Office of the Independent Blogger

The AP is running a piece about lawmakers that they, and the country, will miss. In the profile they mention Dick Pombo, who is, in my opinion, the most significant defeat in the House of Representatives.

Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., a cowboy-boot-wearing beef rancher who proved the clout of his biggest adversary, the environmental community. Pombo first ran for Congress in 1991 after becoming disgusted over protections for the endangered San Joaquin kit fox near his Central California hometown. He gave environmentalists fits with his unapologetic advocacy for private property rights as chairman of the House Resources Committee. They got even in November, spending $2 million to help Democratic challengers Jerry McNerney, a little known wind energy expert, pull off a stunning upset.

Go check the article out. It’s a good look at some of the departed.

Now, to the big news of the weekend: Saddam Hussein is dead. I’ve got a few thoughts on it but first, this.

Saddam Hussein was hanged at dawn on Saturday for crimes against humanity after Iraq’s prime minister rushed through an execution few believed would help stem the sectarian violence tearing the country apart. The former president, toppled by the U.S. invasion four years ago, was shown on state television going calmly to his death on the scaffold. He was to be buried within hours near his home city of Tikrit. “It was very quick. He died right away,'’ an official witness told Reuters, adding that the body was left to hang for 10 minutes and he was pronounced dead at 6:10 a.m. (0310 GMT).

Of course nobody believes it’ll help stem violence. It’s going to naturally increase the bloodshed for awhile. But ultimately, it’s nothing but a positive for the Iraqi nation to know that that monster is gone for good because it reminds the public that he is gone and reminds future politicians to fear the reaper.

The work in Iraq toward a Democratic future has a new, symbolic beginning. It is up to Washington to work hard at ensuring tomorrow.

For those of you wondering why my latest posts have been, by my standards, short, it is because I have been quite ill. First I got a case of the flu and had to deal with migraines and vomit. I started to heal from that, and then I decided it would be a good idea to go out unprotected into the Chicago winter (when it wasn’t acting up because the environment is so screwed up that sometimes nature thinks it’s summer) after taking a shower. Half a day later I was coughing up a lung, experiencing back spasms and vomiting some more. Now, I’m finally nearing my cure and can write better for longer!

And now that I can, and have the desire, I find that there’s nothing but fast food on the market. The Holiday season isn’t particularly good to political junkies as even the Gingrich who Shut Down the Government shuts down his own political pursuits to cheat on his wife and eat full-time.

Oh, sure, there’s the story about Saddam Hussein who is scheduled to be executed by Sunday but is appealing in American courts and trying to get himself a stay, but I’m not going to waste time on that because he is clearly going to be executed and there’s nothing anyone can do about it nor should they. He’s a monster, and while I don’t endorse the death penalty with ease I endorse it still, and he’s one that deserves it without moral reservation.

So instead, let’s look at this. In 2008, a variety of men (and maybe one woman) will be running for the Presidency. Most of them have no chance and know it. The race almost always becomes a battle between those who are declared to be Sure Things by the media and those who were completely written off. (See: John Kerry v. Howard Dean, Bill Clinton v. Paul Tsongas.) The press has all-but-given the nomination to John McCain in the Republican Party while pretending that Rudy Giuliani might run and have a chance (he won’t and doesn’t). Today, though, the Associated Press is running a great piece on the Arkansan’ Governor, and I have a few thoughts on it. But first, the excerpt.

“I think I would appeal to true conservatives for whom conservatism doesn’t mean they’re angry at everybody,” Huckabee said in an interview with The Associated Press. “My brand of conservatism is not an angry, hostile brand. It’s one that says `conservative’ means we want to conserve the best of our culture, society, principles and values and pass them on.” Huckabee leaves office Jan. 9 after serving 10 1/2 years as governor of a Democratic-leaning state; he was ineligible to seek re-election because of term limits. The governor has not said when he’ll announce a decision on a potential presidential bid. “I’m not on anybody else’s clock when it comes to making an announcement. I feel like there are steps I have to take both personally and politically,” Huckabee said. “It’s more important to take the right step instead of the first step.”

On the day he leaves office, Huckabee will launch a nationwide tour to tout his book, “From Hope to Higher Ground: 12 STOPS to Restoring America’s Greatness.” With chapters on taxes and foreign policy, Huckabee’s book lays out his potential talking points for a presidential campaign. Huckabee also enjoys residual publicity from his 110-pound weight loss, and in December raised $500,000 in a political action committee fundraiser to finance trips to key political states. But Huckabee dismisses the idea that he needs to announce early in the new year to mount a credible challenge to big-name potential GOP rivals such as Arizona Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) or former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. “When people say it’s all going to be settled by March or April. Who says? George Allen was the hottest brand going until he made a little speech that got on YouTube. Now he’s gone,” Huckabee said.

Allen, a Republican senator from Virginia who was positioning himself to run for president, lost a re-election bid in November after a video showed him referring to a Democratic campaign aide of Indian descent as “macaca,” regarded by some as a racial slur. Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister, has taken some positions, particularly on illegal immigration, that have put him at odds with Republicans in his home state. “I would be the kind of Republican who doesn’t scare the living daylights out of people who are in the center or slightly to the left,” he said. Although Huckabee has shown a fundraising ability in a state dominated by Democrats, he said the message is more important than money while building a campaign. The departure of Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh (news, bio, voting record) of Indiana and Republican Sen. Bill Frist (news, bio, voting record) of Tennessee from the 2008 race is evidence that cash isn’t they key, Huckabee said. Bayh had $10.5 million in his Senate campaign bank account, money he could have shifted to a presidential exploratory committee. Frist was the Senate Republican leader in the Congress that just adjourned and is personally wealthy.

Huckabee is a strong candidate, in a General Election. If the Republicans nominate him I expect the election to end with a fine Republican triumph as he is genuinely moderate, a fair speaker and a fair man, too. His biggest hurdle, however, is in winning the Republican nomination although I suspect that that might not be as hard to come by as it could be. If McCain runs, then I expect Huckabee to handily handle him as Republicans will be looking for a way off the McCain Express and Huckabee will be the one to provide it. If he winds up in a culture war with someone like, say, Sam Brownback, I’m not sure how he’ll do as it’ll depend on Republican moods. Will they be as furious as they were in 2000 and 2004, or will they be seeking a candidate that can bring the nation, and Congress, together? That’ll decide who The Candidate will be.

We’ll see how right I am in 2008, of course. But I must add — if the Republicans are angry again they’re going to find a public that is not going to receive it well.

At this moment, the Iranian regime is bringing itself a heap of trouble. The only question is, will the regime destroy itself or prompt its own destruction first? Politically, Mahmoud Ahmaniac! is not as popular in Iran as he is in Palestine, as his party lost in the country’s Congressional elections last week. So from that angle, the political one, the regime is losing power by the day. Then we get into economics, and this staggering story.

Iran is suffering a staggering decline in revenue from its oil exports, and if the trend continues income could virtually disappear by 2015, according to an analysis published Monday in a journal of the National Academy of Sciences. Iran’s economic woes could make the country unstable and vulnerable, with its oil industry crippled, Roger Stern, an economic geographer at Johns Hopkins University, said in the report and in an interview.

Iran earns about $50 billion a year from oil exports. The decline is estimated at 10 to 12 percent annually. In less than five years exports could be halved and then disappear by 2015, Stern predicted. For two decades, the United States has deployed military forces in the region in a strategy to pre-empt emergence of a regional superpower. Iraq was stopped in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, but a hostile Iran remains a target of U.S. threats. The U.S. military exercises have not stopped Iran’s drive. But the report said the country could be destabilized by declining oil exports, hostility to foreign investment to develop new oil resources and poor state planning, Stern said.

We might call my points mahmoot, as whatever happens to Iran will be the result of Mahmoud, whether that mean his country collapses as a result of a war with Israel (prompting American intervention) or his own political and economic mismanagement.

Senator Biden is running for President. Believes his experience and his honesty will get him elected. It’s very clear to me that he won’t win and is likely running so as to keep himself in the public square, leading to an appointment as Secretary of State or Vice President if a Democrat winds up winning. He knows it just like I know that George W. Bush doesn’t read the newspapers, contrary to what he’s saying now.

Is there hope for newspapers after all? Readers may be abandoning the printed versions, but over the last couple of years, at least one person seems to have started reading them, at least sometimes. He lives in the White House. President Bush declared in 2003 that he did not read newspapers, but at his final news conference of the year last week, he casually mentioned that he had seen something in the paper that very day. Asked for his reaction to word that Vice President Cheney would be called to testify in the C.I.A. leak case, the president allowed: “I read it in the newspaper today, and it’s an interesting piece of news.”

Oh, right, I’m sure he found that out through the paper. He doesn’t have a staff that would’ve told him before the newspapers did. Right.

The political year ends around this time and so I must say that I deeply regret that I won’t be posting much today but for this: go and be merry on this Christmas.

Who knew that Ethiopia had military jets and bombs to use against Somolia? Who knew they had a police presence in Somolia? Who knew that the Ethiopian government is trying to protect the Somali government from Islamic terrorists?

One of my favorite films is Bull Durham and one of my favorite scenes involves Crash Davis arguing with Annie Savoy over excess and a sense of propriety in life. Annie quotes William Blake in response to Crash’s criticisms, saying, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom” which causes the following exchange: “William Blake?” “William Blake!” “William Blake?!” “William Blake!” “What do you mean William Blake?” “I mean William Blake!”

Is it wrong that I read this article about a dozen states suing the FDA because there’s too much soot in their air and immediately thought of Blake’s The Chimney Sweeper and from there remembered the famous scene in Bull? Man, I am old. Why, I remember the days when quality teams won the World Series (2005!) and firms contracted by the government didn’t hire illegal immigrants to do their anti-immigration work. Didn’t you hear — Bush hired a firm to build a fence across the US and Mexico and they’ve been fined for having illegals on their payroll.

Such a strange world we live in where boys like me have free rein to write about politics on the Internet, remember the sweeper’s weep and wherein the United Nations sanctions a country, as they did with Iran, and it means absolutely nothing to the Iranians. Although it does give The West credibility with The Rest (of The World) if, and when, we have to engage Iran in battle.

Instead of an entry on current events I’d like to take this space today to review the film “V for Vendetta” as I watched it today for the very first time. When it first came out I hadn’t given it much thought as I’m not particularly big on films. I didn’t even give thought to the political content of the film as I disregarded it casually as a Liberal Hack Movie since that’s what I’d read it was — “an attack on the Bush Administration.” Recenty, my girlfriend mentioned Guy Fawkes Day and I smiled and said, “He tried to blow up Parliament. People still celebrate the day. Some because he failed, and some because he tried!” and she said, “That’s right — I learned that in V for Vendetta!” which sparked my interest. So I watched it when I learned that a friend could loan me a copy and I must say, it’s magnificent. The acting is remarkable and the music is perfect. Now, to the actual story: of course it’s a play on the Bush Administration and I welcome it. The theme of the film, “The Government should fear its people,” is spot-on and everytime a government is satirized it is good for said government at anytime. When a government has lost the ability to laugh at itself, then it is deeply and inherently corrupt. As a satire, it perfectly mocks the Cable News Era and Secret Regimes past and present and future, too, from crooked and insubordinate military generals to the holier-than-thou thoughts of a tyrant.

Believe it or not I had to suppress tears when the ending occurred. In part because I have a softspot for explosions accompanied by the 1812 Overture but mainly — that is to say, completely — because I love a good democratic movement whether it’s in the Ukraine or a film. My sole complaint is that the book is, apparently, a book contrasting the dangers of tyranny with the dangers of anachy and the film leaves out anarchy. To be fair, it completely leaves it out by portraying V as a democrat rather than an anarchist but it was still something that I’d have liked to have seen in there. Anarchists suck.

Those of you that care about transparency in government and the documentation of fact will be receiving a late Christmas present on New Year’s as documents that are twenty five years old and older will be declassified. Of course, the FBI and CIA is keeping plenty of its documents close by seeking (and receiving) special exemptions, which means that we won’t learn who killed Kennedy just yet or who Reagan’s brain really was, but all the same, there’ll be plenty of worthy information out there and I’m glad to see it.

The subject of discussion in the halls of power everywhere this week has been Bush’s assertion that we need more soldiers. Today, it was announced that the head of America’s Central Command in the Middle East is stepping down, and the story’s broken that the military’s commanders oppose an increase in troops, but the Bush Administration says that there is no rift with the military over the proposal, and then, finally, the President said that we are not winning or losing in Iraq.

I’m having trouble beginning to make sense of this. Reminds me of a country operating after a coup had occurred or been attempted. History will tell us what, exactly, has just happened, but the next few weeks will give us a good idea. Personally? I think that the military and Bush are wrong and have been wrong throughout this whole War and now they’re blaming one another internally, causing rifts. That’s just my hypothesis, though.

Bush has assigned his new Defense Secretary the task of expanding the military’s size. Naturally, I have a few thoughts about it to be shared after the block.

“I’m inclined to believe that we do need to increase our troops — the Army, the Marines,” Bush said in the Oval Office session. “And I talked about this to Secretary Gates and he is going to spend some time talking to the folks in the building, come back with a recommendation to me about how to proceed forward on this idea.”

The president’s decision comes at a time when he is rethinking his strategy in Iraq and considering, among other options, a short-term surge in troop levels to try to secure violence-torn Baghdad. The Joint Chiefs of Staff are resisting the idea during internal debates in part out of the conviction that it will further strain already-pressed forces.

A substantial military expansion will take years and would not be meaningful in the near term in Iraq. But it would begin to address the growing alarm among commanders about the state of the armed forces. Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, warned Congress last week that the active-duty Army “will break” under the strain of today’s war-zone rotations. Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell, a retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that “the active Army is about broken.”

The Army has already temporarily increased its size from 482,000 active-duty soldiers in 2001 to 507,000 today and soon to 512,000. But the Army wants to make that 30,000-soldier increase permanent and then grow an additional 7,000 soldiers or more per year. The Army estimates that every 10,000 additional soldiers will cost about $1.2 billion a year.

The incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee spoke out forcefully today for increasing the size of the Army and Marines, noting that their leaders describe the services as “stretched and strained.” “We’re going to have to pay attention to this,” Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) told reporters. Saying the two services are “bleeding,” he added, “I think we have to apply the tourniquet and strengthen the forces. I think that will be a major part of our work.”

In describing his decision today, Bush tied it to the broader struggle against Islamic extremists around the world rather than Iraq specifically. “It is an accurate reflection that this ideological war we’re in is going to last for a while and that we’re going to need a military that’s capable of being able to sustain our efforts and to help us achieve peace,” he said.

Must be a hard day to be Donald Rumsfeld. His replacement replaces him and Bush immediately asks him to kill Rumsfeld’s only “accomplishment” and concern (as far as I can tell): “military transformation.” In other words, the smallening of the military — gone, as a goal and reality, as it should be — but like this? Dismantling his pride and joy isn’t the way to honor “the greatest Defense Secretary,” Mr. President — but he knows that. Somewhere in his head, he understands that his Defense Secretary and he have horribly mismanaged the task of governing. The thing that I’m curious about is, “Why hasn’t he figured out that, hey, the active military needs more soldiers” before this week? That’s why he’s already in the bottom five of Worst President Ever. Also: his insane secrecy and dishonesty.

He’s a stupid Richard Nixon. Which is a shame…as Nixon’s only redeeming trait was his brilliance.

I think it’s rather cool that the Pentagon has posted their counter-insurgency manual online. You know why I think it’s cool? It’s a rather obvious attempt to fool the enemies by promoting misinformation over the Internet. Anything else can’t be. I mean, the Pentagon isn’t stupid enough to print up our real “manual” — are they?

I’ve a couple of notes to make before we get to the bottom of the hot sauce. First, the Treasury is putting the First Ladies on gold coins and they’ll be worth three hundred dollars. They will also be selling a bronze version for three to four dollars. The stated purpose of this is in inciting interest in dollar coins. I ask, Why would we want people to want dollar coins? and How is a three hundred dollar coin going to interest people in dollars? By setting up a contrast? I doubt the Congress is that stupid-clever. What a joke.

Now, the tragedy:

As Islamic fundamentalism seeps into society and sectarian warfare escalates, more and more women live in fear of being kidnapped or raped. They receive death threats because of their religious sects and careers. They are harassed for not abiding by the strict dress code of long skirts and head scarves or for driving cars. For much of the 20th century, and under various leaders, Iraq was one of the most progressive Middle Eastern countries in its treatment of women, who were encouraged to go to school and enter the workforce. Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party espoused a secular Arab nationalism that advocated women’s full participation in society. But years of war changed that.

In the days after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, many women were hopeful that they would enjoy greater parity with men. President Bush said that increasing women’s rights was essential to creating a new, democratic Iraq. But interviews with 16 Iraqi women, ranging in age from 21 to 52, show that much of that postwar hope is gone. The younger women say they fear being snatched on their way to school and wonder whether their college degrees will mean anything in the new Iraq. The older women, proud of their education and careers, are watching their independence slip away.

To be fair to the West’s efforts in Iraq, all war-torn societies deal with issues like this and in that sense, this isn’t as unique an occurrence as it might seem. The really disturbing thing is, Iraq is a Muslim country and Islam is not a Progressive religion. It is not and never will be a model for the treatment of women, and precious few of its “leaders” treat it as such. Unless something changes real fast, this is the immediate and intermediate future for Iraqi women and for that, the American government deserves blame. “We’ll secure the country with 100,000 troops.”

You can win a War like that and screw up the country for the long-term, too. Behold, the duality of President Bush!

Democrats will place a moratorium on pork-barrel spending until a “new system” to curb its excesses is in place, they say, but in an example of talking-out-of-both-sides-of-your-mouth, they’ve made Robert Byrd chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Go through West Virginia, and you’ll see that everything is named after him: the Robert Byrd Bridge, the Robert Byrd Doghouse, the Robert Byrd Playground. West Virginia might just be the pork factory of the United States and Democrats expect us to believe that Byrd will make sure that pork is cooked proper instead of greased and put in the microwave? I’ll believe it when I see it, but I daresay that the Party must be warned: voters are serious, and if you don’t live up to your campaign promises, if you turn into the Republicans already, you’ll destroy the Party’s chances of winning the next election because voters will either a) distrust him or b) he’ll be a Democrat who, like me, speaks out about excesses and that’ll cause an internal rift in the Party when the Bacon Senators take offense at his rhetoric.

Something quite disturbing came across my desk here at the Office of the Independent Blogger today and I must share it with you. The White House is blocking publication of editorials that don’t match its policy. Don’t you love George W. Bush? (And if you do, or don’t but would like to educate him, please send him a letter or email [President@WhiteHouse.gov] re-directing him here, please. And you might want to tell them to re-direct it to the finest Defense Secretary we’ve ever had. Except that General Marshall might be a little too dead to receive it.

The Democratic Senator from South Dakota, Tim Johnson, had to have brain surgery and has fallen ill. If he dies or resigns, Democrats lose the Senate. Senator Harry Reid, the new Majority Leader of the Democrats, believes that Johnson will be fine and won’t step aside. I imagine that the conversations all over Washington right now are appalling and ghoulish. Talk of Johnson’s death and resignation are certainly going on all over with Republicans hoping that he’ll step down “for his own sake” (with a wink) and Democrats saying that he’ll be healthy enough to stay (or else). Truth is, I suspect that Johnson’s condition is grave and he’d do himself wonders to resign. Will he? Likely not, out of party loyalty and a feeling of responsibility toward the country.

I do hope he’s well enough to stay but it’s only when things like this happen that the nastiest side of Washington comes out. Behind closed doors.

In other news, Texas is being Texas by pushing for a law that would allow the blind to hunt. Enter your “It works for Dick Cheney” joke here. And after you have (must be hard, given that you’ll have to tweak HTML), check this out. A profile of the new UN Secretary, Ban Ki-moon, who really wants you to know that he might be shy and quiet but he truly knows how to lead.