From last week's AP wire, via the Miami Herald, "Jeffords Holds Up Bush's EPA Nominations":

Four of President Bush's nominations for top jobs at the Environmental Protection Agency were put on hold Wednesday by Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., who said he was protesting the agency's refusal to provide him documents over the past three years.

Jeffords said he had been "stonewalled in getting information from the EPA" and pointed to 12 unmet requests for documents between May 2001, when he left the Republican Party and became an independent, and January 2004.

"I have bent over backwards to try to accommodate the EPA, but my patience is now worn out," Jeffords said. "I had hoped that we could put the posturing aside, receive information to which we are entitled from this agency, and get on with a productive dialogue about environmental policy."

Most of the requests were made before Mike Leavitt became EPA administrator in November. The former Utah governor replaced Christie Whitman, a former New Jersey governor.

The documents mostly have to do with the Bush administration's changes to air pollution rules which eased requirements that power plants install modern pollution-control equipment when expanding or significantly modifying operations.

"The information I request ed, quite simply, would help us and the public better understand how the administration arrived at its questionable interpretations of the Clean Air Act," Jeffords said.

Jeffords, the most senior non-Republican member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, was joined on March 4 by the panel's chairman, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., in writing to Leavitt "to express our commonly held position that the agency is obligated to respond to requests from each the chair and ranking member."

EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said the agency was reviewing Jeffords' request. "Hopefully we can resolve this issue soon," she said.

The four nominations Jeffords put on hold are:

Stephen Johnson, now EPA's assistant administrator in charge of the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, to deputy administrator, the No. 2 job in the agency.

Ann R. Klee, a senior legal adviser to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, to become EPA's general counsel.

Charles Johnson, to become EPA's chief financial officer.

Benjamin Grumbles, to assistant administrator overseeing the Office of Water.

Number of times Bush referred to terrorists as haters of democracy and freedom: 3

Number of times Bush uttered "Stay the course": 3

Number of times Bush was asked whether he felt any personal responsibility for 9/11: 2

Number of times Bush was asked whether he made any errors or mistakes leading up to the 9/11 attacks: 2

Number of mistakes Bush could name: 0

Number of times Bush was asked if he felt he should apologize: 1

Number of apologies made by Bush: 0

Percentage of total press conference time taken up by Bush's pre-Q&A statement: 28

Actual number of questions asked during the Q&A: 16

Percentage of those questions on the topics of Iraq or 9/11: 100

Number of times Bush indicated that the world would be better off because of America's actions in Iraq: 8

Number of times it was suggested that Bush might lose his job over Iraq: 1

Place where weapons of mass destruction could still be found in Iraq, according to Bush: turkey farm

Right on the heels of Bush's bold (read "vague" and "without any actual plan" - see also the mission to Mars) call for universal broadband access by 2007, we have the FBI putting their own unsettling spin on "universal access":

An FBI proposal to make it easier for the government to wiretap high-speed Internet communications is drawing criticism from businesses and privacy experts who fear it could stifle technological innovation and allow too much monitoring of online conversations.

The FBI's present authority to tap phone calls and review e-mails and instant messages is contingent on acquiring a court order. Phone calls made via Internet connections, an increasingly common technology, are more difficult to tap.
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Now law enforcement agencies, arguing that their a bility to track terrorists and other criminals is at stake, have asked the Federal Communications Commission to force providers of high-speed Internet access to retool their networks to make government eavesdropping easier ? while passing the costs along to Internet users.
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On Monday, the FCC closed its 30-day comment period on the FBI request, amid a raging debate over whether there would be safeguards to prevent the government from intercepting online communications between innocent parties.
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The FBI doesn't just want to subpoena suspicious communications after they have been sent, but rather to monitor instant messages and e-mails as they are being exchanged, according to Dave Baker, vice president for public policy at EarthLink, a major Internet service provider based in Atlanta.
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"We have a long history of cooperating with law enforcement," Baker said, but the proposed changes would expand police powers by greatly enhancing "the ability to get real-time intercepts."
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That could lead to far more police surveillance of the Internet, he predicted. "It's the camel's nose under the tent," he said.
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Baker said he had no estimate of what the changes would cost, but it would not be trivial. "At the very least, you would be driving up costs .Ê.Ê. and compromising innovation," he said.
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"This would radically change how the Internet develops, " said John Morris, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a public interest group based in Washington. "If the FBI has its way, the companies themselves will go overseas because tech innovation will leave the United States."
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The FBI, the Justice Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration filed a petition last month asking the FCC to require a re-engineering of broadband networks to allow for easier eavesdropping.
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In addition, the federal law enforcement agencies want the FCC to allow the Internet companies to pass along to consumers any higher costs. (from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

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From today's New York Times editorial page: "The Silent President."

President Bush w as asked, during a very brief session with reporters yesterday, about the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo he received on domestic terrorism. He responded with the familiar White House complaint about lack of specificity in the C.I.A.'s warnings ? although the memo mentioned a plot, possibly involving hijacked planes and New York City. The most striking thing about the president's comment, however, was his bottom line: that he did everything he could. Over the last few weeks we have heard lawmakers and officials from two administrations talk about their feelings of responsibility, about how they compulsively re-examine the events leading up to 9/ll, asking themselves whether they could have done anything to avert the terrible disaster that day. It is beginning to seem that the only person free of that kind of self-examination is the man who was chief executive when the attacks occurred.

No reasonable American blames Mr. Bush for the terrorist attacks, but that's a long way from thinking there was no other conceivable action he could have taken to prevent them. He could, for instance, have left his vacation in Texas after receiving that briefing memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." and rushed back to the White House, assembled all his top advisers and demanded to know what, in particular, was being done to screen airline passengers to make sure people who fit the airlines' threat profiles were being p revented from boarding American planes. Even that sort of prescient response would probably have been too little to head off the disaster. But those what-if questions should haunt the president as they haunt the nation. In all probability, they do and it is only the demands of his re-election campaign that are guiding Mr. Bush's public stance of utter, uncomplicated self-righteousness.

Via the White House, "Remarks by the President to the Travel Pool" at Fort Hood, Texas:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. We're coming off a week in which dozens of American soldiers have died. We've seen images of incredible violence and chaos. Should Americans brace for weeks, or months of this? Do you expect it to abate soon? And, also, what's General Abizaid telling you about how many more tr oops he'll need, if any?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I've spoken to General Abizaid twice in the last four or five days. He knows full well that when he speaks to me that if he needs additional manpower he can ask for it. He believes, like I believe, that this violence we've seen is part of a few people trying to stop progress toward democracy. Fallujah, south of Baghdad, these incidents were basically thrust upon the innocent Iraqi people by gangs, violent gangs.

And our troops are taking care of business. Their job is to make Iraq more secure so that a peaceful Iraq can emerge. And they're doing a great job. And it was a tough week last week, and my prayers and thoughts are with those who paid the ultimate price for our security. A free Iraq will make the world more peaceful. A free Iraq is going to change the world. And it's been tough, and our troops are -- our troops are performing brilliantly and bravely.

Either the President has absolutely no idea what's going on in Iraq, or he's outright lying to the American people.

Our troops are taking care of business?

A free Iraq is going to change the world?

Someone get the Vice President back from Tokyo, quick. We need a leader down at the Ranch; we never thought we'd say this, but even Dick Cheney will do.

Where has President Bush been while Iraq implodes and members of his Administration are under fire in front of the 9/11 Commission? On Spring Break!

The President is on vacation at his ranch, hunting and fishing. The Washington Post reports, "This is Bush's 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News. Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency." (via the Macon Daily)

From a recent post to the Harvard Republican Blog, via Helpful Reader Eric:

John Ashcroft's War on Porn

Next time someone tries to sell you the line that the Bush Administration's meteoric spending growth is mostly for Homeland Security, remember that agencies like the FBI don't spend all their time stopping terrorists. Sometimes, they engage in idiocy like this:

In this field office in Washington, 32 prosecutors, investigators and a handful of FBI agents are spending millions of dollars to bring anti-obscenity cases to courthouses across the country for the first time in 10 years. Nothing is off limits, they warn, even soft-core cable programs such as HBO's long-running Real Sex or the adult movies widely offered in guestrooms of major hote l chains.

The above quote is from an excellent article in the Baltimore Sun. Here's another tasty bit:

Drew Oosterbaan, chief of the division in charge of obscenity prosecutions at the Justice Department, says officials are trying to send a message and halt an industry they see as growing increasingly "lawless."

"We want to do everything we can to deter this conduct" by producers and consumers, Oosterbaan said. "Nothing is off the table as far as content."

It is unclear, though, just how the American public and major corporations that make money from pornography will accept the perspective of the Justice Department and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Any move against mainstream pornography could affect large telephone companies offering broadband Internet service or the dozens of national credit card companies providing payment services to pornographic Web sites.

Cable television, meanwhile, which has found late-night lineups with "adult programming" highly profitable, is unlikely to budge, and such companies have powerful friends.

Brian Roberts, the CEO of Comcast, which offers "hard-core" porn on the Hot Network channel (at $11.99 per film in Baltimore), was co-chair of Philadelphia 2000, the host committee that brought the Republican National Convention to Philadelphia. In February, the Bush campaign hon ored Comcast President Stephen Burke with "Ranger" status, for agreeing to raise at least $200,000 for the president's re-election effort.

So Bush's corporate cronyism and voracious appetite for fundraising will probably save good old fashioned profitable American porn...but only after the Justice Department spends several million dollars paying prosecutors, investigators, and agents to look at it.

The war in Iraq is not going well. The Iraqis are fed-up with America?s military occupation, religious leaders are calling for rebellion and coalition deaths are on the rise ? all predictable outcomes of a war that began over a year ago for all the wrong reasons.

We don?t take pleasure in seeing Bush?s war falter. Too many 20-year-olds have been killed or maimed for there to be anything but sadness at the unfolding events. But it could have been different ? had we focused on the war against al Qaeda, had we not insisted on going it alone in Iraq. Now, if we continue to insist on withdrawal from Iraq according to the June 30 (read: Nov. election) timetable, the country will disintegrate into chaos and could very likely revert right back to dictatorship. So much for our vaulted ?freedom? and ?democracy?.

We cannot afford to leave this President at the helm. We need someone to take charge who is not personally vested in a predetermined outcome in Iraq. Someone who has not alienated a good portion of the world. Someone who is willing to work with the United Nations and Arab nations. Someone who is willing to be humble.

The 20-year-olds in the deserts and cities of Iraq, scared out of their minds, deserve nothing less. There are callings high enough to demand the ultimate sacrifice for one?s country, but this just isn?t one of them.

From "A promise unkept on AIDS" by the Boston Globe, via the International Herald Tribune Online.

The global effort to combat the three deadliest infectious diseases - AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria - had a rare celebration 14 months ago when President George W. Bush pledged in his 2003 State of the Union speech to donate $15 billion to fight AIDS over three years. Since then, U.S. outlays have been a small fraction of the promised amount. And the United States is refusing to finance AIDS programs that use generic drugs, which cost far less than brand-name drugs.

A generation from now, history is likely to judge world leaders as much on what they have done to keep these diseases in check as on their efforts against terrorism.

[...]

American officials say their concern over development of drug-resistant disease strains is one factor in their opposition to programs that use generic drugs. But critics of the U.S. position say the Bush administration is simply doing the bidding of the big pharmaceutical companies. The World Health Organization has approved the generic regimens, which require fewer daily pills than the brand drugs.

The United States should relent in its opposition to the generics and fulfill Bush's $15 billion pledge. This, combined with a new resolve to fight these diseases by governments in Africa could ope n a more hopeful chapter in mankind's halting war against infectious disease.

Now accepting applicants for U.S. Ambassador to Iraq

I am looking for somebody who can run a big embassy, somebody who understands the relationship between an embassy and the military. Because one of the things that's going to be very important for the next ambassador to Iraq -- this will be the person that takes Jerry Bremer's place -- will be the willingness and capability of working with a very strong -- a country in which there's a very strong U.S. military presence, as well as a coalition presence. This person is going to need to have enough experience to basically start an embassy from the ground up, and also be willing to transfer certain people and authorities from the CPA to the embassy itself. In other words, it's a very complex task that' s going to require a skilled soul. And we're in the process of searching it out now. (George W. Bush, in yesterday's remarks to the Travel Pool)

Connections to oil industry strongly preferred. Outstanding communication and analytical skills not required. Experience as any of the following a plus:

Whipping Boy (or Girl)

Fall Guy (or Gal)

Patsy (or Patrick)

The U.S. State Department is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

The former head of a federal mine safety school alleges that Bush administration appointees halted an investigation of a coal mine sludge spill that polluted about 100 miles of creeks and rivers along the Kentucky-West Virginia state line.

The bottom of a coal mine waste impoundment collapsed into an abandoned underground mine near Inez, Ky., in October 2000. An estimated 250 million to 300 million gallons of water, coal and rock particles poured out of the mine, killing fish and fouling drinking water supplies.

Jack Spadaro, former superintendent of the federal Mine Health and Safety Academy at Beckley and member of the team that investigated the spill, says the investigation showed Martin County Coal Corp., a Massey Energy Inc. subsidiary, knew its containment was weak.

Spadaro, who has been a frequent critic of U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration operations, told CBS' ``60 Minutes'' for a report airing Sunday that the agency interfered with the investigation.

In 2001, Spadaro resigned from the team investigating the spill in eastern Kentucky's Martin County because he felt that MSHA, a division of the Department of Labor, was trying to cover up its own role in overlooking previous violations at the impoundment.

``The Bush administration came in and the scope of our investigation was considerably shortened,'' Spadaro said. ``I had never seen something so corrupt and lawless in my entire career ... interference with a federal investigation of the most serious environmental disaster in the history of the Eastern United States.'' (from the Guardian)

Do you think the Bush administration knows that Earth is the only planet we can currently live on? And that not all of us have access to the Richard B. Cheney Memorial Bunker in the event of an environmental catastrophe?

The White House view of the environment (Earth's, we presume) from The Observer (UK), via the Guardian.

The Observer has obtained a remarkable email sent to the press secretaries of all Republican congressmen advising them what to say when questioned on the environment in the run-up to November's election. The advice: tell them everything's rosy.

It tells them how global warming has not been proved, air quality is 'getting better', the world's forests a re 'spreading, not deadening', oil reserves are 'increasing, not decreasing', and the 'world's water is cleaner and reaching more people'.

The email - sent on 4 February - warns that Democrats will 'hit us hard' on the environment. 'In an effort to help your members fight back, as well as be aggressive on the issue, we have prepared the following set of talking points on where the environment really stands today,' it states.

The memo - headed 'From medi-scare to air-scare' - goes on: 'From the heated debate on global warming to the hot air on forests; from the muddled talk on our nation's waters to the convolution on air pollution, we are fighting a battle of fact against fiction on the environment - Republicans can't stress enough that extremists are screaming "Doomsday!" when the environment is actually seeing a new and better day.'

Among the memo's assertions are 'global warming is not a fact', 'links between air quality and asthma in children remain cloudy', and the US Environment Protection Agency is exaggerating when it says that at least 40 per cent of streams, rivers and lakes are too polluted for drinking, fishing or swimming.

It gives a list of alleged facts taken from contentious sources. For instance, to back its claim that air quality is improving it cites a report from Pacific Research Institute - an organisation that has received $130,000 from Exxon Mobil since 1998.

The memo also lifts details from the controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg. On the Republicans' claims that deforestation is not a problem, it states: 'About a third of the world is still covered with forests, a level not changed much since World War II. The world's demand for paper can be permanently satisfied by the growth of trees in just five per cent of the world's forests.'

The memo's main source for the denial of global warming is Richard Lindzen, a climate-sceptic scientist who has consistently taken money from the fossil fuel industry. His opinion differs substantially from most climate scientists, who say that climate change is happening.

[...]

Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace condemned the messages given in the Republican email. He said: 'Bush's spin doctors have been taking their brief from dodgy scientists with an Alice in Wonderland view of the world's environment. They want us to think the air is getting cleaner and that global warming is a myth. This memo shows it is Exxon Mobil driving US policy, when it should be sound science.'

The memo has met some resistance from Republican moderates.

Republican Mike Castle, who heads a group of 69 moderate House members, senators and governo rs, says the strategy doesn't address the fact that pollution continues to be a health threat. 'If I tried to follow these talking points at a town hall meeting with my constituents, I'd be booed.'

The 9-11 commission continues to be frustrated by the Bush administration's lack of cooperation during its investigation. What is Bush afraid the commissioners will find? We thought the importance of learning from our mistakes in the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor was supposed to be greater than politics. But it seems that's only true is you're not running for re-election.

The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said on Thursday that it was pressing the White House to explain why the Bush administration had blocked thousands of pages of classified foreign policy and counterterrorism documents from former President Bill Clinton's White House files from being turned over to the panel's investigators.

The White House confirmed on Thursday that it had withheld a variety of classified documents from Mr. Clinton's files that had been gathered by the National Archives over the last two years in response to requests from the commission, which is investigating intelligence and law enforcement failures before the attacks.

Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said some Clinton administration documents had been withheld because they were "duplicative or unrelated," while others were withheld because they were "highly sensitive" and the information in them could be relayed to the commission in other ways. "We are providing the commission with access to all the information they need to do their job," Mr. McClellan said.

The commission and the White House were reacting to public complaints from former aides to Mr. Clinton, who said they had been surprised to learn in recent months that three-quarters of the nearly 11,000 pages of files the former president was ready to offer the commission had been withheld by the Bush administration. The former aides said the files contained highly classified documents about the Clinton administration's efforts against Al Qaeda. (from the New York Times)

From an article published in the Chicago Sun-Times on March 31st, and posted on the Cato Institute's website, "Bush Needs to Hear, Not Shun, World Critics":

[F]oreign observers do not share Bush's optimistic view of progress in the war. The administration might see Iraq as a fledgling democracy, but others fear a country on the verge of violent disintegration. "There is a danger of an ethnic war in Iraq," Jordan's King Abdullah warned during a recent visit to Turkey. "Iraq's neighbors cannot tolerate such a conflict."

Abdullah's apprehension highlights the challenge confronting the Bush administration. Bush has hailed the transformation of Iraq as a centerpiece of his administration's strategy in the Middle East. He has compared the situation in p ostwar Iraq to the successful transformation of Japan into a flourishing democracy after the Second World War.

If Abdullah is right, however, Iraq could spread instability throughout the area. The king's visit to Turkey indicates that these countries see a need for cooperation in anticipation of this impending danger.

And they are not alone in their misgivings. Indeed, the Bush administration's sunny portrayal of the war on terror is leading others to wonder whether it has become, in a word, delusional. "Every time there is a report of a violent attack in Iraq, you hear one-liners that suggest that the situation is improving," a leading Pakistani newspaper, Dawn, editorialized on the one-year anniversary of the start of the war. "Following Wednesday's [March 17] bombing, the White House spokesman said: 'Democracy is taking root in Iraq.' It is this approach of evading reality that has made Iraq the disaster it is today."

And it is that approach that has also led other people to question American leadership. People do not appreciate being misled, as even the president of Poland made clear following the election in Spain. They do not want to be misled about the causes of war, and they do not want to be misled about the way the war is going.

The Bush administration has correctly identified the promotion of democracy as a core focus of U.S. foreign policy. Democratic government is based on the idea that disagreement is legitimate, which is why we have the concept of the loyal opposition. But the administration sees any opposition to its policies as disloyal, or worse. Its position has been: We lead, you follow.

The Spanish election is a signal that such a policy will no longer work. If the Bush administration does not recognize that, we can only expect the gulf between the United States and its allies to widen, and the war on terror to suffer as a result.

From "Found at Starbucks: The Pentagon's Papers" at the Center for American Progress, via Wonkette:

As most of America slept early last Sunday morning, the Bush administration hustled and bustled to prepare for the Sunday morning talk shows ? a mong others Colin Powell was appearing on "Face the Nation" and Donald Rumsfeld was booked on "Fox News Sunday." Condoleezza Rice was not scheduled to appear until prime time, when she would make a star appearance on CBS' "60 Minutes" ? the last in a long line of media appearances that caused 9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben Veniste to quip that "Condi Rice has appeared everywhere but at my local Starbucks."

Well, others in the Bush administration did, apparently, make an appearance at the local Starbucks. And as the Washington Post reports today, one of them ? obviously readying himself to prep Defense Secretary Rumsfeld ? left his notes on the table. Talking points, hand-written notes on spin tactics that reveal the White House was worried about former Bush adviser Richard Clarke's charges, and a hand-drawn map to the Secretary's house were found by a resident of DuPont Circle, who made them available to the Center for American Progress. The name of said resident is being withheld at his request, as he fears that he may be accused on national television of being "disgruntled."

Download The Pentagon's Papers

Note that John Pod esta's Center for American Progress supplies its own answers to the hypothetical questions for Rumsfeld. Nice touch.

And this isn't the only time something like this has happened. Remember the intern in Lafayette Park?

Yes, ladies and gentlemen: these are the very people we're supposed to trust with our national secrets. Next up: Cheney's memo outlining his reselection of himself as Vice President turns up in the dressing room of The Gap in Georgetown. Keep your eyes out, people.

President Bush hit the airwaves Tuesday with a new TV ad in 18 states that are expected to be close in November's election, this time decrying Democratic challenger John Kerry's position on gasoline taxes. Kerry calls the recent spike in gasoline prices the fault of failed Bush administration polic ies. Bush's ad was unveiled the same day that Kerry introduced his own gas price-reduction plan.

THE AD: Titled "Wacky" and shot in black-and-white with the look of an old-time movie, the ad accuses Kerry of having "wacky ideas" such as wanting to "tax gasoline more so people drive less." The ad says Kerry "supported a 50-cent-a-gallon gas tax. If Kerry's tax increase were law, the average family would pay $657 more a year." The ad also says Kerry supported higher gasoline taxes 11 times.

THE FACTS: Kerry briefly voiced support in 1994 for a 50-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax as a deficit-reduction measure, but calling it "Kerry's tax increase" is wrong; it was another senator's bill, Kerry didn't co-sponsor it and it never came to a vote.

Many of the votes that the Bush ad cites have to do with votes on President Clinton's deficit-reduction plan, which increased the gas tax by 4.3 cents a gallon; later votes the ad cites kept the tax at that level. Democrats credit Clinton's plan with balancing the federal budget and setting the stage for the economic growth of the 1990s.

The federal gasoline tax - which pays for national highways - hasn't been raised from its 1993 level of 18.4 cents a gallon. (via the San Jose Mercury News)

Now let's take a look at the text of the ad:

President: "I'm George W. Bush and I approve this message."

Translation: Karl says this?ll work.

Narrator: "Some people have wacky ideas. Like taxing gasoline more so people drive less. That's John Kerry."

Translation: Public transit is for losers. Your SUVs are safe with us.

Narrator: "He supported a 50-cent-a-gallon gas tax. If Kerry's tax increase were law, the average family would pay $657 more a year."

Translation: This is bullshit, but you?ll probably never know.

Graphic: Kerry's Plan: Pay $657 More a Year For Gas.

Translation: Believe everything you read!

Narrator: "Raising taxes is a habit of Kerry's. He supported higher gasoline taxes 11 times."

Translation: Kerry will raise taxes for us rich types, so we need to convince everyone else he?ll raise their taxes, too.

Graphic: John Kerry. Supported Higher Gas Taxes 11 Times.

Translation: Kerry, taxes, Kerry, taxes, Kerry, taxes, Kerry, taxes, Kerry, taxes, you are getting very sleepy, Kerry, taxes, Kerry, taxes, you will vote for George Bush, Kerry, taxes, Kerry, taxes, now cluck like a chicken, Kerry, taxes, never mind, we?re just messing with you, Kerry, taxes, Kerry, taxes, Kerry, taxes...

Narrator: "Maybe John Kerry just doesn't understand what his ideas mean to the rest of us."

Translation: Maybe we?re hopelessly passive-aggressive.

Graphic: John Kerry. Wrong on Taxes.

Translation: Because we said so.

From yesterday's Los Angeles Times, via Yahoo! News, "Backlog of Immigrant Paperwork Growing"

Four years ago, as a presidential candidate hoping to draw Latino votes, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush vowed to slash the backlog of applications for legal immigration. No one would have to wait longer than six months, he promised.

Despite that resolve, the opposite has happened ? more people than ever ar e facing longer-than-ever delays.

Green cards that would have taken 14 months to process in 2001 are now averaging 33 months. The number of pending applications for such things as replacing a lost green card and obtaining citizenship has shot up nearly 60%, to about 6.2 million. Cases more than 6 months old have increased by 89% since 2000, from 1.8 million to 3.4 million, according to the government.

The main reason for the delays is the increased security checks since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the Bush administration. But congressional investigators and other critics say insufficient funding, lack of personnel and other shortfalls are also to blame.

[...]

Annual levels of immigration have held steady since the terrorist attacks. Now the growing backlog raises questions about the ability of the system to handle the additional load that would be created by the president's proposed guest worker program. As many as 8 million to 12 million illegal immigrants could file for legal status.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the arm of the Department of Homeland Security that inherited the work from the old Immigration and Naturalization Service, is the agency struggling with the effect of the increased security checks and scarce resources.

"All of these factors combined to put us where we are today, which is digging out of a very deep hole," said Wil liam Yates, head of operations for the immigration agency.

The agency will soon send Congress a backlog elimination plan that is expected to promise that Bush's six-month goal can still be met ? but not until 2006.

At bottom, congressional investigators and outside critics say, the agency was simply unprepared to handle its new challenge. Nor has the government assigned a high enough priority to overcoming the obstacles and clearing the backlogs.

The Rove Machine has been very good at staging presidential proclamations with exaggerated backdrops. But when it comes to the actual nuts and bolts of government -- outside the headlines of WAR! TAX CUTS! GAY MARRIAGE! -- the Bush team is not holding it together.

Accounts from insiders in the Bush White House describe a tightly controlled, top-down organization that pushes a pr edetermined agenda, shuns dissenting views and discourages open debate.

Tell-all books from former Bush counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, as well as accounts from other administration insiders, shed light on President Bush's decision-making style.

Critics say the flip side of the legendary discipline at the Bush White House is a near-complete disregard for alternative opinions that sometimes leads to trouble.

In Clarke's view, Bush's reliance on a small circle of aides blinded the president to threats from al-Qaida and the negative consequences of invading Iraq. O'Neill said the tightly held decision-making process foreclosed meaningful discussion about the effect of the bigger federal deficits that resulted from Bush's tax cuts.

Their complaints about the lack of robust internal debate echo conclusions of some presidential scholars who study White House decision-making.

"George Bush tends to make decisions on the basis of hunch and intuition, and then pulls together groups that confirm his decisions," said Paul Light, director of the Center for Public Service at the Brookings Institution, a center-left research center. "The only people who are invited to be on the team are people who agree with him."

Bush's management style reflects his personality. He is action-oriented, impatient and intolerant of lengthy brie fings and long debates. He often cites the importance of "instincts" in making decisions. (via the Seattle Times)

From "Questions raised about ethics of Iraq contract" in the Seattle Times:

A Virginia company that got a $240 million federal contract to develop "a competitive private sector" in Iraq helped write the specifications for the work that knocked its competitors out of the running, a federal investigation has found.

A draft memo by the inspector general at the U.S. Agency for International Development blasts the agency for giving a competitive advantage to BearingPoint, a consulting company that's in court defending itself against allegations of other contra cting irregularities and disclosures that its officials inaccurately stated its profits in 2003.

BearingPoint spent five months helping the USAID write the job specifications and got permission to spend money to train employees to work in Iraq long before the contract went out for public bid.

The firm's competitors had only a week to come up with their own bids for the complicated program after final revisions were made, the inspector general found.

[...]

BearingPoint, formerly KPMG Consulting, and its employees have given more than $117,000 to the 2000 and 2004 Bush election campaigns, more than any other major Iraqi contractor, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group that tracks campaign contributions.

From Thursday's New York Times, "Was an Official 'in the Loop'? It All Depends":

It is a strange occurrence in Washington when members of the well-ordered Bush White House publicly disagree with each other, but it happened on Wednesday.

Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, took exception to Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that Richard A. Clarke, the administration's former counterterrorism chief, was "out of the loop."

On the contrary, Ms. Rice said, Mr. Clarke was very much involved in the administration's fight against terrorism.

"I would not use the word 'out of the loop,' " Ms. Rice told reporters in response to a question about whether she considered it a problem that the administration's counterterrorism chief was not deeply involved "in a lot of what was going on," as Mr. Cheney said on Monday in an interview on Rush Limbaugh's radio program.

Ms. Rice painted a distinctly different picture of the involvement of Mr. Clarke, who has prompted furious responses since he asserted in a new book and in testimony on Capitol Hill that President Bush did not heed warnings before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"He was in every meeting that was held on terrorism," Ms. Rice said. "All the deputies' meetings, the principals' meeting that was held and so forth, the early meetings after Se pt. 11."

Well, somebody was out of the loop.

From yesterday's Defense Department Operational Briefing, via Wonkette:

Q: I wanted to go back for a minute, if I might -- for both of you -- to the question of the seriousness of Iraq. And I want to stipulate two things. We understand and we know at neither of you gentlemen were at the Radio-Television Correspondents dinner last night here in Washington where the president spoke. I also want to say that I am specifically asking you this question -- it's difficult to ask, but with all respect to the Office of the President.

And I brought the transcript with me. And it goes to the point of whether Iraq is really a serious matter or not. The pres ident made some remarks in a humorous fashion, and he showed some pictures there which most of us there saw. And he made some jokes about the hunt for the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And he said, quoting from the transcript, showing a picture, "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere." And then there was, in fact, laughter and applause from the audience. And then he showed another picture: "No, no weapons over there." Laughter and applause. Another picture: "Maybe under here." Laughter.

So my question, really, truly in all seriousness, is -- both for the president, with respect, and for the news media -- is it appropriate to make a joke -- seriously, sirs -- about the hunt for weapons of mass destruction, when both of you, of course, were involved in the difficult issue of sending troops to war for that hunt? And did the news media also blow it by sitting there and laughing? Did we blow it last night?

SEC. RUMSFELD: I wasn't there, and I --

Q: I understand. (And that is why ?) I'm reading the transcript very accurately to you.

SEC. RUMSFELD: I think you have to -- to know what I would think, I would have had to be there. I think the context of those evenings -- I wasn't there, as you said, but I think I've attended in previous years on occasion, and I just am not in a position to be judgmental about that.

Well. It's a very good thing the Secretary isn't judgmental, because if he were he might wonder about the extreme inappropriateness of the President making light of his inability to find weapons of mass destruction, the hunt for which was directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition soldiers and thousands of Iraqis.

But then we guess that wouldn't be funny after all.

From the editorial page of Wednesday's New York Times, "An Injudicious Nominee":

As the Defense Department's top lawyer, William Haynes II has been an architect of some of the Bush administration's most unenlightened policies. Now he has been nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, based in Richmond, Va . His record makes him unworthy of this important judgeship.

The "enemy combatant" doctrine was developed on Mr. Haynes's watch, and it is one of the most dangerous legal developments in years. American citizens designated enemy combatants by the president can be held indefinitely without access to a lawyer. When Jose Padilla, an American captured on American soil, challenged the policy, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, based in New York, held that it exceeded the president's "constitutional authority." Mr. Haynes also helped draft military tribunal rules that lack fundamental due-process guarantees and thus call into question the nation's commitment to the rule of law.

Mr. Haynes's trial experience is thin. He has tried only one case to a verdict. His 10 "most significant" cases, as reported to the Senate, include one in which his team argued that bombing an island in the Northern Marianas did not violate the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The bombing can enhance bird-watching, his team said, because people "get more enjoyment spotting a rare bird than they do spotting a common one." Mr. Haynes says he only supervised the case and was unaware of this bizarre claim. But that statement raises questions about his supervision.

In his work, Mr. Haynes has shown a lack of concern for sensitive constitutional rights that he would be expected to safeguard from the bench. He has la shed out at members of the news media and law professors who "have vehemently, and sometimes shrilly, criticized our detention of enemy combatants." And he has blocked the Senate's investigation of his record. Senator Edward Kennedy has said that his answers to written questions have been evasive, and that "he has resisted repeated requests for clarification of his position on several important issues."

If the president is intent on stocking the federal courts with ideologues, Mr. Haynes meets that standard. But senators should demand that judicial nominees have a deep background in the law, the respect of their profession and a proven record of supporting important constitutional principles.

From the editorial page of Monday's Boston Globe, "A hosti le judge":

When the White House is in the clutches of the oil, coal, mining, and timber companies, as it is now, the best defenders of laws to protect the environment are often federal judges. Recently they have ruled against the Bush administration on issues ranging from power plant emissions to snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park.

That's why it is so worrisome that President Bush has nominated a former lobbyist for the mining and cattle industries for a lifetime appointment on the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in California, which rules on many land use cases in the West. If the Senate confirms the nominee, William G. Myers, the judicial check on this administration's unbalanced policies will be weakened.

Myers's most recent job was a two-year stint as the top lawyer in Bush's Interior Department. There he regularly did favors for the cattlemen and mining company owners, acting against the interests of tribes and protectors of public lands.

The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that Myers had supported transferring public land to a mining company without bothering to check with the local office of the Bureau of Land Management, which opposed the giveaway. In reversing an opinion of the Interior Department under President Clinton that a proposed gold mine would pollute the environment and violate a sacred tribal site, Myers said he never consu lted with tribal officials, though they asked for a meeting.

Myers's judicial temperament is as flawed as his sensitivity to conflict of interest. He has compared federal management of public lands to "the tyrannical actions of King George in levying taxes" on the Colonies without their representation. He considers both the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act's wetlands protections to be examples of "regulatory excesses" and has argued that private property rights are as fundamental as free speech rights. This is a view, repeatedly rejected by the US Supreme Court, that would undercut a wide spectrum of zoning and environmental laws.

Quite aside from his extreme views, Myers has a scant record of qualification for the appeals court. Myers has never been a judge at any level, has never been a law professor, and has never even participated in a jury trial. Not a single member of the American Bar Association's standing committee on the federal judiciary rated him as "well qualified." More than one-third of the 15 members rated him as "not qualified."

From CNN.com yesterday, The Medicare mess: The Medicare bill backfires on the GOP

George Bush and his G.O.P. allies in Congress thought the Medicare prescription-drug benefit they enacted last December would take a key issue away from the Democrats and entice millions of seniors to vote Republican this November.

Instead, the legislation is fast becoming "an albatross around our necks," a G.O.P. Congressman tells TIME. "It's not playing very well with seniors."

Surveys indicate that the elderly are confused about the complicated prescription-drug benefits -- which don't fully kick in until 2006 --i n the nearly 700-page law and are skeptical that drug costs will be lowered.

Now questions about how the bill was pushed through Congress could make them even more leery. The House Ethics Committee and the FBI launched investigations into whether G.O.P. members of the House offered fellow Republican Nick Smith of Michigan a bribe -- in the form of a hefty contribution to his son's congressional campaign -- to vote for the measure on November 22.

And the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Servic es (HHS) began a probe into charges by Richard Foster, Medicare's top cost analyst, that the program's then administrator, Thomas Scully, threatened to fire him last June if he told Congress the prescription-drug bill would cost more than $500 billion, well above the $400 billion the Administration had publicly acknowledged. The higher number wasn't released until after the vote. (Scully denies making the threat.)

From today's Guardian, "Bush ignored terror threat, claims ex-aide":

George Bush's re-election campaign suffered a stinging blow yesterday when the president's former chief counter-terrorism adviser accused him of doing "a terrible job" in protecting America against attack, largely because of a fixation on Iraq.

Richard Clarke, who retired as the White House counter-terrorism coordinator last year, accused the president of putting pressure on him to find evidence of Iraqi involvement in the September 11 attacks, despite being told repeatedly that there was no link.

"I think he's done a terrible job on the war against terrorism," said Mr Clarke.

"Frankly, I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We'll never know."

[. . .]

White House officials have questioned Mr Clarke's impartiality, pointing out that he served as counter-terrorist "czar" in Bill Clinton's White House, and although he stayed on after Mr Bush's election, he lost his cabinet rank. However, Mr Clarke also served as a state department counter-terrorism adviser under President Reagan and the first President Bush.

A senior Republican senator, Chuck Hagel, yesterday described Mr Clarke as "a serious professional", adding that "the White House is going to have to answer these charges".