Juan Cole on Bush's latest reptition of The Big Lie:

'Third, the militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia. With greater economic and military and political power, the terrorists would be able to advance their stated agenda: to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, to assault the American people, and to blackmail our government into isolation.'

Yes, al-Qaeda does want these things. But then the Christian Identity Movement in the United States wants to establish a massive fortified refuge for persecuted white people to escape oppression at the hands of what they in their looney tunes way consider the evil, minority-dominated Federal Government. That crackpot fringe groups have big plans and ideas is not surprising, and we only have to worry about them if it looks like they might actually succeed.

But who thinks this particular crackpot plan is in any way feasible? Look at America's friends in the Middle East-- Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Yemen, Oman, Pakistan, etc., etc. Which one of them is on the verge of being taken over by al-Qaeda? Why, al-Qaeda had to plan out 9/11 from Europe because it could not operate in the Middle East! An al-Qaeda meeting in Cairo would have had more Egyptian government spies in attendance than radical fundamentalists!

You should read this.

The Full Turkey Baster Bill Series

Part I Intro to the Bill
Part II Republican Strategy
Part III Bill Update
Part IV Supreme Court Resource Roundup

I don't know why they're calling it the Turkey Baster bill. but the gist of it was to force you to apply to the state for permission to reproduce. The American Progress Action Fund described it like this:

What normally happens when I start paying particular attention to a particular topic, I just gather data and let it settle until something gels and I have a pattern I can start testing. On this Supreme Court/judicial philosophy thing, Justice Breyers' latest book was the coagulant.

Among the things that fell into place was some of Chief Justice Roberts' testimony at his nomination hearings. The particular statements were made in response to Sen. Grassley.

ROBERTS: Well, I think it's very important to define these terms. Let's take the originalist approach. I do think that the framers' intent is the guiding principle that should apply.

However, you do need to be very careful and make sure that you're giving appropriate weight to the words that the framers used to embody their intent.

New Thoughts on Old-Boy Deals

It's a sign of just how bad cronyism has become in the Bush administration when the announcement that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is actually going to seek bids on contracts for the cleanup and recovery from Hurricane Katrina makes front-page news. But so it is in America these days that we must step back and congratulate the administration for agreeing to hold a fair auction.

You know you've lost the intellectual Conservative crowd when they don't even present an argument, they just riff on you.

Justice Miers? Get Real [P6: Beware the financial firewall]
By JOHN TIERNEY

The contrarian in me has been trying to find a reason to defend Harriet Miers against her critics, but it's too much of a stretch. We need a new nominee - or at least a more entertaining way to choose a nominee.

...To choose a nominee, we should do more than rely on the president's word or on a confirmation hearing in which Miers will be determined to say nothing of interest. We need the best process available today to determine the nominee's real-world credentials.

Quote of note:

Ms. Sullivan continued to protest angrily as Judge Higbee continued to reprimand her loudly. The lawyer quieted only after the judge threatened to have her forcibly removed from the courtroom. The antagonism could be a problem for Merck beyond this one case, because Judge Higbee is overseeing all 2,400 Vioxx-related suits that have been filed in New Jersey state court.

Testimony by Witness for Merck Disallowed
By ALEX BERENSON

Merck's defense in the second Vioxx lawsuit to reach trial sustained a serious blow yesterday when the New Jersey judge overseeing the case threw out testimony from the company's first witness and then shouted down a defense lawyer who tried to protest the decision.

Quote of note:

Of chief concern to Democrats and some Republicans was Mr. Flanigan's role at Tyco, where as its general counsel he oversaw Mr. Abramoff's work lobbying for the company, which is based in Bermuda, to retain its tax-exempt status. Critics of the nomination said they were also troubled by the fact that Mr. Flanigan had no experience as a criminal prosecutor and that he helped shape administration policy on the treatment of suspected terrorists in American custody, as deputy White House counsel under Mr. Gonzales.

Bush's Nominee for No. 2 Justice Post Withdraws
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 - President Bush's pick for the second-ranking position at the Justice Department abruptly withdrew his nomination Friday after facing weeks of questions over his ties to the lobbyist Jack Abramoff as well as his role in formulating policies for the treatment of suspected terrorists.

Quote of note: 

Most presidents would want their cronies to have some reasonably impressive legal credentials before ascending to the high court. But Bush seems to harbor a principled disdain for meritocracy. Cronyism is one of his core values.

In a wonderful 2000 New Yorker profile, Nicholas Lemann wrote that Bush attended Yale at the time its admissions policies were being transformed. Traditionally, it had been dominated by prep school alumni, whether or not they had the best grades. Traditionalists said this emphasized good character above mere book smarts. In practice, it resulted in affirmative action for children of the WASP elite. Andover, Bush's alma mater, usually sent at least three dozen graduates to Yale every year.

Cronyism as a core value
Even conservatives can see that Bush, in choosing Miers, is no fan of meritocracy.
Jonathan Chait
October 7, 2005

OF ALL THE despondent conservative reactions to Harriet E. Miers' Supreme Court nomination, my favorite came from National Review editor Rich Lowry, who quoted a source he described as a "very pro-Bush legal type." The source complained that Miers is "not even second rate, but third rate," and proceeded to despair that "a crony at FEMA is one thing, but on the high court it's something else entirely."

The Supreme Court, you see, is important. What bad could come of having a crony at FEMA? Oh, right.

Not that I think they were ignorant, I'm just not feeling the excuse. 

A Case Of Treason
Larry Johnson
October 06, 2005
Larry Johnson worked as a CIA intelligence analyst and State Department counter-terrorism official.  He is a member of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

The investigation into who in the Bush administration leaked the fact that Valerie Plame, wife of former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a CIA undercover operative, is nearing completion.  Virtually lost in the recent spurt of press reporting is the fact that the compromise of Ms. Plame (and, as night follows the day her carefully cultivated network of spies) was unconscionable.  Ms. Plame, a very gifted case officer, was a close colleague of mine at CIA.  Her dedication and courage were clear in her willingness to assume the risks of an agent under non-official cover—meaning that if you get caught, too bad, you’re on your own; the US government never heard of you.

Quote of note:

That may be why, while cronies populate every presidency, no administration has etched the principles of hackocracy into its governing philosophy as deeply as this one. If there's an underappreciated corner of the bureaucracy to fill, it has found just the crony (or college roommate of a crony), party operative (or cousin of a party operative) to fill it. To honor this achievement, we've drawn up a list of the 15 biggest Bush administration hacks--from the highest levels of government to the civil servant rank and file. The tnr 15 is a diverse group--from the assistant secretary of commerce who started his career by supplying Bush with Altoids to the Republican National Committee chair-turned-Veterans Affairs secretary who forgot about wounded Iraq war vets--but they all share two things: responsibility and inexperience.

I'm thinking of starting a "Humans First" movement.

Quote of note:

When the Constitutional Convention convened in 1787, delegates hotly debated the role of corporations in American society. A majority had been instructed by their home states to oppose giving power to corporations. The prevailing fear was that large corporations might come to overwhelm American politics in the way that the East India Company had dominated Parliament or what Thomas Jefferson later termed “the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations.”

Failing to win explicit protections in the Constitution itself, corporate interests sought sympathetic court interpretation of vague provisions like “due process.” By the 1880s, the Supreme Court was packed with former railroad attorneys who scored their first big success in the1886 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad ruling that institutionalized corporate “personhood” for purposes of applying protections of the Fourteenth Amendment. Since then, at least ten additional Supreme Court decisions have expanded corporate rights.

Here's another open thread.

Quote of note:

Let's be clear: It is pro-administration conservatives, not those terrible liberals, who are making an issue of Miers's evangelical faith. Liberals are not opposing Miers because she is an evangelical. Conservatives are telling their friends to support Miers because she is an evangelical.

Faith-Based Hypocrisy
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, October 7, 2005; A23

Now we know: President Bush's supporters are prepared to be thoroughly hypocritical when it comes to religion. They'll play religion up or down, whichever helps them most in a political fight.

Shortly after Bush named John Roberts to the Supreme Court, a few Democrats, including Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), suggested that the nominee might reasonably be questioned about the impact of his religious faith on his decisions as a justice.

Active Liberty : Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution author: Stephen Breyer asin: 0307263134 binding: Hardcover list price: $23.00 USD amazon price: $15.64 USD

This book, by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, is a first pass at a progressive interpretation of the Constitution. at least I hope it's a first pass. I like the book, but truth is I wanted to like it more than I do.

Justice Breyer starts out by explaining what he wants to do in the book, which is to lay out what he refers to as a "theme," a thesis on the values that should be used as aids in interpreting the constitution. He actually takes something of an originalist stance; however, beyond restrictions on governmental power he also finds goads to direct what action is necessary.

Breyer's basic position is the Constitution's various provisions exist in order to defend against a domineering government and to enable active participation in government by the governed. The exposition of this position is concise and pretty solid. He takes some twenty pages to explain the theme, how it fits into judicial interpretative traditions and to explain why his thesis is "consistent with the Constitution's history."

Quote of note:

I witnessed this warp-speed process in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. I got there five days after the deluge, when the story, as the whole world understood it, was one of "Mad Max" depravity and violence. Hoodlums were raping and pillaging, I just "knew" -- even shooting at rescue helicopters trying to take hospital patients to safety. So it was a surprise when I rolled into the center of the city, with all my foreign-correspondent antennae bristling, and found the place as quiet as a tomb.

The next day I drove into the French Quarter and was struck by how pristine St. Louis Cathedral looked, almost like the castle at Disney World. I got out of the car and walked around the whole area, and I wrote in my notebook that except for the absence of tourists, it could have been just an ordinary Sunday morning in the Big Easy. Then I got back into the car, and on the radio a caller was breathlessly reporting that, as she spoke, a group of policemen were "pinned down" by snipers at the cathedral.

I was right there; nobody was sniping at anybody. But the reigning narrative was Mad Max, not Magic Kingdom. Thanks to radio, television and the Internet, everyone "knew" things that just weren't true.

Instant Revisionism
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, October 7, 2005; A23

The story line was a classic: Beauty and the Beast. Remember the Atlanta courthouse shootings a few months ago? Brian Nichols was the ogre whose homicidal rampage led him to the apartment of an attractive young woman named Ashley Smith, who soothed his savage breast by speaking gently of God and redemption. That he was black and she was white seemed to deepen the narrative and give it the status of myth.

Oh, did I say myth? I meant meth.

Fractured Families
Thousands fled Hurricane Katrina, and in the chaos, many children were lost. A list of the still missing contains more than 2,000 names
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Bao Ong

Oct. 6, 2005 - It's been five weeks since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, but the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children still has a list of 2,329 missing children, as of Thursday. That’s down from the more than 4,500 reported missing just after the storm, but still a shockingly high number.

Still, the center’s president, Ernie Allen, is confident most of these children will be found alive. Some may have already been reunited with loved ones who haven’t yet informed the center of their reunions. Allen’s nonprofit organization typically works on criminal cases and serves as a national clearinghouse for information about missing and exploited young people. But after the chaotic mass migration forced by Katrina, the U.S. Justice Department asked the center to help reunite families and locate displaced kids. From the group’s headquarters in Alexandria, Va., Allen spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Bao Ong about the efforts to find Katrina’s smallest victims, the threat of predators and what can be done in future disasters.

Tom Friedman kisses what ass is still available.

The president's speech on terrorism yesterday was excellent. He made clear, better than ever, why winning in Iraq is so important to the wider struggle against Islamo-fascism. But it only makes me that much more angry that he fought this war as though it would be easy - never asking for any sacrifice, any military draft, any tax hikes or any gasoline tax - and that he tolerated so much incompetence along the way.

Quote of note:

The president's inability to grow beyond his big moment in 2001 is unnerving. But the fact that his handlers continue to encourage him to milk 9/11 is infuriating. For most of us, the memories are fresh and painful. We mourn the people who died on Sept. 11, as we mourn Daniel Pearl and other Americans, not to mention innocents from other countries, who were murdered by terrorists. The administration's penchant for using them as political cover is offensive. It threatens to turn our wounds, and our current fears, into cynical and desperate spin.

President Bush's Major Speech: Doing the 9/11 Time Warp Again

Quote of note:

As a candidate, Mr. Bush got a lot of mileage out of offering the same simple, positive thoughts over and over. But now the nation doesn't need more specious theories about why the invasion was a good idea and cheery assurances that the original plan is still working. If Mr. Bush still cannot acknowledge the flaws in his policy, how can he fix them?

President Bush's Major Speech: Sounding Old Themes on Iraq

We've lost track of the number of times President Bush has told Americans to ignore their own eyes and ears and pretend everything is going just fine in Iraq. Yesterday, when Mr. Bush added a ringing endorsement of his own policy to his speech on terrorism, it was that same old formula: the wrong questions, the wrong answers and no new direction.

Net National Happiness:

Some sociologists worry that the effort to quantify happiness may actually impair the pursuit of happiness. But there's another way to consider it. The world looks the way it does - as if it is being devoured by some grievous species - partly because of narrow economic assumptions that govern the behavior of corporations and nations.

Quote of note: 

In a 33-page opinion, the five justices reversed the lower court, saying the judge used a standard that was incorrect because it was not stringent enough. The court said, "The Internet provides a means of communication where a person wronged by statements of an anonymous poster can respond instantly, can respond to the alleged defamatory statements on the same site or blog, and thus, can, almost contemporaneously, respond to the same audience that initially read the allegedly defamatory statements."

David Finger, the blogger's lawyer, said: "Statements on an electronic bulletin board with hyperbole and profanity are generally not considered as credible sources of facts. The court found that people who read these types of blogs cannot reasonably expect them to be anything more than the writer's opinion."

Delaware Supreme Court Declines to Unmask a Blogger
By RITA K. FARRELL

It's the only explanation for this crap.

Democrats Urged to Abandon Election Myths
Analysts Say Democrats Must Abandon Election Myths if They Want to Regain Political Power
By WILL LESTER Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON Oct 6, 2005 — To regain political power Democrats must abandon favorite election myths, adopt a strong position on national defense and pick candidates who connect with average voters, two political analysts from the party said Thursday.

Political scientists Elaine Kamarck and William Galston, both Democrats, warned that the most important first step is to abandon beliefs they describe as "election myths."

Rove Said to Testify in CIA Leak Case
Karl Rove Said to Give More Testimony in CIA Leak Case Without Guarantee of Not Being Indicted
By JOHN SOLOMON Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON Oct 6, 2005 — Presidential confidant Karl Rove will testify for a fourth time before the federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA officer's identity even though prosecutors have warned they can no longer guarantee he will escape indictment, lawyers said Thursday.

Rove's offer was accepted by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the last week as the grand jury's wraps up its work and decides whether Rove, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby or any other presidential aides should face criminal charges.

...I thought I'd remind my progressive friends that there is no such thing.

A Fundamental Error explains why, and links to a failed (if polite) attempt to deny the the fact and my responses thereto.

And even if the nuclear option existed, the nomination could still be stopped.

Disrespectful snaps of note:

On Sunday, Iraq's interior minister reacted angrily to complaints by the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al Faisal, about Iranian influence in Baghdad. Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, a Shiite, declared that Iraq was "the cradle of civilization" and should not be lectured "by a Bedouin riding a camel."

Jabr also took a swipe at Saudi Arabia's Sunni monarchy for ruling like a dictatorship and "naming a whole country after a family."

That's not the way to win friends and influence people, pal. And I suspect there's no point in even asking guys like Jabr to be nice because his neighbors see helping Iraq as helping the USofA in an effort the really see as illegitimate and a threat to their own sovreignity.

Anyway... 

U.S. Seeks Support for Baghdad
Diplomats are asking leaders of neighboring Arab countries to persuade Iraq's Sunnis to join the fledgling democratic process.,br>By Paul Richter, Times Staff Writer

Quote of note:

It's difficult if not impossible to reconcile President Bush's upbeat reports of progress, such as the one he delivered Wednesday in the Rose Garden, with reality.

...Bush said Wednesday that Iraqis "are showing more and more capability to take the fight to the enemy." But that conflicts with Casey's lowering of the number of Iraqi units at the highest level of combat readiness. Bush said there was "political progress" as well. But the attempt to stack the deck to pass the constitution conflicts with that.

Depends on what reality you're trying to reconcile. I'm at the point of questioning if a person so disconnected from reality can even be considered sane. 

War of attrition

Serious point of note:

If the White House successfully withholds Miers' documents, then any president can withhold information about an otherwise unknowable Supreme Court nominee.

Miers and Roberts, when working as attorneys for the president, actually had the people of the United States as a client. The people, through the Senate, must not be forced to make blind judgments. That would allow the executive branch to dominate the judicial and legislative branches. It would make the court primarily responsive to one man (or woman) in the Oval Office. It would create a serious malformation in our democratic process, and it is not an overstatement to say that it could end our democracy as we know it.

Without the facts, there's no consent
By Martin Garbus
Attorney MARTIN GARBUS is the author of "Courting Disaster: The Supreme Court and the Unmaking of American Law" (Times Books, 2002).
October 6, 2005

A Tribute to Comedian Nipsey Russell

All Things Considered, October 4, 2005 · Comedian Nipsey Russell died Sunday at age 80 from cancer. Russell's one-liners and impromptu rhymes made him one of television's popular talk-show guests and game-show panelists during the 1970s. We hear some of his earlier material, and learn about his passion for classic poetry.

Climate change linked to cruise ship illness outbreaks
Wed Oct 5, 2005 06:24 PM ET
By Gene Emery

BOSTON (Reuters) - Warming ocean waters may have tainted Alaskan oysters with a bacteria that triggered four outbreaks of illness on a cruise ship among people who ate the shellfish raw, researchers reported on Wednesday.

"The rising temperatures of ocean water seem to have contributed to one of the largest known outbreaks of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in the United States," said Joseph McLaughlin of the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, referring to the bacterium responsible for outbreak.

C.I.A. Chief Refuses to Seek Discipline for 9/11 Officials
By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 -- The C.I.A. will not pursue disciplinary action against George J. Tenet, a former director, or anyone else among current or former officials singled out by an inspector general for poor performance on counterterrorism before Sept. 11, 2001, the agency said today.

The decision by the agency's current director, Porter J. Goss, signifies an end to nearly four years of inquiries into the agency's performance before the Sept. 11 attacks. It means that no current or former officer will be reprimanded for his performance, despite what the inspector general, John L. Helgerson, concluded were serious shortcomings in advance of the attacks.