When will folks with easily identifiable IP addresses realizing that scrubbing their wikipedia entries never turns out well? This time it’s the National Institute on Drug Abuse getting dinged.
Today’s Must Read: the administration looks to “shatter Iran’s growing confidence” by stepping up the fight in Iraq.
Fox News plans to air the controversial scene that was cut out of the anti-Clinton docudrama “Path to 9/11.”
Take a look at this video segment about the war on the ground in Baghdad, The Battle for Haifa Street, little more than a mile from the Green Zone. For some reason CBS only ran it on their website. It never saw the light of day on the network news.
Publicly rebuking the United States, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will take the extraordinary step of publicly apologizing to Maher Arar today.
The U.S. government continues to insist it did nothing wrong.
TPM Reader AC on the Decider …
President Bush has never been very strong on the stuff most of us learned in 7th grade civics–namely, that there are three branches of government that share power. Of course, part of that is because he’s always had a rubber-stamp congress. His comment that “I’m the decider” on Iraq shows that view remains. No surprise there. But now there’s a congress with a mandate to oppose him. If I were Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi, I’d take that as a sign that I have to show SOME sign Ë any sign Ë that I have the power to say no. Bush is showing he really doesn’t think Dems will take any action Ë in fact, he’s basically daring them to rein him in, even though that’s exactly what Americans charged them with doing last November. And you know what the saddest part is? He’s probably right. The congressional dems probably won’t do anything other than pass non-binding resolutions, which he’ll shrug off as meaningless suggestions from folks who don’t have any real power, anyway. And sadly, he’s kind of right. If you never exercise your power, isn’t that the same as being powerless?
The whole show is quite pathetic, don’t you think?
Yes, I do think.
Confused about all the intrigue unfolding in the Senate over escalation? We’re trying to making things a bit easier for you.
We’ve got a rundown of all the different Senate resolutions on the “surge” right here.
And a guide to all the GOP Senators who are facing reelection in 2008 — and thus are under the most pressure to oppose the “surge” — is here.
TPM Reader CS chimes on Kerry …
I’m a little late to the table on this, but even compared to previous losing nominees Kerry faces a unique hurdle.
Kerry made electability the main theme of his 2004 primary campaign. And then he lost in November.
There just no good way to finesse that.
TPM Reader JB has Bush’s number …
Future historians may draw some contrasts between President Bush’s declaration that he’s the one who decides troop levels in Iraq with his earlier and oft-stated insistence that commanders on the ground were asked what they needed and always got what they asked for.
I suppose he just decided to let someone else decide, and now has a new strategy. More likely, of course, he’s just insisting now that he’ll decide rather than let Congress do it, an easy enough point to hold when Congress doesn’t want the job. It shouldn’t get it, either; better to forego resolutions in favor of extensive oversight of reconstruction accounts, procurement, O&M, operations and other aspects of the war. The President won’t like this either, but will have scant grounds to object.
Incidentally, Josh, you must have noticed that Bush’s very expansive claims of executive authority are being made by the first President in our history to delegate to his Vice President anything close to the authority over policy and personnel that he has ceded to Cheney. Back in 1980 the GOP Convention audience was kept amused by an effort to establish a “co-Presidency” with Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, who’d have been given extensive authority if elected. Reagan decided then that it was a stupid idea; he wasn’t running to be half a President. And now we have a President weak enough to make the “co-Presidency” a reality.
A weak President claiming vast powers is, if not unique in our history surely unusual.
That really does capture him: a weak and essentially cowardly man with great pretensions of power.