Team America

Spying, Failing, Thumbing

2006-01-25T11:29:00.000-05:00

As the Bush Administration attempts to extend its spying on U.S. citizens through Wed search engines like Google (see "Google and Privacy" and "Forgot What You Searched For? Google Didn't" in The Washington Post) and whispers admission that Iraq Reconstructon is failing (see "Iraq Rebuilding Badly Hobbled, U.S. Report Finds"), it seems eager to expand the Global War on Terror from Afghanistan and Iraq to Iran (see "The Gulf Between Us" in The New York Times) but clearly disinterested in defending American lives here at home (see "White House Got Early Warning on Katrina").

Seems like the boy has a vision, but not for Team America...

Bob Novak Says Bush Knows Plame Leaker

2005-12-16T09:42:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, The Washington Post refocused the nation's attention on the main issue in PlameGate: who is responsible for naming Plame to Robert Novak for his article?

A rat jumping from a sinking ship, Novak told guests at a luncheon of the John Locke Foundation down in Raleigh, N.C:

I'm confident the president knows who the source is.

I'd be amazed if he doesn't.

So I say, don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is.

Now we're getting somewhere!

Only, could someone please clarify: why are other reporters getting heat from Justice but not Novak? Is that animal more equal than others -- or does the special prosecutor have something special in store for Novak -- something a little juicier than Judy Miller's little vacation?

Cheney Replaces Scooter with Sulu

2005-10-30T21:55:00.000-05:00

In a surprise move, U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney has replaced Lewis "Scooter" Libby with George "Sulu" Takei, the Star Trek star who recently confessed to Frontiers Magazine that he was gay, after a lifetime (68 years) of silence and secrecy, according to the irrefutable Unconfirmed Sources -- click here to read the full article.

Frist Followed HCA Stock: Washington Post

2005-10-24T10:35:00.000-04:00

According to today's Washington Post, Senator Frist was indeed aware of his HCA stock portfolio in blind trust -- see article.

Johnny-Come-Lately's: Scowcroft and Wilkerson

2005-10-24T07:27:00.000-04:00

Later today, Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft will join the ranks of earlier critics (retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, former US Secretary Treasurer Paul O'Neill and former US Counter-Terrorism czar Richard Clarke) and last week's newcomer ret. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson in denouncing US President George W. Bush and his neocon cabinet, according to WashingtonNote, the personal website of Steve Clemons, Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation.

US Department of State veteran diplomat Robin Raphael also came out of the closet this past week (see UPI).

Why are Scowcroft and Wilkerson so late to join the party? Why don't they say something new? The answer is: politics. Mr. Bush's post-9/11 honeymoon is over and the wolves are out to gobble up his moon -- but no sooner, with no sacrifice like resignations of protest, not like some lesser-knowns who have really taken it on the chin earlier in the game -- like former US ambassador Joseph Wilson.

This is not to belittle the efforts of General Scowcroft, Colonel Wilkerson, or others. After all, General Scowcroft did go public with his opposition to the war in the Fall of 2002 (see Wall Street Journal). Americans should consider, however, how much of such recent efforts are goodwill, how much prudent timing, and how much politics.

Scowcroft articles:
New Yorker
Wall Street Journal

Wilkerson articles:
Financial Times
United Press International
Bloomberg
The Guardian (UK)
New York Times
Washington Post Op-Ed by Rob Malley

Democratic Void: Economist

2005-10-23T17:49:00.000-04:00

While the Republicans flounder amidst Plamegate (see previous post) and associated scandales of Bush 43's second term, the Democrats have little or nothing to say in response, as The Economist notes clearly in a recent article entitled "Hold the champagne."

Republican Scandals: Times of London

2005-10-23T17:45:00.000-04:00

Excellent summary of where things stand in Washington in today's Times of London -- no, not TIME -- entitled "Prosecutor closes in on Bush ‘brain’."

Valerie Plame-Karl Rove Timeline

2005-07-16T10:09:00.000-04:00

Today's New York Times provides an excellenct timeline on the Valerie Plame-Karl Rove Case:

(Just click on the images to go to the NYT page.)

Karl Rove's America

2005-07-15T07:26:00.000-04:00

Be sure to ready Paul Krugman's Op-Ed this morning about "Karl Rove's America" -- click here. Here is an excerpt:

What Mr. Rove understood, long before the rest of us, is that we're not living in the America of the past, where even partisans sometimes changed their views when faced with the facts. Instead, we're living in a country in which there is no longer such a thing as nonpolitical truth. In particular, there are now few, if any, limits to what conservative politicians can get away with: the faithful will follow the twists and turns of the party line with a loyalty that would have pleased the Comintern.

Funny, when I saw the title of Ambassador Joseph Wilson's book, The Politics of Truth, I thought it was overwrought: now, seeing a professional writer use it a bit better, it seems just right...

Patrick Seale: US Cannot Win in Iraq

2005-07-05T20:23:00.000-04:00

Veteran Middle East analyst Patrick Seale commented in last week's Daily Star (Lebanon) that "America is facing the real possibility of defeat in Iraq." According to Mr. Seale, the insurgency continues unabated, while sectarian violence rises, overseen by over-extended US troops and unprepared Iraqi troops. U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel told U.S. News & World Report just the day before, "The reality is, we're losing in Iraq." Earlier last month, former CIA director John M. Deutch, called for American troops to pull out of Iraq "as soon as possible."

He even compared US withdrawal from Iraq to Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Seale's bottom line? "Occupation breeds insurrection."

Click here to read the full article.

Iraq War Was Precluded: UN Negotiation Charade

2005-06-28T08:18:00.000-04:00

Today's Washington Post has an article "From Memos, Insights Into Ally's Doubts On Iraq War: British Advisers Foresaw Variety of Risks, Problems" which analyzes more of the eight memos released to the public by British journalist Michael Smith in which British officials cast doubt upon the American plan to invade Iraq.

On March 25, 2002, two weeks before Blair met with Bush in Crawford, TX, back in the spring of 2002, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw wrote, "The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few. The risks are high, both for you and for the Government."

Ten days before Straw, on March 14, 2002, David Manning, Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote to the prime minister, "I think there is a real risk that the administration underestimates the difficulties. They may agree that failure isn't an option, but this does not mean they will necessarily avoid it."

Reporter Glen Frankel continues,

Critics of the Bush administration contend the documents -- including the now-famous Downing Street Memo of July 23, 2002 -- constitute proof that Bush made the decision to go to war at least eight months before it began, and that the subsequent diplomatic campaign at the United Nations was a charade, designed to convince the public that war was necessary, rather than an attempt to resolve the crisis peacefully. They contend the documents have not received the attention they deserve.

(Click here to read the full article.)

Thomas Friedman: Run, Dick, Run

2005-06-22T15:33:00.000-04:00

In "Run, Dick, Run," which ran in today's New York Times, columnist Thomas Friedman provides more insightful analysis than of late into an important, as-yet undiscussed facet of Republican Party politics: the (apparent) lack of a successor for US President George W. Bush.

(Click here to read the full article.)

Cheney Girls Mine America

2005-05-31T09:20:00.000-04:00

The New York Times is running a story this morning called "Weaned on Politics, Cheney Daughters Find a Place at the Table," by Todd S. Purdum, that reports on the gains of the family of US Vice President Richard B. Cheney

"Older sister Liz is the first deputy assistant secretary of state ever to have her own Secret Service detail" -- and whose office happens to be Near Eastern Affairs, (re)hired in February 2005 ahead of her boss, Assistant Secretary C. David Welch, whose tour of Egypt ended in March 2005. The same month (March), her husband, Philip J. Perry, was made be general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security. Liz earns $149K, Phil $140K.

Younger sister Margaret ("Mary") Cheney helped to launch Simon and Schuster's new Threshhold imprint with a book deal with a $1 million advance.

Click here to read the full article.

American Gulag: Bad Gulash?

2005-05-26T10:47:00.000-04:00

Click here to read article on superchefblog.

Tsunami Update 1: US Ex-Presidents Lead Funding

2005-01-03T19:19:00.000-05:00

Visit superchefblog for Tsunami updates:

- Tsunami Update 4: US Ex-Presidents Lead Funding

- Tsunami Update 3: Christmas Island

- New Year's Resolution: Eat Well, Help Others

- Tsunami Update 2: Race Against More Death

- Tsunami Update 1: Foodies Help

- 2004 Tsunami: How Foodies Can Help

Help Tsunami Victims

2004-12-29T18:56:00.000-05:00

Political comments are forthcoming: for now, please donate money to your favorite aid agency to help victims of the 2004 Tsunami.

For details, link to and read "2004 Tsunami: How Foodies Can Help.

Forward the link http://www.superchefblog.com/2004/12/2004-tsunami-how-foodies-can-help.html. There are links to numerous agencies as well as summary news and many many more links.

Smallbites has already created a link and forwarded the word by email.

Five Easy Pieces? Democratic Reform

2004-12-13T16:23:00.000-05:00

Political consultant for California's Assembly Democrats and also a UPI contributor Patrick Reddy has offered five ideas to reform the Democratic Party's platform in a recent article because "Democrats need some new thinking," especially if they plan to unseat Republican incumbents.

He proposes reform in Welfare, Healthcare, Taxes, Pensions, and Immigration, which share between them the common theme that individual security at less cost than the Great Society programs of the 1960s.

Among other suggestions, he also proposes that Democrats learn to speak "Middle American" better.

(Click here to read the full article.)

Whittaker Chambers Warns Democrats

2004-11-09T17:25:00.000-05:00

In today's Washington Times, national columnist Paul Greenberg wrote:

The Democrats don't have to change. They can just sit back and let the red states turn redder, and lose the next three or four presidential elections. They can just drift to port until they become a cozy little club. They can meet every four years at their national convention to exchange clever repartee and inside jokes, congratulating themselves on their own ideological purity and general sophistication. Much like Taft Republicans in the GOP's dark age.

It seems that Greenberg seeks a more formidable adversary -- and so he kindly passed on the observations of Whittaker Chambers to Bill Buckley:

If Republicans can not get some grip on the actual world we live in and from it generalize and actively promote a program that means something to masses of people -- why, somebody else will. There will be nothing left to argue. The voters will simply vote Republicans into singularity.

Greenberg continues:

Substitute "Democrats" for Republicans in Chambers' warning, and you have the challenge confronting Democrats today... The future of the Democratic Party, if it is to have one, lies not with the Howard Deans and Michael Moores, or even with the only vaguely defined John Kerrys and John Edwardses, but with bright young comers like Barack Obama. He's the next U.S. senator from Illinois and a natural conciliator. Someone who is rooted in his faith, dedicated to building community, and who can even work with Republicans to achieve sensible reforms.

Thank you, Mr. Greenberg, for the best summary to date on last week's national elections.

Election Maps

2004-11-02T15:49:00.000-05:00

Here are some amazing election maps, for your convenience today -- just click on the logo to see:

The Economist Endorses Kerry

2004-10-29T08:21:00.000-04:00

The Economist, bastion of conservative British thought, has finally weighed in on the US presidential elections and admitted, "We think American readers should vote for John Kerry on November 2nd... On balance, our instinct is towards change rather than continuity: Mr. Kerry, not Mr. Bush." After that, they spell out "the case against George Bush."

(Click here to read the full article.)

Clinton For Kerry: Join Us in Comeback Country

2004-10-25T18:45:00.000-04:00

Bill Clinton joined Democratic candidate for president John Kerry in Philadelphia today and spoke before a rowdy crowd of 10,000 supporters. "If this isn't good for my heart, I don't know what is," he said.

"From time to time, I've been called the Comeback Kid," Clinton said. "In eight days, John Kerry is going to make America the comeback country.

Kerry followed with thunder in the wake of the New York Times report that American forces had lost 380 tons of highly explosive weapons in Iraq. "George W Bush has failed the test as commander-in-chief," he thundered. He told the crowd that he was impatient to relieve the president as commander-in-chief.

"Comeback" and "relief" -- these are sports terms appropriate to Team America's concept and terminology. It's time for Team America to vote in their relief coach, John Kerry.

Kerry Scores Big on Newspaper Super Sunday

2004-10-24T10:36:00.000-04:00

According to Greg Mitchell, editor of Editor & Publisher" industry magazine, Democratic candidate John Kerry made "huge gains" in endorsements from newspapers around the country, including 23 papers that supported Republican opponent George W. Bush. In all, that leaves Kerry ahead of Bush 85-68 endorsements according to Editor & Publisher, with circulations of 12.8 million to 8.5 million.

Bush kept ahold of Ohio's Columbus Dispatch, but Kerry has now won all major Florida newspapers including the taking of The Orlando Sentinel, which supported Bush in 2000. The Detroit News, always a Republican endorsers, is sitting out this election, as is the The New Orleans Times-Picayune. Other defectors for Kerry from the 2000 Bush camp include The Chicago Sun-Times and The Los Angeles Daily News. Even the Columbus Dispatch, while backing Bush, wrote that they were "less than enthused about the choices." Another loss for Kerry was The Denver Post, which supported Gore in 2000.

Click here to read further details, including the names of many newspapers.

Boston Globe Endorses Kerry

2004-10-24T10:25:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday, The Boston Globe endorsed Democratic candidate John Kerry for president. They quoted him from 1997 saying prophetically, "We should be the natural leaders of a world coalition against crime, but we have yet to recognize the `new crime's' scale and sophistication." They cited also his support for the environment and energy independence as their three main points to highlight Kerry's core strengths: "an ability to see complex problems in new, often prescient, ways and a willingness to seek collaborative solutions."

Click here to read the full editorial.

New York Times Endorses Kerry

2004-10-24T10:10:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday, The New York Times Magazine stated that "we enthusiastically endorse John Kerry for president."

First, they ran Ron Suskind's commentary entitled "Without a Doubt," which details to the public "what Bush's top deputies -- from cabinet members like Paul O'Neill, Christine Todd Whitman and Colin Powell to generals fighting in Iraq -- have been told for years when they requested explanations for many of the president's decisions, policies that often seemed to collide with accepted facts. The president would say that he relied on his 'gut' or his 'instinct' to guide the ship of state, and then he 'prayed over it'..."

On the one hand there is an inherent conflict. Suskind continues, "This is one key feature of the faith-based presidency: open dialogue, based on facts, is not seen as something of inherent value. It may, in fact, create doubt, which undercuts faith. It could result in a loss of confidence in the decision-maker and, just as important, by the decision-maker... The circle around Bush is the tightest around any president in the modern era, and 'it's both exclusive and exclusionary,' Christopher DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute, the neoconservative policy group, told me. 'It's a too tightly managed decision-making process. When they make decisions, a very small number of people are in the room, and it has a certain effect of constricting the range of alternatives being offered.'

Suskind delved even deeper into the heart of the matter and heard from a White House Communications officer about the Bush White House calls "the reality-based community'' who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality... That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Jim Wallis of the Sojourners told Suskind that when faith is used to "certify our righteousness -- that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self-criticism aside. There's no reflection... Real faith, you see, leads us to deeper reflection and not -- not ever -- to the thing we as humans so very much want. Easy certainty."

Where even Suskind will not go is the further degree that loyal subject will go: to cheat on their analytical homework by finding facts to support desired, predetermined conclusions -- such as the special information closed pipeline of information around the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). He does not delve into the advantages Bush loyalists are taking. He does not delve into Iraq reconstruction contracts, lack of adequate protection or services for regular and reservist soldiers, or tax cuts for the rich. Nor does he enter the realm where PBS went in The Choice 2004. (Click here to videostream.) In particular, New Yorker political columnist Nicholas Lehman address the "dirty campaigning", also discussed in Part IV and V of the show.

Second, in an Editorial endorsing John Kerry, the Times said, "There is no denying that this race is mainly about Mr. Bush's disastrous tenure" despite the fact that lately, particularly during the presidential debates, "we have come to know Mr. Kerry as more than just an alternative to the status quo. We like what we've seen. He has qualities that could be the basis for a great chief executive, not just a modest improvement on the incumbent." They praise him for his bi-partisan abilities, his strong defense of human rights, his support for stem cell research, his upholding of the separation of church and state, and his national health coverage plan. They applaud his ideas on energy, global warming, and oil dependency.

Although the phrase is still absent in these as so many other supporters, they praise him for his "good neighbor" policy.

Superman Endorses Kerry

2004-10-24T09:47:00.000-04:00

Just days after her husband's death on October 10, Dana Reeve, wife of Superman star Christopher Reeve, came out of private mourning at a campaign rally in Columbus, Ohio, to endores Democratic candidate John Kerry for president, AP reported.

"My inclination would be to remain private for a good long while,'' Dana Reeve said, "but I came here today in support of John Kerry because this is so important. This is what Chris wanted." (Read Dana Reeve's full speech online.)

The Reeves have advocated embryonic stem cells ever since Christopher Reeve was rendered paraplegic after a horse-riding accident in 1995. (Read bios for Christopher online by the BBC, The New York Times, CBS, MSNBC, and CNN.

"His heart was full of hope, and he imagined living in a world where politics would never get in the way of hope,'' Dana said.

Reeve called and left John Kerry a phone message the day before his death in which he thanked him for his support of medical research.

At the rally, John Kerry reaffirmed his support for scientific innovation, which George W. Bush rejects on behalf of special interests. "He has an extreme political agenda that slows instead of advances science," according to Kerry.