bustardblog

Shut the Mouse

The anger at the Altmouse is always amazing, until you read her. She strives for a Peggy Noonan sort of oozing sincerity, and at the same time loves to portray herself a victim.

She also lies a lot. And smears people a lot. She distorts all the time.  Today's piece  on "Giuliani and Race" is par for the course.

She starts out by arguing that Jesse Jackson and Ronald Reagan held equivalent positions on the political spectrum - one a left wing radical, and the other a right wing one. She might have a point on this one.

She then quotes a New York Times article including quotes about Rudy. Ms Altmouse includes a description of Giuliani as being "so corny that he proposed to his current wife at Disney World." Her comments omit the fact that his corniness included cheating on her repeatedly, and publicly. He was so corny that he announced his intention to leave his wife on TV with the mistress he picked up at a cigar bar at his side. (Now, the current Mrs. Giuliani.)

Altmouse quotes an article in the Times which contrasted the pictures of Abe Lincoln and Babe Ruth on Rudy's office wall, with the pictures of Jennifer Capriati and Nelson Mandela, on Former Mayor David Dinkins' office wall.  Clearly this is meant to be symbolic of the moral superiority of Rudy. But although Capriati did have her problems, they were well after this article was written. When her picture was observed on Dinkins' wall, she had a record that was full of incredible accomplishment.

Madame Altmouse concludes with an incredible last paragraph:

Well, it seems that the NYT is keen on bringing race forward in the discussion of the 2008 campaign. I doubt if it helps Giuliani to sort through the painful incidents of the 1990's, though it can't hurt to repeat the amazing statistic that he reduced crime by 60 percent.

I might agree with her that the Times has its nerve to bring up the subject of race in the 2008 campaign.  Of course it is not an issue. It's really unfair to bring it up  because "Republican voters, who are overwhelmingly white" aren't interested.

I'm not quite sure what the painful incidents of the 1990's were for Rudy. He certainly seemed to relish his supporters calling his opponent for the mayoralty a "washroom attendant."  Perhaps it upset him that he refused to meet with almost any African American leaders while he was mayor - not only Al Sharpton - but also  virtually any black leader.

But at least he gets to repeat, and Altmouse to regurgitate, the "amazing statistic that he reduced crime by 60 percent."  It wasn't amazing. Other cities actually did it. And much of the reduction he boasts of happened before he became mayor. Crime tumbled in the last two years of the Dinkins administration, after Ray Kelly was appointed Police Commissioner. As soon as he was elected mayor, Giuliani fired Kelly. It was obvious the crime rate was falling through out the country,and Giuliani could not retain Kelly and even try to take personal credit for the decline. Today's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, rehired Kelly, and crime in New York has continued to fall.

The world still awaits a better mouse trap.

(mememorandum)

Presidential Polyps

July 19. Keith Olbermann insists that George W. Bush go to Iraq personally to fight the war.

July 21. Bush announces that he has 5 polyps in his colon.

A Coincidence?

If I were Mr Olbermann I'd be feeling pretty powerful right now.

(and the President is planning on riding a bike this afteroon, a few hours after a colonoscopy? Ow!)

(memeorandum)

UPDATE:
I have been asked whether or not I believe that Bush's planned bike ride this afternoon, plus the failure of Laura to be at his side, is evidence that he did not really have the procedure, that this is just a Potemkin like plot to once again avoid serving in the military. Some see the fact that Cheney did not grab the reins as an indication that the reins were not so available.

I have no idea. I do not do colonoscopy conspiracy theory. I just don't want to go there.

The Twin Brains of Kristol and Barnett

William Kristol and Dean Barnett should pay their "researcher" a bit more. It's embarrassing when two virtually identical articles appear in the same magazine under different by-lines.

But then - to expect guys who are incapable of feeling shame to feel embarrassment is a bit ass-backwards. Both of their formulaic rants try to foster division in the U.S. and try to turn our troops into a political football.

The similarities in the pieces show how intellectually lazy and dishonest they both are.

In order to slime the left, "they" argue that Democrats hate the troops. These are two separate articles that both assert that the left only supports the troops as victims.  "Barnett's" defines Democratic support as "lamenting the fate of the troops as victims." "Kristol's" piece says that "21st century liberals have settled on the  'soldiers are victims' meme." I may have reversed which one appeared under whose by-line - but it's all one piece of tripe. 

They both extol the "9/11 generation" and  "Kristol" oozes that "the left slanders them. We support them. More than that, we admire them." The title of the one that bares Barnett's name is "The 9/11 Generation" and states that "Once again, History is calling.  Fortunately, the present generation appears more reminiscent of their grandparents than their parents."
This is a part of his condemnation of the Baby Boomers.  Never mind that Bill Kristol is a child of privilege who has not served a minute in our military. Nor that Dean Barnett's bio mentions no military service, and only twelve years of actual employment followed by a lot of golf.  When you read his profile, you don't get the sense that either sacrifice or service is what the guy is about. I won't bother to go into the service records of Bush, Cheney, Rove, Giuliani, Romney etc etc

It seems that the  poor ghost-writer failed them both with his inability to find any evidence to support their claims. Probably because it does not exist. "Barnett" tells some anecdotes of guys he has spoken to in recent weeks. "Kristol" writes of two recent articles that talked of atrocities committed by our troops. Every single Democrat also has anecdotes of conversations with troops that impressed them.  Kristol might be right that the specific atrocities did not happen.  But he does know that as in every war, atrocities do happen. And the press should write about them.

Neither mentions that Bush has received every penny he has requested in this war, and then some. Neither mentions the Republican cover-up and incompetence at Walter Reid.  And neither can accept responsibility for the worst thing that has happened to the troops - their being sent to Iraq in the first place.

(h/t memeorandum)

Bosoms Over the Homeland.

I rely on memeorandum a lot - it does a great job of indicating what's up in the world of blogs at any particular moment in time.

Sadly, this is a pretty disappointing moment. The most important story of the day seems to be that Mrs. Clinton, a person who gave birth to a child, and who has been married for many years to another person, a person whose male stuff I know far too much about, is herself a person with some female stuff. She has breasts. Cleavage it is.

This is not one of those stories that just misses being ridiculous because of what 'it says about America.' It is a totally ridiculous story. Laughable.  If the full-figured K-Lo over at the The Corner could feel shame, this would be a good time for it.

(memeorandum)

The Pentagon's Eric Edelman Hurts U.S., Big Time

This afternoon Memeorandum emphasized a Yahoo story entitled "Pentagon Slams Clinton on Iraq."

I went to read the story right away, wondering if Mrs. Clinton had done been up to something wrong or stupid. I was the one who was stupid; stupid enough to think of a Pentagon that was not entirely corrupt and politicized, a Pentagon B.B.D., Before Bush's Destruction.

The criticism of Clinton came from a former aid to Cheney, who had previously worked in Paul Wolfowitz's "shop." His name is Eric Edelman, and before taking over Douglas Feith's job at the Pentagon, he had also been our ambassador to Turkey. Yahoo's headline should not be "Pentagon Slams Clinton." It should say "Former staffer to Cheney and to Wolfowitz Slams Clinton."

George W. Bush appointed Edelman as ambassador, and he was not popular at the Sublime Porte.  A leading Turkish columnist described him as "probably the least-liked and least trusted American ambassador in Turkish history." This is not irrelevant: his tenure in Turkey  harmed U.S. interests. This week, Ankara signed trade accords with Iran and Syria, and amassed troops on the Iraqi border.

But Edelman's tenure harmed us not at all compared to the results of Mr. Bush's occupation of 1600 PA Avenue. Before Bush, the idea of the Pentagon criticizing someone would have signified.  It does so no longer.

Three Secretaries of Defense served under former President Clinton , two of whom were Democrats, and one a Republican.  There were widely seen as bi-partisan. Les Aspin was a Democrat, but one who had supported Reagan on MX missiles and the Contras. William Perry was also considered bi-partisan. He was well received and respected at the Pentagon. Before becoming Secretary of Defense, Cohen had been a Republican Senator.

Bush continues to politicize, and destroy, our most basic institutions. The next President will not only have to find a way to stop the killing in Iraq, he or she will also need to end the destruction of our system of government.

UPDATE:

TPM reports that Defense Secretary Gates is distancing himself from Edelman, who says he welcomes Congressional Supervision. Amazing - A Bushie who actually believes in the Constitution.

 

(memeorandum)

Fred Thompson; aka Chubby Checker

Fred Thompson is not even a candidate, and already the Pretzels of Powerline are having to  twist themselves into knots to defend him.

I've posted before on their defense of his lobbying for an abortion rights group  by arguing that as a lawyer, he has represented all kinds of people. When it  seemed that no detailed evidence would be forthcoming, the guys at Powerline must have had a minor prick from their minute conscience. They admitted that their argument was a crock and that the act of being a lobbyist is different from the the act of being a lawyer. Today the N.Y.T. came up the facts, and so Powerline had to revert to their original position, even though they'd already admitted that it was bogus. Today the Pretzels wrote  "the bottom line is that there is nothing here: a lawyer represents all kinds of clients."

Chubby Checker's theme song was also the theme of the right wing blogosphere.  Riehl World View wrote of the difficulty of remembering "everyone you talked to only a few times over some few hours almost twenty years ago."  Not that Riehl minds distorting facts, but this is a bit tough. He has to describe fifteen and sixteen years as "almost twenty years ago." He is forced to define twenty-two separate occasions as "only a few times."  Thompson spoke with the woman 22 times. And Thompson is not being asked to "remember" that he spoke to her 22 times, he is being asked to recognize. Thompson has not been asked to list every person he spoke with  in 1991/92.  Someone who he spoke to 22 times came forward and said "I spoke with Thompson" - and his response was to lie and say Never.

Captain's Quarters was also twisting the night away. He tried to do some advance defense, and wrote about the piece yesterday. He too has to do a lot of distorting, and writes:

So it appears that Barnes was the lobbyist, and Fred consulted ... occasionally. I don't think Fred intended to live on $5,000 every 14 months, and Barnes would be the obvious choice for lobbying at any rate.

If anyone had ever made the argument that "Fred intended to live on $5,000.00 every fourteen months," then the Cap'n has decimated them.  But since no one has said such a thing, he looks kind of silly.

More importantly the Captain, Dan Riehl, and Powerline too, are intentionally lying in an attempt to deceive the reader as to what Thompson did.  He was not functioning as a lawyer, but as a lobbyist. As the Captain puts it, what  was going on was an attempt "to effect policy change." This was not an advocate in a court of law.  A lobbyist is hired because of his personal, political connection to the lawmaker. A lobbyist does favors, and then asks for favors in return. An attorney is not hired  because of his influence on the judge, and if he trades favors with the judge - they both get fired

The Captain's comment that "Barnes would be the obvious choice for lobbying at any rate"
is disingenuousness at its most despicable. He knows that Thompson was hired at Arent Fox as a lobbyist, not a lawyer. The K Street Project, Abrahamoff and Grover Norquist have all made it perfectly obvious: the choice of a lobbyist is a completely political act. Bush's buddies may have been the first to codify it and to rigidly enforce it , but the rule has always been that if you want to lobby a Republican, you hire a Republican lobbyist.

I doubt that anyone really cares who Thompson lobbied for 14 or 15 years ago. I know that I don't. I do mind that he lies about it. And I really mind that when he lies, he has a whole bunch of wing-nuts who will support him in what they know is a lie.

(For years the Republicans criticized the Democrats for their supposed intolerance in not allowing then Governor Casey to speak at their convention, supposedly because he was anti-abortion. His son, also anti-abortion is the Democratic Senator from Pennsylvania, elected with the full support of democrats.  Senator Harry Reid is of course also anti-abortion. The intolerance of the Republicans is so great that they will lie about their own candidate's position on the issue.)

(memeorandum)

 

Richard M. Giuliani

In today's Washington Post, Michael Gerson, the Bush speech writer whose "Axis of Evil" speech insured that North Korea and Iran would fast-forward their programs to develop nuclear weapons, compares Rudy Giuliani to Richard Nixon.  He argues that they both espoused a socially conservative vision, while not having a particularly deep belief in one.

Gerson is right to point our the similarly opportunistic and cynical views of both men. But Nixon actually had a desire to have a positive impact. Like Mr. Giuliani, he was willing to do absolutely anything to get and retain power, but he also needed to justify his amorality with a belief that he was doing good. Rudy's powerlust needs no rationalizations.

Nixon employed Daniel Patrick Moynihan - and then talked with him about ideas of ending poverty with a program that included a Guaranteed Annual Income. Nixon opened the door to China. Giuliani employed Bernard Kerik - and he slammed the door in the face of every African-American he could.

In commenting on Gerson's piece, Powerline writes in praising Giuliani that "he has embraced what loosely might be called neo-conservative thinking". It suggests that this is a brave stance. Recently, I offered an alternative explanation of Rudy the neo-con.

Time will tell whether or not Rudy's stance is stupid , but clearly bravery has nothing to do with it. Rudy has taken positions on abortion, gay rights etc, that he cannot disavow. It's not like he has a lot of room to manouever. Thus his passionate hug of a neo-con is his only option.

(memeorandum)

The Bush Intelligence Estimate

We got the news today, oh boy, of a National Intelligence Estimate. It reported that:

(W)e assess that al-Qa'ida will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qa'ida in Iraq (AQI), its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the Homeland

This is a most impressive bit of bureaucratic silly speak. I can't quite understand whether we are talking about terrorism, or about one of those cocktail parties attended by Wall Streeters trying to exchange business cards and build their networks.

It never occurred to me that there were any cable affiliates (sorry, I do mean capable affiliates) of Al-Qa'ida that had not expressed a desire to attack the Homeland." Have their standards fallen?

I'm a New Yorker who is typing this while looking out a window from which I used to see the World Trade Center. I do not belittle the damage that Al-Qa'ida has done. But I fail to see why the N.I.E. should not be called "pure pablum" - as Richard Clarke and others did today.

The administration wants to underscore the level of the threat, but at the same time seeks credit for weakening AL-Aida. The White House's Fran Townsend said:

Al QED is weaker today than if we had not taken strong action against them.

In the next breath, they insist that we appreciate just how threatened we are. ABC reported :

last week that senior law enforcement and intelligence officials had "multiple and credible" reports that an AL QED terror cell may be on its way to the United States or could already be in the country.

As nice as it might have been, the capture of Saddam Hussein was unrelated to strong action against Al-Qaida.  Dealing with Osama bin-Laden, still free in the mountains along the Afghan-Pakistan border, would have had something to do with Al-Qaida.

In most American's eyes, Bush was not held responsible for 9/11. Who could have known? He was in the White House such a short time! The Presidential Daily Briefing was an historical document!  He was responsible then, and if, God forbid, there is another attack, he'll be responsible again.

(h/t memorandum)

 

The Leading Neo-Con: Rudy Giuliani

Each time John Ashcroft was about to assume a new political office, his father anointed him with oil.  Sadly, his father died just before he was sworn in as Attorney General, but Justice Clarence Thomas was kind enough proceed with the anointment.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Rudy Giuliani is about to be anointed the Neo-Con's choice for the President of the United States. Although the neo-cons have been perfectly happy to use "values" and religion to garner votes, they don't really care all that much about "social issues" and thus Rudy's marriages and his history of supporting both gay and abortion rights is not all that troubling.

Today we learned that Ted Olson will be heading up Rudy's "Justice Advisory Committee." Olson served as Solicitor General under Bush, after arguing his case before the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore. Olson/Bush won, and the neo-cons have been eternally grateful. Olson's third wife, Barbara, was a virulently active hater of the Clintons, who tragically died on September 11, 2001. There was no slur too low for her to lob at Bill and Hillary. Ted Olson was happily able to marry wife number four a few short months after that sad September. Another of the advisors is Larry Johnson, who personally signed off on the rendition of a Canadian citizen of Syrian heritage back to Syria, where he was of course tortured.

More of a signifier was last week's announcement by the Giuliani campaign of his Foreign Policy Team. One of its members is the uber-neo-con, Norman Podhoretz; husband of Midge Decter; father of JPod, and who has even been credited for coining the term - "neo-con."  For many years, he was the editor of Commentary,an accurate characterization follows.

Commentary became the quintessential mouthpiece of the neoconservatives, serving as a soapbox from which Podhoretz and like-minded writers shaped the contours of what he called the neoconservative "tendency" as it began to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Podhoretz is affiliated with the Hudson Institute, as is another member of the Team, S. Embers Wimbush. The head of the team is Charles Hill who works out of the Hoover think tank.  Martin Kramer comes from the Olin Foundation, possibly the most conservative foundation in this country.

Born in the U.S., Kramer went to college in Israel. He returned to the U.S. for graduate work and subsequently taught at Tel Aviv University for 25 years.

"Political scientists John Mearshimer and Stephen Walt wrote in March 2006 that Campus Watch was founded by 'passionately pro-Israel neoconservative Jews with the intention of "encourag[ing] students to report comments or behavior that might be considered hostile to Israel" and that it was a 'transparent attempt to blacklist and intimidate scholars.'"

Kramer was one of the founders.

Still, it is Podhoretz's announcement that is most significant in establishing the credentials of Rudy Giuliani.  For Podhoretz is the real thing. Recently he wrote of his hopes that Bush will bomb Iran:

It now remains to be seem whether this president, battered mercilessly with less justification that any other in living memory, and weakened politically by the enemies of his policy in the Middle East in general and Iraq in particular, will find it possible to take the only action that can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel,'  Podhoretz writes in conclusion. As an American and as a Jew,I pray with all my heart that he will"

The Israeli paper Haaretz says that "Giluiani is rated as the best for Israel of all contenders."
The Jerusalem Post is" sending out fund raising letters for Rudy."

Giuliani is that close to feeling the oil pressed against his forehead.  What might be missing is the blessing of the American Enterprise Institute. His advisory team is remarkable for the absence of A.E.I. scholars.  Lynn, Cheyney, Richard Perle,and Wolfowitz all received paychecks from Kovner's A.E.I.  It's my guess that while Podhoretz prays that we bomb Iraq, Rudy prays to be anointed.

(h/t memeorandum)

 

Rich, Right, Again

Frank Rich is excellent once again today -writing of the endless, contradictory, distortions that this administration constantly promotes, and occasionally actually seems to believe.  Read it in its entirety.

If you must have a shorter version, it would be in his instruction not to "laugh at Michael Chertoff," his basic absurdity and incompetence not withstanding, because he's still the least bad in this administration.

He also does a great job of pointing out that it is not merely the goalposts that they are always moving in Iraq. It's also the starting point.  While the Pentagon "had previously designated Feb 14" as the start of the surge. Yet just last week Tony Snow announced that the surge is only two weeks old