I have been trying for the last several hours to draw together several apparently disparate threads that are in reality closely aligned all into some kind of coherent message that I can convey here.

Unfortunately for me, although I can see the connections and the patterns within, they are far from easy to illustrate and describe effectively.

What Joe Gandelman wrote in response to the Karl Rove/CIA Operative outing imbroglio seems particularly apropos (including the quoting of Paul Krugman, included for easier comprehension, italics and boldface kept from the original post):

From Krugman:

But Mr. Rove understood that the facts were irrelevant. For one thing, he knew he could count on the administration’s supporters to obediently accept a changing story line….Mr. Rove also understands, better than anyone else in American politics, the power of smear tactics. Attacks on someone who contradicts the official line don’t have to be true, or even plausible, to undermine that person’s effectiveness. All they have to do is get a lot of media play, and they’ll create the sense that there must be something wrong with the guy….

If a Democrat had done that, Republicans would call it treason.

But what we’re getting, instead, is yet another impressive demonstration that these days, truth is political. One after another, prominent Republicans and conservative pundits have declared their allegiance to the party line. They haven’t just gone along with the diversionary tactics…They’re now a chorus, praising Mr. Rove as a patriotic whistle-blower.

Ultimately, this isn’t just about Mr. Rove. It’s also about Mr. Bush, who has always known that his trusted political adviser - a disciple of the late Lee Atwater, whose smear tactics helped President Bush’s father win the 1988 election - is a thug, and obviously made no attempt to find out if he was the leaker.

Most of all, it’s about what has happened to America. How did our political system get to this point?

MOST TROUBLING: Now that we indeed ARE at “this point,” how possible or unlikely is it that we can now UNGET to “this point”? Can we break out of this troubling era where people will change their political standards and values as they articulated them when it came to the opposition to allow their side leeway to do whatever they need to do to gain and stay in power?

Isn’t this now the NORM — and don’t the days when people such as Barry Goldwater held to firm, unyeilding principles in terms of big government and basic patriotic values kind of quaint, now?

And if there are no absolutes (just rip and read the talking points sent out by the RNC on the old talk show or incorporate them into your commentary to defend your side), what does it portend for the future?

As Don Henley wrote in the song “The Garden of Allah”, written long before this current climate of “win at any and all costs”:

There is no truth
There are no facts
Just data to be manipulated

The apologists for Karl Rove sound remarkably like the Clinton apologists these very same folks derided (correctly) for parsing “it depends upon what the meaning of ‘is’ is…”

It is amazing how the wheel turns and when it is “their man” under scrutiny tactics and statements that are deemed beyond the pale for their opponents to utter are completely valid arguments when it comes to “their main”.

I am disgusted.

“Winning” in a political game is not the be all to end all, for it comes to naught if we allow our culture and society to be destroyed by these childish tactics.

As I wrote in an email discussion earlier today with John Donovan of Castle Argghhh!:

I’m talking about leadership and what is best for the country, not what is best for party advantage.

Regardless of whether Rove committed a crime or not (did Clinton when he got an intern to go down on him in the Oval Office?), Bush said that leaks were unacceptable and not to be a part of his administration.

Regardless of whether Rove leaked the name, indirectly said “that guy’s wife” or whatever, Rove is the epitome of “party first and always” instead of “what is best for the country.”

Yes, I do not like Rove, I don’t like Howard Dean either.

I’ve never liked Bush, but I’m not calling for his resignation or impeachment, either.

The divisiveness in Washington is BAD for the country.

Regardless of “who started it” (and we can go back in history to the Civil War and the creation of the Republican party for “who did what first” until our fingers are bleeding from typing) *someone* has to take the lead and the first step to stop it.

The President says he’s a leader.

Here is his chance to lead instead of to force things on everyone by fiat.

A leader recognizes when you are in a hole, and understands that the first step to getting out of that hole is to stop digging.

How is this related to Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghirab?

I’ll do the math for you; this one is from another email exchange with John Donovan of Castle Argghhh!:

The connection is that appearances are important.

At the moment, it appears that personal loyalty to Bush is more important to the President than anything else, including the rule of law.

That is why Rove should be fired. He represents all the abuses and divisiveness that has been encouraged (yes encouraged) during the Presidency of George W. Bush.

Personal loyalty should not override the rule of law. That is the method of the tin-pot dictators we decry, including Sadaam.

The connection with the abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghirab?

Guantanamo Bay is a prison placed in that location to explicitly be outside the reach of US law (yes, I know several rulings subsequent to the set up of the prison have challenged if not overturned that contention, but it does not change the reason why the prison is located where it is).

If we say we are defending civilization and the rule of law, we then MUST be sure that we appear to be following the rule of law.

We must walk the walk that goes with talking the talk.

I had some responses to your post on Guantanamo this morning that I was going to put up at Random Fate:

Regarding psychological games on the prisoners/detainees/whatever, that must be undertaken on a case-by-case basis. A cab driver picked up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong fare shouldn’t be subjected to the psychological “stresses” that a *known* high-level terrorist operative would be subject to.

Regarding any physical “stress”, I rule that out completely because it is far to easy for it to get out of hand. Even starting down that path is wrong in my eyes. It appears the approval of physical “stress” in Guantanamo at least set up the climate for the abuses of Abu Ghirab.

You know better than I do that the key to winning any war is not to kill the enemy, because it is impossible to kill each and every one of the enemy. The key is to destroy their will to fight.

We are providing great tools for our enemy to motivate their troops and recruit more suicidal fanatics and give them all a *greater* will to fight.

Step 1: stop digging

While you are correct in saying the world opinion drivers will “find something else” to decry, do we really need to give them reasons on a silver platter?

This may be the last chance for President George W. Bush to show true leadership, to show he truly is a “uniter, not a divider”, for all his actions to this point have been to push through his agenda with no consideration for the beliefs of those who think differently.

In other words, his actions have been those of a divider, not a uniter, in complete contrast to his promises of being a uniter, not a divider.

Which actions will you applaud, and which will you choose to heap improbation upon?

True leadership is not always easy or expedient, nor is it always on the path that will promote the interests of one’s political allies, supporters, and fellow travelers.

However, the nation needs true leadership.

It is past time for President George W. Bush to show us all this kind of true leadership.

Will he step up to the challenge, or will his apologists continue to resort to the word-parsing they so rightfully condemned as a bad legacy of the Clinton years but which truly originated in the Nixon era?

It remains to be seen, but the question still remains:

Which will you push for?

Technorati Tags: opinion

Welcome to the era of radical right-wing “balance”:

Welcome to a new era in the battle over public broadcasting. Instead of simply threatening to cut federal funding for PBS — as Nixon, Reagan and Newt Gingrich did — the Bush administration has taken a new approach. Far from standing as a firewall against outside political pressure, Tomlinson is trying to force PBS to toe the Republican line, turning the network into a taxpayer-funded facsimile of Fox News. The GOP coup scored a major victory in late June, when the CPB board quietly confirmed Patricia Harrison — a former co-chair of the Republican National Committee — as its new president.

Supporters of public broadcasting were appalled. “You get the sense,” says Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., “that they want to turn NPR into the RNC.”

A ruddy-faced and rolypoly man with a close-cropped white beard, Tomlinson looks a little bit like a Muppet himself. Since he was selected to represent Republicans on the CPB board in 2000, Tomlinson has been determined to stamp out what he sees as “liberal advocacy journalism” at PBS. The only problem with his theory of bias — widespread among conservatives — is that there is no proof it actually exists. So Tomlinson commissioned two polls in 2002 and 2003, hoping to confirm that viewers share his distaste for the political tenor of PBS.

Both polls revealed the opposite: Eighty percent of viewers hold a favorable opinion of public broadcasting, and only eight percent consider its coverage of the Iraq War biased. Focus groups in the red-state hotbeds of Louisville, Kentucky, and Salt Lake City proved similarly disappointing. But instead of releasing the results, Tomlinson kept them under wraps until he was required to release them to Congress. “He goes after research that can support his claims of bias,” one executive familiar with the polls told Rolling Stone. “He’s not able to find much — so then he suppresses the research to be able to continue arguing that there really is a problem.”

If the data do not fit the “facts” as propagated by the right-wing, hide and obfuscate and fabricate your own “facts” for your talking points, that if false never the less discredit those who don’t “think right”.

Facts no longer matter, only spin. There are no “facts”, only ideologically based accusations and smear campaigns that while having no basis in reality have a sticking power none the less.

Public broadcasting is only the latest in a litany of irresponsibility displayed by the far right-wing, urged on by the so-called “religious right” which isn’t really religious other than using religion to further their controlling agenda.

For those of you on the right-wing, do these actions and attitudes really, truly sit well with you?

Win at any and all costs, data and what is right for the nation as a whole be damned?

Is that truly what you want?

If your answer is “yes” then I suggest you read history and recall the fall of Rome, which was from within, not from external forces.

If no, then why did you vote for these people now in power?

Do your own math.

I cannot do it for you.

Technorati Tags: opinion

I have often written that terrorism (including the brand practiced by al-Qaeda) and Wahabism are not existential threats to the United States.

I have often written that the largest, most dangerous long-term threat to the United States is China.

There are now rumblings from the East:

Top Chinese general warns US over attack
By Alexandra Harney in Beijing and Demetri Sevastopulo and Edward Alden in Washington
Published: July 14 2005 21:59 | Last updated: July 15 2005 00:03

China is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US if it is attacked by Washington during a confrontation over Taiwan, a Chinese general said on Thursday.

“If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China’s territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” said General Zhu Chenghu.

Gen Zhu was speaking at a function for foreign journalists organised, in part, by the Chinese government. He added that China’s definition of its territory included warships and aircraft.

“If the Americans are determined to interfere [then] we will be determined to respond,” said Gen Zhu, who is also a professor at China’s National Defence University.

“We . . . will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds . . . of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.”

Gen Zhu is a self-acknowledged “hawk” who has warned that China could strike the US with long-range missiles. But his threat to use nuclear weapons in a conflict over Taiwan is the most specific by a senior Chinese official in nearly a decade.

However, some US-based China experts cautioned that Gen Zhu probably did not represent the mainstream People’s Liberation Army view.

“He is running way beyond his brief on what China might do in relation to the US if push comes to shove,” said one expert with knowledge of Gen Zhu. “Nobody who is cleared for information on Chinese war scenarios is going to talk like this,” he added.

Gen Zhu’s comments come as the Pentagon prepares to brief Congress next Monday on its annual report on the Chinese military, which is expected to take a harder line than previous years. They are also likely to fuel the mounting anti-China sentiment on Capitol Hill.

In recent months, a string of US officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, have raised concerns about China’s military rise. The Pentagon on Thursday declined to comment on “hypothetical scenarios”.

Even if General Zhu is talking out of school and going beyond the “mainstream People’s Liberation Army view” I find it unlikely that his view is completely off base. In China, saying the wrong thing can get you imprisoned, if not completely “disappeared”, so any statements from someone who has made a high rank in the Chinese military can’t be dismissed out of hand.

You cannot conduct the foreign policy of a country as if it were shadow-boxing with fanatics.
   -John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia

While we are shadow-boxing with fanatics we very well might be setting ourselves up for a sucker punch out of the East.

—

Link acknowledgment: Blackfive - “John Howard On Buying Immunity From Terror”

Technorati Tags: commentary, opinion

…but never really was. For many reasons, OS/2 from IBM never made a large dent in the operating system market. Many of the features pioneered in OS/2 are now regarded as essential.

Now, it’s dead.

Interesting how the best product isn’t the one that wins in the marketplace surprisingly often.

Technorati Tags: computers, technology

…is paved with good intentions, the ancient proverb states.

So what are we to make of this:

Interrogators at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, forced a stubborn detainee to wear women’s underwear on his head, confronted him with snarling military working dogs and attached a leash to his chains, according to a newly released military investigation that shows the tactics were employed there months before military police used them on detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The techniques, approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for use in interrogating Mohamed Qahtani — the alleged “20th hijacker” in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — were used at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002 as part of a special interrogation plan aimed at breaking down the silent detainee.

Military investigators who briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday on the three-month probe, called the tactics “creative” and “aggressive” but said they did not cross the line into torture.

The report’s findings are the strongest indication yet that the abusive practices seen in photographs at Abu Ghraib were not the invention of a small group of thrill-seeking military police officers. The report shows that they were used on Qahtani several months before the United States invaded Iraq.

The investigation also supports the idea that soldiers believed that placing hoods on detainees, forcing them to appear nude in front of women and sexually humiliating them were approved interrogation techniques for use on detainees.

As Pennywit states with the eloquence of brevity, “The thing, as they say, speaks for itself.”

Next, what are we to make of this:

Washington, meanwhile, is an echo chamber of Rove’s agents. His lawyer, Robert Luskin, has trashed Cooper: “By any definition, he burned Karl Rove.” RNC chairman Ken Mehlman has appeared on talk shows, given newspaper interviews and circulated a three-page memo of talking points to Republican surrogates. In one brief statement, for example, Mehlman said: “The fact is Karl Rove did not leak classified information. He did not, according to what we learned this past weekend, reveal the name of anybody. He didn’t even know the name … He tried to discourage a reporter from writing a story that was false.”

Mehlman’s farrago of lies and distortions may be a fair representation of Rove’s fears. Is it “the fact” that Rove didn’t leak classified information? Plame’s identity of course was classified. That is why the CIA referred the matter to the Department of Justice for investigation. But is Mehlman disclosing yet another Rove worry? The prosecutor can indict under any statute, including simply leaking classified information. Is Rove afraid of being indicted under that law, not just the one that makes it a crime to identify Plame? Mehlman raises a further Rove anxiety. No, Rove didn’t “reveal the name.” But the law doesn’t cite that as a felony; it only specifies revealing the “identity” as a crime. It says nothing about a “name.” Rove revealed “Joe Wilson’s wife.” That qualifies as an “identity.” By the way, Plame did not go by the name of Plame, but Wilson — in other words, Mrs. Wilson, or “Joe Wilson’s wife.” Rove seemed to know that much — her identity.

Helpfully guiding a reporter to the truth and away from “a story that was false”? Indeed, Rove was planting two false stories, not just one. The first was that “Joe Wilson’s wife” had sent him on his mission; the second was to suggest that Wilson was wrong and that there would be new information to support the original Bush falsehood. In fact, the White House admitted that Wilson was correct and that Bush’s 16 words were wrong. Yet Rove attempted to insinuate doubt in the mind of the reporter to discourage him from writing a story that was true.

At one point, on CNN, Wolf Blitzer asked Mehlman if he had attended meetings at the White House on how to deal with Wilson. Suddenly, the voluble Mehlman constricted. “I don’t recall those meetings occurring,” he said. Has the prosecutor inquired about such meetings and their participants?

The sound and fury of Rove’s defenders will soon subside. The last word, the only word that matters, will belong to the prosecutor. So far, he has said very, very little. Unlike the unprofessional, inexperienced and weak Ken Starr, he does not leak illegally to the press. But he has commented publicly on his understanding of the case. “This case,” he said, “is not about a whistle-blower. It’s about a potential retaliation against a whistle-blower.”

In light of this:

Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, came to Rove’s defense during a press briefing Tuesday by saying, “Any individual who works here at the White House has the confidence of the president. They wouldn’t be working here at the White House if they didn’t.” What is the likelihood that Bush would ever actually fire Rove, a close confidant and the architect of his re-election campaign?

I think, were Karl Rove to be indicted for any crime, it would be impossible for the president to keep him on. Short of that, I don’t think that he will go anywhere. I think the president will stand behind him.

If you look, the president’s past comments were pretty clear: that anyone who is responsible for leaking classified information, which is a crime, would be fired. Until and unless that’s proven in this case, I don’t think that Karl Rove will go anywhere.

As to the question of whether what Karl Rove did was a smear campaign, or politically sleazy, it’s pretty clear to me that everyone in White House — from the president, to the vice president, to other officials — shared Rove’s interest in discrediting former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was critical of the administration’s case for going to war in Iraq.

Other than standing by Rove, how much longer can the White House remain silent and dodge this issue?

The president spoke out this morning to say it’s an ongoing investigation and that they should get to the bottom of it. But, beyond that, he’ll try to make it clear that Karl Rove continues to do his job as normal, that it’s business as usual, and that he retains the president’s confidence. It’s pretty clear that’s the case.

The White House has a political problem because they have made statements that are wrong and that are no longer accurate. That’s brought the heat on them.

And this:

Take my word, there has been a lot of soul searching in the so-called Main Stream Media (MSM) over its performance, or lack of performance, in the months leading up to the American-led ouster of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. Specifically, did we replace what should have been professional skepticism with a certain mindless credulousness in assessing the reality of the Bush administration’s claims of imminent danger to the country and the world from Saddam’s supposedly vast stash of weapons of mass destruction, including — only months away, it was said — the nuclear kind?

If we failed, was it out of a misplaced sense of patriotic duty, or political cowardice or sheer incompetence — or all three? The press corps was spring-loaded with self-doubt over the WMD issue, and ready to snap over any story that would allow it to revisit what now looks to have been a massive — and embarrassingly successful, from the press’ point of view — propaganda campaign.

So Rove was a spinner on the WMD front? After him!

George Bush’s theory of press relations is pretty straightforward: Control the message with military precision, and never waver. Authorized leaks are OK under certain circumstances, although this crowd doesn’t like them very much under any circumstances. Unauthorized leaks are punishable by instant excommunication. The Bush White House is the tightest-run ship in modern times, which means probably ever.

The deliberately colorless Ari Fleischer raised the content-free “briefing” to a dismal high art; Scott McClellan, who studied at the brogans of the Master is, if anything, even less communicative and, unlike Fleischer, who once worked on the more media friendly Hill, never betrays the slightest sense of guilt about saying nothing. So, in human terms, and, yes, reporters are humans, you can imagine the reaction when McClellan was caught in what looks pretty clearly to be a series of lies about Rove’s role in dishing dirt on Mr. and Mrs. Wilson.

Karl “not involved”? PULEASE — scenes of McClellan as piñata at 11.

The physics of unaccountable power

As in physics, every action in Washington eventually has an equal and opposite reaction. A subset of that rule: Anyone with an excess of unaccountable power eventually has to pay. Karl Rove has gathered within his hands a whole LOT of unaccountable power — by which I mean that he has several jobs and the direct ear of the president, but has never faced a confirmation hearing or, for that matter, much by way of an internal rivalry in the White House.

He is The Architect, at least according to George Bush. He talks to reporters only if and when he pleases, and under the conditions he demands. How to call him on a carpet, ANY carpet?

This is how.

And in our focus on American deaths, where is the perspective on this:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi civilians and police officers died at a rate of more than 800 a month between August and May, according to figures released in June by the Interior Ministry.

In response to questions from The New York Times, the ministry said that 8,175 Iraqis were killed by insurgents in the 10 months that ended May 31. The ministry did not give detailed figures for the months before August 2004, nor did it provide a breakdown of the figures, which do not include either Iraqi soldiers or civilians killed during American military operations.

While the figures were not broken down month by month, it has been clear since the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari took over after the Jan. 30 election that the insurgency is taking an increasing toll, killing Iraqi civilians and security workers at a faster rate.

In June the interior minister, Bayan Jabr, told reporters that insurgents had killed about 12,000 Iraqis since the start of the American occupation - a figure officials have emphasized is approximate - an average monthly toll of about 500.

I was taught the most fundamental Christian value is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Do your own math.

Death, destruction… and not solely from external sources.

We have willingly, even in some cases eagerly, walked down this path.

Are you content with the results?

Find the patterns in the white noise yourself, if you are willing to think instead of react.

Draw your own conclusions.

This ain’t no technological breakdown
Oh no, this is the road to hell

Technorati Tags: commentary, opinion, patterns in the white noise