This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
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Sorry to do a politics one two days in a row. Yesterday I saw posts about this in several places and it just seemed interesting…
Cheney Attempting to Constrain Bush’s Choices on Iran Conflict: Staff Engaged in Insubordination Against President Bush
(Steve Clemons, The Washington Note)
There is a race currently underway between different flanks of the administration to determine the future course of US-Iran policy.
On one flank are the diplomats, and on the other is Vice President Cheney’s team and acolytes — who populate quite a wide swath throughout the American national security bureaucracy.
The Pentagon and the intelligence establishment are providing support to add muscle and nuance to the diplomatic effort led by Condi Rice, her deputy John Negroponte, Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, and Legal Adviser John Bellinger. The support that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and CIA Director Michael Hayden are providing Rice’s efforts are a complete, 180 degree contrast to the dysfunction that characterized relations between these institutions before the recent reshuffle of top personnel.
However, the Department of Defense and national intelligence sector are also preparing for hot conflict. They believe that they need to in order to convince Iran’s various power centers that the military option does exist.
But this is worrisome. The person in the Bush administration who most wants a hot conflict with Iran is Vice President Cheney. The person in Iran who most wants a conflict is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Quds Force would be big winners in a conflict as well — as the political support that both have inside Iran has been flagging.
Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney’s national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush’s tack towards Condoleezza Rice’s diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.
This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an “end run strategy” around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.
(via The Daily Dish)
There is also an interesting followup:
Cheney’s Iran Fantasy
(Joe Klein, Time)
Last December, as Rumsfeld was leaving, President Bush met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in “The Tank,” the secure room in the Pentagon where the Joint Chiefs discuss classified matters of national security. Bush asked the Chiefs about the wisdom of a troop “surge” in Iraq. They were unanimously opposed. Then Bush asked about the possibility of a successful attack on Iran’s nuclear capability. He was told that the U.S. could launch a devastating air attack on Iran’s government and military, wiping out the Iranian air force, the command and control structure and some of the more obvious nuclear facilities. But the Chiefs were–once again–unanimously opposed to taking that course of action.
Why? Because our intelligence inside Iran is very sketchy. There was no way to be sure that we could take out all of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Furthermore, the Chiefs warned, the Iranian response in Iraq and, quite possibly, in terrorist attacks on the U.S. could be devastating. Bush apparently took this advice to heart and went to Plan B–a covert destabilization campaign reported earlier this week by ABC News. If Clemons is right, and I’m pretty sure he is, Cheney is still pushing Plan A.
(via The Daily Dish)
It is interesting to speculate how different the last few years would have been if back at the beginning W would have been paying attention to Powell and company rather than Cheney and Rumsfeld. I suspect things would have been radically different. Even now, a little too late and not quite enough, you can start to see the difference with Rumsfeld out and Cheney in eclipse. It will be interesting to see however how much trouble Cheney will still be able to create, and if anything at all comes of it over the last year and a half of the administration.
For the last few months, although I haven’t yet added it to the links on the left of my blog, I’ve found myself checking out Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish at least daily, sometimes more often. I seem to frequently find myself on a very similar page to him. At least when he isn’t talking about religion.
He recently went to see Obama speak in person and this is the beginning of what he had to say:
The Reagan of the Left?
(Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, The Atlantic Online)
I went to see Obama last night. He had a fundraiser at H20, a yuppie disco/restaurant in Southwest DC. I was curious about how he is in person. I’m still absorbing the many impressions I got. But one thing stays in my head. This guy is a liberal. Make no mistake about that. He may, in fact, be the most effective liberal advocate I’ve heard in my lifetime. As a conservative, I think he could be absolutely lethal to what’s left of the tradition of individualism, self-reliance, and small government that I find myself quixotically attached to. And as a simple observer, I really don’t see what’s stopping him from becoming the next president. The overwhelming first impression that you get – from the exhausted but vibrant stump speech, the diverse nature of the crowd, the swell of the various applause lines – is that this is the candidate for real change. He has what Reagan had in 1980 and Clinton had in 1992: the wind at his back. Sometimes, elections really do come down to a simple choice: change or more of the same?
The rest of his impressions are interesting as well. Read the whole thing.
When I first woke up one of the first things I did was try to flip on the Gonzales hearings. Nothing on the local station. CNN was shwoing some VT press conference. So was MSNBC. *FOX* of all channels actually had Gonzo’s opening statement live, but then they broke away for the VT press conference. But C-Span still had it… but then the House started their day, and they flipped off. At that point there was no channel (at least that we get) that was covering it live. Presumably they will come back it it, but that just annoys me. Yes, the VT stuff is sensational, but basically nothing is changine now and the evaluations they are doing now are not likely to have much long lasting impact. (Unless of course the hysteria gets the better of people and the VT shootings prompt a huge wave of overreaction that end up causing more harm than good…) The stuff that is actual imporant breaking news right now are the hearings, not the 4th straight day of handwringing over the events at VT.
In any case, I’m now watching online on C-SPAN3. We’re only a few minutes in, but it is obvious already that this is going to be fun. Senator Specter (a REPUBLICAN) right now is Grilling Gonzo and grilling him hard. He is obviously pissed off and impatient. Gonzo looks like he is going to cry.
Kennedy is starting his questioning now. He is much calmer than Specter. He is being much nicer to Alberto. This might be a good time to get showered and ready for work before more angry Senators come on. :-)
By the way, it is the oldest lesson in Washington, proved time and time again, when will these people *ever* learn (both parties)… it is the coverup that gets you, not the crime. If they had fired exactly the people they fired, at exactly the times they fired them, for exactly the reasons they fired them… but had been honest about it… then none of this would ever have become an issue. This is all blowing up because the whole raft of them have been lying and making things up and destroying documents and hiding emails… etc, etc, etc. Over something that was probably perfectly fine for them to do in the first place.
Idiots.
Anyway, TPM Muckraker is doing up to the minute coverage of the important aspects of the testimony. Good place to watch if you can’t actually watch or listen to the whole hearing. Since I will have to be at work and in meetings and such long before the hearings are over, I’ll probably just be checking in there periodically through the day.
I love this stuff.
As the 2008 presidential campaign is heating up, time once again to visit my favorite candidate selector site. This is of course the SelectSmart Presidential Candidate Selector in which you answer a series of questions about your views on various issues and how important each is to you, and it matches you up against the stated views of the various candidates who are in the race (or at this stage, also other people who are considered somewhat likely to get in the race). I tend to do this quiz every few months for the couple years before the election to see how things change as my views change over time, and as the range of candidates changes.
Last time I took the quiz was back in October 2004. You can see my results and my thoughts at that time here.
As for this time arount, at this EARLY stage, and without any third party candidates in the quiz yet, here are my results:
(100%) 1: Rep. Ron Paul (R)
(86%) 2: Sen. Barack Obama (D)
(86%) 3: Sen. John McCain (R)
(84%) 4: Retired Gen. Wesley Clark (D)
(78%) 5: Sen. Sam Brownback (R)
(76%) 6: Ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R)
(75%) 7: Gov. George Pataki (R)
(73%) 8: Gov. Mitt Romney (R)
(72%) 9: Ex-VP Al Gore (D)
(72%) 10: Sen. Christopher Dodd (D)
(70%) 11: Sec. Condoleezza Rice (R)
(70%) 12: Sen. George Allen (R)
(69%) 13: Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D)
(64%) 14: Rep. Tom Tancredo (R)
(64%) 15: Sen. Hillary Clinton (D)
(63%) 16: Gov. Bill Richardson (D)
(63%) 17: Sen. John Kerry (D)
(61%) 18: Gov. Mike Huckabee (R)
(60%) 19: Ex-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R)
(60%) 20: Gov. Tom Vilsack (D)
(60%) 21: Sen. Joseph Biden (D)
(58%) 22: Ex-Sen. John Edwards (D)
(55%) 23: Sen. Chuck Hagel (R)
(49%) 24: Rep. Duncan Hunter (R)
My thoughts on this… first of all, 100% Ron Paul. Great! He a former Presidential candidate for the Libertarian party (1988) and unlike that party’s more recent candidates is not a COMPLETE crackpot. He’s in congress as a Republican right now, although the Republicans don’t really like him that much cause he votes against them on a lot of issues. Looks like he is going to be running in the Republican primaries though, which means he will probably not make it onto the ballot in the end as the Libertarian party will quite possibly nominate another crackpot. I so much want to vote Libertarian. That is where my sympathies really lie, but they have to nominate someone who is not insane for me to do that. I could definately vote for Ron Paul.
Number two also surprised me. I have been very excited about the Obama campaign, but more because he is a great speaker and is exiting to watch and it will make great theater. I got both of his books for Christmas. I haven’t cracked them open yet, but will definately read both before the election season comes around next year. My full expectation is to like him a lot from the point of view of being a good person, feeling I could trust him, liking his backstory, and generally thinking he could do a decent job, but then disagreeing on lots and lots when it came to actual issues, and therefore not being able to vote for him. I am somewhat surprised that he comes up as an 86% match for me on this quiz. I’ll definately have to read more about his position on the issues.
As for McCain… I used to like him a lot. But he lost all credibility to me in the years since 2000. He seems to have given up most of the “independant” cred he had back in 2000 by either sucking up to W (once his mortal enemy) or just pandering to better “position” himself for the Republican primaries with the religious right and such. And after putting up a good fight on the torture issue for a little while, in the end he just caved, agreed to some ambiguous language that let him say he got his way but in actuallity let W do whatever he wanted… Anyway, I may be a pretty good match on paper on some things, but I no longer trust this man at all. So he’s probably a non-starter with me at this point.
Also interesting is looking at the mix I get. If you look at everybody with more than an 80% match, you see an even split between Republicans and Democrats. I mean, Obama and McCain are tied! What’s up with that! I’m guessing the “normal” patern would be for someone to see mostly one party at the top, then mostly the other party at the bottom. Since I tend to just generally have the principle that in almost all things the right answer is for government to do nothing and stay out of things, and the Republicans and Democrats both seem to be in favor of heavy government involvement, they just disagree on which things to interfere in and exactly how to do so, I end up semi-randomly matching up with one party or the other based on the specific issue…
Which always makes presidential elections fun. Generally during the primary season I can find a few candidates that I agree with a lot, but by the time it gets to the general election, everybody sucks.
Anyway, I of course always think through these things in more depth as the actual elections get near, but I’ve found over the last several election cycles that despite its simplicty, this quiz tends to match very much what I end up feeling about the candidates ON THE ISSUES. The one thing it does not take into account that I do take into account when actually choosing my vote, is my trust and faith in the candidate. I’ll vote for someone I agree with less on the issues over someone I agree with more on the issues if I feel like the person I agree with more is not someone I would want from a purely personality and trustworthyness perspective.
In anycase, it would be very interesting if this time around there was actually a major party candidate come election day that I could actually feel decent about.
Anyway, post your own results in the comments if you want. It will be fun and exciting. Really.
A new article by my dad popped up in my Google Alerts yesterday. First paragraph quoted below. Click through for the rest.
Don’t replay Iraq in Horn of Africa
(William Minter, The Providence Journal)
AS CONGRESS debates how to withdraw from a failed war in Iraq and President Bush begins his troop surge, U.S. policymakers seem determined to replicate the Iraq debacle in Africa. In the last two months, Washington has backed an overwhelming Ethiopian invasion of neighboring Somalia and has launched air strikes on alleged terrorists, killing an unknown number of Somali civilians. The United States is now counting on the African Union to replace Ethiopia as the military sponsor of a weak Somali government.
Yes, I am a few days late… I wanted to get those other two post out, and the next few.. in the order I originally thought of them… to catch up as it were… so that of course means several posts are being posted days after they were relevant, and after many others have also said things, so they just don’t have the same oompf as if I’d posted them the instant I thought of them, which I probably should have done. For instance, I started reading the Iraq report the hour it was released, and thought of what I was going to say here that same hour, but just didn’t post it, until now, days later, when it is stupid, but what the hell, I’ll post it anyway, even though at this point many people have said similar things. Too bad, I’ll say it anyway.
Anyway… I have not read the whole report. I wanted to do so the day it came out, but then I had other things to do both at work and at home, so I didn’t. But even just starting, even on the very first pages, was a quote that told you everything you had to know. From the Executive Summary:
What we recommend in this report demands a tremendous amount of political will and cooperation by the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government. It demands skillful implementation. It demands unity of effort by government agencies. And its success depends on the unity of the American people in a time of political polarization. Americans can and must enjoy the right of robust debate within a democracy. Yet U.S. foreign policy is doomed to failure—as is any course of action in Iraq—if it is not supported by a broad, sustained consensus.
And that ladies and gentlemen is all you have to know. Because if that is what is required, then the rest of the report is completely irrelevant. They just stated up front that it is impossible in the current climate to do what would in their opinion need to be done. There is no consensus. There will be no consensus in the near future. Any plan that requires it is nothing but a futile intellectual exercise. Let alone “skillful implementation”. Ha! We’re done here. No need to read any more of the report.
OK, Montana and Virginia have not yet officially been called. But the Dem is leading by a decent margin in Montana. And the Dem is leading in Virginia too. It wil be close enough that Allen will be able to request a recount if he wants, but probably enough of a margin so a recount won’t end up making a difference. So, there may be a surprise yet… but as of right now that looks like what will happen.
So, looks like the 49-49-2 split actually happens. Very nice. It would be far more interesting if the two independants were really and truly independant, and were able to force “interesting” arrangements. But even as it is… it will be a fun next two years I think.
I am on the couch sandwiched between a sleeping dog on one side and a sleeping daughter on the other. It isn’t exactly comfortable… but it is nice to have them both here. I think I will have to adjust my position soon though.
I was trying to stay awak at least until they offically call Montana, but last I heard mentioned, it sounds like it could be a few more hours yet. So maybe that won’t happen. Even though I’m on the west coast, it is still pretty late now. Sleep is sounding good…. If I can find a position here where I can get comfortable without disturbing the daughter or the dog…
CNN pisses me off. (What’s new?) For the first few hours of the evening they were doing it correctly and had 2 seats in the Senate in the “I” row. Sanders and Lieberman. About half an hour ago they moved the two of them to the “D” row.
Now, yes, both of them will caucus with the Democrats and will end up counting toward the Dems taking control of the Senate if that ends up happening… but it is just plain not accurate. The reason to do this is of course so you can tell which party will end up controling the senate just by looking at the “R” and “D” rows, without having to know what to do with the “I”‘s.
In other words, to help stupid people figure out what is going on without having to explain it. Even if it means what you show is actually untrue.
Reminds me why I hardly ever watch CNN any more.
Dumbasses.
Maybe they will “correct” it later in the evening, but I am not holding my breath.
Everybody has been thinking that the Dems will pick up the House, but that they wouldn’t quite do it in the Senate. I’d been waiting for the final projections from the Blogging Ceasar because in the 2004 elections his record was pretty good using his methodology. As I write this he’s still updating his final update for 2006. His final house numbers are not up yet, but his final prediction for the Senate is up. It is that we will end up with:
49 Democrats
49 Republicans
2 Independants
To me this would be a really fun result. (It probably won’t turn out this way, but…)
The two independants would of course be Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Now, Bernie is very liberal and will just go with the Dems without anything interesting. Lieberman has of course promised to “caucus with” the Democrats as well, so this is essentially a Democratic win. But…
It really isn’t completely. It potentially puts Lieberman in a position where he could threaten to withold his vote to organize with the Democrats into a majority block unless he got concessions on certain issues he cared about or on who exactly would be in the leadership slots. Not that he would vote with the Republicans to put in Republican leadership, he has made clear that he would not do that. BUt what do house rules say on leadership votes? Is 50 to 49 with one abstaining good enough to organize? A 50/50 tie is broken by the vice president, but 50/49/1 is not a 50/50 tie.
Does someone out there know exactly what happens in this scenerio?
No, if only Bernie was also a moderate, you would have control of the house essentially determined by the will of that “third group” and they might be able to force some sort of interesting arrangements. But… that is not quite what we would have.
And Lieberman, if put into a position like this, might just try to “kiss and make up” with the dems by not demanding anything at all and just voting for Pelosi for leader and be done with it. But given the way the Dems have treated him, milking it a bit and demanding a few concessions would be quite reasonable I think. And holding the stick at the ready that at any point if they pissed him off, he would call for a new leadership vote and put the R’s back in power… priceless.
And just to note, if any of that comes to pass, it is entirely the fault of the Kossites and the like who thought flexing their muscle and pushing out Lieberman was the smart thing to do. Ha!
Anyway, probably won’t be so lucky as to actually get 49/49/2 as the split… that would just be too good. But this will be fun.
As of now we still don’t have DirecTV up and functional at the new house. We’ll be working on that tonight. Cause I fully intend to spend most of tomorrow evening glued to election coverage. Love this stuff.
PS: Own personal view… either the R’s or the D’s in charge of everying is bad. It is critical right now that the D’s get back at least one house of congress if not both… However… if a Democrat wins the White House in 2008, I would very much hope that at least one house of the congress went Republican again. When *either* party controls all three, they just make a horrible mess. Just the tension between the legislature and executive given the seperate ways they are elected used to be enough to provide appropriate checks and balance regardless of party, but it seems these days for there to be any counterweight, the executive and legislature MUSt be controlled by different parties.
PPS: In the mean time though, regardless of the outcome, the process is fun to watch. We’ll see just how far off the projections all are. Do the Dem’s really take the House? The Senate? Or do they completely fall apart. Oh, can you just imagine the Dem reaction if they end up NOT taking at least the house? They would be apoplectic!
I was going to say something about Pluto, but no longer am inspired. So instead, here is another good article recommending a rational response to terrorist threats. Read it all.
What the Terrorists Want
(Bruce Schneier, Schneier on Security)
The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics. The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.
(via Boing Boing)
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