brainrow

Richard Cohen in the Washington Post:

It took no less a sage than President Bush to put the firing of four high-level CBS News employees in perspective: “CBS said they would act. They did. And I hope their actions are such that this doesn’t happen again.” This from the man who fired not a single person in his entire administration for getting nearly everything wrong about Iraq and taking the nation to war for reasons that did not exist or were downright specious. Lucky for Bush he’s only the president of the United States and not the head of CBS.

This is what I call Bush’s Doctrine of Infallibility. The Bush Administration escapes the obligation of accountability because they don’t make mistakes.

Much of the controversial work that Alberto Gonzales did in the Bush White House was constructing legal arguments that this president’s actions are beyond the reach of any law. Critics have complained that the Bush Administration wants to roll back the New Deal. Actually, they want to roll back the Magna Carta!

I got this via email, and had to share.

Impeach Bush Meetup Groups

You can enter your zip code to find a group near you. Even if they don’t get Bush impeached, this is a chance to meet like-minded people in your own community.

Via Hetty Litjens: here is The Daily Show covering the Senate confirmation hearings for Attorney General-designate Alberto Gonzales.

An insurgency cannot be crushed. It has to be defused.
 —Anas Shallal, Iraqi-Americans for Peaceful Alternatives, on the PBS News Hour

There is no solution on the ground.
 —A retired general on the PBS News Hour (quoted from memory)

There is some hope, however faint, that elections later this month will help defuse the bloody insurgency in Iraq.

If the elections are seen to be fair and honest, the people of Iraq might finally rally behind the elected government. If Iraqis have confidence in their elected government, sympathy for the insurgents could fade. Without a sympathetic populace, the violent insurgents wouldn’t last long. We must hope for such an outcome.

Senate approval of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General might derail that hope.

The people of Iraq are not ignorant. They have radios and television sets. They have satellite dishes. They have electricity, sometimes. They know what’s happening here.

Gonzales’ diligent efforts to seek loopholes in U.S. laws against torture, and to place the United States beyond the reach of international law, may earn him the gratitude of his client, George W. Bush. But they do nothing but harm to the international reputation of the United States. Fairly or unfairly, Gonzales is seen as one of the spiritual fathers of Abu Ghraib.

The elected government in Iraq will have to work with the U.S.-led Coalition. Promoting Alberto Gonzales at this time sends the wrong message. It will undermine popular support for any Iraqi government that attempts to work with the United States. It will give fresh fuel to the insurgency.

Maureen Dowd in the New York Times:

The Associated Press headline that came over the wire yesterday said it all: “Gonzales Will Follow Non-Torture Policies.”

You know how bad the situation is when the president’s choice for attorney general has to formally pledge not to support torture anymore.

…

How are you to believe Mr. Gonzales when he says he’s through with torture? His mission is clearly to do whatever he thinks Mr. Bush wants.

Is it just me, or is this guy a dead ringer for George W. Bush?

Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales has called the Geneva Conventions “obsolete” and “quaint”. What do you guess he thinks about that old-timey scrap of paper known as the Bill of Rights?

You’re going to have to guess. According to CNN, “the White House has refused to provide copies of his memos on the questioning of terror suspects” to the Senate committee responsible for holding hearings this week on the Gonzales nomination.

Personally, I’m guessing that this refusal itself provides all the information we really need about Gonzales’ views. The Republicans have 55 seats in the Senate. The most vital thing for the Bush administration now is to keep the American people in the dark.

(You can find your senators here. The Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on the Gonzales nomination starting Thursday. One of my senators, Mike DeWine, is a member of the committee. I’ll bet he’d love to hear from me.)

The Attorney General might be called the Chief Prosecutor of the United States. Some people think it’s appropriate for him to be focussed more on getting the bad guys and not so much on protecting the rights of the accused. After all, we have the courts and judges to look out for everyone’s rights.

George W. Bush will appoint many federal judges during the next four years. He will almost certainly name several new Justices of the Supreme Court. Surely they will protect what the Attorney General disrespects?

As Tom Negrino reminds us at Backup Brain, Bush’s model Justices are Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Tom points out this informative page about those two Justices, titled “Ten Things President Bush Doesn’t Want You To Know About Scalia and Thomas.”

Scalia opposes efforts to desegregate schools.

Thomas favors state-sponsored religion.

Scalia supports sex discrimination.

Thomas would allow the president to effectively waive due process rights.

Scalia and Thomas oppose Family and Medical Leave.

Scalia and Thomas support executing the mentally retarded.

Scalia and Thomas support brutality against prisoners.

Scalia and Thomas support criminalizing consensual sex.

Scalia and Thomas oppose federal environmental regulation of polluters.

Scalia and Thomas would allow states to discriminate against the disabled.

Details, and a printable PDF poster, at the site.

Bumper stickers, t-shirts, hats and such for the next four years.

www.dontblamemeivoted4kerry.com

www.beatbushgear.com

Anti-Bush products from CafePress.com. (Warning: some rough language.) CafePress is an internet merchant that makes and sells products for independent content providers. Some of those producers provide pro-Bush products.

I may need the American Traveler International Apology shirt. It says, in many languages, “I’m sorry my president’s an idiot. I didn’t vote for him.” So true.

The great Will Eisner, creator of “The Spirit” and long-time advocate of comic books as a real art form, has died.

I met him once. I said I’d wanted to meet him ever since I’d discovered The Spirit in a reprint book in the mid-1960s. He said, “Why didn’t you send me a letter?”

Good-bye, Will. I’m glad you were here.

Okay, I think I know what happened.

The Republicans sent out a flyer — or maybe it was a television ad — and it got a great response. It said something like this: “You can tell a lot about a man by the enemies he makes.” And then it showed Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and me.

They may have shown me wearing a John Kerry campaign button. If they didn’t have a photo of me with a button, they could easily Photoshop it in. They probably explained that I’d given money to John Kerry’s campaign and to the Democratic National Committee. Maybe they quoted some of my political blog entries.

Anyway, the flyer or ad or whatever must have been a huge success, pulling in big contributions from Republican fat-cats, or persuading undecided voters to vote for Bush because I was against him. That’s the only way to explain this letter I’ve received from George W. Bush, thanking me for my “great help on my campaign in Ohio.”

“Your state played a critical role in this election, and the Vice President and I were fortunate to have your help in campaigning in Ohio.” Bush writes. Gosh, this looks hand-written. He addresses me as “Dear Michael E.” George W. and I are on a first-name-and-middle-initial basis now.

This explains the White House Christmas Card. I feel sick that Bush carried Ohio, and even worse to think I might have played a role. And yet, it’s nice to be recognized as a major player.

There’s only one other explanation I can think of for George W. Bush sending me a letter of thanks. Incompetence. But these are the folks shaping the nation’s defense against international terrorism. They’re the people selecting federal judges. They’re the people shaping national health, educational, environmental and science policies. They’re the people making the key decisions about when and where to send American soldiers into harm’s way. They’re going to reform the tax code and fix Social Security. Surely, such people can maintain an accurate database of the names and addresses of their political supporters.

So let me apologize to my fellow Kerry voters for my role in getting Bush elected. I’m so very, very sorry.

But if, by some strange chance, I should soon be appointed to a federal judgeship, then it wasn’t my fault. (I’ll try hard to do a good job.)