The Next Hurrah

Stop the Torture

by emptywheel

I'm not a lawyer. And I don't have the time to even begin to wade through yesterday's decision on Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. One of my favorite takes on it, so far, comes from Anonymous Liberal, who basically says:

• David Addington's head is almost certainly exploding right now
• "The Hamdan decision represents, in [AL's] opinion, a fatal blow to the Addington/Yoo theory of executive power."
• SCOTUS judges are not as stupid as Senators Graham and Kyl think they are

We've already heard that Congress will act to pass some kind of justification for Bush's little military tribunals. But in the meantime, I'm particularly interested in how this ruling will affect our practices of torture.

Anatomy of a White House Smear, 3.7

by emptywheel

(Previous parts 3.1 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 3.4 | 3.5 | 3.6)

This is the last of my Anatomy of a White House Smear series. We've seen some of the post-indictment events already, in reviewing the ways that Rove capitalized on the behavior of Woodward and Viveca Novak to evade charges. In this post, I examine the indictment and what we've learned since the indictment, with an eye toward speculating where this might go.

The Indictment

IANAL, so my thoughts on Scooter Libby's indictment come from an awareness of the case rather than lawyerly analysis. That said, there are several aspects of the indictment that stick out:

• Fitzgerald lays the ground work for charging IIPA, by establishing Libby's security clearance and responsibility to comply with the IIPA law, but he doesn't attempt to make the case that Libby knew Plame's status was covert, even though several details (of Cheney's description of Plame as CPD, or the conversation with Ari) suggest Libby did know it.

Yet More Polling On Iraq

by DemFromCT

The invaluable Mystery Pollster/Prof Franklin combo post on a roundup of polling here, reviewing the 'hardening' of opinion:

Thus my conclusion yesterday that as the debate on timelines and other proposals for withdrawal has intensified, real underlying attitudes have been hardening and are less susceptible to the variation in opinion poll question wording and context.

As I noted in a comment there, adding in (not for analysis purposes by MP, but for 'big picture' context), Gallup has an analysis today by Frank Newport of Congressional preference, entitled Americans Want Congressional Involvement in Iraq Decisions but no clear mandate in terms of a timetable for troop withdrawal.

Underlying these results is the rather obvious fact that almost everyone -- including both proponents and opponents of the war in Iraq -- agrees that troops should eventually be withdrawn from Iraq. The two issues involved are thus: 1) When should troops be withdrawn, and 2) who should decide the timetable for withdrawal?

In terms of the latter question, the new Gallup poll shows that a majority appears to favor Congress getting involved rather than leaving the issue totally up to the administration.

If Americans are divided (and clear in their minds that there is no consensus), it is interesting that they turn to Congress for guidance, and not the WH, and in doing so, appear to want Dems to be elected:

Voters Seem Ready for a Change of Scenery in Congress
Many Indicators Point to Democratic Strength in Midterms

Whatever the polls seem to indicate on the narrower Iraq question, I'm not so sure the "stay the course" people are all that happy with that choice. Are there any 'intensity' questions like the 'strongly approve', 'strongly disapprove' the WaPo uses in their presidential approval poll? I haven't come across that. Prof. Franklin's graph is here:

Not So Secret After All

By Mikikatz

Just a day or so ago the Right Wing was calling for the head of Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, on a pike after the Times published a story about SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) and it's cooperation with the US Government in tracking terrorist financial transactions, and everyone else's too.  The usual overheated suspects were howling.

Tony Snow, when asked for evidence of the NYT's putting lives at risk, said:

"I am absolutely sure they didn't know about SWIFT."

But now it seems that SWIFT is not so super-secret after all.  Guess what.  Via Froomkin,

SWIFT has a Web site, at swift.com .

It's a very informative Web site. For instance, this page describes how "SWIFT has a history of cooperating in good faith with authorities such as central banks, treasury departments, law enforcement agencies and appropriate international organisations, such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), in their efforts to combat abuse of the financial system for illegal activities."

(And yes, FATF has its own Web site, too.)

An e-mail from White House Briefing reader Tim O'Keefe tipped me off to just how nutty it is to suggest that SWIFT keeps a low profile. Among other things, he explained, "SWIFT also happens to put on the largest financial services trade show in the world every year," he wrote. "Swift also puts out a lovely magazine ."

So what will the Right Wing say now?  Apologies?

Consider this an open thread.

More Polling On Iraq

by DemFromCT

Mystery Pollster has a typically excellent rundown of Iraq polling, as does Chris Cillizza at the Fix.
From the Fix:

Two-thirds of Democrats who responded to the poll said they favor a timetable for withdrawal, while just 28 percent of Republicans said they felt the same way. Independents were more divided, with 44 percent in favor of a timeline and 55 percent opposed. Those results are generally consistent along ideological lines, with 65 percent of liberals, 50 percent of moderates and 33 percent of conservatives in support of setting a withdrawal date.

Other interesting trends from inside the Post-ABC data include a major gender gap -- 55 percent of women support a deadline compared with just 38 percent of men (a phenomenon Morin and reporter Dan Balz touched on in their story on the poll Tuesday). Democratic women were the strong backers of a deadline (69 percent) while Republican males stood strongest in opposition (77 percent). Among independents, women were much more strongly behind a timetable (55 percent) than men (34 percent).

Looking for a profile of an individual most likely to support deadline-setting? It's probably a westerner between the ages of 18 and 29 who has no more than a high school degree and makes under $20,000 a year. Fifty-four percent of westerners sampled by Post-ABC favored setting a timeline for withdrawal, as did 58 percent of 18-29 year olds, 56 percent of respondents with a high school degree or less and 67 percent of people making $20,000 a year or less.

And the person most likely to oppose a withdrawal deadline? A southerner between the ages of 50 and 64 years of age with either a college or post-graduate degree who makes more than $100,000 a year. Forty-four percent of southerners opposed a deadline for withdrawing U.S. troops, along with 40 percent of 50-64 year olds, 39 percent of persons with a college degree (or higher) and 37 percent of people making $100,000 a year or more.

And from MP on the evenly divided electorate:

Show Me the Money

by emptywheel

I'm with James Wolcott. No, I'm not talking about his scathing take on Rush's latest antics (though antics like those are sheer putty in the hands of a master like Wolcott). I'm talking about his take on the First Amendment bashers.

What a gummy uproar. One so loud and ferocious that there almost has to be some follow-through, otherwise you are going to have one frustrated batch of highly indignants. They want the administration to show the Times and the rest of the press who's boss. The neocon contingent is already dismayed with the tiptoeing around Iran's nuclear program, with Ledeen and Perle lodging protests. If the pushback against the Times peters out, if the posse disbands shortly after mounting up, the White House is going to look weak in the bugged-out eyes of its mutant defenders. It'll be interesting to see if the controversy builds or fades over the next few days, and whether or not the Times-bashers will be compelled to call their own bluff.

BushCo has manufactured so much furor directed at NYT, they're going to have to deliver ... something, or risk all that furor be turned elsewhere, perhaps back on itself.

When Do We Leave Iraq? Does It Depend On The Meaning Of "Leave"?

By Mimikatz

William Arkin has an interesting post this morning contending that the Bush Administration has already, in effect, decided on a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.  Under this scenario, we will, as Bush says so often, "stand down as the Iraqis stand up."  But we will begin to leave, and we will leave before anything the American public would recognize as our "mission" has been accomplished.

Here's what President Bush and Company are not saying: Before we leave Iraq, we will kill every last foreign fighter, neutralize the insurgency and destroy the sectarian militias. (snip)

The Iraq calendar nevertheless is clear: Small changes in the U.S. force structure, together with a sharpened focus on difficult areas, such as al Anbar province, more joint U.S.-Iraqi operations and better sharing of intelligence hopefully will bear fruit. Violence will decrease or at least stay at current levels.  If after x-months, the situation isn't worse, more forces can be withdrawn.  If after y-months, Iraqi forces are performing well, even more American soldiers can go.  U.S. forces ultimately (post-2007) will draw down to a small quick reaction capability with close-in intelligence to support Iraqi forces taking the lead, in x-cities and governorates, and eventually in all.

No Congressional vote is going to disrupt this calendar, no cooked-up "progress" on the ground against terrorists or the insurgency is going to altar the balancing act, the White House isn't going to capitulate to public opinion, no "plan" is going to emerge before elections.  In fact, the only possibile disruption of the balancing act would be a demand on the part of the Iraqi government that the United States leave. (snip)

There is no timetable, not even a secret one.  And there is no prospect for a "phased" withdrawal, one of the Democrat plans, because a phase suggests a schedule which suggests a preordained outcome, which is a possibility that the Bush administration cannot condone politically. 

But we will be leaving.  Not all of our forces, not accoridng to a timetable, and (at least not overtly) not in response to public pressure.  We will leave because there is nothing else we can do at this point.

There is only one answer that is now acceptable to the administration, the military and the American public: U.S. forces leave, there is no increase in troop levels unless in the case of extraordinary (and temporary) needs, and an end stays in sight.

So we are not going to be in Iraq "forever", as the Democrats' current mantra would have it, not with 130,000 troops there.  But we will not "bug out", as Nixon used to say, in the sense that a small force will remain in secure bases in and around Iraq.    And we are not going to withdraw according to a "timetable," except one driven by our own elections.  This allows Bush to persuade himself that he has not abandoned the mission, it allows the GOP to criticize the Dems for advocating "cut and run" even as we trim and redeploy.  And it allows the military to staunch the bleeding and begin to rebuild our forces.  The only thing that could disrupt the nonexistent timetable is a resurgence in violence, and Arkin does not say what would happen in that case, although the Administration penchant for finding the good news where others say none exits suggests that they will just redefine the meaning of "stability" and "standing up". 

It's the old Nixon Plan, and the only way for the Congressional Dems to counter it is to keep standing with the majority of the Party, and near-majority of the public,  who think we should begin the withdrawal process, even if "timetable" is not the phrase of choice.  Most Dems are coming to a consensus position like the Levin-Reed resolution.  It is past time to let the public know that. 

Stand Up, Howie

by emptywheel

I beat up on Howie yesterday. But today, I've got to say, he's doing the right thing. It's as if, in his own compromised way, he has heard Atrios' siren call.

As treason charges against the New York Times (but not, oddly, the Wall Street Journal) are getting thrown around on various "respectable" news outlets by people working in "journalism" I think it's probably time for the serious reporters at those outlets to inform management that their resignations will be forthcoming if it doesn't stop.

Silly people like me have been trying to warn you for years - you created, cultivated, nourished, and promoted these people. They're one of you. Take a stand, because pretty soon it's going to be too late.

Howie says:

Man, I have never seen this kind of Times-bashing before.

There is one heckuva conservative backlash building against the New York Times for publishing that piece about the administration's secret access to banking records in terror investigations.

'Breathtaking' Waste and Fraud in Hurricane Aid

by DemFromCT

That's the headline from the NY Times today.

Among the many superlatives associated with Hurricane Katrina can now be added this one: it produced one of the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes and stupefying bureaucratic bungles in modern history, costing taxpayers up to $2 billion.

This is the government that wants to conduct the Iraq war, domestic spying and the WoT™ on their own terms, without interference and oversight.  When we get a glimpse of how they govern, it's enough to make you sick. So why on earth would anyone in their right mind permit that?

Bush and company want to make this all about national security, and how, as bad as they are, you should be afraid to pick a Democrat in November (and in 2008) because God knows what would happen.

Well, guess what? "Stay the course" is so breathtakingly unacceptable, both domestically and overseas, that it is going to blow up in the Republicans' face. The Dems have one task and one task only between now and November — prove they can govern. All else is unimportant. Do that, and you can kiss the Republican lock on power good-bye.

The Iraq Civil War: When Do We Leave?

by DemFromCT

Gen. Casey wants to start troop withdrawals. So would Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, although "the positive reception of Maliki's reconciliation plan was somewhat undercut by deadly violence across the country." And as polls continue to demonstate, "the [ABC/WaPo] poll found that 47 percent now favor some kind of deadline, up eight percentage points since December."

If you pay attention at all to Bush's approval rating (38%, up from 33%), note that it's still consistently below 40%, the number that matters. That's the number below which Bush is a drag on the elections. And as the inevitable Iraqi violence erodes the "good week" the Republicans tell themselves that they had, Bush will slip right back to the mid 30s. The 'boost', such as it is, is in weak Republican support, who vaccilate between Bush rejection and fear of change.

Americans think the war was a mistake. They'd like to get out, but view chaos as a non-desirable outcome. The idea that "stay the course" will turn out to be in the end a successful political strategy is a highly questionable proposition, not supported by the polls (Bush typically gets no more than 35% approval on his war handling). And observations that Americans don't support immediate withdrawal are somewhat misleading because Democratic proposals do not suggest immediate withdrawal.

The election is in November. Republicans have bet the farm that Iraq will be better by then. We'll watch with interest, but they have an uphill battle in the convincing department. And there are few, if any, turning points left, even for the "six monthers" (the next six months in Iraq are crucial...).

In the meantime, Democrats are clear that they represent change, even if the change is not unanimously agreed on. There's no question they have the stronger position, simply because reality has a habit of catching up with Republican spin. The current spin is that the WH is eager to take on the leftward Dem tilt represented by last week's debate. Fine. Let's get it on, fellas. Let's see where the country is in November. And let's see how happy the WH is about their dismal polling numbers by then.