After hearing that the Joint Chiefs of Staff have now decided to formally address their warlordly displeasure at civilian cartoonists who publish a cartoon critical of Rummy the Infallible in a civilian newspaper, I feel like just writing a long post about how they should mind their own [Cheney]ing business. Censoring political cartoons ain't part of it. Hey, aren't you losing a war in Mesopotamia or somewhere that you maybe ought to be paying more attention to than to the Great Rummy's public image?
Well, it goes along with the ejection of Cindy Sheehan and a conservative Republican who were thought to have inappropriate shirts that might embarass our Dear Leader Bush last night, I suppose.
Maybe the Bush team is going on the theory on which they keep insisting that The Terrorists "hate us for our freedoms". So if we get rid of our freedoms, The Terrorists won't hate us any more, now will they?
But for now, I was going to say more about Tuesday evening's SOTU.
I'm very skeptical about what Bush will actually do on promoting "energy independence". Promoting nuclear power is one thing he mentioned, which presents some very challenging side-effects of its own. And conservation is clearly not part of Bush's picture.
His vapid declarations that we will fight on to victory in Iraq sound more strange every time he makes them. Especially now that we know from recent news reports that the US is actively negotiating with the Sunni resistance groups for some kind of settlement. That's got the Shi'a-dominated Iraqi government we installed pretty upset. An outright break with the current Iraqi regime is by no means unthinkable. The diplomatic historian Gareth Porter, looking at the latest developments, wrote a couple of days ago, "The worst crises for U.S. policy in Iraq are still to come."
Then Bush repeated the current Republican Party line of demonizing critics of the war by calling such criticism "defeatism". It's Bush whose plans for victory in Iraq have failed so that it will take considerably imagination to call the eventual outcome "victory".
And then in tendentiously defending his warrantless domestic spying program, he asserted his claim (in legal code) that the President can break any law he chooses as long as he says he's doing so to protect national security. This is, so far as anything I've ever seen, a truly unprecedented claim of broad Presidential powers. Actually, it's a claim of unlimited Presidential power.
Congress should stop worrying about ritual clapping at tired platitudes and more about getting the US out of the Iraq War and putting a stop to the President's open defiance of the law.
And shouldn't Congress start asking some hard questions about stuff like this. Bush:
Abroad, our nation is committed to an historic, long-term goal - we seek the end of tyranny in our world. Some dismiss that goal as misguided idealism. In reality, the future security of America depends on it. On September the 11th, 2001, we found that problems originating in a failed and oppressive state 7,000 miles away could bring murder and destruction to our country. Dictatorships shelter terrorists, and feed resentment and radicalism, and seek weapons of mass destruction. Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror. Every step toward freedom in the world makes our country safer - so we will act boldly in freedom's cause.
Hey, I like gushy platitudes, too. They are especially appropriate if you're having a couple of drinks and watching Second World War documentaries on the History Channel late at night. Just what does it mean in terms of money to be spent and lives to be lost in war to say that America will "act boldly" to bring "the end of tyranny in our world"? I'm guessing that most Americans would be satisfied if our cartoon-censoring generals could prevent a few guys armed with box-cutters from slamming planes into tall buildings in New York - oh, and their own world headquarters at the Pentagon, too.
Then maybe a couple of centuries from now the country can take up wars of liberation again to change all the regimes in the world we might not particularly admire.
And no one expects the SOTU to be some detailed analytical discourse on problems. But this kind of Polyanna picture of things, which surerly even most Republican members of Congress must know at some level is bogus, is just not a meaningful description of what's happening:
We remain on the offensive in Afghanistan, where a fine President and a National Assembly are fighting terror while building the institutions of a new democracy. We're on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory. First, we're helping Iraqis build an inclusive government, so that old resentments will be eased and the insurgency will be marginalized.
Second, we're continuing reconstruction efforts, and helping the Iraqi government to fight corruption and build a modern economy, so all Iraqis can experience the benefits of freedom. And, third, we're striking terrorist targets while we train Iraqi forces that are increasingly capable of defeating the enemy. Iraqis are showing their courage every day, and we are proud to be their allies in the cause of freedom.
And did anyone else think it was strange to hear Bush call for the "line-item veto"? That was one of the features of Newt Gingrinch's Contract for America that the Republican House elected in 1994 actually followed through and enacted. And the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. Does Bush know something from his private conversations with Roberts and Alito that he isn't sharing with us?
Robert Dreyfuss harshes on the Democrats at his blog for trying to sidestep the Iraq War on Tuesday: Dems AWOL on Iraq 02/01/06.
He writes:
A one-sentence quote from today’s New York Times says it all. Referring to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who spoke in advance of Bush’s speech, the Times noted: "The Congressional leaders steered clear of the Iraq war in their remarks before the speech."
That is, they "steered clear" of the central focus on the Bush administration’s tenure and the heart of Bush’s speech last night.
He goes on to say the Democrats need their own "solution for Iraq". I'm not sure to what extent that is true. I would much prefer to see them take a position of getting out soonerthan later. But what's the point of offering up speculative proposals about possible negotiated settlements and the like when Bush is still talking about fighting on to Victory, whatever that may mean in FOXLand?
Bill Adair of the St. Petersburg Times is very skeptical about Bush's talk on developing energy independence in Nation is too hungry for oil 02/01/06.
But talk is cheap. Will Bush put the force of his presidency behind the energy proposals? He has proven he can be effective on issues he cares deeply about - Iraq, tax cuts, the war on terrorism. He has been less effective on domestic initiatives that don't mesh easily with his fundamental beliefs in freedom, cutting taxes and reducing regulation.
Remember his 2004 proposal to go to the moon and Mars? He has said little about it since then.
His comments about oil addiction may ring hollow with many Americans. Bush not only comes from an oil family (his White House bio boasts that he owned an oil and gas company), but his administration has boosted the oil industry at every turn. With Exxon reporting a $36-billion profit for last year, many people will wonder if he sincerely wants to break an addiction that puts food on the Bush dinner table.
His administration has never been gung-ho about conserving energy. When fuel prices skyrocketed last year, Bush raised the White House thermostats but offered only tepid support for conservation. In 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney said, "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it cannot be the basis of a sound energy policy."
That's same paper's editorial on the speech, State of the Union 02/01/06, said:
In laying out a modest domestic agenda, Bush called for the development of alternative energy sources to lessen our "addiction" to foreign oil. But his own addiction to tax cuts is unbroken. The president again called on Congress to make his first-term tax cuts permanent. So much for deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility.
Health care ranks as the top priority of most Americans, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. Yet Bush had little to offer on that issue except tax incentives for individual medical savings accounts that would be beyond the means of many of the 46-million uninsured Americans. There is no money for big second-term initiatives because the war, homeland security, the Katrina disaster, an expensive Medicare drug benefit and tax cuts have left the government drowning in red ink and the president and the Congress with little room to maneuver on spending. ...
The president who stood before Congress Tuesday night was the weakest sixth-year chief executive (his approval rating is hovering around 40 percent) since Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal. Congressional Republicans are no longer cowed by Bush and are breaking ranks with the White House on issues such as immigration and deficit spending.
Americans want not only a change of course but a change in the way Bush governs - less partisan, more realistic, less arrogant.
Yeah, I'd like to date Nastassja Kinski, too. But even aside from what my wife would have to say about it, it just ain't gonna happen.
Peter Wallsten and Maura Reynolds in the Los Angeles Times argue that Bush Stretches to Defend Surveillance: The president's justification for his spy program has disputable roots, as do some of the facts and figures he put forth in his speech 02/01/06:
Defending the surveillance program as crucial in a time of war, Bush said that "previous presidents have used the same constitutional authority" that he did. "And," he added, "federal courts have approved the use of that authority."
Bush did not name names, but was apparently reiterating the argument offered earlier this month by Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, who invoked Presidents Lincoln, Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt for their use of executive authority.
However, warrantless surveillance within the United States for national security purposes was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 — long after Lincoln, Wilson and Roosevelt stopped issuing orders. That led to the 1978 passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that Bush essentially bypassed in authorizing the program after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Since the surveillance law was enacted, establishing secret courts to approve surveillance, "the Supreme Court has not touched this issue in the area of national security," said William Banks, a national security expert at Syracuse Law School.
"He might be speaking in the broadest possible sense about the president exercising his authority as commander-in-chief to conduct a war, which of course federal courts have upheld since the beginning of the nation," Banks said. "If he was talking more particularly about the use of warrantless surveillance, then he is wrong."
That's a reporter's way of saying, "Bush was just lying again".
Next to the war in Iraq that Bush initiated in defiance of the Congressional war resolution of October 2002 and of well-established international law, Bush's claim to unlimited discretion to disobey laws under the bogus "unitary executive theory" is the most serious Constitutional issue facing the country right now. And it's on the illegal program to spy on Americans without warrants that he's making the fight to establish that principle.
Louisiana's elected officials - amazingly, even including their one Republican Senator! - weren't so impressed with the SOTU - Bush doesn't get it, Landrieu says by Bruce Alpert New Orleans Times-Picayune 02/01/06:
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said she doesn't sense that the president grasps the magnitude of the problems on the Gulf Coast by devoting only one short paragraph to Katrina recovery.
"Unfortunately, we didn't get what we were hoping for -- or expecting, but we are going to press on because we need this president to be our champion, not our critic," Landrieu said. ...
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said that he, too, wished Bush had devoted more time to Hurricane Katrina.
"I would say it was a very strong and powerful speech, if only I could black out all the problems facing Louisiana and the Gulf Coast," Vitter said. "I was very disappointed at how small a part those national challenges -- and I think they are national challenges -- were given in the speech."
Dick Polman of the Philadelphia Inquirer found the SOTU fact-challenged in more ways than one. Keeping pesky facts out of it 02/01/06:
Bush defended his warrantless-surveillance program, contending that "appropriate members of Congress have been kept informed." But a legal analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has faulted Bush for not seeking to inform the full membership of the House and Senate intelligence committees - thereby acting in a manner "inconsistent with the law."
Bush said that the same kind of program might have prevented 9/11; as he put it: "We now know that two of the hijackers in the United States placed telephone calls to al-Qaeda operatives overseas... . We did not know about their plans until it was too late." But the bipartisan 9/11 commission concluded in its report that intelligence officials had amassed plenty of information on those future hijackers, and had failed to act only because of turf wars and bureaucratic inertia. ...
Bush lauded his reconstruction program for New Orleans ("a hopeful society comes to the aid of fellow citizens") but didn't mention that the White House response to Katrina was facing multiple probes. A House Republican investigator has already cited "a disturbing inability by the White House to de-conflict and analyze information - and that had consequences." Meanwhile, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office today is releasing a report that faults Bush's team for a failed leadership, one which "serves to underscore the immaturity of and weaknesses relating to the current national response framework."
Reaction by Mississippi's members of Congress understandably focused on Gulf Coast recovery. The following quotes give a good glimpse of the drawbacks of the common assumption among Mississippi voters that electing Republicans to Congress will somehow give the state extra clout with a Republican President. The Republicans quoted here sure sound like they are muting their demands for more support and faster action on Coast reconstruction out of Party loyalty - Bush offers few aid details:Hurricane recovery mentioned only briefly near end of speech Jackson Clarion-Ledger 02/01/06:
... 4th District Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., was critical of how Bush handled the Katrina issue. "As a south Mississippian, I was disappointed about how little of his hour-long speech was devoted to Hurricane Katrina and its effects on the people of south Mississippi," Taylor said.
"On behalf of the 10,000 people who are still waiting for a (Federal Emergency Management Agency) trailer, I was hoping he would address what deficiencies could be fixed, but I didn't hear that." ...
Like many Republicans, 3rd District Rep. Chip Pickering, R-Miss., said he liked Bush's message.
Pickering said the president "described an agenda of energy security, free market health care, fiscal discipline, economic expansion, national security and a commitment to policies to help not only us in Mississippi rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina but those across the country."
First District Rep. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said the president had "the right message for the economy" by saying he wanted to keep taxes low and American industries competitive. But Wicker also said Coast lawmakers were at the forefront of recovery efforts, not the White House.
From an editorial in the New Oleans weekly The Gambit Wrong-headed Decision: We challenge the White House to propose a detailed, specific plan for averting a housing and mortgage crisis in Louisiana 01/31/06 on an important feature of the current debate over rebuilding New Orleans, the Baker Bill (unfortunately this doesn't appear to be a permalink):
Everyone agrees that after flood protection, housing is one of the top priorities of the recovery. The Baker Bill, introduced by U.S. Rep. Richard Baker of Baton Rouge, would establish an entity called the Louisiana Recovery Corporation as a means of providing financial stability to property owners as well as lenders. The bill would authorize the LRC to sell federal bonds and use the revenue to buy flood-damaged homes and pay off mortgages. Homeowners' participation would be strictly voluntary, and all LRC aid would be capped at 60 percent of pre-storm equity, minus insurance proceeds. The measure passed a House committee in December, but stalled just before Christmas. Congressman Baker was in the process of renewing his push for the bill when the president pulled the rug out from under it. Worse yet, the president has offered no realistic alternatives.
In opposing the Baker Bill, the president suggested that Louisiana look to $6.2 billion in Community Development Block Grants as a source of housing money, and then apply to the feds for specific grants to address other areas of need. That is wholly unrealistic for several reasons. First, while that CDBG program is are very flexible, some of that money was already going to be used for housing needs. More important, the grant's $6.2 billion total is nowhere near enough to take care of the more than 200,000 homes damaged or destroyed by Katrina and Rita. It would provide, with no allowance for administrative costs, only $31,000 per home -- and that's supposed to give property owners some of their lost equity AND retire the mortgage. Gov. Kathleen Blanco says the CDBG monies would take care of only one in 10 adversely affected property owners in Louisiana.
Bush is still doing a heckuva job on the Katrina aftermath. As we knew he would.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's Spanish-language response for the Democrats was very good. Definitely better than Tim Kaine's lackluster English response. There are Spanish and English transcripts at the Party's Democrats.org site.
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