Office of the Independent Blogger

Rudy Giuliani says he’d like to be a “resolute” leader like George W. Bush.

Elect him, America, and he will be.

Congress is already finding ways to get around the new ethics rules.

The 110th Congress opened with the passage of new rules intended to curb the influence of lobbyists by prohibiting them from treating lawmakers to meals, trips, stadium box seats or the discounted use of private jets. But it did not take long for lawmakers to find ways to keep having lobbyist-financed fun. In just the last two months, lawmakers invited lobbyists to help pay for a catalog of outings: lavish birthday parties in a lawmaker’s honor ($1,000 a lobbyist), martinis and margaritas at Washington restaurants (at least $1,000), a California wine-tasting tour (all donors welcome), hunting and fishing trips (typically $5,000), weekend golf tournaments ($2,500 and up), a Presidents’ Day weekend at Disney World ($5,000), parties in South Beach in Miami ($5,000), concerts by the Who or Bob Seger ($2,500 for two seats), and even Broadway shows like “Mary Poppins” and “The Drowsy Chaperone” (also $2,500 for two).

The lobbyists and their employers typically end up paying for the events, but within the new rules. Instead of picking up the lawmaker’s tab, lobbyists pay a political fund-raising committee set up by the lawmaker. In turn, the committee pays the legislator’s way. Lobbyists and fund-raisers say such trips are becoming increasingly popular, partly as a quirky consequence of the new ethics rules. By barring lobbyists from mingling with a lawmaker or his staff for the cost of a steak dinner, the restrictions have stirred new demand for pricier tickets to social fund-raising events. Lobbyists say that the rules might even increase the volume of contributions flowing to Congress from K Street, where many lobbying firms have their offices. Some lawmakers acknowledge that some fund-raising trips resemble the lobbyist-paid junkets that Congress voted to prohibit. Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said its leaders had decided to stop holding fund-raising events for lobbyists with political action committees because of the seeming inconsistency.

Surprise surprise!

Diplomacy is, for the most part, a very easy game to play because it’s so repetitive. In today’s day, for example, a typical day goes like this: Americans propose something anti-terrorism; Russians accuse the US, with direction from their Middle Eastern oil buddies, of re-starting Cold War; World shrugs.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accused the United States on Saturday of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions and making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war. In an address to an international security conference, Mr. Putin dropped all diplomatic gloss to recite a long list of complaints about American domination of global affairs, including many of the themes that have strained relations between the Kremlin and the United States during his seven-year administration.

Among them were the expansion of NATO into the Baltics and the perception in Russia that the West has supported groups that have toppled other governments in Moscow’s former sphere of influence. “The process of NATO expansion has nothing to do with modernization of the alliance,” Mr. Putin said. “We have the right to ask, ‘Against whom is this expansion directed?’ ” He said the United States had turned the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which sends monitors to elections in the former Soviet sphere, “into a vulgar instrument of ensuring the foreign policy interests of one country.”

The comments were the sternest yet from Mr. Putin, who has long bristled over criticism from the United States and its European allies as he and his cadre of former Soviet intelligence officials have consolidated their hold on Russia’s government, energy reserves and arms-manufacturing and trading complexes.

They fund terrorist groups like Hezbollah; they provide money and diplomatic assurances to international monsters like the Iranians and Saddam Hussein; and they deny it all while claiming that the West is re-igniting the cold war because they tell him he should stop. Vladimir Putin might be the most obnoxious man in government, if not for his Soulmate, but at least his soulmate is dumb, and not evil.

George W. Bush will be lucky to avoid impeachment. He can get away with NSA Wiretapping because the public will allow him; he can get away with being a poor President because the public doesn’t consider it a crime; he can’t get away from stories like this, perhaps the most damning evidence that Bush lied.

A “very damning” report by the Defense Department’s inspector general depicts a Pentagon that purposely manipulated intelligence in an effort to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida in the runup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, says the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “That was the argument that was used to make the sale to the American people about the need to go to war,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. He said the Pentagon’s work, “which was wrong, which was distorted, which was inappropriate … is something which is highly disturbing.”

The investigation by acting inspector general Thomas F. Gimble found that prewar intelligence work at the Pentagon, including a contention that the CIA had underplayed the likelihood of an al-Qaida connection, was inappropriate but not illegal. The report was to be presented to Levin’s panel at a hearing Friday. The report found that former Pentagon policy chief Douglas J. Feith had not engaged in illegal activities through the creation of special offices to review intelligence. Some Democrats also have contended that Feith misled Congress about the basis of the administration’s assertions on the threat posed by Iraq, but the Pentagon investigation did not support that. Two people familiar with the findings discussed the main points and some details Thursday on condition they not be identified.

It’s not a surprise, it’s never been a secret, really — but now it’s out and about. I will say this, about impeachment: Bush will be lucky to and by that I mean: it’s clear that he has engaged in dishonest and distorted practices that have led to the deaths of thousands, the sinking of American monies and the elimination of international credibility toward his regime. If he avoids impeachment, which he probably will, it’ll only be because people in his Administration refused to fully speak out, now, or because the Democrats decline the proceedings due to the proximity of the next elections.

If I had a prayer emoticon — if I used emoticons — I’d put it right after this story. Old Gore supporters and political allies are starting a draft Gore effort. The significance of this is: the effort to draft Gore is no longer just a grassroots measure but there is substantial insider support. I’m not going to hold my breath, but I’m glad to see the movement, all the same, because Al Gore is everything this country needs at the exact time it needs it.

I’ve said that a million times. Or, at least, thirty something. On this blog, anyway.

Sidney Blumenthal pitches in with more serious news.

Deep within the bowels of the Pentagon, policy planners are conducting secret meetings to discuss what to do in the worst-case scenario in Iraq about a year from today if and when President Bush’s escalation of more than 20,000 troops fails, a participant in those discussions told me. None of those who are taking part in these exercises, shielded from the public view and the immediate scrutiny of the White House, believes that the so-called surge will succeed. On the contrary, everyone thinks it will not only fail to achieve its aims but also accelerate instability by providing a glaring example of U.S. incapacity and incompetence.

The profoundly pessimistic thinking that permeates the senior military and the intelligence community, however, is forbidden in the sanitized atmosphere of mind-cure boosterism that surrounds Bush. “He’s tried this two times — it’s failed twice,” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said on Jan. 24 about the “surge” tactic. “I asked him at the White House, ‘Mr. President, why do you think this time it’s going to work?’ And he said, ‘Because I told them it had to.’” She repeated his words: “‘I told them that they had to.’ That was the end of it. That’s the way it is.”

On Feb. 2, the National Intelligence Council, representing all intelligence agencies, issued a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, as harsh an antidote to wishful thinking as could be imagined. “The Intelligence Community judges that the term ‘civil war’ does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qaida and Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition forces, and widespread criminally motivated violence. Nonetheless, the term ‘civil war’ accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and population displacements.”

The report described an Iraqi government, army and police force that cannot meet these challenges in any foreseeable time frame and a reversal of “the negative trends driving Iraq’s current trajectory” occurring only through a dream sequence in which all the warring sects and factions, in some unexplained way, suddenly make peace with one another. Nor does the NIE suggest that this imaginary scenario might ever come to pass. Instead, it proceeds to describe the potential for “an abrupt increase in communal and insurgent violence and a shift in Iraq’s trajectory from gradual decline to rapid deterioration with grave humanitarian, political, and security consequences.”

Stunning, isn’t it? The more we learn about the inner intelligence, the less reason to be optimistic. Maybe the President knows something that isn’t being revealed through the press but I doubt it, and I’m having a lot of trouble coming up with any further reason to trust Bush in Iraq or to believe that there’s anything we can do at this point.

As for this, and this, let’s just say that these are the most ridiculous news stories I’ve read in a while.

Bush is trying to cut seventy five billion from hospitals, through Medicaid and assorted budget cuts. His priorities will take your breath away, as will his medical policies.

Until the day comes when the War on Terror has lessened, we’ve got a War to pay for and Joe Lieberman is out and about calling for a new tax, a War Tax, to that end. Who says he isn’t a Democrat? And how could anybody say he’s wrong? We should’ve put in a War Tax right after 9/11 — Bill Maher was big on that — and I firmly believe that we need it in today’s age. I can’t see it being passed just yet (I think it’s more likely that Congress attempts to strongarm Bush into spending less on the war), but I believe in it, definitely. Definitely.

This is sad.

The following will reinforce anyone’s belief that the media’s priorities often are out of whack. On Thursday morning in the NFL Super Bowl media center there was a press conference for retired players, to discuss the league pension/disability problems, hosted by Mike Ditka and Jerry Kramer. Only 12 hardcore football writers showed up. That same afternoon, there was another press conference introducing Prince as the Super Bowl halftime act. About 1,000 media types showed up for that earth-shaking announcement.

[Ditka] could’ve spent Super Bowl week reveling in the resurgence of the team he coached to a Super Bowl crown in 1986. Instead, Ditka stormed around Miami pleading for assistance for retired NFL players who have major health and disability issues, former players who have been left in the cold by their union and league. Ditka, who needs no assistance, stood up, was counted and even told the media that “an owner of a team in another league pledged $100,000 to the cause at dinner Wednesday night.” Ditka is coming up mighty big here.

If you’re wondering what the issue is, exactly, look here.

One of the big issues at the Super Bowl this week has been the help - or lack thereof - afforded the men who played the game before proper safety and high salaries became the norm. There are many men who are suffering because they played professional football in an age when aspirin was used to treat concussions and helmets had about as much cushion as a piece of steel. Some former players can barely walk. Others suffer from dementia. Some are homeless. Others can’t pay their bills. Many are too proud, or too ashamed, to ask for help, and the help that is available is inadequate.

Monthly pension payments, in many instances, wouldn’t cover groceries for a few days, much less medicine, doctors’ bills or physical or mental therapies. The NFL is richer, more powerful and more popular than it has ever been, and yet the forefathers of the game have been kicked outside the periphery. It is an ugly reality. On Thursday, Vincent said he was “at the pulse” of the issue between retired and active players, and said it was “a major concern” of the union’s. But he bemoaned the retired players’ tactics at improving their situation. Vincent said that he hears about it from coaches on the sidelines during games or when he runs into a former player at an airport. It’s always the same, Vincent said: The retired players want more money, while the active players would like a little help - advice, perspective, whatever you’d like to call it - from the men who preceded them.

“The only thing we hear about is the economics,” Vincent said. “We can’t please everybody.” But according to Jerry Kramer, the former Green Bay Packers offensive lineman from 1958 to 1968, not many former players are pleased at all. Herb Adderley, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, receives just $126.85 per month from his NFL pension. Hall of Famer Willie Wood is in an assisted-living facility, and without the help of Mike Ditka and others, he couldn’t afford the care. Kramer started the Gridiron Greats Assistance Program to help players in need and recruited Ditka to help raise money, an effort that includes an ongoing memorabilia auction at jerrykramer.com. “The thing that’s been making my heart ache,” Kramer said, “is some of my teammates and warriors are having a hard time.” Said Ditka: “The guys today who play the game are not the makers of the game. They are the keepers of the game.”

There’s just so much wrong with that. Pensions and healthcare in this country need to be remade, and that starts with a mindshift, beginning at the top, that says people deserve to be treated well. Kudos to Mike Ditka for working to make that happen.

Last night’s Super Bowl was miserable to watch. Rex Grossman was miserable, man, like he always is. I’ve long said that he collapses under modest pressure, and he does. Get a small pass rush on him and he runs backward, throws off the wrong foot, often just letting it fly deep and hoping something happens when any reasonable person would do something, anything, else. It isn’t just poor decision making that’s a problem with Rex, though: he can’t even handle snaps, and he falls over his own feet. He fell over in several games during the season, in and out of the rain, and he is just a terrible Quarterback. Pea-brained and noodle-armed, as the fellows at Slate described him leading up to the Super Bowl, he’s fundamentally unsound on any field.

I’d like to tell my fellow Bear fans that Next year’s the year! but the truth is that I wouldn’t bet on it with Grossman at the helm. Time will tell, so for now, we should turn to the present, to this, another disgusting move by the President.

President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy. In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries. The White House will thus have a gatekeeper in each agency to analyze the costs and the benefits of new rules and to make sure the agencies carry out the president’s priorities.

This strengthens the hand of the White House in shaping rules that have, in the past, often been generated by civil servants and scientific experts. It suggests that the administration still has ways to exert its power after the takeover of Congress by the Democrats. The White House said the executive order was not meant to rein in any one agency. But business executives and consumer advocates said the administration was particularly concerned about rules and guidance issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

George W. Bush is such an awful, sleazy, dishonest man, only respecting the dollar and his own sense of privelege. He has dishonored and disgraced this country, he has shown nothing but contempt for the city, its traditions, and common decency. He is Rex Grossman in the White House. He is a man to be scorned, not pitied, and when he dies, the then-sitting President would be right to avoid his funeral or to declare at it, “An American monster has passed.”

I don’t like to talk like this. I’ve avoided it, in the past, but this is out of hand, and deserves such a response. George Bush doesn’t care about good government, and if he does, George Bush is incapable of creating and maintaining it. But it’s time to unconditionally call a spade a spade, and George Walker is a liar and a buffoon.

Let’s add the third edge to this trifecta of ridikule: there are “virginity balls” going on across the country in which girls are pledging to be chaste for their fathers. That type of thing seems like it be better suited for a kitchen conversation than it would be a dance.

There isn’t much to talk about today and I haven’t got too much time, as the Bears are in the Super Bowl soon and I’ve got things to do. I’d just like to direct you to this, about Rush Limbaugh and polar bears, with good information about the nature of global warming and what it is, tragically, doing to them; the Chinese government is planning to recover moon rocks for energy, and it’s actually interesting, although seemingly unrealistic; and Seattle coffee shops are innovating as we speak. I love that city, but not as much as mine, what with its amazing events and style.

The way some people tell it, John McCain is Class personified. I’ve long been critical of him (for his phony attacks on lobbyists, when he himself is stuffed by the bum by the lobbyists; for his treatment of his first wife; for his pretending to be a Moderate and the fact that he gets away with it because the media appreciates his “candor”). Further proof that he is unprincipled and unadmirable, here:

Senator John McCain, intent on succeeding where his freewheeling presidential campaign of 2000 failed, is assembling a team of political bruisers for 2008. And it includes advisers who once sought to skewer him and whose work he has criticized as stepping over the line in the past. In 2000, Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, said the advertisements run against him by George W. Bush, then the governor of Texas, distorted his record. But he has hired three members of the team that made those commercials — Mark McKinnon, Russell Schriefer and Stuart Stevens — to work on his presidential campaign.

In 2004, Mr. McCain said the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advertisement asserting that Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts had not properly earned his medals from the Vietnam War was “dishonest and dishonorable.” Nonetheless, he has hired the firm that made the spots, Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm, which worked on his 2000 campaign, to work for him again this year. In October, Mr. McCain’s top adviser expressed public displeasure with an advertisement against former Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., Democrat of Tennessee, that some saw as having racist overtones for suggesting a flirtation between Mr. Ford, who is black, and a young, bare-shouldered white woman, played by a blond actress. The Republican committee that sponsored the spot had as its leader Terry Nelson, a former Bush campaign strategist whom Mr. McCain hired as an adviser last spring. In December, just weeks after the Ford controversy broke, Mr. McCain elevated Mr. Nelson to the position of national campaign manager.

He’s a man of class, but he doesn’t have the market on it cornered, no sir, because Rudy Giuliani says there’s a “good chance” he’ll run for President in 2008. I say, there’s a good chance they both lose. I’ll reiterate: neither of them will have much traction in 2008, if my estimates are accurate. McCain might, I’ll concede, but I’ll eat my blog if Rudy Giuliani goes anywhere in the Primaries.

To more pleasant news! Al Gore will be testifying before Congress about Global Warming, soon. On March twenty first. That is great news, and it does my heart well to hear.

Briefly: orange snow is coming down on Russia. I wish it were, simply, an endorsement of the Ukrainian from God. Unfortunately, it’s probably the result of environmental abuse. I’ll try to keep up with this story in the coming weeks to see what’s revealed.

Onto American politics: I appreciate Dennis Kucinich. He’s not a man I would consider voting into the Presidency, but he’s a good man and a smart man. That’s all you can really ask of a politician. I came across this article today, and I must say, my appreciation of Dennis Kucinich just rose. In his latest bid for the Presidency, Kucinich has spent less than four hundred dollars and isn’t likely to raise too much more than that as the cycle heats up. What I admire is that Dennis understands that he won’t win and doesn’t attempt to con anyone into feeding his political machine like some fringe candidates have done in the past. He raises enough to get on the ballot, he speaks candidly and brings attention to his issues. It’s definitely something to admire, because it does a service to the electoral process even when he’s wrong.

Rick Perry of Texas, who is one of my least favorite politicians in America, has done something very right, and that is: this.

Bypassing the Legislature altogether, Republican Gov. Rick Perry issued an order Friday making Texas the first state to require that schoolgirls get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. By employing an executive order, Perry sidestepped opposition in the Legislature from conservatives and parents’ rights groups who fear such a requirement would condone premarital sex and interfere with the way Texans raise their children. Beginning in September 2008, girls entering the sixth grade — meaning, generally, girls ages 11 and 12 — will have to receive Gardasil, Merck & Co.’s new vaccine against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV.

Perry also directed state health authorities to make the vaccine available free to girls 9 to 18 who are uninsured or whose insurance does not cover vaccines. In addition, he ordered that Medicaid offer Gardasil to women ages 19 to 21. Perry, a conservative Christian who opposes abortion and stem-cell research using embryonic cells, counts on the religious right for his political base. But he has said the cervical cancer vaccine is no different from the one that protects children against polio. “The HPV vaccine provides us with an incredible opportunity to effectively target and prevent cervical cancer,” Perry said.

That’s right on. Just like, when an AIDS Vaccine is finally created, it should be Law that everybody receive it. (Which isn’t an endorsement of Outing AIDS victims, before anyone tries to stretch my view on vaccinations.) Just like polio, just like hepatitis. I applaud Perry for taking this decisive action, even if there is some talk that lobbyists made him do it. Even if they did, it’s still a great thing to do, and it’s classy on his part to put the poor front and center and assure that they have access to this.

Texan politics aside, let’s go to Brazile, where the word is that Al Gore might run for President if he wins an Oscar. I doubt it, and I know he won’t announce for the Presidency in his Victory Speech, but it’d be very interesting if Al Gore were catapulted into the race by the momentum of movies.

This race looks like 1968 more and more by the day. I can only hope for Al Gore to be Richard Nixon without the Nixon.

General Casey in Iraq should lose his job. He’s been consistently wrong, like the President, and deserves punishment as a result (Bush should lose his job, too). Today he’s saying, “only half of the troop boost is needed,” and the truth is that Casey is no longer needed. New blood is, and he should step down. (I’m not necessarily endorsing Casey’s plan or rejecting it. I’m rejecting him, because he has been doing nothing with less and for him to ever suggest that he can do more with less makes me feel as if my intelligence has been insulted.)

Henry Kissinger is talking about Bush having a “secret plan” to win in Iraq. Damn. I can’t believe he’s not in a prison right now. If not for War Crimes then for being smug enough, and slimey enough, to face the American public and tell them that any President has a secret plan to end any war. That’s bullshit.