case and the bad guys go to jail. Third, this mention of a "constitutional right" as something akin to a pesky regulation that should be nimbly sidestepped is downright troubling. The Constitution is our basic law. It both establishes the federal government and limits its authority. As the song says about love and marriage, you can't have one without the other.
To repeat, I have no evidence to dispute what the feds say about Padilla. But this is the same government that missed repeated warnings that something like the horrors of Sept. 11 was on the way, that was damned sure Iraq was loaded with weapons of mass destruction, that recently detained a Portland, Ore., lawyer on terrorism-related charges because it got the fingerprints wrong, that yelled espionage and treason about a military chaplain later charged with nothing more than having an extramarital affair, that . . . well, you get the picture. There's a reason so many men have walked off death row. Government is not infallible and this government, in particular, is hardly an exception.
I was nearby when the twin towers went down. Hardly a day goes by that I do not think about it. I fear terrorists -- in that they have succeeded. But I also fear a government that takes it upon itself to deprive a citizen -- any citizen -- of his basic rights. That holds for Timothy McVeigh (also a terrorist, no?) or a common street criminal and even an alleged al Qaeda associate like Jose Padilla. It's not just his rights that have been suspended. It's our own.
(Richard Cohen in the Washington Post)
From "D-Day, in History and in Memory", by Samuel Hynes in the New York Times:
[...]The old men on the Mall today were lucky in their war. They went believing that it was a just and necessary war, and when they'd won they came home still believing. Being the winners in a just war gave those veterans a quality that was and is still perceptible in them, though it's hard to define: a confidence, a sense of personal worth, a certainty about their actions in that crucial time when they were young. One worthy thing done at that age when manhood begins can make the rest of a man's life richer, give it a sustaining value.
American wars since the Second World War have been different: lost, or not won or even finished, or trivial, and morally ambiguous at best, though brave men fought in them. The Second World War was our last just and victorious war, the last war a man could come home from with any expectation of glory.
The old men must be thinking about that as they gather together, must be glad that their time of testing came when it did, in a war where the Americans were the good guys beyond question, and the bad guys were absolutely evil. Perhaps that new memorial down on the Mall is our national monument to that last time of national goodness, before we lost our way.
I try to imagine a day 60 years from now, when the veterans of our present conflict — old men themselves by then — gather at their brand-new war memorial, somewhere down on the Mall, to commemorate their own D-Day (that would be March 20, 2063). What will that new generation of old soldiers have in their minds that day? Not the certainty and confidence that today's old men have. Nor the sense of having served in a democratic war that every young man fought in and all the folks at home supported. They'll remember their buddies, and the good times and the bad ones, and wish, perhaps, that their sad war had been worthy of them.
... make things up.
From "Making Hay Out of Straw Men" in the Washington Post:
For President Bush, this is the season of the straw man.It is an ancient debating technique: Caricature your opponent's argument, then knock down the straw man you created. In the 2004 campaign, Bush has been knocking down such phantoms on subjects from Iraq to free trade.
In a speech on May 21 mentioning the importance of integrity in government, business and the military, Bush veered into a challenge to unidentified "people" who practice moral relativism. "It may seem generous and open-minded to say that everybody, on every moral issue, is equally right," Bush said, at Louisiana State University. "But that attitude can also be an excuse for sidestepping life's most important questions."
No doubt. But who's made such arguments? Hannibal Lecter? The White House declined to name names.
On May 19, Bush was asked about a plan by his Democratic opponent, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), to halt shipments that are replenishing emergency petroleum reserves. Bush replied by saying we should not empty the reserves -- something nobody in a responsible position has proposed. "The idea of emptying the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would put America in a dangerous position in the war on terror," Bush said. "We're at war."
The president has used a similar technique on the stump, when explaining his decision to go to war in Iraq in light of the subsequent failure to find stockpiles of forbidden weapons. In the typical speech, Bush explains the prewar intelligence indicating Saddam Hussein had such weapons, and then presents in inarguable conclusion: "So I had a choice to make: either trust the word of a madman, or defend America. Given that choice, I will defend America every time."
Missing from that equation is the actual choice Bush confronted: support continued U.N. weapons inspections, or go to war.
On May 4, Bush was discussing the war on terrorism, when he said: "Some say, 'Well, this is just a matter of law enforcement and intelligence.' No, that's not what it is." On May 10, he posited: "The natural tendency for people is to say, oh, let's lay down our arms. But you can't negotiate with these people. . . . Therapy won't work."
It is not clear who makes such arguments, however. All but a few lawmakers in both parties support military action against al Qaeda, and Kerry certainly has not proposed opening talks with Osama bin Laden or putting him on the couch.
Bush is obviously not the first politician to paint his opponents' positions in absurd terms. "Honorable people could disagree about the real choice between tax giveaways to the wealthiest Americans and health care and education for America's families," Kerry has said. "I'm ready for that honest debate."But Bush has been more active than most in creating phantom opponents: During the 2000 campaign, Bush fought against those who say "it's racist to test" students -- even though his opponent, Al Gore, was saying no such thing.
Recently, though, even some ideological allies have called Bush on his use of straw men. On April 30, for example, Bush was discussing Iraq when he said: "There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins . . . are a different color than white can self-govern."
The columnist George Will asked who Bush was talking about, then warned of the "swamp one wanders into when trying to deflect doubts about policy by caricaturing and discrediting the doubters." There are some, including in the State Department, who are skeptical about the ability of the United States to spread democracy in the Arab world, but that is a far less sweeping argument than the one Bush knocked down.
In some cases, Bush's straw men are only slight exaggerations of his opponents' policies. "Some say that the federal government ought to run the health care system. I strongly disagree," he said on April 5. Although mainstream Democrats are not proposing a government-run health care system, they do support considerably more federal involvement than Bush does.
On trade, similarly, Bush has said those who disagree with him are isolationists. "There is a temptation in Washington to say the solution to jobs uncertainty is to isolate America from the world," he said on March 25. "It's called economic isolationism, a sense that says, 'Well, we're too pessimistic, we don't want to compete -- as opposed to opening up markets, let's close markets, starting with our own.' " Some lawmakers do favor more trade restrictions than Bush does, but only a few could be called isolationists. There seems to be no end to the crazy positions the straw men take. Indeed, some have argued in favor of deeper recessions. "Some say, 'Well, maybe the recession should have been deeper,' " Bush said last summer. "That bothers me when people say that. You see, a deeper recession would have meant more families would have been out of work."
Now who could argue with that?
