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Once More ‘Round The Bend

By ThinkProgress on Jul 26, 2007 at 4:01 pm

Okay, so, Barack Obama said Hillary Clinton’s criticisms of him sounding like the sort of thing Bush or Cheney would say. According to Marc Ambinder, in a not-yet-aired interview with CNN, Clinton responds ““Well, this is getting kind of silly. I’ve been called a lot of things in my life but I’ve never been called George Bush or Dick Cheney certainly. We have to ask what’s ever happened to the politics of hope?”

Here we have Clinton riding what’s surely her greatest asset. Everybody knows that the right has a unique loathing for Hillary Clinton so it just seems incredibly implausible that she could have any sympathy for the Bush/Cheney view of the world. Nevertheless, Clinton must know that a lot of people think that the more hawkish faction of the Democratic Party are, in fact, proposing to put put the Bush Doctrine under more competent management rather than actually abandon it. She follows up with, “I have been absolutely clear that we’ve got to return to robust and effective diplomacy. But I don’t want to see the power and prestige of the United States President put at risk by rushing into meetings with the likes of Chavez, and Castro, and Ahmadinejad.”

Obviously “rushing” into meetings is a bad thing, but this idea that the “power and prestige” of the president would be “put at risk” by meeting with the leader of a foreign country with which the US government has various issues worth discussing really does sound like what Bush thinks about these things. I should also note that by most accounts the Clinton campaign is deliberately seeking to woo the vile Cuban exile lobby with this Castro business which most people I know in DC seems to think is very clever of her.

Yglesias

India Nuclear Deal

By ThinkProgress on Jul 26, 2007 at 3:15 pm

Yesterday, with reference to the bizarre nuclear deal the Bush administration reached with India, Robert Farley made reference to our shift toward an attempt to impose an “arbitrary and self-interested” non-proliferation regime on the world, an attempt that’s doomed to failure. And quite so. It’s worth saying, though, that in the particular case of the India deal and self-interested is doing the bargain a kindness. What’s happening in this deal is that we’re granting India concessions related to its nuclear program and India is giving us . . . essentially nothing in exchange.

This passed congress thanks to a lot of effective lobbying by Indian American business associations, complete with a revolving door lobbying job for former US assistant secretary of state for arms control Stephen Rademaker once the deal was sealed. The negotiations themselves, meanwhile, were all messed up. Bush headed off to India in March 2006 hoping to conclude a deal but without one actually in place. The administration then appeared to be so determined to accomplish something on the trip and stage a big photo op that it was willing to agree to a deal that didn’t achieve anything in particular for the US other than to allow the photo op.

Meanwhile, from a neoconnish perspective the fact that this undermines the nonproliferation regime is probably a good thing. They hate the idea that diplomatic agreements might actually work and undermine their efforts to start an endless series of wars.

Security

Intelligence Official Contradicts Bush: ‘Primary’ Terrorist Threat Is From ‘South Asia,’ Not Iraq

By Satyam Khanna on Jul 26, 2007 at 3:11 pm

On Tuesday, President Bush delivered an address claiming that al Qaeda in Iraq is the central terror threat to the United States:

Here’s the bottom line: Al Qaida in Iraq is run by foreign leaders loyal to Osama bin Laden. … We are fighting bin Laden’s al Qaida in Iraq; Iraq is central to the war on terror; and against this enemy, America can accept nothing less than complete victory.

Top U.S. intelligence officials testifying before the House yesterday explained that Bush’s monolithic conception of al Qaeda does not represent their views. As NPR reported, “none of the officials testifying would put it quite the way President Bush has.”

In rare testimony, Edward Gistaro, “a principal author” of the recent National Intelligence Estimate, said the “primary concern” today comes from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

CRAMER: So then, if, as the NIE reflects, we are concerned about a threat to the homeland here, who calls that shot from al Qaeda?

GISTARO: Primary concern is al Qaeda in South Asia, organizing its own plots against the United States.

Watch it:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/07/gistaro83.320.240.flv]

Rep. Bud Cramer (D-AL) pressed Gistaro to parse out the connections between al Qaeda in Iraq and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, a subject of extensive public interest in recent weeks. While Gistaro acknowledged that “al Qaeda n Iraq is an affiliate organization to al Qaeda in South Asia,” he asserted that “we’re dealing with an Al Qaida that has a decentralized command-and-control structure. And I don’t want to leave a false impression that we’re talking about a monolithic organization.”

Spencer Ackerman has more.

Digg It!

Transcript: Read more

Media

A Question

By ThinkProgress on Jul 26, 2007 at 2:48 pm

Are there people who actually rely on Larry Kudlow for investment advice? Wouldn’t that be a crazy thing to do? If anyone actually does, shouldn’t the free market in its infinite wisdom call forth a good means of making money off the suckers in question. I don’t mean to disparage the specific claims he makes there, but in general its obvious that the guy doesn’t know squat about anything.

Politics

Slave labor used to contruct U.S. Embassy In Baghdad.

By ThinkProgress on Jul 26, 2007 at 2:30 pm

During testimony before the House Oversight Committee today, Rory Mayberry, a former subcontract employee of the firm responsible for the construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, said he believes that at least 52 Filipino nationals had been kidnapped to work on the embassy project. He testified:

Mr. Chairman, when the airplane took off and the captain announced that we were heading to Baghdad, all you-know-what broke out on the airplane. The men started shouting, it wasn’t until the security guy working for First Kuwaiti waved an MP5 in the air that the men settled down. They realized that they had no other choice but to go to Baghdad. Let me spell it out clearly: I believe these men were kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work at the US Embassy… I’ve read the State Department Inspector General’s report on the construction of the embassy. Mr. Chairman, it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. This is a cover-up and I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity to set the record straight.

Media

Goodbye to Newspapers!

By ThinkProgress on Jul 26, 2007 at 2:03 pm

One thing I think that people like Russell Baker don’t get about the ongoing demise of newspapers, is that technological change actually has created a situation where the world has too many newspapers. He writes, for example, that:

Besides the Los Angeles Times, the papers showing the ravages of extensive cost-cutting include many once ranked among the country’s finest: The Baltimore Sun, The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Des Moines Register, The Hartford Courant, the Louisville Courier-Journal, the San Jose Mercury News, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, for example.

Now, I mean, you have to ask yourself why do these papers exist at all? Suppose that besides the Associated Press and Reuters and ABC and NBC and CBS and CNN and PBS and NPR, the only domestic sources of congressional coverage were The Washington Post and the DC bureaus of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal what, exactly, would be the problem? The problem can’t be that the world needs more than eleven different people writing the story on last night’s Senate filibuster. Rather, the problem is that, historically, it’s been hard to get the New York Times or The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal in San Jose or Miami or Saint Louis.

Baker snarks that “How the Internet might replace the newspaper as a source of information is never explained by those who assure you that it will.” But it’s clear enough. “The Internet” can’t replace The Los Angeles Times‘s congressional coverage, but the congressional coverage of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post (plus the wire services, plus the non-print media) plus The Hill plus (if you’re willing to pay) CongressDaily, CQ, and Roll Call most certainly can. What “the Internet” can do is make it very, very, very easy for a person in Los Angeles to access that kind of coverage.

The existence of “more newspapers” is very good for newspaper writers — it means more journalism jobs. But if you live in Miami, then the San Jose Mercury News (which still does some excellent work, mind you) doesn’t do you any good in the pre-internet era. Thanks to the internet, you can read any newspaper from anywhere. Which is great for newspaper readers. But it means the world doesn’t need nearly as much duplication of the basic national news function. Which is — I don’t deny it — probably bad for journalists. But I think it’s good for journalism.

Or, at a minimum, it’s good for journalism about national politics. And I’m pretty sure it’s good for journalism about international issues. It may well be bad for reporting on local issues.

Politics

Leahy Subpoenas Rove, Jennings For Documents And Testimony Related To U.S. Attorneys Purge

By Satyam Khanna on Jul 26, 2007 at 1:52 pm

rove872421.jpgSenate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) announced today he is issuing subpoenas compelling White House officials Karl Rove and J. Scott Jennings to provide testimony and information into the firings of U.S. attorneys.

“What the White House stonewalling is preventing is conclusive evidence of who made the decisions to fire these federal prosecutors,” Leahy wrote.
“Indeed, the evidence we have been able to collect points to Karl Rove and the political operatives at the White House.”

The White House’s refusal to allow a transcript of Rove’s testimony forced the Committee to issue the subpoenas. Leahy argued that the White House’s “blanket assertions of executive privilege” are fomenting a “constitutional crisis”:

With our service of these subpoenas, I hope that the White House takes this opportunity to reconsider its blanket claim of executive privilege, especially in light of the testimony that President was not involved in the dismissals of these U.S. Attorneys. I hope that the White House steps back from this constitutional crisis of its own making so that we can begin to repair the damage done by its untoward interference with federal law enforcement. … Mr. Rove and the White House must not be allowed to continue manipulating our justice system to pursue a partisan political agenda.

Documents revealed that “the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys” was raised by Rove in early January 2005, and discussed with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The evidence indicated “Rove was more involved in the plan than previously acknowledged by the White House.” Furthermore, U.S. attorney Bud Cummins was allegedly fired to make way for Rove-protege Tim Griffin.

Jennings set up a meeting between Moonica Goodling and New Mexico Republican officials in June 2006 to discuss U.S. Attorney David Iglesias’s “situation” in New Mexico. Documents show that Jennings also had knowledge of the plan for firing the U.S. attorneys.

The deadline for submitting documents and testimony is August 2 at 10:00 a.m.

Read Leahy’s letter to Rove here.

Climate Progress

Carbon sinks threatened by increasing ozone

By Joe Romm on Jul 26, 2007 at 1:46 pm

china-ozone.jpgNature has published another landmark study showing how the complex interplay of human-generated pollution with natural systems worsens climate change. Their news article (subs. req’d) explains:

Rising levels of ozone pollution over the coming century will erode the ability of plants to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a new climate-modelling study predicts.

Ozone is already known to be a minor greenhouse gas, but the new calculations highlight another, indirect way in which it is likely to influence global warming by 2100. High levels can poison plants and reduce their ability to photosynthesize, says Stephen Sitch of the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter.

Note this is actually a new amplifying feedback, since the hotter it gets the more ozone pollution is generated.

Below the fold is the rest of this article — and for you hardcore science types, I’ll end with the abstract of the original journal article.

Read more

Yglesias

Samuelson Redux

By ThinkProgress on Jul 26, 2007 at 1:40 pm

To revisit Robert Samuelson’s column from yesterday, several people have pointed out to me that irrespective of mathematical quibbling, Samuelson’s gotten the physics of home energy use wrong. Energy usage should grow proportionately to the surface area of your house, not to its volume.

One should also agree with Ben Adler that Samuelson’s core point about “Prius politics” makes no sense. Samuelson argues that Prius ownership is really about “showing off” rather than curbing carbon emissions. And, no doubt, part of the appeal of Prius ownership is showing off. But you’re showing off by reducing carbon emissions. Environmental concerns are plagued by collective action problems and if social prestige (or condemnation) can help overcome those problems that’s a good thing, not an example of people being hypocrites.

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