Obama speech endorsing indefinite detentions for "preventive" purposes...

Rachel Maddow is a very liberal political commentator on MSNBC who typically gives Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt on everything he says/does. However, in her reporting of President Obama's speech at the National Archives in late May regarding President Bush's "ad hoc legal framework" for indefinite detentions of POWs at Guantanamo Bay she does her fellow liberals, and all Americans for that matter, a great service by reading through Obama's B.S.  

In his speech, after artfully chastising the Bush Administration's alledgedly unconstitutional policies, the president argues for establishing what amounts to an ad hoc legal framework for PREVENTIVE INDEFINITE DETENTIONS!! The only real distinction between Bush's policy and Obama's would be that Bush detained indefinitely for crimes committed, while Obama would indefinitely detain for crimes to be committed one day. Watch this video and hear it from straight from Maddow herself...

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Would Bill Clinton be his wife's Chief of Staff? Would that even be Constitutional?

My recent posting about Bubba's new girlfriend has led me to consider more seriously the implications of another Clinton White House, particularly the role that would be played by the former Commander-in-Chief, President Bill Clinton, who would be in a position to exert significant influence over every administration policy, both foreign and domestic. Though I do not think that Hillary Clinton is going to win (or at least I pray daily this is an accurate prediction) I find some comfort in the fact that Bill would likely view his wife's Administration as a vehicle for repairing his own tarnished legacy and would be inclined to take an active role in the policy-making process. But the more I thought about how a Clinton White House would be structured, considering the clear ambiguity and possible conflict of interest that Clinton loyalists may encounter if a situation arose which Bill may think his wife to be misguided, and thus start issuing orders behind the scenes as if he were still the man of the house. Certainly this wouldn't be a problem- but wait, what if Bill was Hillary's Chief of Staff? Essentially, if he were White House Chief of Staff, Bill might as well be President, since it is widely understood that the day to day business of the Federal government is managed by the president's chief aide. Would this be a violation of the Constitutional amendment limiting the president's two terms in office?

Probably, but it is about time America came to terms with the absurdity of such limitations on the greatest among us, who are unfortunate enough to reach the pinnacle of professional and political accomplishment before most of their peers have even been promoted beyond middle-management. It is sad to see Bill Clinton, so young and so brilliant, but because of the deceptive methods of FDR during an age when the media could be bullied into self-censoring, thus removing from the public record any evidence of his physical handicap and chronic illness. In an age when men can reach great heights before the noon hour of their lives, and the uber-transparent nature of the mainstream media has essentially rebuilt the White House with Saran Wrap, why should we place arbitrary limits on that man's (or woman's) accomplishments. Any country that willingly lays waste to their greatest minds deserves the incompetence they inherit.

Tags: Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, 2008 Election, Twenty-second Amendment, Term Limits, White House, FDR, Constitutional Issues, Road to the White House

I'll trade you one Pryor, for a Hagel and a Smith...

In a flagrant and irresponsible move, the Senate voted on Tuesday along party lines (with two exceptions on the GOP side of the aisle and one on the left, which I alluded to in the title of this post and will expound upon below) to reject an amendment put forth by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to strike from the military appropriations bill language which calls for a time certain withdrawal of troops from Iraq, setting the target date for combat troop redeployment of March 2008, one year from this month and smack-dab in the middle of the presidential primaries all around the country. Essentially, the vote is a populist driven distortion of the Senate's true constitutional function, marking an overt attempt by the governing majority to impose a change in national foreign policy on the sitting president. Nearly 250 years of American involvement in global affairs, particularly matters of war, have been managed solely by the White House, with oversight and allocation of funding reserved as the main function of the Senate, but to attach an amendment that flies in the face of Executive authority, and if signed into law would radically alter and limit the president's ability to wage the battle in Baghdad, has me puzzled in almost every way.

The democrats are clearly governing based on the polls they have been reading in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, while still riding high after their resounding victory in the midterm elections, and sense that by forcing the president's hand early in the game they will be able to shape the debate in the lead-up to next years presidential election. Clearly the kool-aid being spewed by the Bush-bashing correspondents on MSNBC and CNN, not to mention the doubly potent elixir pompous finger-pointing pundits at the New York Times (yes Mr. Friedmann, I mean you) have been regurgitating since they decided to turn their backs on a situation in the Middle East that they are largely intellectually responsible for, has been happily lapped up by ignorant Democratic freshman and otherwise more reasoned Senate veterans alike.

Anyone who listens to the speeches given by Democratic Senators both on the floor of the Senate chamber and on the campaign trail, and actually possessed half a brain cell that they devoted to reasoned analysis, would probably find such a bold move away from fighting the "insurgents" in favor of retreating to safer ground to be confusing at best, dishonorable for sure. But more on this in a subsequent post...

Democratic Profile in Courage: Senator Pryor Casts Lone Ray of Optimism Amid Partisan Pandering

One profile in courage that I cannot go without noting (but likely to be overlooked by the folks at the Kennedy Presidential Library when they decide whom to award this designation to at their annual gala in honor of the former-president's graduate thesis at Harvard on similarly bold and courageous lawmakers unafraid of standing up to their political superiors in the name of pride and moral duty) was that of Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR). In defiance of his caucus and without much being made of it amongst the talking heads, Pryor voted for the second time in as many weeks to reject a democratic led constitutional coup, and voted his conscience. The MSNBC producers were so confused by his vote that they improperly branded the charismatic and clearheaded Democrat a Republican during much of their coverage on Tuesday when they showed his photo during discussion of the impending vote! I found this particularly surprising considering they never failed to highlight his party allegiance when he was leading the charge against the attorney general for the previous two weeks, but that story has been moved from the headlines to Page 2 (maybe 3 or 4) for the time being; though I am confident it will be back, along with the capital D after Pryor's name in no time.

Bravo Senator Pryor; I commend your principled approach to your duties as a public servant, and I guess I can give you a pass for leading the unjustified and slanderous witch hunt against Alberto Gonzales (as long as you don't buckle under pressure when the time comes to vote on this measure again once Dubya has exercised his veto power when this bill reaches his desk later in the week).

Two Republicans Succumb to Opportunistic Impulse and Disgracefully Cast Deciding Votes with Democrats

Unfortunately, Senator Pryor's courage will never emerge from beneath the national political radar because of the reckless and opportunistic decisions of Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) and Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE; left) to undermine their party's otherwise unified attempt to salvage the Senate's collective dignity and avoid delaying the much needed funding allocated in the DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS BILL. Voting along with his less than dignified colleagues on the left side of the aisle, Hagel is likely betting his chances on ever seeing the Oval Office from any other perspective than that of a humble guest on his clearly politically calculated vote yesterday, though I doubt Senator Reid is eager to share any of the dubious credit the media is eagerly looking to shower on the emboldened Senate radicals. On his Congressional website Smith gives his brief policy position on Defense and Foreign Policy, which reads as follows:

The American military and our foreign policy have a long history of benefitting not only our citizens, but also countless millions of people throughout the world. Our policies deter nuclear proliferation, fight terrorism, battle disease, and opens new markets by spreading free market and democratic values abroad.

The United States is the greatest humanitarian nation in the world, contributing assistance to some 150 countries worldwide. As you know, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, we have given millions of dollars to non-governmental organizations all over the world through a multitude of programs, fostering positive change and touching the lives of countless individuals.

Maintaining our global leadership in these areas also brings us great rewards – democratic allies and a safer world in which the U.S. and other nations can prosper.

Needless to say, the Senator's vote hardly reflects the principles he chooses to espouse rhetorically for casual observers, any of whom would have been unlikely to guess accurately how Smith would have voted on Tuesday after reading this brief statement, which gives an ambiguous and idealistic view of the role that America should play in global affairs. Shame on you Senator Smith, and you as well Senator Hagel; may you both lose your re-elections in the most embarrassing and humiliating fashions possible. If only we (Republicans) could trade your lame-asses for the brass balls and conviction of Senator Pryor; for I am confident in asserting that the country, our troops and the ideals of American leadership which you both dishonorably pay false homage to would be better off if that swap were made.

I will curtail my ranting before I scare away anymore readers, but I could go on forever. Several questions that I have been muttering to myself for the past few hours (to the chagrin of my girlfriend who is working diligently on her law school paper a few feet away from me) will likely produce a series of outbursts as the day wears on. Among the more perplexing are: Who is advising the democrats on which issues are worth the risk of alienating their moderate base? Where the hell was Senator Enzi? How can Bush effectively turn the tables on the Democrats when he presents his case for vetoing this measure (answer likely to follow shortly)? What is going to be the national/international reaction to this largely symbolic, though historic bill? When is the country going to start cutting through the crap? Like I said, I could rant for hours and thousands upon thousands of more words. For now, I will reflect...

Tags: 2008 Election, Senate, Democrats, Republican Party, American Politics, Fools, Washington DC, Constitutional Issues, Iraq, MSNBC, Politics, Primary Season, Road to the White House, US Foreign Policy, The Presidency, Troop Withdrawal, Bush, Chuck Hagel, Gordon Smith, Mark Pryor, Harry Reid

What would a "not guilty" verdict in Libby trial mean for the mainstream media?

It is difficult to watch media coverage, mainstream or otherwise, of the ongoing Scooter Libby trial without coming out of the experience with the overwhelming impression that Libby must be guilty of something. For months now, ever since the Time Magazine and New York Times reporters were tossed in jail for refusing to expose their source when ordered by a federal judge, the media has been convulsing before our eyes. No rational observer would contend that Libby, or Vice President Cheney for that matter, have been given the respect deserved of the nation's executive branch officials either during the investigation by US attorney Patrick Fitzgerald or during the lead-up to and during the trial proceedings.....

This case has fascinated me since the day Joesph Wilson wrote is ridiculous op-ed piece in the New York Times accusing George W. Bush of distorting the intelligence report he filed with the Vice President's office upon returning from the fact finding trip to Niger that his wife so kindly volunteered him for while working "clandestinely" in Langley, Virginia, behind a desk at CIA headquarters. Interestingly, Wilson accused the president of falsely asserting in his now famous 18-words during his 2002 State of the Union speech, that Iraq had "purchased" yellow-cake uranium from Niger. He would have been correct, if in fact that was what the president said, but as we have all seen and heard over and over and over again, Bush's exact words were, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." In a simple Google search I discovered a timeline published by the BBC which lists the statements made by British intelligence, the US president and his then National Security Adviser Condolezza Rice, IAEA nuclear inspector Mohammed El-Baradi, Ambassador Wilson, then CIA director George Tenet and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair among others regarding the accuracy and basis of this assertion. They are listed as follows...

• 24 September 2002- "There is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Iraq has no active civilian nuclear power programme or nuclear power plants and therefore has no legitimate reason to acquire uranium." (Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The assessment of the British Government)

• 28 January 2003- "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." (US President George W Bush's State of the Union address)

• 7 March 2003- "Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents - which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger - are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded." (UN nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei's report to the UN Security Council)

• 3 July 2003- "It is very odd indeed that the Government asserts that it was not relying on the evidence which has since been shown to have been forged but that eight months later it is still reviewing the other evidence... We recommend that the Government explain on what evidence it relied for its judgement in September that Iraq had recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. We further recommend that in its response to this Report the Government set out whether it still considers the September dossier to be accurate in what it states about Iraq's attempts to procure uranium from Africa in the light of subsequent events." (House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report)

• 6 July 2003- "It was highly doubtful that any such (Niger-Iraq) transaction had ever taken place."- (Wilson writing in the New York Times in February 2002)
  

• 8 July 2003- "The president's statement was based on the predicate of the yellow cake [uranium] from Niger. So given the fact that the report on the yellow cake did not turn out to be accurate, that is reflective of the president's broader statement." (White House spokesman Ari Fleischer)

• 8 July 2003- "The evidence that we had that the Iraqi Government had gone back to try to purchase further amounts of uranium from Niger did not come from these so-called "forged" documents, they came from separate intelligence." (British Prime Minister Tony Blair testimony to the House of Commons Liaison Committee)

• 11 July 2003- "The CIA cleared the speech in its entirety... Some specifics about amount and place were taken out. With the changes in that sentence, the speech was cleared. The agency did not say they wanted that sentence out. If the CIA - the director of central intelligence - had said "Take this out of the speech," it would have been gone. We have a high standard for the president's speeches." (National security adviser Condoleezza Rice on US President George W Bush's State of the Union address)

• 11 July 2003- "These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president. The president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound. I am responsible for the approval process in my agency." (CIA Director George Tenet)

• 12 July 2003- "The CIA expressed reservations to us about this element of the September dossier... However, the US comment was unsupported by explanation and UK officials were confident that the dossier's statement was based on reliable intelligence which we had not shared with the US... A judgement was therefore made to retain it." (UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in a letter to Donald Anderson MP, Chair of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee)
  

To quote one of my favorite Sesame Street skits, "Which one of these is not like the others, which one of these just doesn't belong?" For those of you out there who excelled at this section of the SATs, I assume it was pretty easy to single out the assertion of former-Ambassador Wilson that it was "highly doubtful that any such transaction ever took place." Once again I return to my trusty Google companion to find out what impact Wilson's statements may have had on the inclusion of that controversial assertion made by the president, and sure enough, an article posted on factcheck.org, under the title, Bush's "16 Words" on Iraq & Uranium: He May Have Been Wrong, But He Wasn't Lying, it became clear that Wilson had in fact given credibility to intelligence gathered from other sources that in 1999 an Iraqi delegation had traveled to Niger and it was the impression of the Nigerian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki that they were obviously intent on purchasing Uranium from his country. Additionally, the Ambassadors oft cited assertion that his trip had been the primary basis of the president's comments is also easily rejected in the web-site's article, which cites both the 2003 Senate Intelligence Report and the UK's Butler Report (equivalent), both of which claim that the president's statement had been entirely consistent with intelligence gathered and confirmed regarding Iraqi contacts with Niger, as well as with Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The reason I have taken the effort to thoroughly discredit the Ambassador again is because if you watch the media reports on Scooter Libby's trial it would be entirely reasonable to conclude that the president had in fact lied and his administration had, upon being outed by Wilson, embarked on a mission to destroy not only Wilson's reputation and credibility, but that of his "covert" wife too.

When I was working in Washington as an intern, I went to watch a lecture and Q & A session with Sam Donaldson, former-host of Dateline. For the most part, his talk was engaging and his demeanor pleasant- but then he started talking about the Judith Miller situation. Miller was facing serious jail time if she refused to come forward with the name of her source in the White House, and Donaldson was noticeably disgruntled. His rant was soaking with self-righteousness, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt, because I assumed he had once hidden behind such journalistic privilege and had spoken with Miller about the situation and trusted in her journalistic integrity. Then it became aware to everyone in subsequent weeks and months that Donaldson, and pretty much every other big name journalist and editor, could not have cared less about Miller, who in fact went to jail, and were ready to sell her up the river based on (hilariously) her reporting of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq War.

A simple search of Google News will yield proof that the media is biased beyond humility, and equally as opportunistic as the embarrassingly unprofessional legislators on both sides of the aisle. I have previously cited my feeling that history will look upon this generation of civil servants to be particularly unenlightened and driven by opportunistic impulsiveness, but how will we look back on the media?

Don Imus seriously considered the possibility that the members of the mainstream media may have lied under oath, and his buddies at NBC, Andrea Mitchell and Tim Russert, are in the center of the storm. I have a feeling that the Imus Show is right on the money, even though they have already risen Russert to the producer's studio this morning to have Imus sound little bit more like he is kidding, as the translation of his sarcasm is sometimes that it was not in fact sarcasm.

What if this whole experience, which has been given little, if any, serious thought and reflection since it began following Ambassador Wilson's editorial in the New York Times, comes full circle? What if in the end Libby gets off? My guess is that it would be a hard pill for Chris Matthews to swallow. I expect that "they" would immediately jump to a defensive posture, with Matthews screaming about injustice. I would not put it past the Gonzalez justice department to file perjury charges against the Meet the Press host, for they have already proven by taking the case this far that they are serious about the problem (or at least making sure that somebody takes the fall for it).

The Donald fined $1250 per day in Palm Beach for flying Stars and Stripes?

Related Google News Links

The Donald Trump has taken leave from his bitching and dissing match with Rosie O'Donnell to take on an even more disturbingly ignorant and disgusting bully, the Palm Beach municipal government. Apparently, the prissy Palm Beach zoning board, or whomever is responsible for this disgraceful campaign against The Donald, has decided that he is flying the American flag too high at his ocean front club Mar-a-Lago. As a reprimand, they have been fining the billionare television personality $1250 per day until he lowers it to meet their specifications. Predictably, The Donald has gone prime time with his grievances and issued a lawsuit to the tune of $25 million, I guess for emotional damages.

My only question is: Do these people own a television set? Even those of us who hate reality TV and think that Extra kills more brain cells than a heroin overdose, know that The Donald has been engaged in a petty war with daytime talk show personality and former-tomboy actress turned lesbian activist Rosie O'Donnell for weeks. Did they maybe think they could make a quick buck by slipping under The Donald's radar and ultimately becoming a marginal inconvenience. Whoops.

Meanwhile, The Donald sips his latte and swims in his money (think Scrooge McDuck) while watching his show in fifty different languages and munching on caviar...