October 2005 Archives

At least, as TalkLeft reminds us, that is what then Governor George W. Bush thought in June 1999.

Will we soon learn that such a standard only exists for Democratic presidents?

Looking over at the counter on the left side of this page, I see that it has now been 1,500 days since President George W. Bush promised to get Osama bin Laden -- you know, the man responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks -- "dead or alive."

Wow. As a repenting former College Republican, I am rarely surprised by the stunts politically active college students can pull.

The rhetoric at my alma mater, Bowdoin College, can get overheated really quickly. Of course, that's the nature of politics on a college campus.

But I am stunned by this pathetic attack by the leader of the Maine College Republicans. An attack on a fellow student. Someone who just happens to be a Marine reservist who just learned that he is going to deployed to Iraq in December.

Why the attack? Because the Marine in question happens to be a leading state and national College Democrat.

Politics you know.

Senior Cornell du Houx is the co-director of the Maine College Democrats and the development director for the College Democrats of America. He has also been a Marine reservist since high school. Du Houx is a sharp critic of this war. But, as he tells the Brunswick Times Record (the local daily paper):

"Regardless of my opinions regarding the war in Iraq, it is my duty as a U.S. Marine to serve and I am ready and willing to do my job to its fullest extent."

Why, one of the Bowdoin College Republican leaders, of course! Daniel Schuberth, who is the College Republican National Secretary, can't just thank du Houx for serving his country. No, he has to question du Houx's sanity and patriotism:

"I applaud Mr. Houx for his service, just as I applaud any other soldier who is brave enough to take up arms in defense of his country. I find it troubling, however, that one of the most vocal opponents of our president, our country and our mission in Iraq has chosen to fight for a cause he claims is wrong. Mr. Houx's rhetoric against the war on terror places him in agreement with the most radical fringes of the Democratic Party, and I am left to question his logic and motivation."

Meanwhile, I note that there is no evidence that Schuberth is planning on backing up his rhetoric by volunteering to serve our forces.

So, when it comes to questioning logic and motivation, I would suggest that Schuberth look into the closest mirror. There is nothing patriotic about questioning the motivations of one of our Marines.

Perhaps Mr. Schuberth will one day learn that some things are more important than cheap political stunts and rhetoric.

After all, we now know that more than 2,000 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq.

And you can see just how upset they are at WithdrawMiers.org.

Based on the list of people and organizations being compiled at this web site, the president seems to have a growing problem along his right flank.

The New York Daily News today has a story that indicates that President Bush is having accountability moments for his current troubles -- for everyone but himself. Thomas M. DeFrank reports:

"The President is just unhappy in general and casting blame all about," said one Bush insider. "Andy [Card, the chief of staff] gets his share. Karl gets his share. Even Cheney gets his share. And the press gets a big share."

The vice president remains Bush's most trusted political confidant. Even so, the Daily News has learned Bush has told associates Cheney was overly involved in intelligence issues in the runup to the Iraq war that have been seized on by Bush critics.

Bush is so dismayed that "the only person escaping blame is the President himself," said a sympathetic official, who delicately termed such self-exoneration "illogical."

As he titles his post, this is double plus ungood.

(Hat tip: War and Piece.)

I remember when perjury was considered an impeachable offense, but now it is apparently just a technicality.

Maureen Dowd joins the debate about New York Times reporter Judith Miller with a column that is rightly critical of Miller and the New York Times top editors.

An Associated Press story yesterday reported that Judy had coughed up the details of an earlier meeting with Mr. Libby only after prosecutors confronted her with a visitor log showing that she had met with him on June 23, 2003. This cagey confusion is what makes people wonder whether her stint in the Alexandria jail was in part a career rehabilitation project.

Judy is refusing to answer a lot of questions put to her by Times reporters, or show the notes that she shared with the grand jury. I admire Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Bill Keller for aggressively backing reporters in the cross hairs of a prosecutor. But before turning Judy's case into a First Amendment battle, they should have nailed her to a chair and extracted the entire story of her escapade.

In case you missed it, the National Debt of the United States of America exceeded eight trillion for the first time in our history earlier this week.

That's right. We ended October 18 with a national debt of $8,003,897,406,911.24.

We topped the seven trillion mark less than two years ago (on December 31, 2003). Our nation exceeded the six trillion mark for the first time on February 26, 2002.

Mr. President, could you explain to us for how long we can afford to continue adding one trillion every two years to the national debt?

Decembrist Mark Schmitt explains why so many on the radical right feel betrayed by the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination: they wanted a final showdown over the culture war.

Really. Wanted. It.

ThinkProgress quotes from Secretary Rice's appearance on Meet the Press:

The fact of the matter is that when we were attacked on September 11, we had a choice to make. We could decide that the proximate cause was al Qaeda and the people who flew those planes into buildings and, therefore, we would go after al Qaeda…or we could take a bolder approach.

Could someone please tell the Secretary that al Qaeda was indeed responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks?

And that it has been 1,490 days since President George W. Bush promised to get the leader of that terrorist organization "dead or alive." And that Iraq had nothing to do with those terrorist attacks on our nation?

Joe Conason explains why in this Salon column -- one for which it is worth watching a short ad to be able to read in full:

Every Supreme Court nomination poses a test of our common understanding of what the Constitution means -- and specifically our interpretation of the role assigned by that document to the U.S. Senate. This time, by sending up the name of a personal crony with few other qualifications -- and then suggesting that her fitness for the high court should be measured by her faith -- George W. Bush has publicly challenged the Senate to defend the Constitution and to fulfill the purpose assigned to them by the founders.

For senators who claim to uphold the framers' intentions, the president has left no choice but to reject Harriet Miers. Both her nomination and the covert campaign to win her confirmation are constitutional offenses that should be intolerable to the Senate.

Will the Senate stand up for its institutional rights? Or will its recent -- and extremely troubling -- deference to the whims of the executive branch continue?

Editor and Publisher's Greg Mitchell examines the New York Times' coverage of Judith Miller's involvement in Treasongate and reaches a reasonable conclusion:

It’s not enough that Judith Miller, we learned Saturday, is taking some time off and “hopes” to return to the New York Times newsroom. As the newspaper’s devastating account of her Plame games -- and her own first-person sidebar -- make clear, she should be promptly dismissed for crimes against journalism, and her own newspaper. And Bill Keller, executive editor, who let her get away with it, owes readers, at the minimum, an apology instead of merely hailing his paper’s long-delayed analysis and saying that readers can make of it what they will.

he New York Times, as promised, has published a long overview of Judith Miller's role in the Valerie Plame investigation, as well as a first-person account by Miller of what she told the grand jury. At 5,900 and 3,600 words, respectively, we should learn much. We don't.

Over at Sivacracy.net, we learn how a civics student can become an enemy of the state thanks to the folks at Wal-Mart.

For the first time since 1938, the Bowdoin College football team is 4-0.

No, my alma mater is not known for its gridiron prowess.

It was also a good day for most of the other Polar Bear teams, with wins for women's soccer, men's soccer, field hockey, and women's rugby.

As much as I love living in the Bay Area, I must admit to missing those Saturday fall days in New England.

The Huffington Post's Bob Cesca catches NBC's Andrea Mitchell explaining why the media covered the Bush Administration with such deference over the past four years:

“I think there has been self-censorship since 9/11 or after 9/11 -- there was sort of a rallying around -- an understandably patriotic effect and I think that reporters were less challenging, and it’s been very interesting to see my colleagues . . . all of these correspondents and anchors . . . and they have been taking on local and state and federal officials in a way – an impassioned way that we have not seen in many years.

Under our system, the press' patriotic duty is to ask tough questions. To challenge authority. To act as a watchdog on the powerful.

Not so much for Andrea Mitchell. And this is a liberal media?

Since it is rare when I agree with my friend, and frequent commenter, Matt, I thought I would share (with permission) an e-mail with which I agree:

Amazing …after years of listening to the hard left complain, bitch, and moan about how Bush continuously appoints unqualified cronies to positions of power, the minute he nominates a possibly unqualified crony to the Supreme Court who may just actually be a moderate or left-leaning individual, they are all in favor of the practice.

Just got to love Kos and his ilk:

“I reserve the right to change my mind, but Miers' biggest sin, at this early juncture, is her allegiance to Bush. That her appointment is an act of cronyism is without a doubt, but if that's the price of admission to another Souter or moderate justice, I'm willing to pay it.”

I know, I know….it’s politics. It’s still pathetic.

Democrats have rightly made an issue about the president's hiring decisions. Now some want to give Miers a break because she may (unlikely) prove not to be a Justice Scalia?

Sorry. I cannot buy that idea.

I don't know anything about Harriet Miers' judicial philosophy. Does anyone?

I won't argue that you have to be a judge before you can become a Supreme Court Justice. And, there is merit to adding someone to the nation's highest court who has a primarily political, rather than a judicial, background.

But, really, Miers is only on the list because of her relationship with the president. This is another crony situation. For the Supreme Court of the United States. Why would the president have the gall to do this?

Ultimately, in another extreme rarity for me, I think John Podhoretz gets closest to explaining why Miers will likely be the next Supreme Court Associate Justice:

But with a 55-seat Republican majority in the Senate and the certainty that a Democratic filibuster would kick in the "nuclear option" breaking the filibuster, Bush did not need to go with stealth. The Roberts nomination proved that. People are saying this was a pick made out of weakness. I disagree. I think this was a pick made out of droit de seigneur -- an "I am the president and this is what I want" arrogance.