Just Another Thursday

I'm not quite sure how I should feel about Harriet Miers' withdrawal. In the short run, it's good news in the sense that anything that makes W look like a dope and a crony coddler (e.g., his bathroom mirror) is good news. My general rule of thumb is that in the absence of outright victory for the forces of good and light, I'll take whatever is entertaining or exposes the enemy to ridicule. But even on those lesser grounds, this is not really good news. Bill Frist played the role of Barry Goldwater to Richard Nixon, telling the president that the votes weren't there and that the nomination was hurting the party. Had Bush done his usual number - hunker down, breathe defiance and stick to his position (clenched jaw, tiny eyes narrowed) - we would have been treated to lengthy and probably ugly hearings, juicy revelations, and bitter recriminations - all food for my childish hunger for schadenfreude. Instead, somebody (probably Cheney) dropped the dime on Miers and got her to step aside before things got fun. Damn. (And props to Charles Krauthammer for figuring out the exit strategy two weeks ago.)

The timing on this is intriguing, too; evidently the Bushies decided to get all of the bad news out on the same day - the embarrassment of Miers and the pending indictments of Karl Rove, I. Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Dick Cheney, and Jeb, Neil, Jenna, Laura, and the Barbara Bushes senior and junior. Again, although these will provide us a certain amount of smug entertainment (especially if Joe Wilson finally gets his wish to see "Karl Rove frog-marched out of the West Wing in handcuffs"), it's not really good news. Every day we hear how low Bush's approval ratings have dropped. So what? He's got the presidency and both houses of Congress and a "do over" to nominate a genuine idealogue of real judicial skills to the Supreme Court to shift the dismantling of the 20th century protection for civil liberties into high gear. Bush never has to stand for election again, Tom Delay et al. have successfully gerrymandered congressional districts to protect Republican majorities for decades, and Dick Cheney has no desire to be president. If I were them, I'd say this is "no lose" time: move as fast and as far as possible to enact the corporate conservative agenda. They don't even need legislative approval for much of it; witness the rewriting of regulations within the Interior Department and the lifting of minimum wage requirements (surprisingly, reversed this morning) for the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast.

So, if you're small-minded and bitter like me, enjoy your last view of Harriet Miers as she disappears down the memory hole of history; raise a glass to Patrick Fitzgerald and say "vaya con dios" to Turd Blossom and Scooter. But stand by, because the worst is coming.

And let's get back to the real news: the grim mark of 2,000 dead Americans in the hopeless, endless, pointless mess in Iraq. Read Bob Herbert's column in today's Times - "Driving Blind While the Deaths Pile Up" - and then read Victor Davis Hanson's shameless attempt to minimize this atrocity by foolish and inaccurate historical analogies.

The phrase of the day is Herbert's: "mindless Washington weasels."

Check out in his own words what Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff and a former instructor at the Naval War College, had to say last week about the ineptitude, incompetence, and illegality of foreign policy making by the Bush White House.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9757219/

Syria = Cambodia?

From a NYT story today.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 - A series of clashes in the last year between American and Syrian troops, including a prolonged firefight this summer that killed several Syrians, has raised the prospect that cross-border military operations may become a dangerous new front in the Iraq war, according to current and former military and government officials.

The firefight, between Army Rangers and Syrian troops along the border with Iraq, was the most serious of the conflicts with President Bashar al-Assad's forces, according to American and Syrian officials.

It illustrated the dangers facing American troops as Washington tries to apply more political and military pressure on a country that President Bush last week labeled one of the "allies of convenience" with Islamic extremists. He also named Iran.

Keep in Touch!!!!

So, Harriet Miers wrote George W. Bush that he was "the best governor ever - deserving of great respect!" and told him how "cool" he was. Did she dot her 'i's' with little hearts? Is it all in some 14-year-old girl color from her favorite signing felt-tip pen? Did she promise that she and W would be "best friends forever!!!!" and remind him of all the good times on student council and the yearbook committee?

We're so far through the looking glass that Wonderland is starting to look normal to me.

I offer the following prediction (reluctantly): when Miers has her hearings, we're going to be flooded with articles about how surprisingly smart, witty, well-informed, and charming she is. The Republicans will immediately cuddle up to her, and (most) of the squawking conservatives outside government will realize that a stray lapdog is almost as good as a known idealogue, and they'll shut up too. And there will be our hapless Democrats, caught with their pants down (again, and not in the harmless Clinton way, either), with nothing to say because they thought the conservatives would do their work for them - and because they're spineless weasels, of course.

Moxiegrrrl

I would rather someone was wrapped in the Constitution burning the flag than wrapped in the flag burning the Constitution.—Moxiegrrrl.com

Sagan on War

or a war, the 30 Years War.

Watching Cosmos (being re-broadcast on the Science Channel), he described Kepler's life and the frustrating process of his discovery of the laws of planetary motion. At a certain point Kepler is chased into exile due to war, the war the result of rising religious conflict.

Sagan intones, "The conflict, portrayed on both sides as a Holy War, was more an exploitation of religious bigotry by those hungry for land and power."

Soldiers vs. Bird Flu

So the President wants Congress to amend the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 to allow the US military to perform domestic policing duties; he cites an outbreak of avian flu requiring a large-scale quarantine as one possible scenario. What do you think? Is this a reasonable and prudent precaution in case of epidemic or major disaster, or is it a slippery slope to uniformed soldiers on the border, in airports, on our streets? Many Americans who travel to Mexico, Israel, or any number of other countries are startled and frightened to see armed soldiers on patrol seemingly everywhere. Should we get used to this? Are we over our traditional distrust of standing armies?

Interesting Editorial

THE most convenient government for a nation at war is a despotic monarchy; the most inconvenient—according to general opinion—a democratic republic. A despotic monarch, having no advisers to defer to, no responsibility to fear, and no laws to obey, can act with a promptitude, an energy, and a secrecy which are rarely compatible with the checks and trammels of limited governments. He can meet desperate emergencies with desperate remedies; and, while popular governments are studying how to conciliate existing laws with unforeseen crises, can despise or trample any thing and every thing which may stand in the way of his purpose. Him no Congressional debates delay, nor caviling Committees annoy; no newspapers baffle by premature betrayals of his plans ; no rules compel to disregard genius in the choice of his officers ; no laws hamper in the selection of the most efficient methods to attain his ends. If he has the money, the men, and the will, to prosecute the war is to him no task at all.

It is a very different matter in a democratic republic such as ours. In the first place, the Constitution—a document not framed in view of such wars as the present one, for instance, and full of checks on the authority of the Executive—ties the hands of the President, and forbids his doing many things which war may render it absolutely necessary for him to do. The laws of the United States—framed for the general good in time of peace—lay further restrictions upon him : leave him no power to stop unlawful trade, for instance, and none to interfere with constructive treason. Under the law he can neither enlist men to fight, nor pay them for fighting, without the previous decree of Congress. When he has got the men and the money, Congress still retains the power of directing how the money and the men shall be employed, and of appointing Committees to see that their directions are carried out. Even the Executive Authority of the President is constitutionally shared with a body of advisers who are entitled to a knowledge of his secrets. Over and above all, the Supreme Court enjoys and exercises the right of pronouncing the President's acts invalid, null, and void. Then come the people and the press. Though the people can not constitutionally act upon the Government except through the ballot-box, yet still " popular pressure" is a power known to and feared by all governments; where it can not be repressed by the arm of authority, it is almost irresistible. This pressure is mostly exercised through the press. The power of a free and an able press is such that wise men have doubted whether it were possible to carry on a long war in its presence. Wars—even the most glorious — make so many malcontents among those whose livelihood is taken away by the war, and discontent at home is so fatal to the administration of a Government engaged in a great war, that even English statesmen in our day have doubted whether the freedom of the press should be absolute in war as in peace—whether newspapers, working for private ends or in the interest of unpatriotic malcontents, should be suffered to weaken the hands of Government, during war-time, by malevolent opposition.

We are now testing these various inconveniences of the form of government under which we live. Our institutions are on their trial. We know that they work well in peace; we know that they do not prevent our carrying on a foreign war : it remains to be seen whether they are compatible with a great civil war.

Yep, Civil War.. as in War Between the States. Last night with some buddies, I was playing a game which simulates the First Battle of Manassas. I decided to do some reading today on the battle, learn more of the history, when I happened on a website that is an archive of Harper's Weekly from the Civil War period. Above was an editorial from the issue that covered that battle. http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1861/august/editorial.htm

Reading the editorial I couldn't help but be struck by the same chords and concerns that we see now. We fear now, and feared then, that our institutions would be insufficient to the unusual situation. Somehow, maybe, our institutions must change because they are insufficient or even a risk to our success.

Why must we keep re-learning these lessons?