Justice Department Inspector General to investigate the National Security Agency’s warantless wiretapping program.
Your update on Florida’s 13th District post-election battle.
This week: the state’s audit, with which Democrat Christine Jennings’ camp has a number of complaints.
Enough to make you sigh.
The peerless Glenn Greenwald has a post up on his site about the real shortcomings of Rep. Jane Harman as House intel committee chair and the chorus of ‘serious centrists’ speaking up in her favor. He concludes thusly …
That’s why the media has taken such an intense interest in the otherwise mundane matter of who will be House Majority Leader and House Intelligence Chair. Jane Harman, like Steny Hoyer, is the symbol of official Washington, the broken, rotted, corrupt Washington that propped up this war and enabled this administration in so many ways. Pelosi has to prove that she’s one of them, or else suffer the consequences of being mauled and scorned.
If this were only about Iraq, I might agree. But it’s not. You cannot ignore the fact that the two people who opposed Hoyer and Harman were two people surrounded by ethical clouds just after the Democrats won an historic election in which congressional corruption was one of the two main issues.
Let me add a few other points.
First, I should say that the issues surrounding Murtha are qualitatively different from those with Hastings. Murtha’s an old style pork barrel politician who’s played the congressional appropriations game up to the edge and maybe gone over it. There’s good reason to believe that Hastings accepted a cash bribe to turn a case when he was a federal judge. Those are just two totally different things.
But for the purposes of considering who should get top posts in the new Democratic Congress, I think they’re both sufficient to merit serious consideration and pause.
Second, notwithstanding the fact that I started a site called TPMmuckraker and much of my work over the last couple years has focused on corruption, I don’t think of myself as a ‘good government’ type, at least not in the sense in which I sometimes take it or view it in a semi-perjorative sense.
I don’t think, expect or really even want everybody in politics to be squeaky clean. I think complete disinterestedness can become a fetish that distracts from the core concern of having representatives advocate and attend to the needs of their constituents on an equal basis. But we’re far, far from the point where rooting out crooks has gone so far as to make effective law-making difficult or onerous. So, really, let’s give some due to one of the issues that made the Democratic victory possible — opposing political corruption and having a low tolerance for crooks who sell out the folks they’re supposed to represent.
As far Alcee Hastings and Jane Harman, as long as you set aside the seniority principle, why limit the field to just these two? They’re the ones who have factional juice behind them, yes. But the blogosphere has shown it can at least put others into contention. There is after all, another member of the committee who used to work at the State Department monitoring nuclear weapons in North Korea, Iraq and the former Soviet Union and is also trained as a nuclear physicist. That’s Rep. Rush Holt (D) from New Jersey. Given our current focus on proliferation, those seem like decent qualifications for the gig.
Finally, I think Kevin Drum makes some good on-point comments on this whole House intel chair brouhaha: “There’s also seems to be more than a whiff of retribution here against any Democrat who supported the war resolution, and that strikes me as pretty counterproductive. After all, nearly half the Democratic caucus supported the resolution, and we really don’t want to declare every one of these folks persona non grata on all issues related to national security. ”
Early insight on the Iraq War is a legitimate point of pride and a good indication of immunity to getting played. But early opposition can’t be a litmus test for the Democratic caucus now. If nothing else, doing so would simply proscribe too much of the caucus.
The one point I wholeheartedly agree on is that the last thing anybody who has any say in how the Democratic Caucus is run should do is take any advice or counsel from the folks who run the Post oped page or their ilk.
Newt Gingrich’s prescription for success in Iraq: “Victory or death.”
The post below about the House Intel Committee chair battle has sparked a flood of emails. In the new year we’re going to have more opportunities for comments and discussions about topics like this. But for now, what do you think about who should get the intel chair slot? We’re discussing it in this thread at TPM Cafe.
And here’s our round-up of Jane Harman quotes on Saddam, Iraqi WMD, NSA surveillance, et al.
Here’s Rush Limbaugh saying that because all the Bush mumbojumbo in Iraq hasn’t panned, we should just “blow the place up.” I know we’re supposed to get really outraged over this sort of thing and bent out of shape. But why exactly? These guys — really the whole movement — are so pitiful, such utterly pathetic whiners and fools, it’s hard to treat them as anything but spoiled children.
‘We’ll bring democracy to the world because liberty isn’t the property of one culture or civilization but God’s gift to mankind. But if these friggin’ towel-heads won’t get with the program, then, well, just nuke’em.’
It’s like talking to a five year old with behavior problems. And this is Russert’s interlocutor, represents the mindset of those who still control the executive branch.
Judge orders Coingate crook, Tom Noe, to pay back $13.7 million.
Good luck on getting the money.
The Cheney-ites play their card. From the NYT …
A senior American intelligence official said Monday that the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah had been training members of the Mahdi Army, the Iraqi Shiite militia led by Moktada al-Sadr.
The official said that 1,000 to 2,000 fighters from the Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias had been trained by Hezbollah in Lebanon. A small number of Hezbollah operatives have also visited Iraq to help with training, the official said.
Iran has facilitated the link between Hezbollah and the Shiite militias in Iraq, the official said. Syrian officials have also cooperated, though there is debate about whether it has the blessing of the senior leaders in Syria.
The intelligence official spoke on condition of anonymity under rules set by his agency, and discussed Iranâs role in response to questions from a reporter.
The interview occurred at a time of intense debate over whether the United States should enlist Iranâs help in stabilizing Iraq. The Iraq Study Group, directed by James A. Baker III, a former Republican secretary of state, and Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic lawmaker, is expected to call for direct talks with Tehran.
The claim about Hezbollahâs role in training Shiite militias could strengthen the hand of those in the Bush administration who oppose a major new diplomatic involvement with Iran.
Is it true? Is Hezbollah training the Mahdi Army? I have no idea. And regrettably, under current management, the fact that senior intelligence officials or senior administration officials say it, really doesn’t mean much one way or another. It certainly wouldn’t be particularly shocking if one radical Shia para-military (actually not that ‘para’) backed by Iran had ties to Iraqi Shia in the south who also have close ties to Iran.
Everybody’s enemy’s enemy is a friend. We do know the Israelis are knee-deep in Iraqi Kurdistan, right?
The truth or falsity of this new intel from the same sources of the reliably bogus intel of recent years, though, seems of secondary interest to the debate that’s getting set up. It’s a recipe and the argument for staying in Iraq permanently. We can’t get out because getting out means coming to an accomodation with Iran and Syria who’ve already been meddling in Iraq.
If we’re trying to overthrow the Iranian government — which we’ve said we are — is it greatly surprising that they’re either having or allowing their proxies to help train the Iraqi militia which is helping pin us down in Iraq?
That doesn’t mean it’s good or bad, only that it’s hardly unexpected. And it brings us back to the key question: what’s our goal in Iraq. Not what it may or may not have been three years ago. But what is it right now? Is being in Iraq making us more or less secure? Do we want to stay there indefinitely or do we want to began the process of leaving in such a way as to leave as stable and safe a situation as possible? Those are the key questions. Letting a purported connection between Hezbollah and the Mahdi Army drive our thinking is just another way of saying we want to stay forever because if we don’t Iran will have won.
The Times quotes former NSC official Flynt Leverett saying: âThat sound to me a little bit strained. I have a hard time thinking it is a really significant piece of what we are seeing play out on the ground with the various Shiite militia forces.â
I think he has it just right.