The times they have a changed

abw

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Sunday July 31, 2011 · 9:44 PM PDT

2011/07/31 · 21:44

Wow. I can't believe I still remember my password. But it came back as if by muscle memory. This place sure looks different from how it did back when I was a regular--if generally ignored--participant. I am really happy to see that it thrives even without me. (Because it's all about me). A few thoughts below the fold. I don't expect you to click the link. I'm mostly playing around. Some might classify what I'm doing as "wasting your time." And I'd not dispute that.

abw

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Wednesday August 23, 2006 · 8:09 AM PDT

2006/08/23 · 08:09

Laura Rozen put up a link to this PDF report about Iran from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence earlier today, Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States.

Given the track record of Bush + The Rubber-Stamp Congress on these sorts of reports, I think it's worthwhile to examine this one closely. I take a tiny stab at such examination below and offer the diary as a place for others to share their thoughts. Read More

Grim math

abw

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Wednesday April 05, 2006 · 4:33 PM PDT

2006/04/05 · 16:33

Today, John Kerry wrote, "Half of the service members listed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall died after America's leaders knew our strategy would not work" (Two Deadlines and an Exit, New York Times, 4/5/6).

In a press conference last month, Bush refused to give a reporter a straight answer about whether there will, "come a day when there will be no more American forces in Iraq." Bush said, "That, of course, is an objective, and that will be decided by future Presidents and future governments of Iraq." When pressed on this point, Bush could only say that plans for withdrawal by the end of his term would amount to a "timetable." Read More

Like to have a beer with him

abw

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Saturday February 25, 2006 · 6:59 PM PST

2006/02/25 · 18:59

Anybody remember this sort of crap from back in 2000? It's The Factor from Oct. 24, 2000, but it could have been on any of the TV news shows (bold added):

GREISING [Chicago Tribune columnist]: I don't think that's a terrible thing. But I think when you like thinking about what is happening at 2:00 a.m. in the Situation Room, and somebody has to make a decision as to whether to give a call to Ehud Barak or not, whether talk to Yasser Arafat or not...
O'REILLY: Well, they will wake up Governor Bush and he'll tell them what they decided. I mean, that's what they'll do. They'll say: Hey, Governor, you're making a call. And here's the briefing sheet.

Ignore O'Reilly's ambiguous syntax because what he's doing is clear: he's apologizing for a candidate who plans to sleep through important decisions. Bush ran on this image. Goofing off or sleeping while his war crumbles to pieces, or the Gulf Coast drowns, or Cheney shoots a man in the face, or... Read More

Preview of things to come

abw

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Friday February 17, 2006 · 5:24 PM PST

2006/02/17 · 17:24

Although the shooting occurred last Saturday (Friday?), Vice President Cheney's well-documented devotion to accuracy and his understandable concern over the health of the acquaintance he'd shot in the face meant the story did not break in time for discussion on the Sunday shows. A shame, I know. This Sunday--barring any further shootings by senior administration officials--I suspect the topic will garner a few minutes on them.

So I dug around in the old archives and pulled up a transcript (Nexis) of the "Capital Gang" from July 31, 1993--back when Vince Foster's suicide was a hot topic. You know, as a sort of prelude to the discussion we can expect this Sunday. Follow me through the jump, dear reader, for a trip down memory lane.... Read More

Microrant alongside a McClellan response

abw

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Tuesday December 20, 2005 · 6:48 PM PST

2005/12/20 · 18:48

Because I'm wiped and I feel like slacking off.

Q Last year the President lauded the Patriot Act for giving him tools to track terrorists that he never had before, including roving wiretaps and other such tools. If the President has what he needed in the Patriot Act, why the need for this NSA program that he authorized?
McCLELLAN: Well, the NSA authorization that has been talked about over the past couple of days is vital to our efforts to prevent attacks. The President believes we need to use all lawful tools within our powers to prevent attacks from happening.

It's "vital to our efforts to prevent attacks." He's serious. That's why the secret NSA program instead of what's specified in the Patriot Act. Try again, Scotty. Why break the law to do something you surely knew would piss a lot of people off when there are so many other "efforts" you could have undertaken to "prevent attacks?" Pick apart the rest of Scotty's dipshit answer in the extended text and comments... plus a pointless bonus poll. Read More

Fake news of the not-too-distant future

abw

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Saturday December 10, 2005 · 2:39 PM PST

2005/12/10 · 14:39

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court today refused to hear an appeal filed on behalf of Tom DeLay, the disgraced former Congressman who has been at the center of a recent constitutional dispute surrounding the President's detainee policies in the War on Criminality.

Mr. DeLay, designated an "enemy combatant" in the War on Criminality, has been in solitary confinement at an undisclosed location since February, when a federal appeals court stripped him of his rights as a U.S. citizen. After today's refusal by the Supreme Court to hear an appeal, the February ruling will now stand. Mr. DeLay's status remains unknown.

"We're obviously disappointed," said one of the attorneys who filed the appeal on Mr. DeLay's behalf. "We don't know where Tom is, if he's being treated humanely, whether he has access to medical care--anything. And now, I guess, we never will know." Read More

Has Bush's FEMA always sucked?

abw

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Tuesday September 06, 2005 · 5:46 PM PDT

2005/09/06 · 17:46

Idly poking around, I stumbled across congressional testimony from Eric Tolbert, the former Director of the Response Division at FEMA. In it, he describes the Bush administration response to Hurricane Isabel in 2003.

I am no expert in what constitutes a good response to a hurricane (though I think I know a bad response when I see it). And I'm also no expert in not getting bamboozled by deceptive official testimony to Congress. Those disclaimers aside, I have to say that it sounds like Tolbert and FEMA did a pretty good job with Isabel.

October 7, 2003:

Good morning, Chairman LaTourette and Members of the Subcommittee. I am Eric Tolbert, Director of the Response Division of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). On behalf of Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response Michael Brown, I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today on the operations of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA in response to Hurricane Isabel.

More below the fold. Read More

The real victims

abw

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Friday September 02, 2005 · 8:29 AM PDT

2005/09/02 · 08:29

This is Aaron Brown and CNN's senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre last night (manual transcript, emphasis added):

BROWN: [...] I said in introducing you that everything seems political to people these days. I know this will be perceived as a political question; it's not meant that way. To what extent does the fact that there are 135,000 troops in Iraq and troops in Afghanistan--to what extent, if any, impact the ability of the military, the Pentagon, to respond to this crisis?
McINTYRE: [...] And as to your question about political--I talked to a lot of people at the Pentagon today who are very frustrated about the fact that the perception is being created that the military didn't move fast enough. And they did see it somewhat as political. They thought that part of the motivation was for critics of the administration to make the President look bad.

Ha-ha-ha. Real Victim One: President Bush. Apparently he had a brilliant plan all ready to go--and it would have worked, too, if it hadn't have been for those meddling critics. Read More

Meaningless words

abw

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Thursday July 14, 2005 · 11:10 PM PDT

2005/07/14 · 23:10

Governor Bush in Pittsburgh, October 26, 2000 (from Nexis, partial text here):

I know you can't take the politics out of politics. I'm from Texas; I'm a realist. But I'm convinced our government can show more courage in confronting hard problems, more goodwill toward the other side and more integrity in the exercise of power. This isn't always easy, but it's always important.
It's what the people expect of their leaders, and it's what leaders must require of themselves. My administration will provide responsible leadership.
And finally, a leader must uphold the honor and the dignity of the office to which he had been elected. (APPLAUSE) In my administration, we will ask not only what is legal, but what is right. (APPLAUSE) Not just what the lawyers allow, but what the public deserves. (APPLAUSE) In my administration, we'll make it clear there is the controlling legal authority of conscience. (APPLAUSE) We will make people proud again, so that Americans who love their country can once again respect their government.

Just a little stroll down memory lane in the extended copy. Read More

Negligence

abw

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Tuesday June 21, 2005 · 9:08 PM PDT

2005/06/21 · 21:08

Pentagon press release (June 21, 2005, emphasis added):

The Marine Corps is adapting the way it protects its servicemembers against improvised explosive devices, according to a statement read to the House Armed Services Committee here today.
...
"While there is no one absolute armor, technology, tactic, technique or procedure that can counter these growing threats 100 percent of the time, we too are adapting and are providing our warfighters more and more effective solutions as the threat changes and we understand what works and what doesn't," Nyland [assistant commandant of the Marine Corps] said.

For instance, Marines now know that up-armoring vehicles is a good way to save the lives of those who encounter an IED.
...

Now you're figuring this out? Haven't we basically understood about the benefits of armor for over 2000 years? Read More

Evildoers

abw

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Thursday June 16, 2005 · 10:31 AM PDT

2005/06/16 · 10:31

Bush's speech to the UN on Sept. 16, 2002 (emphasis added):

Last year, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights found that Iraq continues to commit extremely grave violations of human rights, and that the regime's repression is all pervasive. Tens of thousands of political opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, summary execution, and torture by beating and burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation, and rape. Wives are tortured in front of their husbands, children in the presence of their parents -- and all of these horrors concealed from the world by the apparatus of a totalitarian state.

Grave violations of human rights
The United States has committed "grave violations of human rights" against prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament said in a report on Friday.
--Reuters (March 25, 2005)

Plenty more below the fold. Oh--and I'll delete this (angrily) if the diary police deem it too devoid of my own commentary to merit a diary. Read More

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