Maureen Dowd sees comedy and tragedy in
today's report by the Presidential Commission investigating intelligence failures:
For instance, on the comic side, The Times reported yesterday that administration officials were relieved that the new report by a presidential commission had "found no evidence that political pressure from the White House or Pentagon contributed to the mistaken intelligence."
That's hilarious.
More Dowd and other pundits below, including:
- Molly Ivins on Bush's energy policy
- Marina Ottaway on oil and democracy
- Jay Bookman on the growing torture scandal
- Joan Vennochi on Kennedy vs. Romney on stem cell research
- David Broder on remapping California
- Today's cartoon
Dowd provides a quick refresher course in political pressure, Cheney-style:
As necessity is the mother of invention, political pressure was the father of conveniently botched intelligence.
Dick Cheney and the neocons at the Pentagon started with the conclusion they wanted, then massaged and manipulated the intelligence to back up their wishful thinking.
As The New Republic reported, Mr. Cheney lurked at the C.I.A. in the summer of 2002, an intimidating presence for young analysts. And Douglas Feith set up the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon as a shadow intelligence agency to manufacture propaganda bolstering the administration's case.
The Office of Special Plans turned to the con man Ahmad Chalabi to come up with the evidence they needed. The Iraqi National Congress obliged with information that has now been debunked as exaggerated or fabricated. One gem was the hard-drinking relative of a Chalabi aide, a secret source code-named Curveball, who claimed to verify the mobile weapons labs.
Mr. Cheney and his "Gestapo office," as Colin Powell called it, then shoehorned all their meshugas about Saddam's aluminum tubes, weapons labs, drones and Al Qaeda links into Mr. Powell's U.N. speech.
And the tragedy? That this government shows little sign of learning any lessons:
The president planned to announce today that he would put into place many of the commission's recommendations, including an interagency center on proliferation designed to play down turf battles among intelligence agencies.
As Michael Isikoff and Dan Klaidman reported in Newsweek, in the three and a half years since 9/11, the intelligence agencies still haven't learned how to share what they know. At the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, the Homeland Security guy complained he was frozen out by the F.B.I. and C.I.A.
Wretched energy policy
Molly Ivins rants today about BushCo's "wretched" energy policies:
Ponder this: Next year, the administration will phase out the $2,000 tax credit for buying a hybrid vehicle, which can get more than 50 miles per gallon, but will leave in place the $25,000 tax write-off for a Hummer, which gets 10-12 mpg. That's truly crazy, and that's truly what the whole Cheney energy policy is.
Ivins takes us to her premise that only by raising taxes on carbon fuels will we move the nation and the world ahead to more renewable energy sources.
It is possible with existing technology to build a car that gets 500 miles per gallon, but the Bushies won't even raise the fuel efficiency standards for cars coming out now.
The trouble with the Bush plan to develop hydrogen cars is that while you can get hydrogen out of water, you have to put energy in to get it out. There's a net energy loss.
Conservation is the cheapest and most effective way of addressing this problem. If you put a tax on carbon, it would move industry to wind or solar power. Our health, our environment and our economy would all benefit from a transition to renewable energy sources.
In the long run, she's right, but will the public tolerate raising taxes on gasoline that is already skyrocketing in price? I suspect the crisis will have to boil a lot harder before people demand more fuel efficient vehicles.
Oil and democracy don't mix
Marina Ottaway, from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes in the NY Times that increasing dependence on foreign oil undermines Bush's stated goal of spreading democracy:
Oil and democracy do not mix easily in countries that depend highly on oil revenue. Among the 10 top oil exporters, only two (Mexico and Norway) are truly democratic and only three (Nigeria, Russia and Venezuela), have even limited elements of democracy. Of course, countries that do not export oil can also be undemocratic, but evidence shows that oil revenue flowing freely into government coffers has a particularly pernicious effect, encouraging corruption and lack of accountability and fostering systems based on patronage rather than popular representation. For countries that discover large amounts of oil before their economies become diversified and their regimes democratic, oil can easily become a curse.
Kinda echoes what Tom Friedman said a few days ago about how "we are financing both sides in the war on terrorism and strengthening the worst governments in the world."
U.S. has lost moral high ground
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jay Bookman's editorial today condemning the U.S. forces' use of torture "as part of a conscious policy applied broadly and endorsed at the highest levels of government."
Apologists for U.S. behavior will no doubt argue that if we have tortured, we have had our reasons. They would cite terror attacks and other dangers. But the Libyans too have had their reasons, as have the Chinese, the Cubans, the Sudanese and others we used to preach to from our place in the pulpit.
In fact, mankind has never had a problem finding ways to justify torture and other violations of human rights. That's why the bans against torture written into both American law and international treaty allow no exceptions.
Those laws were not designed to apply only in normal times, because in normal times no such laws are needed. They were enacted in the hope that clear and explicit legal bans, along with public commitments of national honor, would steel us against the temptation to compromise our standards when times of crisis came.
Tragically, it has not worked, and we have become what we are trying to defeat.
Interesting to hear this view coming a Southern paper.
Kennedy jumps into stem cell fray in Massachusetts
The Globe's Joan Vennochi looks at the battle brewing between Kennedy and Romney over stem cell research in the Bay State:
In remarks at the dedication, Kennedy said he stood with Nancy Reagan, Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, and Senator Orrin Harch of Utah, national Republican figures who have embraced stem cell research. ''This is about living . . . this is about life . . . this is about hope," he said.
Democrats have overwhelming control in the Massachusetts Senate and House. Travaglini, who made stem cell research a centerpiece of his legislative agenda, had every reason to expect quick victory at Romney's expense and no problems with getting the votes necessary to override a gubernatorial veto. He may still get both. Yesterday the Senate passed the bill 35 to 2. But to do battle, Travaglini turned to Chris Gabrieli, a former Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, who got behind an advertising campaign to promote the legislation. Then Kennedy entered the fray.
Romney is using stem cell research as a way to stake out conservative turf for a national campaign. Now, with backing from the Catholic Church, Romney is fighting back hard to win the ongoing public relations war. He launched his own radio ad campaign, describing the Senate stem cell measure as a ''radical cloning bill."
But as Vennochi points out, Romney is less concerned with winning over Massachusetts legislators than with national Republicans right-wingers for his inevitable Presidential bid.
Is Arnold right on remapping initiative?
David Broder certainly suggests so.
In this the largest and most influential of the 50 states, there are 173 major political subdivisions: 80 seats in the state Assembly, 40 in the state Senate and 53 in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In 2002 exactly three of them changed parties. In 2004 none did.
This Soviet-style conformity was no accident. It was the result of a carefully negotiated deal between congressional Republicans and the legislature's Democrats to guarantee each side against any political losses.
I think we should swallow any short-term loss in this initiative for the long-term benefit. After all, if we can't hold up a banner of reform if we hide it when our partisan interests are at risk.
Arnold's loudest opponent in CA agrees, with a caveat:
Democratic Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, perhaps the sharpest of Schwarzenegger's partisan critics, told Post reporter Dan Balz and me, "It is not in the best interests of democracy to have legislators drawing their own districts. We have to move [that power] to some neutral party."
Nuñez said he is opposed to Schwarzenegger's plan only because it calls for redistricting before the next census, in 2010, measures the changes in California's population.
And today's cartoon
from the Las Vegas Sun's Mike Smith: