PERRspectives: October 2007 Archives

October 2007 Archives

	Madrid Bombing Case to Fuel Bush Fears of Terror Trials For supporters of the Bush administration's crusade against civil liberties in its war on terror, today's rulings in the 2004 Madrid bombing case will no doubt provide more justification for detainee torture, the suspension of habeas corpus, military commissions and other clearly extra-constitutional measures. In Madrid today as in so many terrorism prosecution trials in the U.S., sometimes the suspects are not found guilty. In Spain, the rule of law would appear to be alive and well. 21 of 28... more Posted on October 31, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	Mukasey and Gonzales: Discussions of Torture "Hypothetical" A little over a week ago, I documented the disturbing parallels between the confirmation testimonies of Attorney General nominees Michael Mukasey and Alberto Gonzales. To the dismay of many members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mukasey like Gonzales decried the 2002 Bybee memo authorizing detainee torture, while withholding judgment on the legality of specific techniques such as waterboarding on the grounds that such as discussions are purely "hypothetical." Now, given the chance to clarify for the Senate, Mukasey dug his... more Posted on October 30, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Laura Bush: Policy Maker, Not Stereotype On Sunday, First Lady Laura Bush revealed a new side of her persona to the American people: policymaker. Describing herself "involved for a long time in policy," Mrs. Bush decried the Stepfordesque stereotype she claimed is applied to her. But given her past public statements and policy roles to date, Americans should be forgiven for chuckling in response. The still popular First Lady made her comments during an attempt to defend the indefensible, her husband's veto of the expansion of... more Posted on October 30, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	FEMA PR Fraud Philbin Loses Promotion at DNI As it turns out, the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. The force of gravity still applies on planet Earth. And for at least this one day, a minimal standard of punishment for ethical wrongdoing applies to the Bush administration. Just one day after I proclaimed that no official would pay a price for the despicable and shocking fake FEMA news conference on the California wildfires, the imbroglio has cost John Philbin, the agency's director of... more Posted on October 29, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Bush to Stay "Relevant" with Holsinger Recess Appointment? ThinkProgress speculates this morning that President Bush will give a recess appointment to James Holsinger, his bizarre and wildly homophobic nominee for Surgeon General. For the White House, Holsinger's quackery and desire to "cure gays" not only makes him a very attractive successor to the disagreeable Richard Carmona. More importantly, a recess appointment in the face of overwhelming opposition from the Senate Health Committee helps President Bush "ensure that I am relevant." It's just another part of George W. Bush's... more Posted on October 29, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Never a Firing Offense: FEMA PR Frauds Move On and Up One of the hallmarks of Bush administration has been its steadfast commitment to rewarding its own incompetence, fraud and even criminality. While Katrina fall-guy Michael Brown was quietly edged out, the leading architects of the fiasco in Iraq including George Tenet, Tommy Franks and Paul Bremer received Presidential Medals of Freedom. Now in the latest example of President Bush's mantra that "nothing succeeds like failure," Harvey Johnson has escaped punishment for his bogus FEMA press conference on Thursday, while his... more Posted on October 28, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Five Years Ago: Bush's Despicable Eulogy for Paul Wellstone Thursday marked the fifth anniversary of the death of Minnesota Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone. But while much of the liberal blogosphere has remembered Wellstone's fighting spirit, grassroots populism and prescient courage in opposing the war in Iraq, little attention has been paid to President Bush's despicable eulogy of Wellstone on that sad day. As we learned five years ago, this president's smallness and partisanship even extend to the dead. Commenting on the tragic death of the popular Democratic Senator Paul... more Posted on October 27, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	FEMA, CDC and Bush's Potemkin Presidency Two stories this week once again highlighted for Americans the Potemkin Presidency of George W. Bush. Confronting Stephen Colbert's maxim that "reality has a well-known liberal bias," the Bush administration tried to pull the wool over the eyes of Congress and the media. On Wednesday, the White House acknowledged it "eviscerated" the testimony of CDC Julie Gerberding on the health impacts of global warming. And on Thursday, Bush's FEMA director Harvey Johnson staged a faux news conference about the California... more Posted on October 26, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Giuliani Flip-Flops on Waterboarding, Jokes About Torture In Iowa yesterday, GOP frontrunner Rudy Giuliani followed Bush Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey in playing dumb on the subject of torture. It should come as no surprise that Giuliani would argue that whether waterboarding violates the Geneva Convention depends on what the definition of "torture" is. Even less surprising is that the same man who in May endorsed "every method they could think of" would now jokingly claim that he was a victim of torture himself. Asked in Davenport,... more Posted on October 25, 2007 \| Comments (9)

	Bush Ups the Ante on Cuba In Washington today, George W. Bush reinvigorated his counterproductive and anachronistic crusade against the Castro regime in Cuba. As the New York Times reports, President Bush used an address to an invitation-only audience of Cuban exiles to proclaim "the United States will not accept a political transition in Cuba in which power changes from one Castro brother to another." But while Bush's increasingly hard line may please his brother and the monolithically Republican Cuban community in Florida, his dangerously myopic... more Posted on October 24, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Choice for Me, Not Thee: Thompson & Delay on the Schiavo Affair As Fred Thompson's discussion of the Terri Schiavo case again highlighted this week, the so-called conservative "culture of life" contains a personal exemption. That is, when it comes to abortion, stem cell research and other such issues, the culture warriors of the right fervently oppose personal choice and potential medical breakthroughs - until they or someone they care about badly needs them. Then, as the likes of Fred Thompson, Tom Delay and Orrin Hatch show, the Republican mantra quickly becomes... more Posted on October 23, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	The 2008 Values Voter Olympics Much to chagrin of its radical right organizers, this weekend's Values Voter Summit of GOP White House hopefuls produced only confusion. Despite the gymnastic contortions and acrobatic back-flips of Republican presidential candidates eager to win evangelical hearts and minds, no clear winner of the conference straw poll emerged. Thanks to his stuffing of the online ballot box, Mitt Romney edged Mike Huckabee, the clear favorite of actual conference goers, by 1,595 votes to 1,565. Eager to avoid a repeat of... more Posted on October 22, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Deja Vu: Mukasey Channels Gonzales' 2005 Testimony By most accounts, Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey is not the intellectually stunted, duplicitous partisan hatchet man and unabashed Bush loyalist that was his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales. But in his testimony this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, Mukasey followed almost the same script on Bush administration torture policy as Gonzales during his own confirmation hearings in January 2005. As it turns out, both men disavowed the infamous 2002 Bybee memo and brushed aside questions about ongoing torture... more Posted on October 21, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Who's Counting? Bush and Giuliani on the Next World War President Bush's disturbingly flip comment Wednesday about Iran and World War III not only revealed his apparent comfort when discussing global conflagration. Bush's gaffe also showed the common vision between himself, the man most likely to succeed him as head of the Republican Party and those who advise them both. For George Bush, Rudy Giuliani and the likes of Norman Podhoretz, the only dispute about "world war" is whether we're already fighting it and what number we're on. For President... more Posted on October 18, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Cheney's Law and the Constitutionality of FISA Last night's airing of the PBS Frontline documentary "Cheney's Law" could not have come at a more fitting time. As Congress begins debate on a new FISA bill and the issue of immunity for telecommunications firms, Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey begins confirmation hearings in the Senate. But as Frontline reminded us last night, the architects of the Bush administration's NSA domestic surveillance program believe FISA itself is unconstitutional. First, a little background. Cheney's Law describes the Vice President's decades-long... more Posted on October 17, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Snow Job: Bush's "Democrat Party" Taunt When former White House press secretary Tony Snow announced his resignation in August, he claimed his departure was motivated by his need for "dough." Appearing on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart Monday night, it turns out Snow is content to shill for President Bush for free. Rejecting the assertion that Bush was far from the self-proclaimed "uniter" of GOP lore, Snow pooh-poohed Stewart's example that a petulant, mean-spirited President intentionally taunted his Democratic opponents by calling theirs the "Democrat... more Posted on October 16, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Bush's Catch-22 on Al Qaeda in Iraq In a double-edged sword for the Bush administration, Monday's Washington Post reports that the Pentagon believes it has dealt "devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months." But with the good news surrounding Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), responsible for only a small fraction of the attacks against U.S. forces and Iraqi civilians, comes the Catch-22 for President Bush: the very dissipation of the Al Qaeda threat in Iraq removes his primary rationale for extending the... more Posted on October 15, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Romney's Seasonal Visa Program Begins at Home On the campaign trail in Michigan on Saturday, GOP White House hopeful Mitt Romney announced his support for more seasonal visas for foreign workers laboring in tourism, agriculture and other sectors of the economy. As well he should. After all, Romney routinely hired illegal aliens to do the landscaping for his tony Boston area home. Never one for irony, Romney offered his prescription for addressing peak labor market shortages and the undocumented workers they attract. During a stop in northern... more Posted on October 15, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Rice, Bush Split on Dictatorship One day after Vladimir Putin scolded Secretary of State Condi Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates over the administration's plans for a European missile defense system, Rice fired back at the Russian president. But before lecturing Putin on his return to authoritarianism in Russia, Rice should have first checked with her boss President Bush about his own long-held views on dictatorship. Given the White House's penchant for torture, illegal surveillance of its own citizens, suspension of habeas corpus and the... more Posted on October 14, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Bush and Gore on the Prize Money The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore on Friday predictably produced flashbacks to the 2000 election fiasco, complete with the usual conservative venom and liberal wistfulness. But seemingly lost in the tales of the parallel lives of George W. Bush and Al Gore are their sharply contrasting views towards their respective legacies. Just follow the money. At his press conference yesterday, Gore announced he would donate his $750,000 Nobel Prize award to the Alliance for Climate Protection:... more Posted on October 13, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Romney Conflates All Muslims in New Ad Just days after his comical "sit down with your attorneys" gaffe over military action against Iran, Mitt Romney has unveiled a new tough-on-terrorism ad. But taking a tough line against Iran's development of nuclear technology, Romney once again returned to his tried and untrue formula of conflating all Muslims into a single unified threat to the United States. The new "Jihad" spot depict a determined Romney outside his tony Belmont, Massachusetts home. Calling for a 100,000 more troops for the... more Posted on October 12, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Conservative Nobel Prizes We'd Like to See Predictably, the conservative chattering class and its amen corner in the right-wing blogosphere are apoplectic about the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Al Gore. But their rage and angst about the Nobel Committee's "politicized awards" for "mass exaggerators" and "deceptive rhetoric" isn't merely a function of the inconvenient truth of the success of Gore's global warming campaign. No, the rugged individualists of the right are just hopping mad that they never win prizes designed to recognize contributions to, well, the... more Posted on October 12, 2007 \| Comments (9)

	Payback Time: CIA Director Investigates His Inspector General Just one week after the New York Times revealed the existence of secret Bush administration memos condoning an uninterrupted policy of detainee torture by the CIA, it appears to be payback time. In a highly unusual move, CIA Director Michael Hayden has ordered an investigation into the agency's watchdog office itself, led by Inspector General John L. Helgerson. According to the New York Times, Hayden and Helgerson have clashed over a number of issues, including the IG's scathing assessment of... more Posted on October 12, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Supreme Irony: Frost Attacks Continue as Ex-Viacom Chief Wins Tuition Case While Republican politicians, conservative commentators and the right-wing blogosphere continued their jihad against the private school scholarship of 12 year old S-CHIP beneficiary Graeme Frost, the Supreme Court Wednesday quietly handed the son of multimillionaire former Viacom CEO Tom Freston private school tuition courtesy of New York taxpayers. Frost, as you'll recall, is the Maryland child who delivered the Democratic response on September 29th to President Bush's veto of the bill expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). Frost,... more Posted on October 11, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	The Price of Bush's Military Transformation Over just the past 24 hours, a flurry of stories have highlighted the growing and evolving burden facing the overstretched United States military. In Washington, Defense Secretary Robert Gates stressed the need to transform the American military to address the "fundamentally political nature" of its current and future conflicts. While the Marine Corps has proposed shifting its forces from Iraq to take over frontline duties in Afghanistan, the Army is offering bonuses of up to $35,000 to retain specialists from... more Posted on October 11, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Right-Wing Blogs Downplay Bin Laden Tape Damage, Probe Just one day after revelations by the private security firm SITE Institute that a U.S. government leak of its clandestinely obtained Osama Bin Laden video compromised its penetration of Al Qaeda's global computing network, U.S. intelligence officials announced a probe of the damaging episode. But in the Animal Farm world of the right-wing blogosphere where some national security leaks are more equal than others, the Bush administration's latest fear-mongering or perhaps just potential incompetence is hardly cause for concern. No... more Posted on October 10, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Leaked Bin Laden Tape Shows GOP Double Standard Today's revelations in the Washington Post regarding the Bush administration's September 7th leaking of an Osama Bin Laden videotape served to once again highlight the hypocritical Republican double-standard when it comes to the publication of classified national security information. As the CIA black sites and illegal NSA domestic surveillance stories all show, the President and his amen corner are quick to call for the prosecution of those who reveal White House criminality. But when Bush and his GOP allies through... more Posted on October 9, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Equal Opportunity Executioner Bush Finds Mexican Exception If there is any area of public policy where George W. Bush has been consistently "dead certain," it is almost certainly in the application of the death penalty. As Texas Governor and later as President, Bush showed himself to be an equal opportunity executioner, content to condemn the mentally ill, the developmentally disabled, racist thugs and even born-again Christians alike. But today we learned even George W. Bush's apparent bloodlust has its limits, especially when it conflicts with his ongoing... more Posted on October 8, 2007 \| Comments (4)

	Laughing at Torture The revelations last week concerning secret memos authorizing an uninterrupted policy of detainee torture by the Bush administration added a new chapter to the President's book of unchecked power, unbridled lawlessness and deceit. But even from national disgrace can come humor. Don Davis over at Satirical Political Report shows even torture can be laughed at. The Torture Advice Column by Devil's Advocate cheerfully helps guide would-be Gitmo interrogators and fans of the unitary executive up to the fine line of... more Posted on October 8, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	EU Lawmakers Reject Creationism, ID in Schools The battle over the teaching of intelligent design and creationism crossed the Atlantic this week. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted to condemn the teaching of creationism in the schools of its 47 member states. Given the recent public relations campaign by the Discovery Institute and other U.S.-based intelligent design front groups in Turkey and elsewhere on the Continent, the Council's actions couldn't come a moment too soon. The assembly, which monitors human rights, voted 48 to... more Posted on October 6, 2007 \| Comments (7)

	Chris Matthews: Bush White House "Good Guys" Won't Silence Me At a party last night celebrating the 10th anniversary of his MSNBC show Hardball, Chris Matthews lashed out at the Bush administration for its efforts to control his editorial content. But if his claims that "they will not silence me" ring a little hollow, they should. After all, Chris Matthews has spent the last several years telling us that President Bush, his White House and the Republican leadership team are "good guys." Matthews' tough talk didn't end there. Without mentioning... more Posted on October 5, 2007 \| Comments (6)

	God Bites Man in GOP White House Race The past week provided yet more examples of God bites man in the Republican presidential primaries. As John McCain, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani perform backflips to appease their party's conservative Christian base, their faith-based contortions just continue to backfire. Just days after his abrupt Episcopalian to Baptist conversion, John McCain has more God trouble. In an interview with Beliefnet, McCain proclaimed "I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America... more Posted on October 4, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Bush Signing Statement, Gonzales Perjury Concealed Torture Policy Thursday's devastating New York Times expose of the Bush administration's secret endorsement of torture by the CIA only served to confirm the worst what most Americans already suspected. First, Alberto Gonzales lied to Congress regarding the administration's policy on torture of detainees during his 2005 confirmation hearings. Second, President Bush's December 2005 signing statement accompanying the Detainee Treatment Act was expressly designed to exempt the lawbreaking he had already approved. As Perrspectives has detailed here and here, former White House... more Posted on October 4, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	Bush's Hat Trick with S-CHIP Veto As White House press secretary Dana Perino promised Tuesday, President Bush on Wednesday "quietly" and "without ceremony" vetoed the expansion of the State Childrens Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). Making good on his threat to block the additional $35 billion in funding over five years to boost the number of children covered under S-CHIP from 6.6 million to 10 million, Bush achieved three objectives - the proverbial hat trick - in one stroke of his veto pen. First, the President teed... more Posted on October 3, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	The Meaning of Blackwater In Washington today, all eyes are on the Blackwater hearings. But the relentless focus on potential atrocities committed by unaccountable, grotesquely overpaid private security firms in Iraq and Afghanistan obscures the larger issue for the United States. That is, mercenary forces simply should have no place in the national security structure of an American democracy. No doubt, mounting allegations of inappropriate use of force by Blackwater in Iraq justify the inquiry by Chairman Henry Waxman's House Committee on Oversight and... more Posted on October 2, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	Childrens Do Learn and the 4 Types of Bush Gaffes President Bush's hilarious and disturbing "childrens do learn" gaffe at an education event last week was just his latest in a long series of losing battles with his mother tongue. But while some scholars may seek to indict George W. Bush for his crimes against the English language, a generation of graduate students should thank the President for offering them the perfect thesis topic. While early analyses and collections of Bush malapropisms provide some insight into the rhetorical incontinence of... more Posted on October 1, 2007 \| Comments (2)