The Commuter in Chief, By Eugene Robinson

Let’s put this in perspective. Martha Stewart is convicted of conspiracy, making false statements and obstruction of justice, and soon she’s decorating a prison cell. Lil’ Kim is convicted of perjury before a grand jury and conspiracy, and off to the big house she goes. Paris Hilton commits a crime that could be described as “driving while blond, vapid and obnoxious,” and next thing you know she’s freaking out in solitary confinement.

But when Scooter Libby is found guilty of perjury before a grand jury, lying to FBI investigators and obstruction of justice — basically the same crimes that got Stewart and Lil’ Kim locked up, and miles beyond anything Hilton ever did — George W. Bush intervenes to save him from the indignity of spending a single night behind bars. No home confinement, no ankle bracelet, nothing. Now that he’s paid his $250,000 fine, Scooter is free to scoot on with his life. [mjh: Of course, Republican stalwarts paid the money, not Scooty. How much did Fred Thompson donate?]…

The reason Bush gives — that he accepts the verdict against Libby but thinks the sentence was excessive — makes no sense either. The remedy in that case would be to wait until Libby served a non-excessive amount of time in prison and then commute the sentence. …

What does make sense is that the president would feel responsible for Libby’s plight. Libby’s criminal lies were about his part in discrediting claims that the administration’s rationale for invading Iraq was bogus. Bush might have decided that since this is his war, he, not Libby, should be the one held to account.

Then again, Bush might have worried that sitting in prison, with time on his hands, novelist Libby might turn his pen to a nonfiction memoir of his White House years. “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” would have been a good working title.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/05/AR2007070501823.html
– – – – –

Shankar Vedantam – Bush: Naturally, Never Wrong – washingtonpost.com

The different perceptions of victims and perpetrators in [social psychologist Roy] Baumeister’s experiment are a result of a phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance, [Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson] argue in a new book titled “Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me).”

Aronson said the bias toward self-justification explains the administration’s shifting rationale for the Iraq war and why Bush could not have allowed Libby to go to prison: “If Scooter Libby, working with the blessing of the vice president, lied about what he did in order to protect higher-ups, he is a good guy, he is loyal. It is an exquisite example of self-justification because the good guys are defined as those who are loyal to the cause even if the cause is wrong.”

For Bush to have allowed Libby to go to jail, he would have had to live with the idea that someone who he thought was a good and loyal soldier was being punished for being a good and loyal soldier — a fairly extreme form of cognitive dissonance. The only way to keep such cognitive dissonance at bay, the psychologists said, was for Bush to see Libby’s prison sentence as overly harsh and do away with it altogether, even though Bush, both as president and governor of Texas, has long prided himself on refusing clemency to felons.

“He sees no inconsistency, just as we cannot see our own inconsistencies even though they are strikingly clear to everyone else,” Tavris said. “He is protecting one of his own, but his reasoning is consistent with the way the mind works to preserve consistency.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/08/
– – – – –

Death in Texas, By Sister Helen Prejean – The New York Review of Books

Bush wrote in his autobiography that it was not his job to “replace the verdict of a jury unless there are new facts or evidence of which a jury was unaware, or evidence that the trial was somehow unfair”….

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17670
– – – – –

The Daily Dish

“I don’t believe my role is to replace the verdict of a jury with my own,” – George W. Bush on why he signed death warrants for 152 inmates as governor of Texas.

The quote is from his own book, “A Charge To Keep.” I think that’s a debate-ender, isn’t it?”

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/07/quote-for-the-5.html
– – – – –

ABQjournal Opinion: Letters to the Editor

This ‘Family’ Is Above the Law

THERE’S BAD news, good news and great news about President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s jail time.

The bad news is that in taking care of Scooter, who took the fall for Bush and Dick Cheney, the White House is finally OK with being indistinguishable from a criminal mob.

The good news is for all those “Sopranos” fans who mourned the recent loss of their favorite show; now you can just watch the nightly news on the Bush administration for your crime-family fix.

The great news is that now our children know that any criminal in the land can be above the law, as long as he knows the right people. …

JIM MULLANY
Sandia Park

http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/letters/576832opinion07-08-07.htm

Here are two headlines that really need to be seen together. mjh

FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data

FBI SEEKING TO CREATE CONTROVERSIAL SIX-BILLION RECORD DATABASE

In the name of fighting terrorism, the FBI is seeking to create a new $12-million data-mining program that “bears a striking resemblance” to the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness program. Documents predict that this new program “will include six billion records by FY2012. This amounts to 20 separate ‘records’ for each man, woman and child in the United States.” Citing the FBI’s “track record of improperly — even illegally — gathering personal information on Americans,” House Science and Technology Committee members Brad Miller (D-NC) and James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) requested last week that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigate the proposal. In 2005, the GAO found that the FBI’s Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force did not comply with all privacy and security laws. Earlier this year, an Inspector General’s report found that the FBI had repeatedly violated regulations while using National Security Letters to “obtain the personal records of U.S. residents or visitors.” In addition, an internal FBI audit published today by the Washington Post found “that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years.” “[T]wo dozen of the newly-discovered violations involved agents’ requests for information that U.S. law did not allow them to have.” These repeated violations of federal law are made worse in light of the fact that such data mining techniques have yet to be proven effective in counter-terrorism operations. A recent Cato Institute study found that programs similar to this new FBI program are likely do little but “flood the national security system with false positives — suspects who are truly innocent.”

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/progressreport/2007/06/worst_fears.html
– – – – –

FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data, By John Solomon, Washington Post Staff Writer

An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism.

The new audit covers just 10 percent of the bureau’s national security investigations since 2002, and so the mistakes in the FBI’s domestic surveillance efforts probably number several thousand, bureau officials said in interviews. The earlier report found 22 violations in a much smaller sampling.

Eugene Robinson – Fleeting Glory in Albania

The report was done for the Council of Europe by Swiss legislator Dick Marty, and its opening paragraph is worth quoting at length:

“What was previously just a set of allegations is now proven: large numbers of people have been abducted from various locations across the world and transferred to countries where they have been persecuted and where it is known that torture is common practice. Others have been held in arbitrary detention, without any precise charges leveled against them and without any judicial oversight. . . . Still others have simply disappeared for indefinite periods and have been held in secret prisons, including in member states of the Council of Europe.”

…

This, I am convinced, is how future generations will remember George W. Bush: as the president who abandoned our traditional concepts of justice and human rights, choosing instead a program of state-sponsored kidnapping, arbitrary detention and abusive interrogation techniques such as “waterboarding.” …

We will remember this whole misguided administration for deciding to wage the fight against terrorism in a manner that not only mocks our nation’s values but also draws new recruits to the anti-American cause. We will remember this White House for unwittingly helping the terrorist cause perpetuate itself.

Judges Rule Against U.S. On Detained ‘Combatant’ By Carol D. Leonnig, Washington Post Staff Writer

“The President cannot eliminate constitutional protections with the stroke of a pen by proclaiming a civilian, even a criminal civilian, an enemy combatant subject to indefinite military detention,” the panel found. …

The 4th Circuit, based in Richmond, is considered one of the most conservative in the country, but the three-judge panel that heard the case was not. Two judges known as moderates, both appointed by President Bill Clinton, made up the majority in the decision. … U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, a Bush appointee, dissented from the opinion. Hudson contended that Bush had the power to detain enemy combatants ….

The panel found that the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which prohibits enemy combatants from challenging the basis for their imprisonment in U.S. courts, does not apply to a person living legally in the United States. The judges also doubted the legality of classifying someone as an enemy combatant who was not caught on the battlefield or was not carrying arms.

Civil libertarians who championed Marri’s case had warned that if the administration prevailed in its argument, the military could next round up U.S. citizens and jail them without trial. The court appeared to agree.

“To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians . . . would have disastrous consequences for the constitution — and the country,” U.S. Circuit Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote for the majority.

Haven’t we had enough bravado and “bring ’em on!”? Doesn’t a willingness to start a nuclear war disqualify someone from election? Why not? mjh

Nuking Iran: The Republican Agenda?, William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security

Rep. Duncan Hunter of California was the starkest: “I would authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons if there was no other way to preempt those particular centrifuges,” he said. Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said he believed that the job “could be done with conventional weapons,” but he added that “you can’t rule out anything and you shouldn’t take any option off the table.” Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore also left “all options are on the table” with regard to Iranian nuclear weapons. Said former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney: “I wouldn’t take any options off the table.”

After the debate, former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, who did not particpate, added his name to the list of candidates who would consider a preemptive attack against Iran.

Only Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, the “Dennis the Menace” of his party, said he opposed a nuclear strike on moral grounds and because he believed Iran “has done no harm to us directly and is no threat to our national security.”

The Iraq war and the war against terrorism are the central battles of our time, these candidates say. They all profess their faith in God and the United States, and speak of a moral struggle between good and evil, between the United States and “radical Islam.” Yet they are not willing to say that nuclear weapons have no place in modern confrontations.

I am not arguing that Iran’s effort to develop nuclear weapons is justified. It isn’t. I am saying, however, that the U.S. should not use its nuclear weapons to threaten Iran. And not just from a moral standpoint, but from a practical one: When we brandish our own nuclear arsenal, we only play into the hands of supporters of Tehran’s plans to develop its own.

I think we all know who is going to win the Republican nomination: another goddamn actor. How much more evidence does the nation need that the GOP is out-of-touch? mjh

McCain Sets Self Apart in Debate By Dan Balz and Michael D. Shear, Washington Post Staff Writers

Actor and former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.), who is exploring a presidential bid, did not participate in the debate but used the moment to launch his campaign Web site.

Immediately after the debate, he appeared on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity & Colmes.” Thompson said he would support a preemptive strike against Iran to knock out its nuclear capability and accused Democratic candidates of speaking in decade-old “cliches” about the challenges facing the country.

Asked about his previous statements that he had never hungered to run for president, Thompson said, “More and more, I wish that I had the opportunity to do the things that only a president can do.” [mjh: yeah, like nuke any country you want. No actor has ever gotten to do that, though Raygun came close.]
– – – – –

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) remains on top, but his support has slipped to 23%. That’s down two points from a week ago and is his lowest level of support all year. Earlier, Giuliani had consistently enjoyed support in the mid-30s. That was before Thompson’s name was added to the mix and before Giuliani stumbled on the abortion issue in the first GOP debate of the season.

Thompson, who just formed an exploratory committee and is the newest face in the race, immediately moved into second place. With 17% support, he is within six points of the frontrunner. That’s closer than anybody has been to Giuliani in 20 consecutive weekly polls. Thompson is also competitive in a variety of general election match-ups with potential Democratic nominees.

Among men, Thompson earns 21% support while Giuliani attracts 20%.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/2008_republican_presidential_primary

I have resisted the call to impeach George W. Bush, largely because I don’t want the country to go through the cruel nonsense the conservatives forced on us with their unwarranted impeachment of Clinton. I don’t want it to become the norm that every president faces impeachment.

I’ve also thought that, though Duhbya is the worst president ever, incompetence isn’t really a crime and it was obvious to anyone that he did not deserve the presidency, so the fools who voted for him are to blame.

Finally, I contented myself with the thought that for a generation or more, whenever Duhbya’s name is mentioned, people will spit on the ground and swear.

With this latest information, my mind is changed. Bush is a criminal and should be punished by removal from office. He has willfully set the world on fire. mjh

Before War, CIA Warned of Negative Outcomes, By Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writer

On Aug. 13, 2002, the CIA completed a classified, six-page intelligence analysis that described the worst scenarios that could arise after a U.S.-led removal of Saddam Hussein: anarchy and territorial breakup in Iraq, a surge of global terrorism, and a deepening of Islamic antipathy toward the United States.

Titled “The Perfect Storm: Planning for Negative Consequences of Invading Iraq,” the paper, written seven months before the war began, also speculated about al-Qaeda operatives taking “advantage of a destabilized Iraq to establish secure safe havens from which they can continue their operations,” according to a report about prewar intelligence recently released by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The report said the CIA paper also cautioned about outcomes such as declining European confidence in U.S. leadership, Hussein’s survival and retreat with regime loyalists, Iran working to install a friendly regime “tolerant of Iranian policies,” Afghanistan tipping into civil strife because U.S. forces were not replaced by United Nations peacekeepers and troops from other countries, and violent demonstrations in Pakistan because of its support of Washington.