TPM Reader BS on Bush …
That the President is being less than forthcoming on an issue of national security is hardly anything new. What worries me is setting out a doctrine that pre-emptive strikes are not only justified by an actual gathering threat but by hypothetical futuristic scenarios which have no bearing in
the present reality. You canât invade a country without a nuclear program to stop them from maybe one day changing their mind about it any more than you can shoot an unarmed man because he might one day buy a gun. Didnât Bush ever read that Bible he likes to invoke so much? Remember Exodus,
where mean old Pharoah starts killing all Hebrew newborn males to decimate the population? To quote:âLook, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase; otherwise in the event of war, they may join our enemies in fighting against us and rise from the ground.â (Exodus 1:8)
By Bushâs new logic, Pharoah would have been completely justified in his genocide – yeah the Hebrews werenât rising up but âimagine a worldâ in which they did. In fact, by this logic a nation can justify invading ANY country at ANY time and even commit widespread atrocities against civilians. Saddam could have invaded Kuwait because they might one day get nuclear weapons. Russia could have invaded Afghanistan because they might one day get nuclear weapons. Hell, Hitler could have invaded Poland because pigs might fly and Polish scientists invent some kind of super duper laser beam that makes them an armed superpower. Or he could have just killed all the Jews using the same rationale for pre-emptive action that Pharoah (and our President) endorsed.
We really can spin out this yarn in an infinite number of directions. But the antic nature of this riff really is inseparable from the ridiculousness of the president’s logic.
WaPo’s Sebastian Mallaby abases himself trying to find some argument for why President Bush is now a leader on climate change and carbon emissions.
On Saturday I put the case for a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system to James Connaughton, the head of the Council on Environmental Quality at the White House. Far from denouncing these policies as eco-socialist nonsense, Connaughton sounded open to them. “In concept I can agree with you,” he said. Something must be done to stem demand for climate-warming energy, and although there are several ways of getting there, a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system would be the most “elegant.”
Whoa! This may be spin, but it’s certainly new spin. Only a few months ago, Al Hubbard, director of Bush’s National Economic Council, brushed aside the idea of a carbon tax: “The American people are not interested in paying more for gasoline,” he told me, sounding like a frog in the path of a herd of elephants who says he’s not interested in jumping.
Another federal prosecutor axed by the administration, this one in Nevada. No explanation.
Over the weekend, David Kurtz kept you up to speed about the story of Charles D. Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, who is calling on corporate America to boycott law firms who are providing legal defense to detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Subsequently, the Pentagon disavowed Stimson’s comments and said they don’t represent the Pentagon’s views.
As fas as I know, however, Stimson himself has not retracted his comments. And he is hardly some random official. He is the Defense Department appointee charged with overseeing “detainee affairs”. He runs it.
We’ve become greatly desensitized in recent years to shocking abuses of civil liberties and administration contempt for the rule of law. Even in that context though this stands out as an outrageous attack on the rule of law in this country. When high level Defense Department appointees are publicly calling for blacklisting lawyers defending clients in the civilian justice system you know we’ve gotten to a very bad place.
This story should not end here. Stimson should be fired immediately. And if the White House won’t, the Congress should investigate his activities.
Are the ‘netroots’ a political movement? And if it is, how does it compare to the New Left of the 1960s? Matt Stoller just kicked off this conversation at TPMCafe. Join us.
(ed.note: No, I couldn’t figure out whether it was plural or singular. So probably I should just listen.)
As Atrios aptly notes, poll numbers showing President Bush became less popular after his speech should not surprise anyone. President Bush is by any reasonable measure extremely unpopular. Not unpopular — extremely unpopular. Mid-low forties is unpopular. Mid-low thirties is extremely unpopular. Almost, but not quite unprecedented in the modern era for such a sustained period of time. The Iraq War is one of the few things that rivals his unpopularity. And the public, after signaling deep opposition to the war at the polls, sees this extremely unpopular president come before them to announce that he’s expanding the really unpopular war. And if that’s not enough he has the quavering look of a degenerate gambler begging his wife, half cockily half desperately, for one more chance.
Shocking that it didn’t come off well.
Haaretz: “In a series of secret meetings in Europe between September 2004 and July 2006, Syrians and Israelis formulated understandings for a peace agreement between Israel and Syria.”
Today’s Must Read: the Iraqi government gets a second chance to conduct a hanging with “dignity and restraint,” and, well….
Obama to file papers creating an exploratory committee to run for President.