Office of the Independent Blogger

A great nation deserves the truth, and a free Democracy deserves free debate. It doesn’t deserve to have things like this happen. A while back, there was to be an unveiling of a bill in Congress which would protect your cell phone records and privacy. On that day, the NSA was exposed as the fraud it was, but so was the Republican Party’s hierachy. The bill was pulled by shadowy forces, and no one can figure out why — or, no one can get the Administration to admit that it sabotaged the program, at least. This Administration likes to keep things secret, as you undoubtedly know.

Except when they’re trying to intimidate reporters. In that case, they boast that they “know who” you’re calling and go after your records, then they say you’re “fair game,” which is exactly what Karl Rove said about Valerie Plame. It’s all fun and games until someone gets impeached, or the next election. That’s what I’d like to believe, anyway, but Karl Rove sees a bright future for the President. This President is well-liked, you see — it’s just that that little war in Iraq is dragging his polls down, but other than that, it’s all good!

A few days ago, I linked to the HUD Secretary’s scandal involving the firing of a contractor. Now the HUD Secretary has taken his story back, and put up a more bizarre one.

WHICH IS WORSE, violating the law or pretending to have done so? That’s the question posed by the bizarre case of Alphonso Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development and a longtime friend of the president. Two weeks ago, Mr. Jackson said at a business gathering in Dallas that he had canceled a government contract because the contractor criticized President Bush. “Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president?” Mr. Jackson asked.

That Mr. Jackson would commit an illegal act — and rescinding government contracts for political reasons is illegal — was strange. Stranger still was the fact that Mr. Jackson, a former head of the Dallas Housing Authority with many years of government experience, apparently didn’t know that such behavior is illegal, since he bragged about it in public. Even more peculiar were the later justifications offered by his spokeswoman, Dustee Tucker, who, speaking as if she knew of the incident, told the Dallas Morning News that the contractor in question had been rude to Mr. Jackson, “trashing, in a very aggressive way,” the HUD secretary and the president.

But hold on, because the story took an even more bizarre turn when Mr. Jackson issued a statement declaring that he — and presumably Ms. Tucker — had fabricated the entire story. “During my tenure, no contract has ever been rewarded, rejected or rescinded due to the personal or political beliefs of the recipient,” he stated. It was, Ms. Tucker added, “a made-up story,” intended to demonstrate how people in Washington “will come in, trash you, trash the president and then ask you for money.”

As the article goes on to note, this is likely a veiled threat to companies interested in contracts, and it’s also improper, not to mention sleazy and wrong. It also proves that the Republican Party loves to tell stories through apocryphal (read: made up) anecdotes. As Al Franken’s Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot showed me years ago, Ronald Reagan made up stories all the time to prove his point, as did Newt Gingrich and does George Bush. This is just another example, but don’t judge their tendency to make things up too harshly. How else would they prove their points?

When Bill Maher advised, years ago, to Be More Cynical, John Sullivan listened. The Sun-Times is running an interpretation of Bush’s speech that shows us that Republicans are No Nearer to Together on the issue than they were before. RealClear confirms by writing that “06 Prospects took a hit” with Bush’s speech last night. These are simply the politics of the speech — a dissection of its rhetoric, an analysis of its political effect. When we get to the meat, the situation gets worse.

Policy-wise, the President’s newest proposal — to move the National Guard toward the border, six thousand of them — isn’t going to work, either, as it’ll wind up overstretching the National Guard. Not only that, but it’s evidence that Bush and Rumsfeld haven’t learnt a darn thing from Iraq. If they had, they wouldn’t believe that they’ll secure the border with six thousand guardsmen.

What will they tell us next? That the guardsmen will be greeted as liberators by immigrants on the border? That six thousand are all that’s needed to secure the frontier? Is Donald Rumsfeld writing our policy on the border?

Let me tell you, the current Republican Party will be lucky to be greeted as the Republican Party by Conservatives this fall, if the Conservatives greet them at all. I’ve got a sinking feeling that Republicans are going to immigrate in mass numbers this fall, but while Liberals flee to Canada, the Republicans are going to enter truly foreign land for them: the Desert of the Non Voter.

This whole year has been a tough one for Republicans, as they don’t seem able to assimilate to the year 2006. Maybe we should deport the GOP to another era, one that they’re better suited for — the 1920s, perhaps? The Middle Ages? — instead of reliving the 1970s, as they’re so intent on doing. If Republicans found themselves in the Dark Ages, and Democrats back in the Glory Days of the New Deal, we could all be happy!

The Beatles used to say, “Money can’t buy me love.” Dick Cheney might disagree. But this year, Conservatives are going to say, “Lip Service Can’t Buy My Vote” and Democrats will find wind beneath its Wings with the collapse of the Vulcans.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

Al Gore is the man who could defeat Hillary in the Democratic Party, says Susan Estrich, and I most certainly agree. I don’t buy the rest of her article, however — that Al Gore is the personification of the mythical “Angry Loser Democrat” and would be destined to lose — because it’s both a bit of conventional wisdom and it’s wrong. It’s like the conventional wisdom saying that Eugene McCarthy couldn’t beat Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman wouldn’t beat Thomas Dewey and John Kerry would be the one candidate to rule them all. There’s no fate worse than to be made to watch the talking heads turn themselves blue with the “accepted opinions” of the day before they twist themselves into pretzels the next trying to explain why the American public defied them.

The waters are always murky whenever political prognistications are expounded, but the fact is that Al Gore is a real candidate, and he’s probably the strongest in the Democratic Party. That’s something that Hillary Clinton will have to deal with for the rest of her run, and something that I’ll be happy to tell anyone anywhere at any time, murky waters be damned!

Speaking of “Murky,” that’s what I call German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and now we transition to Iran. Merkel, most Democrats and Republicans like Chuck Hagel, are urging for America to directly engage Iran but the President won’t budge. Whether it’s because he doesn’t have the capacity to write a return letter to the Islamic Republic or because he’s got a better idea is up in the air, and requires more thought…..

…..Upon further consideration, it isn’t up in the air at all. Bush’s better idea is anything but, as his plan of action is to let Europe deal with this issue. Who says he isn’t a multilateralist at heart? And who says he isn’t a bad leader?

Richard Posner is stepping into murky waters with his latest column wherein he states that the United States should have a Domestic CIA. This is nonsense, of course, because the CIA’s job is to pursue foreign intelligence regarding nations or foreigners that would do us harm. There is no need for a domestic spy agency unless your goal is to create a police state. There simply aren’t enough enemies of America within our borders to warrant it, and the erosion of Democracy would be noticable, to say the least.

To close, I’d like to link to this piece which beats the snot out of the conventional wisdom regarding John McCain as a principled, strong leader. He isn’t in the least, and he’s a nut living in the arid zone of Barry Goldwater’s Arizona.

You had me at “My fellow Americans,” Al.

In case you missed it, Al Gore taped an address to the nation for Saturday Night Live, and it was excellent. If I’m right, it means that he’s seriously considering another run for President — beyond “Maybe and maybe not” toward “I need to do something, fast, because the nation’s in bad shape” — and injecting himself into SNL was his way of subtley reminding the public that a) he’s alive, b) he’d lead the nation in a very different direction than Bush.

Using this program as a springboard is a subtle, tactful way to inject himself back into the world of politics because, at the least, it keeps Hillary Clinton looking over her shoulder. Of course, it could ultimately mean that Gore has let the dream go and is having fun at its expense, but considering that this isn’t 2003 anymore, I highly doubt it. Either way, the video does starkly remind one that the times, they could have been-a better.

While Al Gore has subtlety and tact to spare, Laura Bush has the tact of a yes man in the Kremlin. “I don’t really believe these polls [on my husband]” she says. Like she doesn’t believe in global warming, competent politics or honesty in regard to romances with George.

But hey. She’s a Librarian. Not a mathemawhatchamacallit. Or a scientist, for that matter. So give her a break, will you?

George Bush has acknowledged the existence of the NSA’s data mining program, and assures you, promises you, that it strictly targets al-Qaeda. Tens of millions of al-Qaeda, all in this country. If he’s genuine — which he certainly is not, but for the sake of argument we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he doesn’t really deserve — this is a sign of obscene paranoia. Perhaps the White House is living with a new motto (the new one would, of course, replace the old of “Don’t Be Daddy, or Clinton!”), and it is:

Terriers terriers everywhere. And not a man to trust.

From now on, Bush’s NSA should be associated with “NonSense Allowed,” as the entire program is nonsense in every sense. Steve Chapman rounds out the reasons, and I’ll let him finish the job.

The Bush administration has managed to cross George Orwell with Sting. Every step you take, every move you make, Big Brother will be watching you. No one is exempt from the National Security Agency (NSA) program to amass a record of every phone call ever made, with the help of major telecommunications providers. As one insider told USA Today, “It’s the largest database ever assembled in the world.” And have no doubt: You’re in it. President Bush insisted, “We’re not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans.” In fact, that’s exactly what his administration is doing — 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It is no longer possible (unless you’re a customer of Qwest, which has refused to cooperate) to make a telephone call without the government knowing about it and keeping a record of it. We are all suspects now.

An administration official told The New York Times the average person shouldn’t worry. The records, he said, were used only to keep tabs on “known bad guys.” But the government can easily get a court order to find out who a particular bad guy is talking to — or even to listen in. To target known bad guys doesn’t need a record of every call ever made. Why should law-abiding citizens care about this surveillance? To begin with, even the best of us sometimes make calls we wouldn’t want everyone to know about. Another reason is that we could be implicated in terrorism through no fault of our own. Suppose you call your friend Bob, who later calls his friend Rashid, who later calls his cousin in Kabul. The government may conclude you’re consorting with associates of Al Qaeda. It’s not just the NSA that will know whom you call. According to USA Today, the NSA told Qwest that “other government agencies, including the FBI, CIA and DEA, also might have access to the database.” What’s next? The IRS? The Office of Child Support Enforcement? Your local police?

Yes, that is next. It doesn’t make sense, I know, and it probably isn’t Constitutional, but remember: NSA. N.S.A.

Clinton Defeats Bush! At least, he does according to the the polling of the President. In related news, George Bush responded to the news by labeling the poll “unfair,” stating that comparing him to Bill Clinton is like comparing competence to incompetence. A good point, if I do say so myself, now let us move on to more important news.

Robert Novak’s latest report contains much anger. Liberal Democrats are upset with Howard Dean; Conservative Republicans with Bill Frist; Congressman Jerry Lewis with Major Leader Boehner; and the muffin man with the baker. It’s a tense year, this year of 2006, and everyone is looking to gain a political edge: that’s why some are upset with Dean, Frist and Boehner. Re-alignment elections don’t come often, and when they do, you’ve got to stand and deliver.

As far as the anger toward Dean, I don’t much mind his actions. Apparently, some are upset because he’s spending money in states like Mississippi where we’re not likely to gain a single thing this cycle or next. To me, the point is mooted by the fact that change isn’t an overnight thing, and you’ve got to build the party before you can win the election. By that measure, Dean is doing an excellent job. Besides, that state isn’t too far gone that Democrats have no hope of survival: had Trent Lott decided not to run for re-election there, the odds were good that Democrats would take that Senate seat. Fight them everywhere, I say. That’s why you raise the money, isn’t it?

With regard to the Conservative anger, they have a point in being angry with Frist and Boehner. The Republican Leadership is doing an excellent job at leading the GOP off a cliff, if I do say so myself.

Earlier in the week, I promised that I’d link to Iran’s letter to Bush once it’s released. I’ll keep that promise, and here it is. To tell you the truth, I think it’s a piece of trash. I find it to be so full of inaccurate notions — I’d say “dishonesty” but he believes his wacky assertions about things such as American human rights, despite his nation’s committing such heinous actions as hanging homosexuals for being homosexuals — that it isn’t worthy of a committed, intellectual response. If someone sent me this letter, I’d write them back with a brief “Thank you for the interesting read” note and leave it at that.

Unfortunately, Bush can’t just play it off as the ravings of an absurdity because they’re the ravings of an absurdity who rules a nation, and Fred Kaplan, my favorite columnist except for Mark Steyn, has his own advice on how to respond to Mahmoud, and he’s right, as usual. Iran needs an answer, and a real one at that for all the reasons that Kaplan states. It’s diplomatic before anything else, and there’s nothing to lose in corresponding with him. A reply would increase America’s leverage in the world and — if written with eloquence — could be a breakthrough moment in foreign policy history.

Sadly, we’re talking about George W. Bush, and I’ve got the teensiest inkling that he won’t be writing back. What makes me think that? This, for one (from Kaplan):

If Bush doesn’t reply to the letter, he will unavoidably give the impression that he’s simply not interested in talking. And the impression seems to reflect the reality. Flynt Leverett, a Middle East specialist formerly with the National Security Council and the CIA, recently told the Council on Foreign Relations that, in the spring of 2003, just after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration received a message from the Iranian government—sent through the Swiss Embassy, a long-standing intermediary—laying out a diplomatic agenda to resolve all the differences between the two countries. Bush ignored the message—and, in fact, criticized the Swiss government for passing it along. According to Leverett, Bush regarded the Iranian regime as “fundamentally illegitimate”; to communicate with it would be to legitimize it.

For another, there’s what Bill Maher said about Bush a while back in one of his new rules.

Everyone has to stop pretending that George Bush is so macho. Because, plainly, he acts like a girl. Not a woman — a girl. Not a week goes by when John Kerry isn’t attacked because he said something that hurt someone’s feelings. According to Bush spokesmen, Kerry lost the first debate because of his “new insult” to our allies when he said the coalition wasn’t genuine. Poland had Lithuania over for a debate party that night, and now they can’t look at each other without crying. All of the attacks on Kerry involve his thoughtless words at the expense of someone’s feelings: He hurt the Iraqi prime minister when he said he wasn’t legitimate — the bitch; he hurt the troops in Iraq when he said it was the wrong war at the wrong time — men!; he hurt the Vietnam vets when he totally broke the girl code and told everybody about their atrocities. And worst of all, he hurt the president’s feelings when he laughed at Whoopi Goldberg’s jokes.

And another thing about John Kerry: He uses Botox, he spends too much time on his hair, and he’s two-faced — flip-flopper! “Also, I bet John Kerry didn’t deserve any of those medals. I woulda gone to stupid old Vietnam, but I wanted to be a stay-at-home soldier.” Excuse me, this president isn’t resolute: He’s on the rag. He stopped having press conferences, which is basically saying, “I’m not talking to you.” He couldn’t testify before the 9/11 commission without having a man by his side. I’ll bet when they have lunch, Cheney orders for him. And then he just eats the salad. They say Kerry is too sensitive, but they’re the ones who turn everything into a big baby mama drama. Bush is the one who looked all crampy and pouty last week: “It’s hard work” — I kept waiting for him to say, “If you don’t like how I do your shirts, then iron them yourself.”

He even ran for president like a girl in 2000. Promising to “restore dignity to the Oval Office.” What man gives a rat’s ass about restoring an office? A real man thinks the Oval Office lost all its integrity the day Monica Lewinsky stopped coming in there to blow the president. And then, in the one area — I’m talking about Iraq — where he could use being a little in touch with his feminine side, he acts like the typical stupid male, who gets himself lost, won’t admit it, and won’t stop and ask for directions. No matter that we’ve already taken 10 wrong turns and are heading for what seems like it could be a cliff — no, he’s not stopping, not listening to anybody, not reading the instructions, just insisting, “Please, I know what I’m doing.”

Yes, it might just be that Bush won’t want to deal with Iran for fear of hurt feelings. You know, “my father and his friends waged a proxy war against you. We so can’t chill after school!” We’ll see what happens, but Bush loves to let opportunities go like Nixon loved wiretaps. We all know where Nixon’s love led him.

You know what the best headline I read today was? CIA Needs New President.

That, my readers, is the exact price of butter in Langley.

E.J. Dionne today brings attention to a new line of reversal Federalist thinking that I have been a proponent of consistently on this blog, and that’s support for state’s rights — for the right ideas. In his article, he discusses the nature of health care issues and Massachusetts’ handling of the issue in recent weeks. Indeed, this is my mantra, to a point: I’m a believer that the federal government should create basic standards and then let each state choose whether or not to exceed them, with the point being that the basic standard will be an acceptable, respectable measure and anything above it is gravy.

I’m also a supporter of Richard Nixon’s revenue sharing as a way to provide the funding for health care projects in the states and education. Set aside a significant portion of each budget for the states to request grants from for major health care projects, and then begin to take down Medicare and Medicaid as federal programs. State’s rights are worthy of pursuit because there’s no reason for the federal government to do things that it doesn’t have to do. If the states can maintain their schools, let them — if the states have health care programs, better them than the feds. State’s rights taken to the extreme are no fun — read: Civil Rights — but otherwise they are a boon to the public.

My dear friends, today I announce: Al Gore is a serious candidate for the Presidency. In recent weeks, articles on him have been all over the place, and that means that people inside the beltway have been talked to about Gore and are talking about him. There are articles praising him for his “new” character, and now, to cement him as a serious candidate, an effort is being made to tear him down. Sadly for his opponents, their criticisms are flawed. They begin by saying he’s gone crazy with his Global Warming quest, and then they continue from there.

To be sure, he has wandered from his “the sky is falling” litany to denounce the Bush administration for its questionable pursuit of nation-building in the Middle East. But other than to drop real world matters to thwart the evil forces of future global warming, he said little about how he would stymie the here-and-now forces of global terrorism. We also know only what we can assume on how he would address such pressing domestic issues as Social Security, immigration, tax reform and health care. Still, whatever his current disclaimers, it seems certain he currently is in training for a run at the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 - if only to derail the megastar senator from New York, the more moderate, brighter and harder-working Hillary Clinton.

Gore, whose Tennessee roots were re-cultivated and arguably refined at his boyhood home on the top floor of Washington’s luxurious Fairfax Hotel, has resented the Clintons ever since Bill relegated him to second-fiddle status in the 1992 campaign. The resentment turned into smoldering outrage in 1997, when Gore jumped a last-minute flight to Japan to sign the United States on to the Kyoto global warming treaty only to have President Clinton refuse to send it the Senate for ratification.

Before I dissect this further, Slate discusses Hillary Clinton with its piece, Republicans For Hillary. Whenever you hear someone talk about how good a candidate Hillary is, their motives aren’t pure, and you can tell that they’re lying out of both sides of their mouths when they say things like this: “We also know only what we can assume on how he would address such pressing domestic issues as Social Security, immigration, tax reform and health care.” What the hell does that mean and, hey, where exactly did Hillary outline a ten point plan?

Al Gore’s stances on Social Security are noted in the public record: Gore ran for President saying that he’d like to take the surplus and save Social Security with it. It’s not a secret that Al Gore wants to provide solvency for the program, much like it’s no secret that he’s a supporter of Middle Class Tax Cuts and Energy Tax Cuts. What a bogus claim for the author to make in an attempt to paint Al Gore as some kind of Communist, and it is joined by the claim that Gore resented Clinton since 1992 as being “bogus”. Al Gore was a good friend of Clinton’s and they worked very well together on the Campaign Trail.

Even his argument that Al Gore is cultivating the “base” and shows no capacity for “compromise” and that would be an error for the party is wrong. Have the Bush campaigns and the Bush Presidency taught the author nothing? Allow me to be presumptious for a moment and answer for him: “no, it hasn’t.”

Still in regard to the Democrats seeking the Presidency in 2008, there’s a piece in the Nation about “The New John Kerry.” I’m not sure how many people take Kerry seriously anymore. The reason he was chosen last time by the voters was that people considered his war record a bit of protection from “weakness” charges. Nobody loved John Kerry as a candidate, although most of us respected his life story. Now that he’s a proven loser who won’t answer the charges against him even the demonstrably false charges by the Swift Boat Veterans, since he ended the campaign with a ton of money in the bank that he didn’t spend on defeating Bush, he isn’t going to be given the ball again and he’s deluded to think otherwise.

But politics make a fool of men more often than not.

Vladimir Putin and Dick Cheney are having a tit-for-tat, Congress is a tad upset with John Negroponte, my body is rolling its intestines because of the Chicago Tribune and France is doing what it does best: the wrong thing. Let’s take this in reverse, shall we?

A young, upstart airline in France is suing the government because they give so much state aid to one airline that it’s killing other airlines. This type of government intervention is partly why Socialism doesn’t work and illustrates what’s wrong with France. Let’s see the small company as Southwest airlines facing United. The government in this country let’s them go and Southwest has every chance to succeed — as it did in real life — because of it, and it leads to better services everywhere for everyone. In France, you drown competition and call it good policy. This is why I live on this side of the Atlantic, and why I always will.

In France, the citizenry expect everything from the government, everything including a job-for-life at the age of eighteen. The only thing that the French don’t expect from their government is the ability to defend them from Germany.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune expects everything from black politicians because they are black. The Trib. ran an editorial today predicting that Kenneth Blackwell will run for President against Barack Obama in 2012. Despite what he cites as his reasons for salivating at this prospect, race is the primary motive. There’s nothing — not one damn thing — to suggest that Kenneth Blackwell should ever be President. This fantasy match up of Page’s is the equivelant of an editorial in 2001 declaring “Hillary Clinton will face Katherine Harris for the Presidency in 2008!” in that, while one candidate clearly belongs on the list of potentials, the other doesn’t. And the reason for Harris to ever be mentioned is because she’s a she. Blackwell is Katherine Harris without the makeup.

Congress is as upset with John Negroponte as I am with the Tribune. Similarly, they are upset with the Director of National Intelligence for helping eliminate one hack, Porter Goss (a good thing) and for replacing him with another hack, General Hayden (a Bush thing). Whether it’s Clarence Page suggesting that Kenneth Blackwell should be nominated for President or George Bush appointing people clearly unqualified for certain areas of work, I can’t understand what makes people understand that qualifications don’t matter.

Vladimir Putin might be George Bush’s favorite leader, but he isn’t Dick Cheney’s, and as they have a word of words you get the feeling that it’s mutual. I’m grateful that someone high-up in the Administration is willing to confront the Russians about their erratic, irresponsible and violent behavior, but I can’t tell you that the irony is lost on me: it isn’t. Vladimir Putin and Dick Cheney are lecturing one another about sound governments and hypocrisy.

Now now ladies, you’re both monsters. Let’s stop the fussing and the feuding and get to the War Profiteering, shall we? It should be readily apparent that that’s their heart’s dearest wish. I think I know the real reason that their feud is going public: in the 1990s, Cheney lobbied against sanctions on Iran when Clinton was putting them in place. Now it’s Russia doing the same, and Cheney must feel that Putin’s moving in on his girl.

At least this time these two are fighting for Iran’s love and nothing more — take it or leave it, folks. It’s as noble as they’re going to get!

In regard to the NSA’s domestic spy program, I have been critical but cautious because I thought the program a rational error. Whereas some hastily jumped to the conclusion that it was a step toward tyranny, I disagreed, although I worried about the legality of the measure as well as the precedent allowing it would set. I didn’t believe it to be a Dictatorial move because I thought the criticism overblown and paranoid, but not anymore. After today, there’s no reason to provide such a political courtesy and it’s impossible not to catch the scent of rotting Nixon coming from the Oval Office, as all it takes is thirteen minutes of tape to know that there’s shame on the record.

If President Clinton’s scandals were a rewrite of Andrew Johnson’s for a New Age, then George Bush’s are Richard Nixon’s Reloaded for old time’s sake. News broke today that the NSA has a database containing tens of millions of American phone records, and that is a sure sign of a program run amok. But that alone wasn’t enough to break the secretary’s recorder. No, that takes a Saturday Night Massacre to accomplish, and the Bush White House is up to the task. The Justice Department was assigned to review the legality of the NSA’s program, but the NSA refused to give the Justice Department clearance to investigate. Bush wants Americans to trust him, to believe that his program is fine and dandy, but if they can’t even trust themselves how can we trust them?

There’s little reason to trust in the Administration anymore, as they’re all crooks and liars. Not even the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development can be trusted. There are prostitutes all over Washington — and some of them aren’t Congressmen! Washington is currently caught in a state of fear and loathing, and all of it is being done by one petty man. Soon, Tony Snow will turn to Ron Ziegler, because history is the greatest passion play and Republicans love reliving the past.

The lesson to be taken from today is that it takes just the smallest flame to chase away the darkness. But things are at their brightest when the house catches fire, and when you look at it that way, the White House has a future so bright it’s got to wear shades!

Between the War in Iraq, George W. Bush’s poll numbers, manufactured controversies about holidays taken from the calendar and Paris Hilton, good stories that should find themselves at the center of attention more often don’t, and they get ignored in favor of Barry Bonds latest homerun or something involving Hollywood. Lost in the cracks of the recent immigration dispute and modern history is a simple narrative yet to be caught by most Americans, and it’s a tale that casts George W. Bush as Jimmy Carter with rabies. How else do we explain the nagging energy concerns, flawed military strategies and focus on human rights? Yes, you read that right — Bush just may be the only modern President to follow Jimmy Carter’s footsteps in any meaningful way.

I’m guessing that President Bush’s foreign policy will stand up about as well to the assessments of future historians as a baby gazelle to a pack of cheetahs. Yet there is one area where Bush is making a historic contribution: He is devoting much more money and attention to human trafficking than his predecessors did. Just as one of Jimmy Carter’s great legacies was putting human rights squarely on the international agenda, Bush is doing the same for slave labor.

We don’t tend to think of trafficking as a top concern, so Bush hasn’t gotten much credit. But it’s difficult to think of a human rights issue that could be more important than sex trafficking and the other kinds of neo-slavery that engulf millions of people around the world, leaving many of them dead of AIDS by their early 20s. […]In 2000, Congress passed landmark anti-trafficking legislation, backed by an unlikely coalition of evangelical Republicans and feminist Democrats. Even today, the congressional leaders against trafficking include a conservative Republican, Sen. Sam Brownback, and a liberal Democrat, Rep. Carolyn Maloney.

But the heaviest lifting has been done by the State Department’s tiny office on trafficking - for my money, one of the most effective units in the U.S. government. The office, led by a former Republican congressman, John Miller, is viewed with suspicion by some career diplomats who fear that simple-minded conservative nuts are mucking up relations with countries over a peripheral issue. Yet Miller and his office wield their spotlight shrewdly. With firm backing from the White House (Bush made Miller an ambassador partly to help him in his bureaucratic battles), the office puts out an annual report that shames and bullies foreign governments into taking action against forced labor of all kinds.

Last year, I wrote about this vile sex crime case and lamented the lack of resources for prosecutors to use to secure long, serious consequences for those who would traffick in sex slaves, and I was happy to find this article under my radar today and see that someone cares about the issue. I was stunned that it was Bush, but that was a pleasant surprise more than anything else.

Now we turn our attention to the CIA, as the Wall Street Journal, backed by men who used to run the Mossad (Israeli Intelligence Service) ponder whether or not a “Kosher Cure” is needed for the CIA. America is not Israel and the Mossad is not the CIA. The Mossad is tiny compared to it, and its responsibilities are smaller than ours, by far, as the Mossad’s job is to protect Israel while the CIA has far more tasks. Any suggestion that we should follow the Israeli model is absurd unless we’re talking about airport security, and even that would be unnecessary.

There’s simple advice to give to any genuine CIA Director, but it should be clear that General Hayden is not a man who falls into that category. Hayden is a crony of the President’s who doesn’t belong in a Civilian post like this, period, and he isn’t being appointed because Bush thinks the CIA deserves a man to lead them: he’s being appointed because President Bush thinks the CIA deserves a man to peep them, to spy on them, to work against them from within. It’s a slap to the Agency’s face, and it’s a continuation of what has been going on for a year now: an erosion of the CIA at the hands of Bush bureaucrats.

They took the Agency’s influence by following up on the 9/11’s laughable recommendations. There was no need for a National Director of Intelligence, and the man nominated to that position was a troll. There is no reason to take away the CIA’s intelligence assessment capabilities as it was the Bush White House who did the damage to the nation (I wrote about that here, over a year ago). And then, after the Congress, the 9/11 Commission and the Bush White House had gutted the CIA, they threw salt in its wounds by installing Porter Goss, who instantly began an honor killing — or, excuse me, “shake up purge” — of the agency. The entire Bush relationship with the CIA has been a damn sham.

If General Hayden were a man genuinely interested in running the CIA and providing the best intelligence, analysis and guidance that the department has to offer, my advice to him would be simple: don’t bow to any political pressures, and don’t exert any on your Agents, either. For Hayden, however, that’s impossible: he’s an outsider who is not meant to be an insider, and his role isn’t to lead the Agency. It’s to gut it.

That’s why morale is so low at the CIA and bickering so noticeable. Because Jimmy Carter has rabies and is currently sitting in the White House.

At RealClearPolitics, Lawrence Kudlow mocks the subject of an Al Gore candidacy and declares Hillary Clinton the best candidate that Democrats could sic on the floundering Republican Party. Kudlow’s expertise is Economics, not Domestic Politics, and there’s a reason for it that shows. Kudlow’s so full of crap on almost every issue that his eyes leak feces, and he continues with consistency with his latest. Backing that article, they’re running a piece about how doves aren’t elected in times of war. This is very well true, but the rule isn’t absolute and it doesn’t mean you must be Ghengis Khan to get elected. Richard Nixon vowed to leave Vietnam “with honor,” but it was a clear message of withdrawal. Jimmy Carter was elected at the height of the Cold War. Besides, if we’re talking about Al Gore as a dove, that’s nonsense. Anyone with half a brain in their head about recent history knows that Al Gore is no pacifist, and even though he invented the Internet (or, as its founders would tell you, contributed heavily to its creation) he’s no McGovernite on a Modem. Al Gore is a strong candidate in every sense of the term.

While RealClear is running two nonsense articles, it does redeem itself somewhat with the prior article about the Left Wing and the Internet. They call them “McGovernites” on “Modems” and that’s probably a fair assessment. People who supported Howard Dean didn’t do it because they thought he had a ten point plan to restore Economic Growth or Fiscal Sanity!

That’s not the only article about Liberalism Online out today. There’s also this one, dubbed “The Left’s Digital Lynch Mob.” While at some points it reminds me of Clarence “High-Tech Lynching” Thomas, it is an interesting read. Nothing more, really. Just one man’s experience with the Left, and while worth reading, it’s not a sign of something deeper than the surface. Go to the Free Republic and you’ll find a lynch mob, too, from the opposite direction. Go to Washington, on the other hand, and you’ll find a Lynch Mob headed toward Langley.

Bush has nominated General Hayden to be in charge of the CIA, and he’s the same hack who implemented the wiretapping program. He’s a Negroponte lover, and there’s no reason to believe that he should be at the CIA. One of the reasons he’s unfit for command has to do with the fact that he clearly has never learned not to touch the stove that burnt your mother’s hand off. To wit: the purge at the CIA will “intensify” if he’s confirmed. The CIA shouldn’t have to worry about a Bush crony who is trying to wipe out the Agency’s leadership in what amounts to a perverse Honor Killing because the CIA defended itself when the White House blamed them for its mistakes.

The article I link to considers that a good thing — the purge, that is. It’s incredible that Republicans wonder why most Americans think they don’t know how to govern, and maybe they should look to Iraq as the reason for a lot of their failures. While Bush and I hold Iraq to be a model of sorts to the rest of the Middle East, it’s a nation that we shouldn’t strive to be much like we don’t look back at the 1850s and say, “Oh if only, if only!”

It appears to me, though, that Bush is looking at Iraq as being that sort of candle in the night, and he shouldn’t. If the President wants to be inspired by Iraq, he should take heart from their courage in the face of the Insurgency and the government’s attempts to unify the country: he shouldn’t be attempting to mimick their honor killings in Virginia.

Mark Steyn has been one of my favorite columnists since he lampooned the Muslim anger toward the Danish flag, and he continues being a source of humor, writing about the situation in Darfur with sincerity and insight.

Here’s the lesson of the past three years: The UN kills. In 2003, you’ll recall, the US was reviled as a unilateralist cowboy because it and its coalition of the poodles waged an illegal war unauthorised by the UN against a sovereign state run by a thug regime that was no threat to anyone apart from selected ethnocultural groups within its borders, which it killed in large numbers (Kurds and Shia). Well, Washington learned its lesson. Faced with another thug regime that’s no threat to anyone apart from selected ethnocultural groups within its borders which it kills in large numbers (African Muslims and southern Christians), the unilateralist cowboy decided to go by the book. No unlawful actions here. Instead, meetings at the UN. Consultations with allies. Possible referral to the Security Council.

And as I wrote on this page in July 2004: “The problem is, by the time you’ve gone through the UN, everyone’s dead.” And as I wrote in Britain’s Daily Telegraph in September 2004: “The US agreed to go the UN route and it looks like they’ll have a really strongish compromise resolution ready to go about a week after the last villager’s been murdered and his wife gang-raped.” Several hundred thousand corpses later Clooney is now demanding a “stronger multinational force to protect the civilians of Darfur”.

Agreed. So let’s get on to the details. If by “multinational” Clooney means a military intervention authorised by the UN, then he’s a poseur and a fraud, and we should pay him no further heed. Meaningful UN action is never gonna happen. Sudan has at least two Security Council vetoes in its pocket: China gets 6 per cent of its oil from the country, while Russia has less obviously commercial reasons and more of a general philosophical belief in the right of sovereign states to butcher their own.

The game of politics is often compared to the game of chess, but that’s a flawed analogy. Really, it’s more like a poker match, and the UN is typically a lousy host. In theory, the United Nations was supposed to bring peace by bringing the world together to talk. In reality, it brings peace by providing a forum for Liberalism the world over to prevent War by talking. That isn’t a bad thing, of course, and it’s often saved the World. Let’s use the Cuban Missile Crisis for example.

Had there not been a UN, would Adlai Stevenson have been able to confront the Soviet Union about their nuclear lies? No, clearly and unequivocally: the answer is no. Without the United Nations, America strikes at Cuba or the Soviets pretend that they’re not doing anything wrong and America is being overzealous in Cuba over oh, say, vodka shipments and nothing more. But imagine what it would’ve been like if Kennedy had needed a UN Security Council authorization to blockade Cuba. The world would be a different place. At its best, the United Nations is a microphone for those who oppose tyranny from which they can pour shame and contempt upon the enemy. It isn’t a place where tyranny or violence will be stopped: that’s what the battlefield is for.

But the United Nations is important, both because of the humanitarian work it does and because it provides that link between War and War. Know what I mean?

On poker, let’s talk about parties, prostitutes and the former number three at the CIA, who has now resigned because he’s an unsavory fellow, apparently. What a losing hand the CIA has been dealt in recent years: first a man with none of the skill of his father is elected, and then he nominates a guillotine-loving hack to be the CIA Director. Now they’re going to be dealt the man who fathered Dick Cheney’s Domestic Spying Program, and that one’s a sure-fire no-win for the Agency. If I were a CIA agent, I’d be spooked right about now.

A few more poker matches are left to talk about. The first involves Iran. First, Blair today said that any suggestion of “nuking Iran” is “absurd.” It is. I’m proud of him for saying that, as it’ll provide some level of sanity to the discourse. Next, on Iran, their President has written Bush a letter in what they’re labeling an attempt to push forward talks. The Iranians say they’ll publicly release it when Bush receives it. Here’s to hoping they knew to put enough stamps on and, you know, write it in English.

Briefly on Blair: Liberals in Britain want to give him an LBJ and knock him out of the Prime Ministry before he’s ready to go, but Blair refuses to concede anything. I love it. There’s no reason for Blair to go, and it’d be a shame to lose the smartest man currently in power on the Global Stage. Unless he’s replaced by an even smarter man: Al Gore.

Yes, the Wall Street Journal reports that Gore is seriously considering another run. I believe it, and I think he’s playing the poker game well, whether he decides to fold or not.

What we need to prevent genocides is a Genocide Prevention Unit in the military, a “Peace Corps with guns.” Perhaps. I don’t oppose this. But in my view, the United Nations and NATO need a peace corps with guns. You see, if America had a “peace corps with guns” then anything done by this division would inevitably lead to charges of colonialism and accusations of conquest whenever America entered the Sudan, for instance. The Global Left and Isolationist Right would charge, like they would if we entered the Sudan, that there are nasty motives involved. Ultimately, the UN and or NATO need their own peacekeeping force with teeth. For anything that America does in this regard, there will be many who allege that there are spooky shenanigans going on.

Let me be the first to say that there were spooky shenanigans going on at Porter Goss’ CIA, and that is why he lost his job. Those spooky shenanigans include but aren’t limited to silent coups involving senior intelligence officials and general bumbling by Goss, along with a possible love for prostitutes. Time has the story, or at least it does involving the silent coup committed against Goss by the Bush White House and John Negroponte, and Newsweek writes, that the struggles will remain even with Goss gone. The talk is that Bush has allowed John Negroponte, the Contra loving Director of National Intelligence, to take over by cutting off the CIA’s power, and his Deputy will be installed at the CIA.

Sadly, the Bush White House has an intense animus toward the CIA because the CIA is said to have leaked a ton of material to show the world that Bush was a bumbler during the election campaign, and he took it personal. I wonder how the CIA is supposed to take it when a man attempts to circumvent the agency using the Pentagon and then by blaming them for the Administration’s analytical inaccuracies?

Turf wars, kids. They lead to spooky shenanigans, and that’s what we’re seeing here.

The headline to this article is one of the stupidest ones I’ve seen since “Dewey Defeats Truman.” What is it? “Sudan, rebels agree to deal ending strife in Darfur: Diplomats note pact only small first step toward bringing peace to troubled region.” Incredible. It ends the “strife,” but doesn’t. Excellent word choice, but not.

In 2003, this whole crisis began. 180,000 dead innocents and two million refugees later, the Sudan claims that it’s ready to truly end the war against its own people. Not only that, but they say that they’re open to the deployment of US troops. Places that have been ravaged by civil war shouldn’t be allowed to make demands over whether or not peacekeepers can be deployed there. It should be mandatory that, upon signing on as a member of the United Nations, you concede that in the event of a civil war peacekeepers will be allowed in your country.

There are membership fees to joining every club. There’s no reason that the UN shouldn’t be able to make its own demands of members. To get into College, you need a certain GPA at each university. Why should the United Nations be different for countries? Sure, they pay their dues. But their should be other requirements, too, requirements that will get you booted from the club if you don’t meet them. Like don’t kill your own citizens or, if you feel that you must, that peacekeepers be allowed, no ifs ands or buts about it.

Regardless of that, I’m not convinced that peace is coming. I’m not convinced at all, and this article backs me in its cynicism. The Sudanese government is a totalitarian tour de force, which flaunts the United Nations, supports terrorism and kills its citizens willy nilly. I don’t expect them to keep their end of the bargain because they don’t have an incentive to. America isn’t willing to do anything about it, and neither is the UN.

All that America has done is equivocate about the International Criminal Court and the “lack of soldiers available” due to Iraq, both equivocations being utterly and absolutely off the mark. The United Nations has equivocated over whether or not a genocide was occurring and then took a wishy washy response to the aftermath — a cheap, pathetic act of equivocation that is still going on and will continue to cost lives. Let’s assume, for a moment, that the Sudanese do stop killing each other. They’re still going to be starving, because the UN can’t get its members, aside from America and Italy, to give a damn. It’s pathetic, and it’s wrong.

How’s that for an unequivocal notion?

This morning, Fred Barnes writes that George Bush is a “politician, not an ideologue,” and then writes that, “This explains why Bush sometimes does things that aren’t conservative. He does so to survive and, if all goes well, to prosper politically. Or he does so because he actually favors some nonconservative policy or position.” I’d say that, with Bush, it’s the latter, as if he’s really operating to survive politically, he’s doing a heckuva job. It’s worth keeping in mind that Barnes has also said George Bush is a “rebel,” and so Barnes doesn’t quite have it all figured out.

Bush is a political hack more than anything else, and certainly moreso than he is an ideologue. When Joe Lieberman introduced the Department of Homeland Security, it was clear to the White House that it was a bad idea, and I thought so too. They fought it for months, but the idea became popular in the court of public opinion, and Bush said, “Oh, oh, it’s my idea, after all.” It’s not the first time he’s been caught flip-flopping, but it’s the perfect example of Bush’s refusal to be politically brave. It’s even a further example of his moral cowardice when it comes to dealing with issues. He’s afraid to confront his base. When Paul O’Neill wanted to reform corporate law for the better, Bush told him to go ahead. After “his base” bombarded the White House with letters from CEOs complaining that they can’t be bothered to follow the current laws, let alone tougher laws, Bush decided that the campaign coffers were more important than sound policy.

Much like Bush has decided that the financial well-being of his friends in the pollution industry need him to sacrifice the environment for that end, and he can’t ever bring himself to say no. Bush says no to everything except withdrawal from Iraq, and even when it comes to Iraq he can’t be trusted — his refusal to abandon poor policy in the form of Donald Rumsfeld is proof of that. Maybe he just thinks that he’s following along with the in-crowd, since it seems like the entire GOP is running on empty. Take Bill Frist as an example. The cat-killing charisma-draining Senator from Tennessee proposed we give Americans a 100-dollar rebate for gasoline.

How absurd. And it’s Socialism at its worst: wasteful and impractical.

Reports are out that Ken Mehlman, GOP Chair, is warning of disastrous consequences for impotent legislators in Congress if they continue doing nothing about illegal immigration. Unfortunately for the country, not to mention the vaunted Republican majority, building a Berlin Wall and making it illegal to “help” an illegal immigrant (read: do anything from selling him food to giving it, or talking to him) isn’t going to be the answer that saves their Party from drowning in the Rio Grande called the Mid-Term Elections.

Porter Goss’ tenure at the CIA was marked by turmoil and in-fighting. That is what happens when you enter the job and your first move is to fire established Spooks.

Porter Goss, Bill Frist, George Bush — they’re all hitting the floor and fast.