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Security

Schieffer Slams White House On Iraq: Bush ‘Even More Isolated,’ Coalition ‘Coming Apart’

By ThinkProgress on Feb 22, 2007 at 3:15 pm

Last night on CBS, chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer was sharply critical of the Bush administration’s attempt to spin Britain’s Iraq drawdown as a sign that conditions are improving.

“If that’s the claim, it’s going to be a very hard sell to a country and a public that has already turned against this war,” Schieffer said. In fact, the UK’s decision to redeploy troops is “going to make the president even more isolated,” he said, adding, “Whether you’re for the war or against the war, Katie, what this underlines tonight is that the coalition that the president put together to fight this war is now coming apart.”

Drawing parallels to the Vietnam era, Schieffer said Tony Blair’s decision reminded him of “when things were going badly, and the crusty old senator from Vermont, George Aiken, said there’s only one way out here, that’s to declare victory and just leave. That’s what we’re seeing.”

Watch it:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/02/bobbrit.320.240.flv]

Transcript: Read more

Culture

The Banality of Espionage

By Matthew Yglesias on Feb 22, 2007 at 2:39 pm

I went to see Breach last night, about the Robert Hanssen case and had a thought that will disqualify me from ever working on a presidential campaign. Namely, the terrible, terrible thing about Hanssen is supposed to be that his treason got people killed. This is emphasized several times in the film. The two people named in the film, however, were . . . Soviet traitors. From a categorical imperative point of view, it’s hard to see how it can simultaneously be the case that getting traitors arrested and innocent is a terrible thing to do while identifying traitors and bringing capital charges against them is praiseworthy. This, of course, is why Alasdair MacIntyre thinks liberals can’t be patriots.

At any rate, I got to wondering who the third guy Hanssen got killed was, since the movie doesn’t mention him. Interestingly, the Justice Department’s Inspector General’s report doesn’t say either, which gives me the impression that the third man’s identity must be some kind of classified secret. The IG’s report also makes it clear that Hanssen wasn’t really all that; he went undetected for decades because the FBI didn’t make any real effort to identify moles inside the FBI. As the report concludes “the FBI trusted that its employees would remain loyal throughout their careers. The Hanssen case shows the danger of that approach.”

Politics

Don Imus Reports Administration Won’t Allow Him To Tour Entire Walter Reed Facilities

By Faiz Shakir on Feb 22, 2007 at 1:56 pm

This morning on his radio show, Don Imus continued to call attention to the deplorable conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Imus has highlighted the issue every day this week. On yesterday’s show, he revealed, “I haven’t heard from anybody [in the administration] about whether I can come down there and take a little tour.”

This morning, Imus updated his audience, reporting that administration officials called him and said he could take a limited guided tour of the facilities. Imus explained, “They will cherry pick some places for me to go look at, but they don’t want me just going down there looking at the entire facility. I’m not interested in having that.” Watch it:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/02/imusreed.320.240.flv]

Imus said that all he has received from the administration is talking points. “The Veterans Administration called me — they keep trying to cherry pick a couple of situations you have that you are doing what you are supposed to do. Don’t think that is going to shut me up, because it’s not. So just save your breath on all that stuff. It’s annoying and it’s insulting and it’s a waste of time,” he said.

Email the Walter Reed Public Affairs office, and tell them to let Don Imus tour the full Walter Reed facilities.

Digg It!

Transcript: Read more

Yglesias

Welcome to Crazytown

By Matthew Yglesias on Feb 22, 2007 at 1:42 pm

A kind of scanned yesterday’s article on They Work for Us and missed this sentence:

Working for Us was created in January by a coalition of bloggers, trial lawyers and labor leaders, the trifecta of Democratic interest groups.

Seriously, that’s insane. The trifecta of Democratic interest groups?

Yglesias

Vilsack Fever

By Matthew Yglesias on Feb 22, 2007 at 1:33 pm

Ramesh Ponnuru:

Tom Vilsack has endorsed making Social Security benefits grow with prices, rather than wages—thus stopping them from growing at all, after inflation. He isn’t even talking about doing it in a “progressive” way, with low-income workers shielded from the hit, as President Bush has. So on this issue, he’s to the right of the president, not to mention every other candidate for the presidency in 2008.

I like his chances of securing the Democratic nomination more and more with every passing day!

I should note for the sake of precision, that once an individual’s Social Security benefits are set, the do rise with prices rather than wages. The wage index comes into play when calculating your initial benefit level. It should also be said that while, technically, ending the wage index would massively cut benefits and thus save a bunch of money over the long term it’s by no means clear that this would be the actual result. Before the wage index was implemented, what you had was a lot of congressional mucking about, with benefit levels raised at arbitrary points in time by arbitrary amounts according to whatever political strategy the politicians of the time were following. The wage index has served to substantially rationalize the system.

Security

White House Stands Behind Cheney’s Attacks On Murtha And Pelosi

By Amanda Terkel on Feb 22, 2007 at 12:59 pm

Yesterday, Vice President Cheney attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) for supporting Iraq redeployment:

CHENEY: I think, in fact, if we were to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, all we’ll do is validate the al Qaeda strategy. … I think that’s exactly the wrong course to go on. I think that’s the course of action that Speaker Pelosi and Jack Murtha support. I think it would be a huge mistake for the country.

Q Is that policy that we hear from the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi — from other Democrats, is that a policy of defeat?

CHENEY: Yes.

Today, a reporter asked White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino about Cheney’s comments. She refused to disavow them:

QUESTION: Was he at all out of line in making those comments?

PERINO: The Vice President out of line? Absolutely not. He was questioning the merits of the — of their proposal.

It’s no surprise that President Bush supports Cheney’s attacks. In the lead-up to the 2006 elections, Bush’s message was that his opponents want “America to lose and the terrorists to win.” Watch it:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2006/11/tonefinal.320.240.flv]

Digg It!

Transcript: Read more

Climate Progress

Global Warming is Hot!

By Joe Romm on Feb 22, 2007 at 12:52 pm

These days, a key rite of passage for a major political issue is a concert–and at last the global spotlight is shining on climate change.

Now set to follow in the tracks of, and even ‘dwarf’, the Save Tibet, Farm Aid, Live8 and Live Aid concerts is “SOS” – a concert to advocate action, not just awareness, on climate change.

The concert is slated for July 7th and will be a series of performances in London, Rio de Janeiro, Kyoto, Washington, DC, Cape Town and Shanghai. So far, it’s a star-studded event, featuring more than 100 big names like the Foo Fighters, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sheryl Crow, and Snoop Dog.

Speaker Pelosi is encouraging Congress to pass climate and energy legislation by July 4th, hopeful to declare the holiday Energy Independence Day. These next spring months look to be pretty crucial in rallying political and popular support for climate action.

But even after July, we need to make sure the spotlight doesn’t fade – and may the events’ production and travel set a carbon neutral example!

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