CHENEY: THE MYTH

Atrios has a good link post that helps expose Cheney for the delusional ideologue he is. One of the links is to a Boston Globe piece which is a great help for anyone wanting a refresher course on Cheney's career of mistakes and cronyism:

At world-shaping moments across a generation, Cheney reacted with an instinctive, This is war! He helped turn the War on Poverty into a war on the poor. He helped keep the Cold War going longer than it had to, and when it ended (because of initiatives taken by the other side), Cheney refused to believe it. To keep the US war machine up and running, he found a new justification just in time. With Gulf War I, Cheney ignited Osama bin Laden's burning purpose. Responding to 9/11, Cheney fulfilled bin Laden's purpose by joining him in the war-of-civilizations. Iraq, therefore (including the prewar deceit for which Scooter Libby takes the fall), is simply the last link in the chain of disaster which is the public career of Richard Cheney.

Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly also has a link post that helps to expose Cheney's lack of ability:

As a wise man said back in January 2003 regarding Cheney and his curiously enduring reputation for competence even in the face of mountains of contrary evidence, "his terrible judgment will, at some point, become impossible even for the Beltway crowd not to see." Looking back, perhaps historians will say that November 2005 was when they finally saw it.

Finally, Digby also has a great link post about Cheney's shortcomings and his frank opinion is worth noting:

It's finally coming into focus that every single one of this administration's so-called grown-ups are idiots. There were people who knew that the avuncular Dick Cheney was something of a nut, but nobody believed them. He just seemed so darned competent compared to the callow Junior, there was no need to look any further.

WE KNEW BEFORE WE INVADED...

that there probably were no WMD. Thanx to poster gobacktotexas at DKOs, here's more evidence that we knew our intelligence was mediocre at best:

Inspectors Call U.S. Tips 'Garbage'
Feb. 20, 2003

(CBS) While diplomatic maneuvering continues over Turkish bases and a new United Nations resolution, inside Iraq, U.N. arms inspectors are privately complaining about the quality of U.S. intelligence and accusing the United States of sending them on wild-goose chases. CBS News Correspondent Mark Phillips reports the U.N. has been taking a precise inventory of Iraq's al-Samoud 2 missile arsenal, determining how many there are and where they are. Discovering that the al-Samoud 2 has been flying too far in tests has been one of the inspectors' major successes. But the missile has only been exceeding its 93-mile limit by about 15 miles and that, the Iraqis say, is because it isn't yet loaded down with its guidance system. The al-Samoud 2 is not the 800-mile-plus range missile that Secretary of State Colin Powell insists Iraq is developing.

U.N. sources have told CBS News that American tips have lead to one dead end after another.

· Example: satellite photographs purporting to show new research buildings at Iraqi nuclear sites. When the U.N. went into the new buildings they found "nothing."

· Example: Saddam's presidential palaces, where the inspectors went with specific coordinates supplied by the U.S. on where to look for incriminating evidence. Again, they found "nothing."

· Example: Interviews with scientists about the aluminum tubes the U.S. says Iraq has imported for enriching uranium, but which the Iraqis say are for making rockets. Given the size and specification of the tubes, the U.N. calls the "Iraqi alibi air tight."

Former British ambassador vouches for two of the Downing Street Memos

(Via The Washington Note)
In the first part of a serialization of his forthcoming book, Sir Chistopher Meyer, former British ambassador to the U.S., confirms the authenticity of two of the Downing Street Memos:

It was time to put Britain's fix into American thinking before it coagulated and Blair arrived at Crawford, and I arranged to have lunch with Paul Wolfowitz. My report of this encounter was leaked.



A similar list of conditions appears in another leaked document, drawn up following Tony Blair's summit with Bush at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, a few weeks later in April 2002.

VINDICTIVENESS & INTOLERANCE

These seem to be considered virtues in the Bush Administration. Bush himself is known to be intolerant of dissent and perhaps that is a continuation of his role as an "enforcer" during his father's presidential campaign. Karl Rove was reported to have threatened to "fuck over" a Republican operative for some infraction. Cheney told Sen. Leahy to "fuck off" on the floor of the Senate. John Bolton was described by a colleague as a "kiss up, kick down" person.

Now David Addington, the replacement for "Scooter" Libby, is also revealed as a vindictive person (from Newsweek, via Rawstory):

When a young Justice Department lawyer named Pat Philbin crossed Addington in a policy dispute, Addington made it his mission to block Philbin's promotion to a top Justice job. Addington let it be known that Philbin was a "marked man," says a colleague who spoke anonymously to avoid clashing with Addington. (Addington and Philbin declined to comment.)

GOP SCANDALS

We've all heard about the CIA leak case by now but there are other scandals that have only received a little attention, such as Larry Franklin of the DoD pleaded guilty to passing on secret information to AIPAC, and some others that until now were unknown to me. I received an e-mail outlining 34 scandals and here I will repeat the ones that were news to me. (If I find the source for this, I will provide the link)

UPDATE: It's from a Salon article


Gone to Taiwan:
The scandal: Missed this one? A high-ranking State Department official, Donald Keyser, was arrested and charged in September with making a secret trip to Taiwan and was observed by the FBI passing documents to Taiwaneserintelligence agents in Washingtoni-area meetings.
The problem: Such unauthorized trips are illegal. And we don't have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
The outcome: The case is in the courts.


Intel Inside ... The White House
The scandal: In early 2001, chief White House political strategist Karl Rove held meetings with numerous companies while maintaining six-figure holdings of their stock - including Intel, whose executives were seeking government approval of a merger. "Washington hadn't seen a clearer example of a conflict of interest in years," wrote Paul Glastris in the Washingtoni Monthly.
The problem: The Code of Federal Regulations says government employees should not participate in matters in which they have a personal financial interest.
The outcome: Then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, spurning precedent, did not refer the case to the Justice Department.


John Ashcroft's Illegal Campaign Contributions
The scandal: Ashcroft's exploratory committee for his short-lived 2000 presidential bid transferred $110,000 to his unsuccessful 2000 reelection campaign for the Senate.
The problem: The maximum for such a transfer is $10,000.
The outcome: The Federal Election Commission fined Ashcroft's campaign treasurer, Garrett Lott, $37,000 for the transgression.

COULTER/PIE UPDATE

Guilty plea in case of pies thrown at columnist
By Kim Smith
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Tucson, Arizona Published: 11.05.2005

One of two men accused of throwing cream pies at nationally syndicated columnist Ann Coulter last year pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault Friday.

Phillip Edgar Smith agreed to pay $915 in restitution for damage caused to a backdrop screen that was hit by one of the pies, said deputy Pima County Attorney Noah Van Amburg.

According to police, Smith and William Zachary Wolff, both 25, threw the tofu cream pies at Coulter as she spoke before a crowd of 2,500 people at the University of Arizona's Centennial Hall on Oct. 22, 2004. They missed Coulter, but splattered a black muslin backdrop.

A change-of-plea hearing is scheduled in Wolff's case for Nov. 30.

ANOTHER SNOW JOB

Tony Snow's column about Plame ("Manipulation of ignorance abuses system") ran in my local paper today and although it has many glaring errors, I will only deal with three here.

SNOW: The manipulation of ignorance continued with Reid's claim of "manufacturing" intelligence ... never linked to a specific piece of intelligence or prewar administration statement.
TRUTH: The AP had an article that debunked most of the claims Powell made at the U.N. "Powell's Case for Iraq War Falls Apart 6 Months Later," by Charles Hanley, Aug. 11 2003.

SNOW: Wrong again: The column that "outed" Valerie Plame did not mention her name - merely that she was the wife of Joe Wilson
TRUTH:"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." Novak, July 14th 2003.

SNOW: When exposed, she was not "covert" ...
TRUTH: "Valerie Wilson's cover was blown in July 2003. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community. Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life. The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well-known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It's important that a CIA officer's identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation's security. ... This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter." Patrick Fitzgerald, 10/28/05

MORE PENSION PROBLEMS

GAO: Pension plan switch hurts employees
By MARCY GORDON
AP Business Writer
Nov 4, 7:29 PM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Employees whose companies switch from traditional pension plans to an increasingly adopted alternative generally lose benefits, congressional auditors have found. Under the plans, companies set aside money each year for employees with a guarantee that it will grow at a specific rate - unlike traditional pension plans, which promise workers a specific monthly benefit.

The GAO auditors, who examined 31 large company pension plans and 102 smaller ones, found that when employers switch from defined-benefit pension plans to cash balance plans, "most workers, regardless of age, would have received greater benefits under the (defined-benefit) plan."

It estimates the median loss in retirement benefits each month for a 30-year-old employee to be $59, rising to $188 for a 40-year-old worker and $238 for a 50-year-old.

[NOTE: Senior executives get a defined benefit]

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, has supported the idea of cash balance plans, saying they are beneficial to workers because they are portable and secure.

"Cash balance plans represent an increasingly vital component of worker retirement security, providing nearly 10 million workers the promise of a sound retirement," Boehner wrote in a letter Thursday to his House colleagues.

"Indeed, cash balance plans provide more generous benefits for the majority of workers than do traditional plans, have proven far better-suited to meet the challenges of an increasingly mobile 21st century workforce, and most importantly, provide a safe and reliable nest egg for an increasing number of American workers," he wrote.

1ST TIME IN 130 YEARS

The last indictment of a WH official occurred in 1875 during the Grant Administration! Orville Babcock was Grant's "personal secretary," the name then for "chief of staff."
http://hnn.us/articles/17562.html

"In my administration, we will ask not only what is legal but what is right, not just what the lawyers allow but what the public deserves," Bush said Oct. 26, 2000.

"WE'RE NUMBER ONE" - HEALTHCARE DIVISION

I've posted before about the poor performance of the U.S. health care system when compared to comparable countries in terms of broad measures like life expectancy (males, females) and infant mortality rates. We also do poorly on other measures, as The Commonwealth Fund reports:

A new international survey supported by The Commonwealth Fund finds that one-third of U.S. patients with health problems reported experiencing medical mistakes, medication errors, or inaccurate or delayed lab results—the highest rate of any of the six nations surveyed. While sicker patients in all countries reported safety risks, poor care coordination, and inadequate chronic care treatment, with no country deemed best or worst overall, the United States stood out for high error rates, inefficient coordination of care, and high out-of-pocket costs resulting in forgone care.

One-third (34%) of U.S. respondents reported at least one of four types of errors: they believed they experienced a medical mistake in treatment or care, were given the wrong medication or dose, were given incorrect test results, or experienced delays in receiving abnormal test results. Three of 10 (30%) Canadian respondents reported at least one of these errors, as did one-fifth or more of patients in Australia (27%), New Zealand (25%), Germany (23%), and the U.K. (22%).

As was found in past surveys, the U.S. is an outlier in terms of financial burdens placed on patients. One–half of adults with health problems in the U.S. said they did not see a doctor when sick, did not get recommended treatment, or did not fill a prescription because of cost. Despite these high rates of forgone care, one-third of U.S. patients spent more than $1,000 out-of-pocket in the past year. In contrast, just 13 percent of U.K. adults reported not getting needed care because of costs, and two-thirds had no out-of-pocket costs.

[NOTE: The United States spent at least 80 percent more per capita on health care than each of the other countries in 2002, according to a report published by Health Affairs in July. Americans spent about $5,267 per capita in 2002, or about 14.6 percent of the gross domestic product, the report found. Per-capita spending in Canada was second-highest at $2,931 per person.]

PLAME WAS COVERT

I know YOU know but I'm posting this for the deluded and the ignorant.

Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.
Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified. LINK




A key department memo discussing Joseph Wilson's Niger trip was classified "Top Secret," and the passage about his wife's CIA role was specially marked "S/NF" -- not to be shared with any foreign intelligence agencies.
A Special Weekly Report From The Wall Street Journal's Capital Bureau
John Harwood. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Jul 22, 2005. pg. A.4
Column Name:Washington Wire
Section: Politics & Policy



A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials. LINK

CLOSING IN ON NIXON

BUSH VS. OTHER PRESIDENTS: APPROVAL RATINGS DURING SECOND TERMS



Bush, Now

Approve


35%

Disapprove


57%



Clinton, 11/1997

Approve


57%

Disapprove

31%



Reagan, 11/1985

Approve


65%

Disapprove


26%



Nixon, Gallup Poll, 11/1973

Approve


27%

Disapprove


63%



Eisenhower, Gallup Poll, 11/1957

Approve


58%

Disapprove

27%

AGIT-PROP

From Wikipedia:

The term 'agitprop' is now used more generically to refer to any form of mass media, such as a television program or film, that tries to influence opinion for political, commercial or other ends, especially if it aims to convince people through agitating their minds with highly emotional language of problems in present-day society or politics (which may or may not exist if analysed in an unbiased manner).

David Neiwert at Orcinus offers a critique of Malkin's latest agit-prop book. Here's a sample:

The chief, overarching argument of the conservative movement, in essence, has been that liberals are the sole and primary cause of everything that is wrong both with America and with the world at large. ... Malkin's book, it's clear, is simply going to be another contribution to that liberal-bashing trend, even as it pretends to shame liberals for behavior that is rampant within the ranks of conservatives -- behavior, indeed, encouraged from the very top.

Neiwert's analysis is close to perfect and I encourage you to read it and visit the links in his post.

BERLUSCONI: IT WASN'T ME

Another CYA moment from a politician:

I tried repeatedly to talk the US out of invading Iraq, says Berlusconi

· Italian PM tries to distance himself from White House
John Hooper in Rome
Monday October 31, 2005
The Guardian

Silvio Berlusconi, one of George Bush's closest allies, says he repeatedly tried to talk the US president out of invading Iraq, in comments to be broadcast today.
In the television interview, which goes out on the day the Italian prime minister flies to Washington to meet Mr Bush, Mr Berlusconi says he even enlisted the help of the Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gadafy, in behind-the-scenes efforts to stop America going to war.
"I have never been convinced war was the best way to succeed in making a country democratic and extract it from an albeit bloody dictatorship," he says. "I tried on several occasions to convince the American president not to wage war."
His version of events, recounted in an interview with the La7 private TV station, with excerpts reported by the Apcom and Ansa news agencies at the weekend, was backed by his deputy, Gianfranco Fini, leader of the former neo-fascist party, who said: "We tried right up to the end to persuade Bush and Blair not to launch a military attack."

THE "IRON LADY" ON IRAQ

Nobody can accuse Thatcher of being part of the "far-left."

Thatcher reveals her doubts over basis for Iraq war
By Andrew Grice
Published: 14 October 2005

Yesterday's Washington Post reported that when asked whether she would have invaded Iraq given the intelligence at the time, Lady Thatcher replied: "I was a scientist before I was a politician. And as a scientist I know you need facts, evidence and proof - and then you check, recheck and check again."
She added: "The fact was that there were no facts, there was no evidence, and there was no proof. As a politician the most serious decision you can take is to commit your armed services to war from which they may not return."

OUT OF TOUCH?

WASHINGTON - In a day of political drama, Democrats forced the Republican-controlled Senate into an unusual closed session Tuesday, questioning intelligence that President Bush used in the run-up to the war in Iraq and accusing Republicans of ignoring the issue.

CHARLES: "it’s a good thing when the Democratic Party demonstrates to the nation how radicalized and out of touch they have become"

WHO'S OUT OF TOUCH?

"Do you think the Bush Administration deliberately misled the American public about whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, or not?"

10/28-30/05

YES 53%
NO 45%
UNSURE 2%

CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. Oct. 28-30, 2005. N=800 adults nationwide. MoE ± 4.

http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm

JUDY THE WAR STENOGRAPHER

Tom, a commenter at Atrios, wondered if anyone had Miller's articles from 2001 to March 2003 because it might be interesting to follow the Administration's drumbeat for war from them. I decided that was a good idea so I downloaded all of them from 1/1/2001 to 3/18/2003. Just now I came across a K-R article and something caught my attention.

Cheney's new security adviser linked to bogus information on Iraq
By Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel
Posted on Mon, Oct. 31, 2005
Knight Ridder Newspapers

(excerpts)

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney replaced I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby as his national security adviser on Monday with an aide identified by a former Iraqi exile group as the White House official to whom it fed information on Iraq that turned out to be erroneous.
The vice president's office has previously denied that Hannah received INC information. Cheney's office didn't respond immediately to questions Monday about Hannah and Addington.
The INC's leader, Ahmad Chalabi, now a deputy prime minister in Iraq, was close to Cheney and other senior administration architects of the invasion. The INC supplied Iraqi defectors whose information turned out to be false. It has insisted that it tried its best to verify defectors' claims before passing them to the United States.
On June 26, 2002, the INC wrote a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee staff identifying Hannah as the White House recipient of information gathered by the group through a U.S.-funded effort called the Information Collection Program. Knight Ridder obtained a copy of the letter and previously reported on it.
The letter, written by Entifadh Qanbar, then the director of the INC's Washington office, identified 108 articles in leading Western news media to which it said the INC had funneled the same information that it fed to Hannah, as well as a senior Pentagon official.
The information included a claim by an INC-supplied defector, Adnan Ihsan al-Haideri, that he had visited 20 secret nuclear, biological and chemical warfare facilities in Iraq.
Haideri's claim first appeared in a Dec. 20, 2001, article in The New York Times and then in a White House background paper, "A Decade of Deception and Defiance," released in conjunction with a Sept. 12, 2002, speech to the U.N. General Assembly by Bush.
Haideri, however, showed deception in a CIA-administered lie detector test three days before The New York Times article appeared, and was unable to identify a single illicit arms facility when he accompanied U.S. weapons inspectors to Iraq in January 2004, Knight Ridder reported in May of last year.
The White House background paper also cited INC-produced defectors' claims that Saddam ran a terrorist training camp outside Baghdad in Salman Pak where Iraqi and non-Iraqi Islamic extremists were schooled in assassination, sabotage and the hijacking of aircraft and trains.
After the war, U.S. officials determined that a facility in Salman Pak was used to train Iraqi anti-terrorist commandos.



And guess who the author of the Times article was?

Iraqi Tells of Renovations at Sites For Chemical and Nuclear Arms
Judith Miller.
New York Times (Late Edition (east Coast)).
New York, N.Y.:Dec 20, 2001. p. A.1

DE LA VEGA ON THE LIBBY CASE

(Via Arthur) TomDispatch has a brief article by a former federal prosecutor on what we can expect in the future. There are also some good links above the article. Here are some highlights:

We should not expect a final resolution any time soon.
We should not expect to hear much more from Fitzgerald.
We should not expect a smoking gun.
We should not expect the President to take steps to "get to the bottom of this."
We should expect red herrings from the defense (even if not smoking guns from the prosecution).
We should expect more attacks on Joseph Wilson, even though they represent a very large red herring (more the size of a mackerel).
We should expect another red herring, one that should have been thrown back in the river long ago: that perjury, obstruction of justice, and false statements charges are not "substantive," and so somehow less serious.
We should expect attempts by pundits to derive "meaning" from the absence of charges under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act or the Espionage Act.
We should expect a campaign to demonize Fitzgerald through claims that he is overzealous and has exceeded his authority.
We should also expect pundits to argue that this prosecution is political.
But should we expect, given the Republicans' attempts to belittle and politicize the case thus far, that President Bush will pardon his senior administration official if Libby is convicted on these serious charges? The 1992 Christmas Eve pardons of Iran/contra defendants by former President George Bush Sr. provide cause for concern. Let us hope that the current President Bush will not undermine the rule of law in this way.

These are only the headings and there will be a longer article soon.

SOMEBODY TELL ROVE: GAME. OVER.

Via Crooks & Liars:

Time Reporter Says
He Learned Agent's Identity From Rove
Matthew Cooper Says I. Lewis Libby Confirmed Information

Oct. 31 2005 — - One of the reporters at the center of the investigation into the leak of the identity of an undercover CIA officer, says he first learned the agent's name from President Bush's top political advisor, Karl Rove.
Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper also said today in an interview with "Good Morning America," that the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, confirmed to him that Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA operative.
"There is no question. I first learned about Valerie Plame working at the CIA from Karl Rove," Cooper said.
Libby has since claimed that he heard the Plame rumors from other reporters. Cooper disputed that version of events. "I don't remember it happening that way," he said. "I was taking notes at the time and I feel confident."
If a trial goes ahead, Cooper said he would name Rove as his source of the information.
"Before I spoke to Karl Rove I didn't know Mr. Wilson had a wife and that she had been involved in sending him to Africa."