Across the Line

John McCain seems like a decent guy. Served in Vietnam, probably would have prefered a vacation to some tropical paradise rather than a forced one in the Hanoi Hilton, and brought home an illegitimate child from the far east. Hadn't heard that one? Well that came from the Karl Rove playbook in the 2000 campaign. Anyway, he thought it would be nice if the rules that we agreed to follow under the Geneva Convention and are spelled out in the Army Field Manual were actually the law, specifically, torture is not allowed. It is an idea I agree with wholeheartedly. It passed 90-9.

There are two problems here, well actually, more like nine, plus a few waiting in the wings. Here are the first nine.
Wayne Allard (R-CO) a veterinarian. Christopher "Kit" Bond (R-MO) a professional politician starting in 1970. Tom Coburn (R-OK) a physician. Thad Cochran (R-MS) by trade a lawyer. John Cornyn (R-TX) wasn't really sure what the hell he wanted to be when he grew up and ended up in the US Senate (hey, you read his website and figure it out). James Inhofe (R-OK) in politics for the past 40 years. Pat Roberts (R-KS) politician, father was head of the RNC in the 50's. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) went into office two years out of college. Last, Ted Stevens (R-AK) has worked in Washington DC pretty much his entire life (and says he'll quit if they take away his bridges to nowhere to help people left homeless by Katrina).

Now I can't speak as to the religious views of all of these people, and if any of them is Jewish, well who am I kidding, this is a bunch of guys who put themselves forward as good, "family values" type Christians. I want to know where Jesus says to torture people. I know there is a whole lot of torture in the Bible, that's not what I'm asking. I want to see Jesus say, "Yep, torture is cool by me." It seems to me that first, the guy who says, "turn the other cheek," probably isn't going to say it's okay to stand a guy naked in the middle of a room with a black bag over his head. And second, I'm going to have to say, he never said anything of the sort. If he did, his being tortured on the cross would be ironic, not tragic.

What I see when I look at this list is people who hold to their religious beliefs when it means to hell with the fags, screw science, and sex ed, contraception and abortion in any form is all the work of Satan, but hey, if it means kicking the shit out of the "enemy du jour" then who cares what God thinks. My opinion of these individuals, to borrow a line from Dick Cheney, is "Go fuck yourself."

By strange coincidence, that brings us to Cheney himself, problem one waiting in the wings, who is trying to kill this in a House-Senate conference committee. Yep, Dick's down with torture too. That's a quality position, dick.

And lest we forget, George W. Bush has said he'd veto it, and is problem two waiting for this. Well he hasn't vetoed anything else, so I'd guess he's lying, not as though that's a new state of affairs, but let's just say he actually did veto this. I guess W's down with torture too.

Torture is so antithetical to America that we spelled it out over two hundred years ago, "nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." I think this is the very definition of torture. But that's ok, we can give up everything it means to be American, this is war after all, and all's fair in love and war, right?

No. To borrow a line from Patrick Stewart, "Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!"

Ignore everything else that has happened in the past five years. Ignore the lies told to get us into a war in Iraq. Ignore the insult to education that they would like to throw into our classrooms. Ignore the incompetence of groups like FEMA. Ignore the politicization of the FBI, CIA, Department of Defense, and Homeland Security. This is something that no one can even consider ignoring. This one action carves at the very heart of everything this country stands for from any perspective. It is un-American, it is un-Christian

October 24? Feels like December 23.

There has been some amazing activity out of Washington in the last few days. The lastest is from The New York Times disclosing that Scooter Libby found out about Plame from Vice-President Dick Cheney. It also appears that this was not disclosed to the Fitzgerald grand jury. That coupled with "Iceberg Judy" running into a heat wave out of almost every office in the New York Times, notably the Public Editor, and the disclosure this morning that the Italian government has given Fitzgerald a copy of their yet to be released report on the Niger Yellowcake forgeries, and suddenly I find myself remembering what it felt like to be 7 years old on December 23rd. Christmas is coming, and Pat Fitzgerald is Santa Claus. Except, he's REAL!

To put all of this in a simpler perspective, Today's disclosures paint a bullseye on Scooter Libby for any number of things, but not limited to, perjury, obstruction of justice and violations of the espionage act. It also paints the Vice-President into a similarly ugly corner, and gives an enormous amount of leverage from the Judy Miller fiasco to put to use against them. The addition of the Yellowcake forgeries to the information in Mr. Fitzgerald's hands also means that the scope of this is not just who leaked Valerie Plame and Brewster-Jennings & Associates, but has extended to such things as lying to Congress. At that point, no one is safe, including George W. Bush.

If the Yellowcake Forgeries come from someone in the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) then all bets are off, and you could see the indictment include Bush over the infamous "sixteen words" in the 2003 State of the Union speech. Now at that level, that's getting pretty speculative, I don't expect to see Bush's name in the indictments that are sure to come, but just about anyone else is fair game.

Christmas is coming and the sack Santa Fitz is trying to shove down the chimney looks huge.

Feeding Frenzy

Today's comment put to me, well actually it was more like Tuesday, but I'll deal with it today, was "I think you're getting obsessed with the politics thing." So, as the thinking kind of guy that I am, I thought about this and my response is, "Jesus Christ! These bastards have sold the entire country down the river and you're NOT obsessed with it???"

Now all kidding aside, the investigation of the Plame Affair is the most important thing to happen in Washington in 30 years.

Not Bill Clinton's "I did not have sex with that woman." That was bad because of a lot of things, but that was pure partisanship that generated it (the Paula Jones case) and continued on the same line. The Jones case was a prime example of a case that was brought forward for the sole purpose of damaging a sitting President and it was insulting on multiple levels. The culmination of which (and yes, that's a pun) was the infamous blue dress that stayed I guess polybagged in Monica's closet. Ewww.

Not Ollie North smuggling documents out of the White House in Fawn Hall's underwear, which sort of has that same Monica-esqe ewww-ness to it, or the rest of Iran-Contra, where the White House deliberately circumvented the law of the land in selling arms to the Iranians, illegal, but ostensibly for a good cause, and then did so a second time by funneling the money from those sales into funding the Contras, in theory a good cause, but in practice people that we hated so much five years earlier that we helped the Sandanistas overthrow them.

Not April Glaspie's "misunderstood" comment that Iraq-Kuwait was a regional conflict that we wouldn't get involved with.

Not the Iranian hostages, and Carter's inability to get them out.

No, you have to go to Watergate before anything approaching this happens. A couple of guys in CREEP decided in would be a good idea to go poking around the Democratic offices and see what they had planned for the 1972 election that was then covered up, do you see anything approaching this magnitude. In 1972 if Richard Nixon disavows the burglars and gives up the guys in CREEP, he probably goes down as one of the better presidents of the 20th century. Instead, all of the things he did well and all of the things he did poorly which may have had some balance, going to China vs. bombing Cambodia, ending the gold standard vs. price controls, fail to find anything to balance Watergate.

And Watergate may not be on the same level. This time, the White House lied to the American public to get a war. In the course of doing that, Scooter Libby, Chief of Staff to the Vice-President, outed a covert CIA agent. I don't think there is much doubt about that at this point, and that is what the current frenzy surrounding Pat Fitzgerald is about. The media cannot WAIT to see who all gets named in the indictments, but Libby's name will be right at the head of the list. Did he violate the covert agent law? Maybe. Did he violate any number of other national security laws? I think the answer to that is going to be yes. Was Karl Rove involved? I think the answer to that will also be yes. Were Dick Cheney and George Bush involved? Probably not in the actual leak, but in trying to keep the information from getting out? Based on reports in the New York Daily News absolutely.

In the next week every bit of this is going to come to a head as the indictments are handed down. This is not like Watergate that started at a low level and percolated up to destroy the Nixon Administration. Right now, based on data from an Ipsos Poll a majority of this country thinks Bush should be impeached if he lied about the war. And this is before the real information has even come out. What is going to happen, and very quickly, is that the information will come out, and at that point, people will go over everything that has happened in the last five years.

This won't be liberals going off the deep end, it won't be places like DailyKOS saying the emperor has no clothes. It will be the Washington Post. It will be the Chicago Tribune. It will be the New York Post in 3 inch block letters. It will be CNN. It will be FOX News. And they will do it for one simple reason. They either join in, or they get branded as the blind mouthpiece and no one listens anymore. That means no ratings, no circulation and no money, and at that point, they can fold up the tent and go home.

Why am I "obsessed" with this? Because the sharks can smell the blood in the water, and they're always hungry.

A Violation of the Public Trust

One more thing came out in the report from iceberg Judy, and that is the following:

My recollection, I told him, was that Mr. Libby wanted to modify our prior understanding that I would attribute information from him to a "senior administration official." When the subject turned to Mr. Wilson, Mr. Libby requested that he be identified only as a "former Hill staffer." I agreed to the new ground rules because I knew that Mr. Libby had once worked on Capitol Hill.

Did Mr. Libby explain this request? Mr. Fitzgerald asked. No, I don't recall, I replied. But I said I assumed Mr. Libby did not want the White House to be seen as attacking Joe Wilson."
(New York Times, Oct 16, 2005)

This is important. What this illustrates is something both deceptive and destructive. By having himself identified as someone from the Hill, while at the same time Karl Rove, and others are going out identified as coming from other areas (Bolton as a State Department official? Rove as Administration? Hadley as Intelligence?) it now appears that there are multiple places that have issues with Wilson's (correct) assessment of the Africa uranium affair. Nothing would have been further from the truth.

The administration deliberately worked to deceive the American public by manipulating the media. That doesn't come as a shock to anyone who doesn't like the Bush administration, but for people who have been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, here is your smoking gun.

They deliberately lied to the public to further their political agenda.

Whether I like a person's politics or not is one thing. Abusing the public trust in this manner is something else entirely. It may not be illegal, but it is worse than criminal.

Judy Miller: Iceberg to the Grey Lady

Does anyone understand what the hell the New York Times is doing? I've been a reader of the Grey Lady as the nation's paper of record for about 20 years now, but what's going on here makes no sense at all. Judy Miller is the iceberg that has managed to sink the Times ship.

How could one person manage to do this? Well to start with, the Times of late has not been exactly stable. The Jayson Blair fiasco caused all sorts of upheavals there, and into these turbulent waters floated iceberg Judy. She comes out as a star reporter, getting all sorts of scoops from Washington about the WMDs that we were going to war in Iraq over, gets herself assigned as the embedded reported with the guys going hunting, and according to some reports even starts using that position to tell the military guys where to go looking. There's only one problem. No WMDs.

Ouch. The Times suddenly has egg all over it's face because their star was totally wrong. On the plus side, the Times was also the place that broke the story that there were no WMDs with Nicholas Kristof and Wilson, so they tried to make amends, until Episode V: The White House Strike Back, and Judy manages to get tangled up in their attempt to torpedo Joe Wilson, who was shouting from the rooftop that the Emperor has no clothes.

Discrediting your critics is an old story when it comes to damage control, but old ones work well, and what the White House wanted to do was say "Joe Wilson isn't anybody, in fact the only reason he got sent was because his wife got him the job (get him out of the house or something, he was all about screwing up the hedge like some sort of Edward Scissorhands)." Except, his wife didn't work for the CIA, she worked for a consulting firm, that actually was the CIA, meaning her employment there was firmly in the world of "Top Secret" and then some.

Re-enter Judy. I don't think "Valerie Flame" was an error in her notebook at all. Were this Perry Mason, she'd be on the stand getting grilled and break down saying it was her intent all along to help in the discrediting of Joe Wilson. Here's where things get interesting. Judy would have had to know who Joe Wilson was. He'd served as roving ambassador/envoy/troubleshooter for the US government for a very long time having served under both Bush I and Clinton, and was a major player prior to Gulf War I. Inside the Times it would also be known that he was a major source for Kristof's piece first attacking the WMD argument. That of course is an idea that basically shoots big gaping holes in everything Judy had been doing at the Times, so who better to send after Joe than Judy who has every interest in seeing Joe go down.

"Valerie Flame," by that line of reasoning, is a reference for how to deal with the person who is punching holes in everything Judy has done. The ONLY good move the Times makes here is telling Judy she's not going to be the one to write up the bio on Wilson for them as the White House goes on the attack.

So now we come to the present day. Pat Fitzgerald has had Judy in lockup for the last three months and now she finally rolls over. Except, she doesn't. She doesn't recall who first told her about Valerie Plame. This does not hold water. If she doesn't remember, what was the point of refusing to testify? Protecting your source only makes sense if you KNOW WHO YOUR SOURCE IS. Judy claims not to. She agrees to only testify about her meetings with Libby in July, but doesn't bother telling anyone she'd met with him in June. She agrees to turn over redacted notes, but afterwards another notebook magically appears that is materially relevant that was not given. During all of this, the Times was backing her up. Now she's dragging them down.

The Turd Blossom Presidency

Over this past week we've started to see the results of the White House without Turd Blossom in control. Karl Rove may be the best pure political animal I have ever seen. He has no qualms about using rumor to slander anyone (do a google search for the terms John McCain wedlock for more on that little tidbit) and will do pretty much anything to get what he wants.

Unfortunately for him, he ran into Patrick Fitzgerald.

In practical terms, what Karl Rove did, conciously or not (see this) was out a CIA agent. If he did so stupidly, then he has problems under the espionage act. If he did so deliberately, then he has problems under a different statute. Either way, he's got problems, and he's likely managed to add a perjury or obstruction of justice to that as well. In any case, he's going to be much busier than normal (and keeping W from bashing his melon on the steps of Marine One because he's half in the bag is difficult already) and this past week at the White House showed it.

W conducted a conference call with a number of guys in Iraq, but there's a problem. The fact, that the whole thing was staged got out, and would have shown up regardless of Rove, but not for a long period of time. Instead, things are rapidly spinning out of control.

What happens next is going to be interesting.

The Not-So-National Hockey League

Well, the NHL is back in action tonight. Did anyone really notice? Beats me, I haven't seen attendance numbers yet except for one game. Let's face it, hockey is not a big American sport. I grew up in Minnesota, and up there, hockey IS a big deal. The North Stars, playing out at the Met Center were a comparable draw to the Twins who played across the street at Met Stadium. Both Mets are now gone, and what is now on that site, Mall of America outdraws either every day.

Down here in Missouri, we have the Blues. Ok, whatever. On it's face, hockey should be popular. It's fast, brutal and exciting (most of the time). But it's not and never will be. To actually play hockey, you need something that isn't there across the vast majority of the US. It's called ice.

You need a pond, frozen solid, that dad can drive his pickup mounted snowplow onto and clear a nice big space to skate on. Well, you might be able to get ice in the northeast and along the Canadian border, but ice you can skate on for four months in Texas? Forget it. A pond in an urban area? Not happening. Why is basketball popular? It doesn't take much space. A basketball court is smaller than a hockey rink, and it's cement, or asphalt or something else like that. And you don't need to drive a Zamboni around on it.

I can remember the WHA, the St. Paul Saints hockey team, the Winnepeg Jets, hell, the San Francisco Seals. The truth is, it's not something that will ever be like the NFL, NBA or Major Leagues. People have a hard enough time trying to pronounce names like Brett Favre, Amare Stoudamire or Bartolo Colon. You think they want to try Antti Laaksonen? I don't know that I want to.

I love hockey. I think playoff hockey is hands down, the best sport to watch. There's nothing like it. Everyone playing has spent the previous four months having the crap beat out of them day after day after day, and come playoff time, they dig down and find a way to pull up something more. The game speeds up from its already frenetic pace. The hits get harder, the puck moves faster, and still they find something more.

But it's a game for the North. Denver? You guys can have a team, you're high enough that you guys get snow pretty much any time of year. The rest of you guys? If you're south of the Mason-Dixon line, give your team back to Canada. That the Winnepeg Jets are now in the Arizona desert is ridiculous. Anaheim Mighty Ducks? I'm sorry, the entire Disney company needs to be hauled down to the ice to gets their asses kicked by Dave "The Hammer" Shultz. Atlanta Thrashers? Screw you, you had a team before and did the right thing letting them move to Calgary. Why did you have to screw it up and get another one?

Oh, and to both the players and owners? If you think you're ever going to get the kind of money that gets handed out to guys in those other leagues and decide to not play again? Please, do us all a favor and go shoot yourselves. You'll be lucky in five years if you have the kind of money you had two years ago. An NHL franchise is not some "ticket to riches." It's more like a guaranteed mess that should only be taken on by people who are into hockey.

Harridan

Harriet Miers is the stealth candidate. This morning "Fearless Leader" decided to send the name Harriet Miers to the Senate for advice and consent as a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States. I have a few more fervent wishes than to see her nomination rejected, but not many. I thought about this for quite some time and based on what was known about her, and what I was seeing, was that this was yet another Bush miscue and bungle.

"She isn't what the base is looking for." "She doesn't cut the mustard." Sam Brownback, senator from Kansas, refused to comment. William Kristol is "Disappointed, Depressed and Demoralized."

I don't see that and I don't see another bungle. What I see is the most secrecy obsessed administration in the history of this union putting forth a secrecy shrouded, stealth candidate. Harridan Miers will not be asked by the Judiciary Committee about her views on specific issues, they have stated that is not something they do. They're wrong. Grievously so.

They are wrong because the assumption is, the President would not ask those questions either. This one did not need to. He's spent his entire political life with her by his side and already knows exactly what she thinks. He's telling the rest of his party to trust him, that he's delivered for them. That because this candidate has no paper trail, she will be approved to sit on the highest court in the land.

This is someone that the Idiot In Chief already knows the answers to all of those political questions about, and knows what she will do. This is not John Roberts, the brilliant cypher. People are comparing this nomination to that of Abe Fortas, Byron "Whizzer" White or William O. Douglas, and on some level, that comparison is apt. All of those individuals very strongly represented the views of their nominators. I believe this one does as well. Harriet Miers, if confirmed, would, like a stealth bomber, appear from a mist cloaked sky, never seen or detected until she is dropping bombs and leaving a wake of unparallel destruction behind her. She can be counted on to oppose everything that has moved this country forward for the past 75 years, just as her president has done.

This is a former domestic policy advisor, someone who supported all the nightmares and excesses of the first term. The current White House Counsel, supporting the current disasters. Her nomination to the Supreme Court is the greatest threat to justice, domestic tranquilty, the common defense, general welfare, liberty, and the union, that I have yet seen in my lifetime.