Office of the Independent Blogger

Politics are are the art of surviving, and mastering that art is essential in politics. Regardless of your power, eventually you decline. Lyndon Johnson was annihilated as a leader despite winning by the largest margin in American history. Franklin Roosevelt was crippled by his failed and corrupt plan to pack the Supreme Court with sleazy justices. Ronald Reagan, too, fell flat on his face. Bush, Clinton and Bush — the same thing applies. In today’s White House, as the President tries to save his Republican Party from being decimated in the mid-term elections, and the job is being given to Karl Rove. While I buy the idea that Rove has been made a political advisor because that, particularly, is where he’s needed, I firmly believe that Josh Bolten has clipped him and sent him to where he belongs: the political part of the West Wing.

For Rove, this year’s elections are personal: with a loss of either House, the President’s policies are dead and I don’t believe Karl Rove can survive. Add to that possible legal action by Patrick Fitzgerald and the prospect of Rove testifying in a Court of Law and you’ve got yourself a dead man walking. Republicans don’t seem to understand that there are no wars in Belgium unless the Germans start them, bubba. And the War in Washington wouldn’t be if not for the GOP.

In Iraq, where survival is particularly key and in a literal sense, their Prime Minister is stepping down, and it’s about time. Perhaps if he leaves a new leader can take over, someone better able to lead the country. I won’t discount the Prime Minister’s courage in taking the position but I loathe his inability to govern.

Now we move to politics, where Hillary Clinton seeks survival on the road to the White House in 2008. Specifically, this article is about Evan Bayh’s chasing of Hillary Clinton, and the first thing that came to mind was this:

At this stage of the 2008 race, Bayh’s biggest hurdle is that most Democrats with a proven ability to round up $50,000 or more in contributions are already in the camps of other candidates, mostly Hillary Rodham Clinton’s. Another segment of the Democratic donor world remains faithful to 2004 presidential standard-bearer John Kerry or to one of his competitors for the 2004 nomination. Through his donor and e-mail lists, Sen. Kerry can communicate with 3 million Democrats in an instant.

The boldened part is true but false at once and is an example of lying with statistics. John Kerry can communicate with children and fake email addresses in an instant with his email list. I’m not sure how many of his email addresses are false, but I know that I don’t particularly care for messages from Senator Kerry, and so I gave his website fake email accounts oh-so-long ago. And now that he’s just a candidate with an L next to his name in races, his emails don’t mean much to me. I would imagine that at least a fourth of his emails are false, and that half of those that remain don’t particularly care of his message or root him for President. Perhaps I’m mistaken, but email mailing lists can be quite deceptive.

As to the rest of the article, I’d urge reading it to get a better understanding of primary politics and the battle for nominations. I’d say that Governor Tom Vilsack, Senator Evan Bayh and Al Gore are the most dangerous candidates to the Republicans and strongest in the Primaries, should they run, with Mark Warner bringing up the rear.

Rounding out this post is an op-ed about Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania’s favorite son, asking if he can win and then analyzing the issue. In my view, they’re giving Santorum needless false hope. My two favorite points:

1. Incumbency–He is the incumbent, and incumbents win in Pennsylvania–not sometimes or mostly, but virtually all of the time. Only one incumbent U.S. senator, governor or, for that matter, any other state constitutional officer has lost a re-election bid in modern times, and he lost to Rick Santorum.

3. Resources–He has never lost an election before. Moreover, he has access to virtually unlimited resources, both money and surrogates to run his campaign. Santorum’s story has so far been mainly mediated through a wary, if not critical press. Advertising can change that and it will.

As to incumbency, the point is true but inaccurate at the same time. Rick Santorum may have been the only one in modern times, but, in times past, incumbents in Pennsylvania have been loveable figures like John Heinz. Rick Santorum doesn’t have that sort of popularity, as can clearly be seen. Regarding his third point, that’s quite silly. Bob Casey hasn’t lost a general election before, either, and he’s got access to just as much money as Rick Santorum. At the moment he’s not as loaded, but given Pennsylvania’s love of legacy, the regard for Bob Casey Sr. and the strength of Bob Casey in PA in the past (he won his last election garnering more votes than were ever garnered in a state race in PA), Rick Santorum is just about done.

It’s hunting season this election cycle, and the old guard is being mowed down by the winds of change. I fully expect Rick Santorum to be one of those left behind by destiny.

Jonah Goldberg, a Conservative columnist, has labeled Al Gore a “scaremonger” and fought the majority of global warming scientists with his latest article. Money quote:

Of course, Gore is not alone. A host of new environmental scare books are out or on the way. Last month, Time magazine’s cover warned, “Be Worried. Be Very Worried.” Those renowned climatologists who make up Vanity Fair’s editorial board have unveiled a “green issue” that informs us that “green is the new black” and that global warming is a “threat graver than terrorism.” It says so right there on the cover, above Julia Roberts’ hip. And she’s dressed like a forest nymph, so it’s got to be true.

Gore is not alone — that’s right. But aside from Julia Roberts and Vanity Fair, he has the Pentagon on his side. Surely the Pentagon can’t be classified as a Far Left set of Crazies. Although… they have been on the offensive against Donald Rumsfeld, so how credible can they be?!

I’m not Nancy Reagan, and so I don’t particularly care for astrology, and I’m not Ronald Reagan, so I don’t care for voodoo. But Timothy Ash has a piece entitled, “The tragedy that followed Hillary Clinton’s bombing of Iran in 2009″ and it’s a darling little article about what will happen in a few years. Problems with it, of course, lie everywhere. But, truth be told and from a military perspective, if this is the worst that the Guardian can project, the alternative of inaction and a nuclear Iran isn’t so bad.

Aside from Al Gore and the gore of war, the White House itself is in a bloody state after Karl Rove was demoted and the Press Secretary thrown under the bus. Howard Fineman confirms that Rove’s wings “have been clipped. Good for Bolten. Good for the White House. Good for America.

Ed Koch, the former Mayor of New York who has made waves in the last few years supporting the Bush Presidency, is out arguing that “Democrats Can Win, But Not By Bashing Bush.” Because hugging the President worked so well? Ed Koch is Zell Miller without the pistol or accent, and should be accorded as such: with a seat at the Republican Convention, not in a political decision-making position in the Democratic Party.

Of the famous pair composed of Woodward and Bernstein, Carl Bernstein is the most overlooked because he doesn’t like to whore for every Administration in Washington. Bob Woodward loves the limelight like Richard Nixon loved wiretaps, and he hates offending people like Nancy Reagan hated Barbara Bush. Whereas Woodward writes puff pieces, Bernstein sticks to himself for the most part, but when he comes out to write, he doesn’t do it with the fear of God (or, worse in Woodward’s eyes, the fear of losing invitations to Colin Powell’s tea parties). We need Senate Hearings on Bush, now. It’s fascinating and dead on — not just because it’s making the right call, but because it puts things in historical perspective and adds the type of insight that only comes when you’re writing out of genuine conviction.

Instead of being an insufferable crony at best, and suck up at worst.

Josh Bolten, the new Chief of Staff at the White House, prefers his shakeups shaken, not stirred, and as such, the Press Secretary of George W. Bush has resigned, and Karl Rove has given up his position as Deputy Chief of Staff.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove gave up some of his responsibilities and White House press secretary Scott McClellan announced his resignation Wednesday, continuing a shake-up in President Bush’s administration that has already yielded a new chief of staff. Rove is giving up oversight of policy development to focus more on politics with the approach of the fall midterm elections.

Just over a year ago, Rove was promoted to deputy chief of staff in charge of most White House policy coordination. That new portfolio came on top of his title as senior adviser and role of chief policy aide to Bush. But now, the job of deputy chief of staff for policy is being given to Joel Kaplan, the deputy budget director.

First: I’ve never shared the fury shared by so many (Helen Thomas!) toward Scotty. He’s just the messenger, and a poor one at that. In the Bush White House, like all White Houses, the Press Secretary is out of the loop and likely the most stressed individual, both because he has to deal with dozens of reporters at a time and nobody tells him anything. Is it good that he’s gone? It doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, ultimately — at least not in regard to policy. Perhaps they’ll find someone more likeable with the media, but that doesn’t mean anything in the end.

Next, and more importantly, the news that Rove has been dethroned as the Deputy Chief of Staff means that Karl Rove’s hold on policy making is diminishing. That is good news for all Americans, as policy makers shouldn’t be political operatives, either. Mark Hannah didn’t make Teddy Roosevelt’s policy and Dick Morris didn’t make Bill Clinton’s. The fact that Rove’s being pushed away from this sphere of influence is positive in every way. Hopefully it’s followed by Donald Rumsfeld’s exile from the Pentagon, although it’s hard to tell whether that’s in the cards.

George Ryan, the corrupt former Governor of Illinois, was found guilty in his trial. People who think they’re God get put in their place, and in this case it was Patrick Fitzgerald who did the smiting. Nobody has the right to defraud the public, and if you want to make millions of dollars, don’t go into the public sector. That’s why there’s a private sector. Except that Ryan doesn’t get it. I’m sure he’ll understand “Jail Time” well, though — and if those two words don’t pique his understanding, then there are plenty of inmates who can. Ultimately, the fall of Governor Ryan illustrates what Tom DeLay’s illustrates — that being that no man is above the law.

And, while we’re speaking about Governor Ryan, his moratorium on the Death Penalty in Illinois was a phony political move, and it’s a joke that he was ever considered to be a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. In my view, barring great attempts such as Woodrow Wilson’s push for the League of Nations, the Peace Prize belongs to citizens who push for peace within the hellholes of the Earth, such as Shirin Ebadi or Aung San Suu Kyi. It certainly doesn’t belong to a pushy, rotund criminal whose gift to humanity is a bit of last-minute pandering, no matter how right that one move was.

Off the subject and in closing, Joe Liberman puts reporters to sleep. My, how the mighty have fallen, no?

There is a war brewing between the Pentagon and the military, and Rumsfeld is caught in the middle of it. As Bush recently came out backing Rumsfeld fully, Rumsfeld’s other apologists argue that Rumsfeld’s being fired would be a travesty and a tragedy. If he leaves, that gives Americans a victory and less confidence in the War Effort, he argues. That, of course, ignores that him leaving changes the war effort from its present flawed state and allows new people who have a clue what they’re doing to take over.

And, in addition, the public already has lost faith in the war effort and the Administration’s handling. If the Right wants to make a political judgement so be it, but it would likely increase the public’s confidence if the President had new people in instead of the old ones who caused the problems. You don’t cut your own stomach open to fix your kidneys, after all. You go to a Doctor to do it for you.

In the battle for the future of the American Republic, the war drums begin to beat as the year 2006 advances, and Richard Cohen of the Washington Post joins the call for Al Gore to enter the ring. As an ardent Al Gore supporter, I can say that I endorse the article — and its summons — wholeheartedly. Excerpted are the pieces relevant to Al Gore’s latest film:

Boring Al Gore has made a movie. It is on the most boring of all subjects — global warming. It is more than 80 minutes long and the first two or three go by slow enough so that you can notice that Gore has gained weight and that his speech still seems oddly out of sync. But a moment later, I promise, you will be captivated, and then riveted, and then scared out of your wits. Our Earth is going to hell in a hand basket.

You will see the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps melting. You will see Greenland oozing into the sea. You will see the atmosphere polluted with greenhouse gases that block heat from escaping. You will see photos from space of what the ice caps looked like once and what they look like now and, in animation, you will see how high the oceans might rise. Shanghai and Calcutta swamped. Much of Florida, too. The water takes a hunk of New York. The fuss about what to do with Ground Zero will turn naught. It will be under water.

“An Inconvenient Truth'’ is a cinematic version of the lecture that Gore has given for years warning of the dangers of global warming. Davis Guggenheim, the director, opened it up a bit. For instance, he added some shots of Gore mulling the fate of the Earth as he is driven here or there in some city, sometimes talking about personal matters such as the death of his beloved older sister from lung cancer and the close call his son had after being hit by a car. These are all traumas that Gore had mentioned in his presidential campaign and which seemed cloying at the time. Here they seem appropriate.

Before continuing, let me apologize for my absence. I fell ill on Sunday night at the White Sox game and fell iller at yesterday’s, too. I would’ve been sicker had the White Sox lost, but I’m in okay shape and so I have the time and energy to write again. I do hope everyone had a good weekend — and spent it in drier locales than I did!

The drumbeat on global warming is rising, in part because of Al Gore’s work and in part because people like the Queen of England are pushing for more action. As a global issue, global warming is the most important on Earth, by far. The greatest tragedy of the last ten years is that the Republican Party flat-out refuses to take any meaningful, serious action to combat Global Warming. And why? Because they’re moral cowards, as Al Gore has charged.

[Said Gore:] “I think his weakness is a moral weakness. I think he is a bully, and, like all bullies, he’s a coward when confronted with a force that he’s fearful of. His reaction to the extravagant and unbelievably selfish wish list of the wealthy interest groups that put him in the White House is obsequious. The degree of obsequiousness that is involved in saying ‘yes, yes, yes, yes, yes’ to whatever these people want, no matter the damage and harm done to the nation as a whole—that can come only from genuine moral cowardice. I don’t see any other explanation for it, because it’s not a question of principle. The only common denominator is each of the groups has a lot of money that they’re willing to put in service to his political fortunes and their ferocious and unyielding pursuit of public policies that benefit them at the expense of the nation.”

Since we’re talking about cowardice, the turkey of a man that is Mikhail Gorbachev is out of his cage again, writing about the Chenobyl nuclear accident as “the cause” of the Soviet Union’s collapse, “even more than my launch of perestroika” was. Of course, the fact that Socialism fully practiced only works “in theory” might have had something to do with it. As would the fact that the Soviets bankrupted themselves in a foolish effort to “keep up” with the West. And then there’s karma — the idea that what goes around comes around, and crushing peaceful movements with tanks will lead to some bad karma.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that karma caused the fall of the USSR. I’m just saying that if we want to claim that voodoo did it we might as well attribute it to Karma instead. At least then we wouldn’t be rewriting the failures of Communism and the sickness of the Soviet Union.

The military is revolting against the Pentagon’s leadership, and it’s getting quite serious and heated. The first thing of note is that the military has always disagreed with the Defense Secretary and given him hell. The Joint Chiefs typically see the Defense Secretary as a political hack to be dealt with and respect while he’s in office but deride whenever they get the chance. When you’ve been a military man all your life, you don’t appreciate having someone like Donald Rumsfeld telling you what to do. And you particularly don’t like it when he messes up the War Effort.

First, it is clear that the retired generals — six so far, with more likely to come — surely are speaking for many of their former colleagues, friends and subordinates who are still inside. In the tight world of senior active and retired generals, there is constant private dialogue. Recent retirees stay in close touch with old friends, who were often their subordinates; they help each other, they know what is going on and a conventional wisdom is formed. Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, who was director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the planning period for the war in Iraq, made this clear in an extraordinary, at times emotional, article in Time magazine this past week when he said he was writing “with the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership.” He went on to “challenge those still in uniform . . . to give voice to those who can’t — or don’t have the opportunity to — speak.”

Second, it is also clear that the target is not just Rumsfeld. Newbold hints at this; others are more explicit in private. But the only two people in the government higher than the secretary of defense are the president and vice president. They cannot be fired, of course, and the unspoken military code normally precludes direct public attacks on the commander in chief when troops are under fire. (There are exceptions to this rule, of course: In addition to MacArthur, there was Gen. George McClellan vs. Lincoln; and on a lesser note, Maj. Gen. John Singlaub, who was fired for attacking President Jimmy Carter over Korea policy. But such challenges are rare enough to be memorable, and none of these solo rebellions metastasized into a group, a movement that can fairly be described as a revolt.)

This has put President Bush and his administration in a hellish position at a time when security in Iraq and Afghanistan seems to be deteriorating. If Bush yields to the generals’ revolt, he will appear to have caved in to pressure from what Rumsfeld disingenuously describes as “two or three retired generals out of thousands.” But if he keeps Rumsfeld, he risks more resignations — perhaps soon — from generals who heed Newbold’s stunning call that as officers they took an oath to the Constitution and should now speak out on behalf of the troops in harm’s way and to save the institution that he feels is in danger of falling back into the disarray of the post-Vietnam era.

In the end, the case for changing the secretary of defense seems to me to be overwhelming. I do not reach this conclusion simply because of past mistakes, simply because “someone must be held accountable.” Many people besides Rumsfeld were deeply involved in the mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan; many of them remain in power, and some are in uniform.

The major reason the nation needs a new defense secretary is far more urgent. Put simply, the failed strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be fixed as long as Rumsfeld remains at the epicenter of the chain of command. Rumsfeld’s famous “long screwdriver,” with which he sometimes micromanages policy, now thwarts the top-to-bottom reexamination of strategy that is absolutely essential in both war zones. Lyndon Johnson understood this in 1968 when he eased another micromanaging secretary of defense, McNamara, out of the Pentagon and replaced him with Clark M. Clifford. Within weeks, Clifford had revisited every aspect of policy and begun the long, painful process of unwinding the commitment. Today, those decisions are still the subject of intense dispute, and there are many differences between the two situations. But one thing was clear then and is clear today: Unless the secretary of defense is replaced, the policy will not and cannot change.

The drums are beating for a hanging on the Potomac, and it’s the right call. In the Washington Times, there’s alarm over whether or not these generals are preparing a coup or conspiracy of sorts. It’s an interesting thing to discuss — I, being a fan of Harry Truman, particularly find the intrigue surrounding an Executive v. Military Confrontation intriguing — but what Blankley writes about in the Times is far fetched and seems to be a shameless effort to discredit the generals.

Perhaps they can get Bob Novak to leak something about someone’s wife on the Joint Chiefs soon? That’ll ease the calls for Rumsfeld to resign! I can only imagine the heated conversations that are going on in the Halls of Washington. While immigration engulfs Washington, a silent storm has begun in the middle of the night and it’s going to leave Donald Rumsfeld a soggy, broken man whether he resigns or not. But if he doesn’t, it’ll be Iraq left cold, wet and shattered — something particularly alarming considering that Iraq is a desert. Bush should think of that the next time Donald Rumsfeld gives him his resignation.

Policy Review has a piece up entitled Progressives for Growth, and in reading it I take myself to believe that Economics should be a hybrid between Conservative values and Liberal values. There’s nothing wrong with growing the Economy and doing all you can to do so. As President Clinton proved, it’s good Economics even though it’s traditionally seen as a Conservative way of doing business. On the other hand, we have to protect the poorest amongst us as President Bush attempted to do with his Medicare bill.

The article is an excellent one, and it’ll have to do for the day as I’ll be gone until tomorrow evening. See you then.

A brief note: Field and Stream magazine is out making the argument that Bush is bad for hunters and fishers. My reaction? Of course! It’s always bad PR when the Vice President does something for recreation and shoots someone in the face while doing it. That’s why they keep him out of Disneyworld, after all.

Now to the meat of this coconut. Is the Middle East peace process dead?

The elected president of the PA can’t be blamed for feeling bitter. Abbas was welcomed by the West with relief as a prudent successor to the dangerously unreliable Yasser Arafat. Now, his pleas to resume payments to the PA go unanswered. He did get good news during our conversation with a call from Norway. The Norwegian government agreed to consider restoring its funding, and Abbas is off to Oslo next month.

If it does reconsider, Norway would get an earful from Israel. Foreign Ministry officials reiterated to me that the Israelis will not tolerate anybody doing business with an unreformed Hamas. They predict the PA sooner or later will meet conditions, but almost nobody agrees with that. That ends the Mideast peace process for the foreseeable future.

It looks like it is to me. There are a variety of things affecting the peace process in the Middle East, and a million of them have nothing to do with the United States. Hell, some of the roadblocks on this roadmap are hundreds of years old. However, that doesn’t excuse the Bush Administration’s laziness in Palestine. In The Price of Loyalty Paul O’Neill recalls the first Cabinet meeting, in which Bush declares that America should “disengage” from the “Israel issue” and just let them deal with it. The lazy attitude taken by the Bush Administration is partially responsible for the current problems. And so is their lack of vision.

You might call the Bush Administration’s ideas about the Middle East “Voodoo Realignment.” In their haste to change the Middle East, the Bush White House argues that by changing Iraq they’ll “restructure” the “fundamentals” in that troubled land. There’s some validity to that, as can be seen in Lebanon and Syria, but not enough to warrant what they argue. You can’t just say, “We made an example out of Saddam. Iraq has had elections. Palestine will be okay and hold hands with Israel!” because while those things are true about Iraq, the world doesn’t operate through voodoo.

If Republicans want to stop the political bleeding, they’d do well to search their souls for the truth about their recent failures. As it stands, they’re willing to blame a relatively unimportant Congressional figure, unimportant in regard to public opinion, and label him the “Minority Maker.” Because Tom DeLay’s crooked leadership, the inept and seemingly cold-hearted response to Hurricane Katrina, the Republican Party’s inability to cut spending, their in-fighting about immigration and the mishandling of the Iraq War — these things have nothing at all to do with it.

Jacques Chirac is a childish buffoon. While this article makes excuses for him, there’s none for his behavior. Madeline Albright wrote in her memoirs that a French diplomat told her that his country’s leadership envies America. Perhaps the French would have more to be proud of if they didn’t see fit to trash the nation that rescued them from Nazi tyranny at a time when they wouldn’t rescue themselves. Maybe if French Presidents didn’t see fit to retrieve the gall of De Gaulle every time America attempts to do something — anything — in the world.

To close, this article is one of the more maddening ones I’ve read. You thought our debt was bad, but you have no idea.

Tort reform is a genuine issue, but to write an op-ed about “rein[ing] in the monster” is a little over the top, particularly considering that Republicans already “reformed” tort practices earlier this term in legislation. Perhaps if Republicans did their job in the Congress, legislation that bans practices as this article calls for would’ve been passed. Once again, the Republicans prove that they’re a do-nothing Congress even when they do-something.

A subtitle of a Slate piece reads, “Will you like McCain when he’s not angry,” and my simple answer is, “I don’t like him at all.” That aside, it’s a fascinating article about the dynamics of a political campaign which has to court the mainstream and party line while seeking to be that “something new” which most “reformers” and self-proclaimed “mavericks” want to be. For my money, George Allen is the Republican to beat in 2008, should he run.

On the RealClearPolitics blog there’s an indignant piece about taxes, the ball and chain of American society. It becomes indignant at the tax rates and says, “And Democrats want to raise our taxes even higher” with an indignation worthy of Scalia. In the next paragraph, however, it trips itself up:

This pillage and plundering of American wallets becomes an even tougher pill to swallow when we witness the extraordinary waste of our hard-earned money towards earmarked pork like the infamous $223 million Alaskan “bridge to nowhere.”

Perhaps intellectual integrity is a ball-and-chain to trip over for these bloggers? You can’t assail Democrats for wanting to raise taxes and then not mention that Republicans are building a bridge to nowhere in Alaska. Next it declares that “the tax system is a huge ball & chain tied to the feet of hardworking American entrepreneurs and ordinary workers and savers. They can barely get to work or invest because of this enormous weight” and that’s hyperbole to my ears. There are millions of people who’d be considered “workers andd savers” that benefit greatly from our tax code, and plenty of entrepreneurs who benefit from tax exemptions and credits. Give me a break.

Iran is “the Cuban Missile Crisis in slow motion,” and when you read news like this, it’s hard to disagree.

The administration insists that it wants diplomacy to do the preemption, even as its military planners are studying how to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities if diplomacy should fail. Iran, meanwhile, is pursuing its own version of preemption, announcing yesterday that it has begun enriching uranium — a crucial first step toward making a bomb. Neither side wants war — who in his right mind would? — but both frame choices in ways that make war increasingly likely.

[…]What worries me is that the relevant historical analogy may not be the 1962 war that didn’t happen, but World War I, which did. The march toward war in 1914 resulted from the tight interlocking of alliances, obligations, perceived threats and strategic miscalculations. The British historian Niall Ferguson argued in his book “The Pity of War” that Britain’s decision to enter World War I was a gross error of judgment that cost that nation its empire.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, makes a similar argument about Iran. “I think of war with Iran as the ending of America’s present role in the world,” he told me this week. “Iraq may have been a preview of that, but it’s still redeemable if we get out fast. In a war with Iran, we’ll get dragged down for 20 or 30 years. The world will condemn us. We will lose our position in the world.”

Brzezinski urges President Bush to slow down and think carefully about his options — rather than rushing to stop Iran’s nuclear program, which by most estimates is five to 10 years away from building a bomb, even after yesterday’s announcement. “Time is on our side,” says Brzezinski. “The mullahs aren’t the future of Iran, they’re the past.” As the United States carefully weighs its options, there is every likelihood that the strategic picture will improve.

First, I think Brzezinski is wrong and I wonder what hole in the ground he’s been living in since the Carter Administration ended because he seems addled. He can’t possibly be seriously saying that a War with Iran would last twenty years. I know the summer of 1979 must’ve felt like forever to him and his cohorts, but that wasn’t twenty years, bubba, and neither would a war with Iran last that long. Historically, too, he’s wrong. In the face of American power, Iran has backed away in the past. We could look to the year 1996, the CIA, President Clinton and Iran to see that. If we went to War with Iran at a time when they didn’t have nukes — and that is the only scenario in which we would War with them — it certainly could not reasonably be expected to last twenty years.

Next, I’m cynical about the statement about the Mullahs being the past. As far as I can see, the Mullahs of Iran are the past, the present and the future of Iran. They’ve been in power for a brief amount of time and I can’t see anything above the surface equalling a substantial level of dissent and opposition of the government in Tehran. I know the Bush Administration and most Washington Insiders believe that the Iranian public are willing to turn on the Mullahs, but I’ve seen nothing to that effect. The Mullahs do not commit the crimes of Saddam Hussein against his own people, for one thing. For another, as we saw with Iraq — and, for now, let’s concede that Iranians hate their government — a distaste for your own government doesn’t mean, by itself, that the public will welcome a new government that is inspired by an international poke with open arms.

According to Seymour Hersh, White House staffers and George W. Bush have taken to calling the Iranian President “Hitler,” but I think the World War I example is far more apt. With the way that the World is aligning, with Russia and China joining with each other and sleeping in Tehran, with the EU splitting between a hawkish stance on Iran and their traditional pacifist past, with America’s involvement in Iraq, I can see a World War I scenario unfolding, and it’s a shame that the Iranians are pushing us to the brink of that. The Iranians are putting the truth out by enriching Uranium, and it should be clear to anyone with half a brain that their program isn’t peaceful.

It’s a tough time to be President, and, as the article points out, the White House is going to have to seek out creative solutions and be flexible.

On the other side of the world, there’s Russia and the Ukraine, two hotspots that are warming up again. The divide between Russia and America is widening, partly because of Iran and partly because of Putin’s callous disregard for the basic rights of human beings. I think the “divide” between America and Russia is overstated. Putin has never been George Bush’s trusted ally although he has pretended to be, and Russia won’t be a true beacon of Democracy for a long time.

Anne Applebaum is one of my favorite columnists because she’s one of the few to focus on Russia and the Ukraine, and here she is today, conducting an interview with the Ukrainian President and writing at length about that country’s future. I do hope America sticks with the Ukraine as it’s in our best interest and the right thing to do.

Patrick Buchanan today cites Seymour Hersh as a credible source discussing the possibility of war with Iran and then asks, Is War With Iran Inevitable? In reading his piece, I read the truth in the statement that nothing’s sacred in Washington. Seymour Hersh was an investigative journalist in the 1960s and he revealed the My Lai Massacre, something for which, I’m sure, the Nixon-loving Warmongering Patrick Buchanan must still be furious. (Pat still hates Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, after all.)

The answer to his question is No. A war is not inevitable, not in the least. It’s seeing Pat Buchanan cite a “far left traitor,” as Buchanan would fashion him in his day, in his article. It’s like Pat Robertson citing a porn star in his latest sermon. Which reminds me: briefly, on the subject of Pat Robertson, look at this: he thinks God has urged him to ask women, in the past, about their sex lives. Sounds like Ken Starr’s Life Story. Or perhaps Robertson will fashion himself as the New Doctor Phil once his time as a Man of God is over.

This is tragic: 25% of women are beaten in Syria. Makes me thankful for our immigration system because it provides people an asylum from their abusive homes. That reason alone is sufficient to prevent Republicans from shutting American down, I think.

On Iraq, Republicans will tell you that the Opinion Polls don’t matter and you should ignore them. I’d tell you the former only. But I’m intellectually honest and genuinely believe that poll numbers on an issue shouldn’t dictate an idea’s passage through reality. Bruce Bartlett argues that Americans are overtaxed and think so, according to the polls, which means we should change the tax system. Using his logic, Al Gore should’ve been President, mmm, and we should leave Iraq?

In In These Times David Sirota writes that Free Trade and Iraq could be wild cards in 2008 that will, as wild card issues do, “fuel” an insurgent candidacy because those kinds of issues are the kind that do. Aside from Eugene McCarthy, that’s true, but we can just look to Howard Dean, Bill Bradley and Paul Tsongas to see that an “insurgent” with one issue usually fails. Pat Buchanan, too, is an example of that. Along with the dearly departed (from Illinois, at least) Alan Keyes.

Over the winter, riots in the nation’s “suburbs” (funny that a country which despises American “double speak” on foreign policy refers to their “slums” as “suburbs” of places like Paris) ravaged France and the French government caved to the violence of the protesters, refusing to take any action more serious than a curfew and trying to play the riots off as understandable expression rather than shameless aggression. Their milquetoast reaction was to be expected as their reputation precedes them.

France has a nasty unemployment rate. You think the streets of Paris are lovely, and I’m sure they are, but their citizenry have serious economic problems that we just don’t have to their extent. When we talk about the poor, a lot of people like to look at Europe (specifically France) and point to them as models of how to create a safety net for the poor. The problem is that France has a twenty percent youth unemployment rate, and so they recently sought to pass laws making it easier to fire an old person doing a poor job and hire a younger person who can better handle it.

This prompted riots in the streets of France, and the snakes of the streets are on a roll, as they once again succeeding at getting their way in the face of the Government.

During the Iraq war, much was made about how different France and the United States had become. There is no better example than the recent political eruptions in the two nations. In France, they apparently are able to make law in the streets. Here in the United States, it’s still done in the halls of Congress. That’s the only conclusion available after the French political system caved to political pressure from massive demonstrations and shelved a plan to attack the nation’s 20-plus percent youth unemployment rate.

Oh France. (And yes, I was referencing Snakes on a Plane, the upcoming smash hit film.)

In my own view, America is the model to follow in regard to dealing with the poor and helping the poor, and we’re certainly better than Europe. Looking at the minimum wage is a good example of this:

The French minimum wage is twice that of our federal minimum wage, and the result has not been greater prosperity. Quite the contrary, France’s unemployment rate is twice the American rate, and it hovers at an intractable 40% within those communities that recently rioted for days.

I don’t completely endorse this article. I think its tone is vicious and belittling of the government, and I don’t appreciate its dismissiveness of the minimum wage in general. I think a minimum wage of about 6.50, 6.75 is acceptable and works, giving decent pay to people but staying low enough so that companies won’t be pidgeon-holed or feel that they have to cut down on their employers. Regardless of that, I much prefer our system to France’s.

People love to reminisce about the past and pine for “the good old days,” but today’s column by Joel Klein manages to put truth to the old age, “The good old days were never so good, and the future’s not as bad as it seems.” In his piece, Klein bemoans political consultants for ruining politics and, specifically, writes about Robert Kennedy as man, hero and God enshrined. The occasion he cites is post-Martin Luther King assassination, and RFK’s simple, gracious speech about it. This, he says, is what’s missing in American politics.

Except, of course, that the idea that political consultants are new or have gained newfound influence in recent years only is wrong. Everyone has had political consultants in some form or another since the beginning of this country. William Harrison became President by defrauding the American public through his consultants and political advertisements devised by his devious consultants into believing him some sort of up-by-the-boot-straps hero. Warren Harding defrauded the people into electing him with his campaign of “Normalcy.” Robert F. Kennedy, even, lacks an angelic spirit. RFK shamelessly decided, with his consultants and advisors, that 1968 was a bad year to run for President because Lyndon Johnson was the incumbent. When Eugene McCarthy found the Courage to Confront LBJ, and chased him out of the race, RFK finally found his principles.

If the indictment against consultants is solely that they take the emotion out of politics, that’s bogus. And if it’s that they really kicked into gear post-RFK, it’s equally atrocious to make that claim. Consultants aren’t always a bad group of people — Clark Clifford advised Presidents Truman, Kennedy and Johnson with conviction and integrity that have been lacked by many in history.

Longing for the good old days is always a bad thing, as is most pining for the past, particularly when it’s based on a faulty premise.

A few miscellaneous notes: Condi Rice and Donald Rumsfeld are feuding over Iraq and which errors have been made. I think they’re both right and wrong to a point. We made strategic errors — in how many troops we bring in, in how we reach out to other countries — and we made tactical errors — tearing down the Iraqi army post-Saddam, for one — and these all reinforce the other (and weaken the country of Iraq and harm our war effort).

The Nation asks, When Will Democrats Break With Bush? My only answer is that the hating of our own Party has to stop. Just because Democrats are being cautious on some issues, such as Iraq and the Patriot Act, doesn’t mean they’re the same as Republicans. You don’t get yourself shot going after the fruit on the highest tree when you can’t reach it anyway. Why should Democrats expose themselves to charges of weakness on Terrorism for goals they can’t achieve right now? A little pragmatism is better than tactless idealism.

Democrats have taken the first, most important step in winning the Presidency, and that’s by moving to frame the debate on economics. As Bruce Reed points out at The Has Been, Democrats did well in the early 1990s by publishing books on their ideas and then debating them in the Primaries. Specifically, he cites the feisty and contentious primary battle between Paul Tsongas and Bill Clinton. In America, the Economy is usually the number one issue for most Americans during elections and even when it isn’t, it can quickly become the number one issue on most people’s minds with one quick downturn. With that in mind, it’s important that any primary in the Democratic Party revolve around ideas, and specifically Economic ideas.

As Howard Dean steps up the Democratic National Committee’s work at the grassroots and helps build party infrastructure in each State, Democrats have to build an Economic message to present in 2008. With that goal in mind, Bob Rubin (the best Treasury Secretary in several generations) and other Democrats have announced The Hamilton Project, and you can read about it here on its page.

It’s good politics for Democrats to begin looking at a broad, national agenda for the Economy and begin innovating on the Art of Economics, but it’s also good policy, and the country will be better off for it. Not everyone likes the Hamilton Project, with some Liberals being quite critical of the group and accusing them of being shills for corporate America.

Here’s a big shocker - the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party today announced it would be beginning its new war in earnest on the grassroots elements of the party that are demanding serious public policy changes. As the Financial Times reports, Citigroup Chairman Bob Rubin held a press conference at the Brookings Institution to announce the formation of the so-called “Hamilton Project.” After paying lip service to various economic problems afflicting the country, Rubin and his former Treasury colleague Roger Altman quickly let it be known exactly what they are up to.

None of this is surprising, of course. As head of Citigroup, Rubin has a financial interest in the agenda he’s pushing. And he’s made no apologies for the brazenness with which he pushes his corporatism. Remember, it was Rubin during the debate over the Central American Free Trade Agreement who demanded that congressional Democrats back off their efforts to include labor, human rights and environmental protections in the pact. He and his pals are the same people who rammed trade deals like NAFTA, WTO and China PNTR down the throats of Americans, and then left government service for the high life of the corporate boardroom. There, they reaped the rich financial rewards of the very sell-out policies they used public office to push, while millions of Americans saw their jobs outsourced, their wages frozen and their benefits slashed.

Oh sure, the group claims it is going to look at critical issues like income inequality - but you can be sure they will look at that issue without looking at issues like “free” trade that are fueling that inequality. Because make no mistake about it - this move today is nothing more than the beginning of a frontal attack by Corporate America on the progressive movement, using the Democratic Party as an all-too-transparent cloak of legitimacy.

My first thoughts reading this were: “Bob Rubin’s Economic policies led to the greatest economy of our lifetime.” My next thought was that his criticisms of Free Trade and things of the sort are debatable, but his rhetoric surely isn’t. The sky is falling and Democrats are selling Americans out. Democrats are trying to suppress the voices of True Liberals in the Party, and they have been ever since those bloodsucking parasites at the DLC got into Bill Clinton’s head.

I am sure that all ideas will be debated and debated thoroughly by this group as they go through the motions, and I’m sure that whatever candidate finds himself embracing the Hamilton Project in 2008 will find himself with healthy, robust opposition from another Paul Tsongas. That’s what Democracy is about at its best, isn’t it — the battle of ideas? If David Sirota were willing to give the Project a chance instead of practicing their Aaron Burr impersonations, they might see that.

…for the Republican Party.

Retired Liutenant General Greg Newbold, who retired in opposition to the Iraq War, is out voicing his objections and calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation. A part of me is bothered by his writing, for the simple fact that it strikes me as an attempt to re-write history by “righting” the wrongs of the past. In his piece, Newbold calls the Bush Administration a pack of “zealots” and says that he wishes he’d have done more sooner to either prevent the War or ensure it was fought properly. It’s a little too late now for that, and I’m a bit disappointed that he wasn’t courageous enough to act sooner.

I wonder (oh how often I wonder) how many men currently at the top of the military are suffering from Joint Chiefs-Vietnam syndome. Which is to ask, How many of them are going to one day express regret that they didn’t resign in protest at the poor military decisions by Rumsfeld? How many will express regret that they didn’t speak up about Rumsfeld fighting the war “on the cheap”? If none do, it’ll be too few. If some do, it’ll be too little too late. If this war is lost it’ll be for a lack of confrontation between the military men who know better and Donald Rumsfeld. And George Bush, too, for allowing his Defense Secretary to manage a war he wasn’t qualified to manager.

As Helen Thomas attacks John McCain today, declaring that those who want “more” Bush should “elect” McCain, George Will writes that the Media and McCain are “breaking up,” something entirely within the realm of the possible. I’m not a proponent of the “Liberal Media” theory (quite the opposite, and I think the shrieks of bias are bogus) but the media is composed of liberal journalists. As McCain becomes more “electable,” in part due to the overwhelmingly positive press he’s received from everyone ranging Jon Stewart to Tucker Carlson, the press will revert back to being objective and not giving him a free pass. The fact is that he’s a hypocrite on Campaign Finance (and made the problem worse); he’s never seen a war he doesn’t like; and he’s as Conservative as Bush. McCain’s as much a “moderate” as Bob Packwood is a saint.

I, for one, will be happy when the media stops swooning over the Senator and begins doing their job of objectivity and reporting, and nothing more. And while we’re on the subject of objectivity, I thought Helen Thomas was a journalist and not an editorialist? Perhaps she’s too old to know the distinction anymore.

It’s been a combative week for Republicans fighting amongst themselves, particularly for Donald Rumsfeld and John McCain. But Congressional Republicans had a rough week too, but not as rough a week as an Illinois mental patient who threatened to cut off the certain appendage of the sitting President has had. My response to this incident is two-fold: The first part is, How can the Federal Government spend time, money and energy charging a man, who is insane, for a crime he could never possibly hope to commit? And two — perhaps he was thinking of another President and misspoke, because that would make his threat a bit more plausible and comical. Not that this whole incident isn’t a joke to begin with.

Browsing the news today, I found a dirty joke. If Tom DeLay gets convicted for crimes, he’ll still receive 67,000 dollars a year in pension, even from prison. With the possibility of a criminal conviction in front of him, and the loss of his future in the Congress behind him, at least DeLay knows he’ll have some cash to look forward to. And I know that, if that day comes, I can look forward to feeling sick to my stomach. It’s incredible that they wonder why Americans hate Congress.