The Nation provides a hypothetical article (original) on the Bush/career civil servant battles. I say hypothetical because Greider is just guessing, no matter how good the guesses might sound to my conspiratorial nature. It’s a fun hypothesis, though.
Bush’s new campaign video (original), “Kerry’s Coalition of the Wild-eyed,” will certainly inspire his base. It’s a miscalculation nonetheless. The video opens with Gore asking how we can possibly drag the good name of America through Saddam’s torture prison. This keeps the Abu Ghraib scandal prominent. That’s not so good for Bush; it doesn’t poll well at all. Then you get the cheesy Nazi images which won’t hurt Bush, although their use here implies that Abu Ghraib wasn’t so bad — which, again, people will disagree with. ...
Kerry grandstands a little and visits the Senate to vote on an amendment which provides more veteran benefits. The Republicans use various procedural tactics to make sure he can’t vote on the bill, delaying it until the next day. Kerry heads back to keep on campaigning. The Republicans vote the bill down. Of course Kerry was playing political games and manuvering to make himself look good. But it worked. Maybe Bush doesn’t want the military vote (original).
Reuters happily informs us (original) of the following facts: John Kerry’s wife inherited $500 million. John Kerry’s Nantucket house is worth $9 million. John Kerry’s boat is worth $150,000. John Kerry’s sporting equipment cost $2,500. And George Bush has a huge ranch, but for some reason it’s not important how much that cost. Also, he fishes. No news on whether he pays $500 for a fishing rod or not, or how many rods he owns. I dunno — maybe he builds ‘em by hand, and maybe he carved the ranch out of the wilderness with his own two hands.
Josh Marshall’s guest blogger, Spencer Ackerman, interviewed that anonymous intelligence official (original) I mentioned the other day. Some nice insights into the relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq. We saw al-Qaeda execute the operation of killing one American, kidnapping another, within two days. It reinforces the idea of nearly simultaneous attacks. They posted the information about Mr. Johnson, said what they wanted, said what they were going to do, and did it. Which perhaps is the most important trademark for al-Qaeda: they tell you what they’re going to do and then they do it. ...
“Section 1. Be it enacted by the Legislature of Louisiana, that no governmental agency, including corporations with corporate authority only as approved by the President of the United States under the provisions of any law or resolution of the Congress of the United States, and no officer, agent or employee thereof, shall exercise in this state [Louisiana] any power not delegated to the United States by the Constitution of the United States, but reserved by the Constitution of the United States to the state of Louisiana. ...
Kevin Drum writes about another salvo in the CIA/Bush war (original). When a high-ranking intelligence officer accuses Bush of “an abject, even wilful failure to recognise the ideological power, lethality and growth potential of the threat personified by Bin Laden, as well as the impetus that threat has been given by the US-led invasion and occupation of Muslim Iraq,” you know someone’s pissed off. Especially since he’s got to know he’s going to get outed. Consider that this comes in the wake of the Valerie Plame leak. There’s no doubt that this guy is going to be discovered and his name is going to be published and his career is going to be over. However, he’s unhappy enough that he just doesn’t care. (So why publish anonymously if you expect to be found out anyway? Two reasons: it allows him to delay the inevitable a little while, and it focuses attention on the book.)
The last week has seen a couple of interesting developments in the Tenet/Bush conflict. My predictions and thoughts about these will no doubt be as accurate as my predictions and thoughts about the Iraq war. Which is to say “semi.” Most recently, the Pentagon broke the news that Tenet asked Rumsfeld to illegally hide a prisoner from the Red Cross. It is no accident that the Pentagon made this statement right now; it’s the first salvo in an attempt to reduce Tenet’s standing in the court of public opinion. ...
My personal favorite Reagan tribute is Rob’s. Whose party I will be at soon if this damned file transfer will just finish up.
So the whole thing where Bush says (original) “I’m going to say it one more time. In fact, maybe I can be more clear. The instructions went out to our people to adhere to law.” That would be so much more comforting if the infamous memo didn’t argue that it’s not illegal to torture certain classes of people.