After almost 3 years, a "plan" for Iraq

This just in from the White House PR department - People want to see "a plan." So in about 20 minutes, Bush will make a speech at the Naval Academy to announce the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" If Bush ever wanted to impress Americans, he's speak on a college campus ... one that doesn't have to salute him. Go back to Yale or Harvard, George. Get them to applaud. To save yourself some time, I recommend printing off Bush's stump speeches that he's delivered to crowds he can imprision for talking back (military), throw them into your blender, hit "liquify" and this stuff will spit out the other end.
The short version -- after next month's elections, Rumsfeld will declare that all of America's hard work and sacrifice have paid off and General Casey's plan for drawing down troops will begin in earnest in January. Half the troops will be home by the August congressional recess next summer -- fall election time.
Rummy is a flake, okay? He said yesterday that he "thought about it over the weekend" and decided that the term "insurgent" gave those who were blowing themselves up too much legitimacy, so he's going to stop using it. Have you noticed that Bush has already switched to calling them terrorists instead? He must have been sitting in Rummy's lap (where he's been for 5 years) when the revelation came to him.

We have met the enemy ... in the mirror

The evil do-ers who use chemical weapons in the Middle East are ... who? Take a look at Shake and Bake - New York Times and decide for yourself. How many ways does this administration plan to use to humiliate Americans by abusing others in our name?

"U.S. Officials say ..."

Which way it it? This morning CNN reports that U.S. Officials said they "just missed" al-Zarqawi, but on their web site they say that reports the bad, bad guy was killed last weekend are "highly unlikely according to U.S. Officials." Now CNN debunks itself simultaneously?

Elephant Droppings

OhmyGod, it's shocking -- shocking! The Bush Administration forced its Medicare actuary to keep his yap shut about the actual expected cost ($500-$600 Billion, not the $400 billion as advertised) of the new drug benefit. From the New York Times story today: "Perhaps the most striking example of the administration's bypassing the bureaucracy to accomplish a political goal occurred in late 2003 when the Medicare actuary, Richard S. Foster, was told by his politically appointed boss that he would be fired if he gave Congress his best estimate of the cost of the administration's prescription-drug plan. If he had told the truth - that his projections showed the bill would cost $500 billion to $600 billion over 10 years, not $400 billion, as the administration was saying publicly - the bill surely would not have passed in the House, Republicans and Democrats agree."

Too bad Foster did what he was told.

Show, tell and get fired

In the 10 commandments there's something about not bearing false witness. This is not just about not lying, it's about not falsely accusing someone. So check this out -- one kid (elementary age) accuses another of stealing $5.00. The principal takes the accused kid from room to room and holds her up to the classes as "a liar and a thief."

But then, oops, sorry, the accuser recants her story. After a three-day paid suspension (isn't that "vacation"?) the principal is forced to resign. I'm guessing she goes straight to Dick Cheney's office to apply for a job.

Go Chuck, Go

Senator Chuck Hagel, (R-Nebraska) has poked back at the Bush administration for its BS tactics of accusing any critic of giving comfort to the terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere. What a breath of fresh air this is from one of the last real moderate Republicans on the planet. Between this and the John McCain piece in this week's Newsweek, it's no wonder Bush left the continent. Does he have to come back?

Offensive Iraq

"I demand on behalf of the America people that we understand why these investigations aren't being conducted," Democratic leader Harry Reid said.

With this, Reid invoked Rule 21 and closed the Senate session to discuss this matter of national security (how the administration ginned up the intelligence to support the war). Crybaby (Majority Leader) Bill Frist ran out the door into the arms of CNN to complain. About the outrageous accusation? No. That democrats have lost their minds? No.

That he was insulted -that tradition and procedure were not followed in notifying him.

You know what? Tough shit. War is hell, Frist. Answer the f*cking question -- why isn't the Senate investigating the manipulation of intelligence that "justified" this war? Why aren't they investigating a breach of national security represented by the deliberate leak of a CIA officer's name?

The answer thus far appears to be that Republicans' loyalty, which is supposed to be to the Constitution and the greater good of the country, is instead to the person sitting in the Oval Office and behind the curtain at the Naval Observatory.

Oh, shocking -- another white male justice

It's no damn surprise to me ... just proof in the pudding. C'mon - George is a simple guy with a simple plan.

He doesn't give a sh*t about a Supreme Court that represents all Americans. He certainly doesn't think of the seat he's filling as belonging to a moderate justice, but that's his right. He wants a court that represents his America -- corporate, white and male. Unfortunately, these are the spoils of the election of 2004and the very thing that should have driven many more democrats to the polls.

So he nominates Miers and no one can dare to suggest that maybe he did so knowing that she'd never get to the hearings. Knowing that she'd be blasted for being unqualified and knowing that she would back out when she was hammered in the press. She was a lamb sent to slaughter.

No matter, he always intended to send up a reactionary conservative and a white male. By shoving Harriet in front of a train, he can say he tried. Baloney.

So all that crap he floated about the importance of diversity? Forget it. He sure will -- quicker than Scooter Libby will lose all recollection of when he first heard about ... what was her name?

Justice Poetic

There once was a bonehead named "Scooter"
Whose fortunes landed right in the pooter
He lied, cheated, stole
Then dug quite a hole
As his nose grew longer, dropping cooters

Then came the good guys, like Fitz
He asked all the questions, took no shits
He charged Scooter - bam
Five big counts, quite a jam

The defense we are told
Is planned to be bold
Because Libby was busy
He'll claim t'was a tizzy
He'd forgotten the facts - oh, that's old.

And it doesn't rhyme with anything, but crap like this you wouldn't accept from you 8-year-old.

Getting Mier'd Down

Pathetic. Read Harriet's why-I-can't-take-that-great-job-offer letter to Bush.
What a visionary. She's suddenly realized that she'd have to either hand over records or testify to her views on issues that have come up while she was White House Counsel? Oh, no ... she must preserve executive privilege? For the sake of "this great Nation" ... what, the magazine? Why is that capitalized? Why is " ... your Administration" capitalized?

You know, I think the English language can be difficult to navigate, but not as tough as the U.S. Constitution. If the woman doesn't know how to follow the rules of English grammar, I feel pretty sure that looking up all those big words would have been too much for her. Put simply, this job was waaaaay over her head and this withdrawl, for whatever reason, is simple, obvious proof that Bush made a brazenly incompetent choice.

More Savage Inequalities

Jonathan Kozol, author of "Savage Inequalities," has another book out, revealing the continuation of obscene inqualities in America's Schools. Read about it on Bloomberg.com or at the publisher's site.

If you still think it's not about race ... uh ... you're blind.

Sure, blame Maureen

Interesting to me is that this morning radio talk show host Don Imus asked NY Times Columnist Maureen Dowd about this column (see below) which he aptly described as "dropping a safe" on Judy Miller. Dowd's response: "If I'm going to hold accountable institutions I care about, then I have to be willing to do the same for an institution like The Times, which I love."

Imus (pig that he is) said that the "attack" on Miller "seems personal." Does this sound familiar? What's next? "You-should-have-called-me-before-you-ran-this" ?

Miller, according the Wall Street Journal, is on the way to the parking lot.

Anyway ... Dowd's column is now available on the Times' website only to readers who subscribe to their "Tmes Select" product, so I'm pasting it in here. They can sue me (and a hundred other bloggers). Dowd, for proving her integrity, has been moved to Saturday after 10 years on the Times' Sunday edit page. Lame. Cheap. Pathetic. Maybe we should throw our Sunday papers back at the newsstand or something.

If you EVER thought about writing to a newspaper to complain about the bad treatment of a columnist who was holding her management to an appropriate standard of professional conduct, now is the time. Send a letter to the editor by e-mailing letters@nytimes.com or faxing (212)556-3622.

But first, make sure you read this column, which ends with a helluva punch:

Woman of Mass Destruction
By Maureen Dowd
The New York Times
Saturday 22 October 2005

I've always liked Judy Miller. I have often wondered what Waugh or Thackeray would have made of the Fourth Estate's Becky Sharp.
The traits she has that drive many reporters at The Times crazy - her tropism toward powerful men, her frantic intensity and her peculiar mixture of hard work and hauteur - never bothered me. I enjoy operatic types.
Once when I was covering the first Bush White House, I was in The Times' seat in the crowded White House press room, listening to an administration official's background briefing. Judy had moved on from her tempestuous tenure as a Washington editor to be a reporter based in New York, but she showed up at this national security affairs briefing.
At first she leaned against the wall near where I was sitting, but I noticed that she seemed agitated about something. Midway through the briefing, she came over and whispered to me, "I think I should be sitting in the Times seat."
It was such an outrageous move, I could only laugh. I got up and stood in the back of the room, while Judy claimed what she felt was her rightful power perch.
She never knew when to quit. That was her talent and her flaw. Sorely in need of a tight editorial leash, she was kept on no leash at all, and that has hurt this paper and its trust with readers. She more than earned her sobriquet "Miss Run Amok."
Judy's stories about WMD fit too perfectly with the White House's case for war. She was close to Ahmad Chalabi, the con man who was conning the neocons to knock out Saddam so he could get his hands on Iraq, and I worried that she was playing a leading role in the dangerous echo chamber that former Senator Bob Graham dubbed "incestuous amplification." Using Iraqi defectors and exiles, Mr. Chalabi planted bogus stories with Judy and other credulous journalists.
Even last April, when I wrote a column critical of Mr. Chalabi, she fired off e-mail to me defending him.
When Bill Keller became executive editor in the summer of 2003, he barred Judy from covering Iraq and W.M.D issues. But he admitted in The Times' Sunday story about Judy's role in the Plame leak case that she had kept "drifting" back. Why did nobody stop this drift?
Judy admitted in the story that she "got it totally wrong" about WMD "If your sources are wrong," she said, "you are wrong." But investigative reporting is not stenography.
The Times' story and Judy's own first-person account had the unfortunate effect of raising more questions. As Bill said in an e-mail note to the staff on Friday, Judy seemed to have "misled" the Washington bureau chief, Phil Taubman, about the extent of her involvement in the Valerie Plame leak case.
She casually revealed that she had agreed to identify her source, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, as a "former Hill staffer" because he had once worked on Capitol Hill. The implication was that this bit of deception was a common practice for reporters. It isn't.
She said that she had wanted to write about the Wilson-Plame matter, but that her editor would not allow it. But Managing Editor Jill Abramson, then the Washington bureau chief, denied this, saying that Judy had never broached the subject with her.
It also doesn't seem credible that Judy wouldn't remember a Marvel comics name like "Valerie Flame." Nor does it seem credible that she doesn't know how the name got into her notebook and that, as she wrote, she "did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby."
An Associated Press story yesterday reported that Judy had coughed up the details of an earlier meeting with Mr. Libby only after prosecutors confronted her with a visitor log showing that she had met with him on June 23, 2003. This cagey confusion is what makes people wonder whether her stint in the Alexandria jail was in part a career rehabilitation project.
Judy is refusing to answer a lot of questions put to her by Times reporters, or show the notes that she shared with the grand jury. I admire Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Bill Keller for aggressively backing reporters in the cross hairs of a prosecutor. But before turning Judy's case into a First Amendment battle, they should have nailed her to a chair and extracted the entire story of her escapade.
Judy told The Times that she plans to write a book and intends to return to the newsroom, hoping to cover "the same thing I've always covered - threats to our country." If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be the newspaper in your hands.

When Faith Runs Policy - Wag The Dogma

If I hear one more time (and I will) that Harriet Miers' faith is the reason (wink, wink) that conservatives should "relax and support her," I believe I will throw up. (Get the bucket, here it comes)

Remember "relax and enjoy it" ... the good-ole-boys anti-rape strategy. Throwing up works better for that violation, too.

Being a good lawyer is not a qualification for serving on the high court. Neither is having ovaries. But in his most egregious effort to prove that he can do whatever he likes, George Bush has put his "work wife" up to replace a genuinely qualified and tempered voice on the court, Sandra Day O'Connor -- a judge with whom I have disagreed plenty (Bush v. Gore, 2000) but I respect her and consider her to be a fair judge who is devoted to only one thing professionally -- the Constitution.

But Miers is devoted to Bush - a man she considers to be brilliant. Exactly how much evidence of bad judgment do we need?!

I was always kind of fond of this idea of separating Church and State. Bush's galling "defense" of Miers (citing her faith as the key to his defense) is utterly repugnant. No one can attest to another faith -- that's not just ridiculous, it's completely insulting to Miers and to people of actual faith, which usually involves characteristics of humility and reverence for its deeply personal quality.

Herald-Sun's "More Local News" ="No News"

As is so often true, The Independent's Fiona Morgan has nailed it in this week's "Triangles" section. Don't miss her blast of the Herald-Sun's sorry excuse for coverage of the Durham's Most Wanted (city council/mayor) races. Reporter Ray Gronberg's eventual story was little more than a middle school book report on the News & Observer's right-on coverage of Vincent Brown, then-candidate for mayor and convicted felon.

I won't replay Fiona's story, except to comment that Herald-Sun Editor Bob Ashley makes some disturbing comments for the story (hey, glad he talked to her ... an improvement over the stonewall strategy). He says, for example that they didn't want to just reiterate the N&O's coverage and were looking for a new angle on the story. For five days?! Is he on FEMA time?

Second (and more alarming IF it's true) he said that they routinely do criminal background checks on candidates and that theirs turned up nothing on Brown. Multiple convictions and 100 charges, but they turned up nothing? Maybe the Ouija board isn't the best method, Bob.

Durham's distinguished candidates

Oh, Lord. It's not bad enough that half the candidates for city council in Durham have been convicted of one thing or another, then comes this factor ... holy crap, this one's a real head case.

To wit, Carolina James-Rivera, candidate for Ward #2 (wait, is that the psych ward)? Here are some snippets from her interview/questionairre with the Herald-$un. These are only highlights ... if you really want to enjoy yourself, make some popcorn and read the whole thing.

"To disrespect a USA Military Mans' wife, children and home in front of the world is the lowest of a war crime one can comment."

"It's been over two year since the release of my brain wash daughter that was hardored from home and school with and sexual, physical and mental abuser. My parent rights was stolen as her youth years."

"It took a flood to prove to me that African American are not equal to any human or animal. As well to be reinstated to vote in 2007 clearify the abuse my family experience in front of the whole city of Durham the past eight years."

Within her answer to the question What would be your top priorities in office?:
"to Qestion City Manager and City Mayor of Health Care provider drugging me to cover up scandal."

To the question Why are you qualified to hold this office?
"1) Durham North, Carolina Michael Peterson scandal rebellion, revange, hate crime, copy cat murder case scandal movie."

Follow the bread

We all remember that famous story about Willy Sutton, the 1930s bankrobber, who was asked why he robbed banks. "That's where the money is," he said.

So, if you're in it for the bread, you have to appreciate the giggle in this story of a Chapel Hill restaurant getting ripped off recently. I wonder if the robbers made out with any dough.

Never Trust a Grown Man Named "Scooter"

At last, the NY Times reporter-who-didn't, Judith Miller, is free. She was finally released from her confidentiality agreement with VP Cheney's Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby and testified today on the whys and wherefores of his and Carl Rove's leakage of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity.

Soon, we hope, the right guys will be off to prison or at least off the government's payroll. One of those two buggers should be indicted by Halloween. Trick or Treat.

As for Miller, God bless her, she didn't even write the damn story that outed Plame's CIA operative status. That was Bob Novak, a washed up hack of a columnist who is now suspended from CNN for cursing and walking off the set during a live broadcast. (Suddenly, James Carville was able to offen him -- amazing) Miller, in fact, wrote no story related to the matter. Eventually she will, I'm sure, and that should be a real page-turner.

Watching Those Lemmings in Texas

Last week I watched the long, long lines of SUVs sitting on the highways outside Houston, sitting ... waiting ... running out of gas. Looking at the helicopter shots of miles of stopped traffic, I had to laugh -- I mean, really, I just couldn't help it.

See, here were all these people trying to evacuate to avoid injury in a hurricane. They were doing the right thing. Unfortunately, they left some of their common sense back at home, locked up tight. Here you are on the interstate in the midst of many miles of stopped traffic. Coming the opposite direction are three lanes of open pavement with a car here and their occasionally.

And you sit there? In your kick-ass $50,000 this-thing-can-climb-Everest SUV? No, I don't think so.

I think you drive over (or IN) the grassy meridian and you carefully proceed up the breakdown lane in the opposite direction. In 30 seconds, 5,000 people are behind you. It's an emergency for crying out loud. Hey, if a cop stops you, take the ticket. Happily PAY the ticket. But sit there like a sack of dirt, run out of gas and tell reporters (as many did) that you'll now wait for the government to come and gas you up?

These are the self-reliant Texans we've heard so much about? The lone star state? Unimpressive.

More old taxes

Regretably, Catherine DeVine's denial of owing old taxes (2000 and 2001) to Orange County are false. She does owe them, according to Jo Roberson, Director or Orange County's Revenue Department. When I corresponded directly with Catherine, she said she was suprised that I "would rely on such an unreliable source" (the County's online records). "Those taxes are paid," she declared.

Well, they're not paid. According to Roberson, there is a payment plan now in place to resolve the debt (with interest) but the fact is that this alderman candidate owes the county money that was due five years ago.

So, there are two problems here. First is a candidate for public office with years-old unpaid taxes who hopes to be spending the people's money. That part is up the the people of Carrboro to resolve for themselves.

The second, however, is her response to the information itself ... declaring, falsely, that the taxes were paid and impugning the tax office's recordkeeping to boot. I have some experience with the Orange County tax office, both as a taxpayer and as a reporter. I have always found their staff to be helpful, knowledgeable completely professional. Our Revenue Department is rated as among the best in this state. I don't appreciate Catherine's describing the office or its online records as "such an unreliable source."

It seems to me that beyond the money, Catherine DeVine owes the people of Carrboro and the county taxpayers an explanation.

A Texas-sized blast from mutha nature

Just for the record, when Rita knocks the states of Texas AND Louisiana for a loop, certainly doubling the hurricane damages bill for the federal government, I'll betcha that our fearless leader, George II will stare straight into the camera and say (again) that we still don't need any form of taxpayer sacrifice to cover the cost. I'm not talking about jacking up tax rates for average folks, but criminy, we need to let those cuts for the very, very rich sunset as they were enacted to do.

But George II will want to "stay the course" and keep his rich white boy welfare program in place. Lord, how I wish our system would allow a recall election.