August 2007 Archives

This is what happens when agencies free of influence from the White House (and the Office of the Vice President, whatever branch of government he believes himself to be in this week) get to write the report. The Washington Post's Karen DeYoung and Thomas Ricks write:

Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.

The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq.

The draft provides a stark assessment of the tactical effects of the current U.S.-led counteroffensive to secure Baghdad. "While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, U.S. agencies differ on whether such violence has been reduced," it states. While there have been fewer attacks against U.S. forces, it notes, the number of attacks against Iraqi civilians remains unchanged. It also finds that "the capabilities of Iraqi security forces have not improved."

"Overall," the report concludes, "key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds," as promised. While it makes no policy recommendations, the draft suggests that future administration assessments "would be more useful" if they backed up their judgments with more details and "provided data on broader measures of violence from all relevant U.S. agencies."

What, the White House should back up its statements with little things like facts? How dare the GAO suggest such a thing. Dear Leader Bush does not have to offer a fact or justification for anything he does -- that is the clear lesson of the past six years.

Gee, with a background like this, who could have figured that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would be such a failure as a diplomat?

Blacker remembers Rice tearing the woman to shreds.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” he recalls her saying. “You are behind the counter because you have to work for minimum wage. I’m on this side asking to see the good jewelry because I make considerably more.”

And how quickly will the Democrats in Congress surrender to the Bush Administration's expected request for $50 billion in additional Iraq War funding?

As Kevin Drum points out:

So that's that, I guess. The White House already knows what Petraeus and Crocker are going to say and they figure it's going to be $50 billion of good news. And with that, the Kabuki show continues.

For Mitt Romney, loyalty clearly is not all that important. Whatever one might think of the situation in which Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) now finds himself, I find Romney's decision to condemn Craig and erase him from his campaign's memory truly disgusting.

Is this really how a "person of faith" is supposed to act? Whatever happened to forgiveness?

Is there a more clear example of how big a wuss I am than the recent roller coaster ride that my three-year-old son enthusiastically rode again and again "hands up" while I was left shaking for an hour afterwards?.

Heck, even my initially nervous six-year-old son got into the groove after being coaxed into trying the roller coaster in Santa Cruz.

Not me. Not ever.

The Atlantic's James Fallows reminds us of his 2004 article describing "the lost year," the period of time when the United States could have been crushing Al Qaeda with broad international support, but instead prepared for the grand historic mistake that has been the Iraq War and subsequent occupation. As Fallows writes today:

It is an old story, and it is the fundamental case against Iraq. Not that it was a good idea, poorly executed, that in the right circumstances might have made us safer. Rather, that it was exactly the wrong idea, from the start, because it distracted us from the enemy who had really harmed us, and whom we had a reasonable chance of containing and crushing, and toward an unnecessary fight guaranteed to multiply the number of enemies we faced worldwide. It should be possible to make the case that clearly.

Then again, it should have been possible to make the case in 2004.

I continue to hope that some elected officials will make it.

I'm with Atrios: people should back off on their mocking of Miss Teen South Carolina.

Imagine for a moment if your worst oral answer to a question were YouTubed around the world. We've all been there, but most of us have had only a handful of people around to see it.

We have a president who regularly says stupid things -- and his statements have real consequences. A little more focus on him would be appropriate.

Atrios has figured out CNN's apparent policy for liberal politicians hoping to break into the ranks of those asked to appear on television: just support the surge in Iraq.

...as I was saying...

The past two months have been filled with a move, work, unpacking, and some family fun. In the time crunch, alas, this unpaid blog was one of the things to go.

Hopefully I'll have time to repopulate my tiny corner of the blogosphere. To get started, here's a guest post I wrote on my wife's blog late last week about taking my oldest son to a Cubs-Giants baseball game. He's now six, so this is likely the first game he'll remember, and we were rooting for different teams.