The Next Hurrah

Lying liars: ExxonMobil tries to polish its image

by Plutonium Page

There are some people you just can't believe, no matter what, because they can't stop lying:

The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda, because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.

-- George W. Bush, June 17, 2004

Liars like to hang out with other liars, which is why Bush and  ExxonMobil are such good pals.  And, just like Bush, since ExxonMobil can't stop lying, and lying, and lying, you can't believe anything they say.

ExxonMobil's latest farce is to try to polish their image and shore up credibility with environmentalists.  Unbelievably, they think that changing their leadership from an unpleasant jackass to a slick, smiling, oily jackass will somehow convince people they've turned over a new leaf.

The New York Times reports:

If Rex W. Tillerson has his way, ExxonMobil will no longer be the oil company that environmentalists love to hate.

Since taking over as Exxon's chairman three months ago from Lee R. Raymond, his abrasive predecessor who dismissed fears of global warming and branded environmental activists "extremists," Mr. Tillerson has gone out of his way to soften Exxon's public stance on climate change.

"We recognize that climate change is a serious issue," Mr. Tillerson said during a 50-minute interview last week, pointing to a recent company report that acknowledged the link between the consumption of fossil fuels and rising global temperatures. "We recognize that greenhouse gas emissions are one of the factors affecting climate change."

[Emphasis mine.]

Wha...?  Does this mean that Exxon astroturf groups will have to re-write all their anti-climate change position papers?

No, wait!  Relax, folks!  Nothing has changed (except the climate). 

Lindsay Graham: Duplicitous Shill. (But you knew that.)

by Kagro X 

I said I wasn't gonna watch the Senate Judiciary Committee's censure hearings, but I flipped by and caught Sen. Lindsay Graham's exchange with John Dean, and just had to point something out.

The essense of the exhcange was that Graham believed Dean's comparison of the NSA wiretapping to Watergate was inapt -- that Watergate involved a burglary, an outright criminal act, whereas the NSA surveillance involved a "legitimate" dispute over the scope of executive authority.

Dean, of course, pointed out that both the break-in at Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office and the coverup of the Watergate break-in were justified (in Nixon's mind) as being necessary for "national security" purposes.

We Don't Have The Beds

by DemFromCT

Since Flu Wiki is still down (server change taking time), here's a couple of bird flu articles to chew over. The first is from Bloomberg, highlighting the fragility of our modern health care system, a point repeatedly made on this blog.

Bird-Flu Pandemic, Even Mild One, Will Overwhelm U.S. Hospitals

In 1957, the University of North Carolina turned a dormitory into a hospital for dozens of students stricken by an Asian flu circling the globe. Eleven years later, Nashville medical centers filled beyond capacity when another worldwide epidemic hit.         

The famous 1918 Spanish flu that killed 50 million people isn't the only pandemic that caused a global health crisis during the past century. Two other pandemics, though much milder than the more well-known one, also strained nations' health-care systems, researchers say. The Asian flu killed at least 2 million in 1957, and about 700,000 died during the Hong Kong flu in 1968.         

If the current wave of bird flu turns into a human infection that is only as widespread and deadly as the one in 1968, the American health-care system will be severely tested, said Nancy Cox, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's influenza branch in Atlanta. ``Emergency rooms would be overflowing, doctors offices would be overflowing and hospital beds would be overflowing,'' she said March 20.         

An outbreak roughly equivalent to the Hong Kong flu might kill only about 209,000 worldwide as a result of new medicines and improved care, U.S. health officials estimate. Yet, a bird- flu pandemic similar to the one that hit almost 40 years ago is almost certain to be catastrophic, perhaps sickening one in three Americans and over-burdening the nation's 4,000 hospitals, 20 percent fewer than in 1968, health officials predict.         

U.S. hospitals are ``simply not set up to accommodate'' illness rates of up to 35 percent, levels seen in past pandemics, CDC's Cox said.  Even in the most-severe seasonal flu outbreaks, illness rates top out at 15 percent of the population, said William Schaffner, an infectious-disease specialist at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville.

Meanwhile in the BMJ, an argument is made for ignoring the above. After all, we're just a bunch of ignorant louts that can't tell bird flu from pandemic flu.

We don't have the numbers.

by Kagro X

"We can't impeach," I'm told daily. "We just don't have the numbers. We need to focus on the elections and winning back the House and Senate. Then we can have real oversight, and do the things we want to do."

Well, I've had about enough of this so-called "pragmatism." Not because it isn't rooted in truth, but rather because the roots aren't as strong as people think.

Bush Knew

by emptywheel

Murray Waas (hat tip Jeff) has a great new article detailing how Stephen Hadley completed a review of the claims Bush made and the intelligence he used to make those claims. Hadley determined that Bush had made claims that he had previously been warned were challenged within the Intelligence Community. In particular, Bush's claims about the aluminum tubes were shaky:

For one, Hadley's review concluded that Bush had been directly and repeatedly apprised of the deep rift within the intelligence community over whether Iraq wanted the high-strength aluminum tubes for a nuclear weapons program or for conventional weapons.

For another, the president and others in the administration had cited the aluminum tubes as the most compelling evidence that Saddam was determined to build a nuclear weapon -- even more than the allegations that he was attempting to purchase uranium.

Go read Waas' story. I'd just like to point out a few implications of Waas' story, about the timing of Hadley's review,  about Judy's testimony, about the orders to leak information from the NIE, and about the SSCI report.

Month-Old Plame News

by emptywheel

Thanks to Jim E for alerting me to the fact, and thanks to TalkLeft for posting it, I've finally had a chance to look at the transcript from the February hearing on Scooter Libby's case. There's already a lively discussion going on in the comments here. But I wanted to point out two things I noticed in the reading.

First, Libby's team appears to be arguing that Libby totally forgot that Cooper told him he had heard of Plame's identity. Assuming Libby didn't just forget, but rather just lied about it, that suggests that Libby and Rove did one more thing (in addition to fiddling with the phone logs and burying the Rove-Hadley email) to eliminate all trace of Rove's conversation with Cooper.

Second, Jeffress seems to want to have his cake and eat it too. He spends a good deal of time arguing he needs to know Mr. X's identity, so he can subpoena him. But then he claims that Libby was told Mr. X had told journalists about Plame. Only when Judge Walton catches him in the logical contradiction does Jeffress revert to his Hail Mary pass, bringing up the transcript where Mr. X claims "everyone knew it."

More Polling Tea Leaves

by DemFromCT

Gallup has a new post on party ID which has been a contentious and poorly understood topic for some time. Party ID, in a nutshell, is a variable and not a constant. It both measures and influences the voting public's opinion of the powers that be; when pollsters use party ID to weight poll results, it can change the outcome of the poll. But it's also an important historical measure that reflects satisfaction with current leadership.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Republicans have been more likely than Democrats to hold an edge in party identification. In the 18 quarters since 9/11, Republicans have had an edge in 12 of them. This is a change from the past, as Democrats have traditionally held an edge in national partisanship in Gallup polls dating back to the 1940s except for a brief period of time in 1991 around the Persian Gulf War and late 1994 and 1995 after Republicans took control of Congress.

Even though basic overall party identification is essentially even, the Democrats can be said to have an advantage because more independents say they lean to the Democratic Party than to the Republican Party. This is significant because independents who lean to a political party tend to share similar attitudes and voting patterns with those who identify with the party. That could be one reason why Democrats have a lead in Gallup's generic congressional ballot this year.

In the most recent quarter, 49% of Americans identify as Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, and 42% identify as Republicans or lean to the Republican Party. Democrats have held that same 49% to 42% advantage during each of the last three quarters. In the second quarter of 2005, Democrats had a slightly smaller 47% to 43% edge. At the beginning of 2005, the parties were at even strength on this measure.

The slow eroding of trust in Bush, the Schiavo debacle for Congress, corruption scandals and the Iraq war all have influence here, as does dismay at spending on the part of fiscal conservatives and NSA actions on the part of libertarians. This is a trend that will need watching right up to the election.

Republicans will scream 'inaccuracy!' when polls show 'not enough Republicans' in the party ID demographics. But it ain't necessarily so.

Bush's False Good Faith

by emptywheel

I just caught the tail end of the Judiciary Committee's hearing on the NSA program. I came in on just in time to hear Arlen Specter boast of the great witnesses he had brought in, then turn to berate Feingold for bringing a censure resolution. Specter seems to be clinging to a narrow justification for his support of Bush: The program is illegal, but Bush acted in good faith, Specter says.

As I've said before, the next time I get busted for something, I'll be sure to tell the cop I was acting in good faith. Yes, I know I broke the law when I took that illegal U-Turn, officer, but I was turning in good faith.

Meanwhile, back at Holden's Obsession with the Gaggle, the press and Scottie are nearing a point of no return on a related issue. Repeatedly, Helen and David Gregory quizzed Scottie about yesterday's NYT story on Bush's and Blair's agreement to start the war before they said they had. Gregory got very close to backing Scottie into a corner:

Why Didn't Libby Alter His Notes

by emptywheel

Larisa has reported and Steve Clemons has confirmed that Rove is cooperating in some manner with Fitzgerald's investigation, and that cooperation somehow points to Dick's office. From Larisa:

According to one source close to the case, Rove is providing information on deleted emails, erased hard drives and other types of obstruction by staff and other officials in the Vice President's office. Pentagon sources close to Rove confirmed this account.

None would name the staffers and/or officials whom Rove is providing information about. They did, however, explain that the White House computer system has "real time backup" servers and that while emails were deleted from computers, they were still retrievable from the backup system. By providing the dates and recipient information of the deleted emails, sources say, Rove was able to chart a path for Fitzgerald directly into the office of the Vice President.

Note neither Larisa nor Clemons say this points directly at Dick yet. Which is just as well, because he's more of the "shoot someone who's standing behind you" type anyway.

The Next Open Thread: Weakness

by DemFromCT

Andy Card Resigns. President forced to accept rsignation. Bush backs down. Again.

Mr. Bush has come under increasing pressure in recent months from members of his own party to shake up his staff as a way of turning around his decline in popularity.

Many Republicans felt that even without Mr. Bush's mounting problems some new faces were needed. Mr. Card was approaching the record of the longest serving White House chief of staff. His tenure rivaled that of Sherman Adams, who held that position under President Eisenhower.

While many of Mr. Bush's problems are related to increasing public uneasiness over Iraq, it was Mr. Card who took the blame for the slowness of the White House staff's response to Hurricane Katrina and to criticism of the Dubai ports deal. Republicans have also become increasingly vocal about their perception that the White House has lost its political edge.

But the move announced today leaves in place Karl Rove, the President's top political adviser, who is a deputy chief of staff. And it does not represent an infusion of new blood, since Mr. Bolten is also a longtime adviser, and served as a deputy chief of staff before becoming budget director.

What else do you need to know?