"One signature away"

It is amazing how some people can take something that is widely viewed as a negative, spin it around, and have it come back out sounding like the best thing in the world:

“We are one signature away from ending the Iraq War. President Bush must listen to the will of the American people and sign this bill so that our troops can come home.”...
“All of us have been touched by the heroic sacrifices troops have made in service to our country. With the stroke of a pen, President Bush can bring them home to the families who love them and to a country ready to give honor them for their service.” -- Barack Obama

If that doesn't take your breath away, I don't know what will. Thinking back on four long years of this war and what it's done to not just this country but the whole world, thinking about how much longer it has the potential to drag on and on, and then stopping to consider that, yes, one little scribble of ink now has the power to bring it to a close -- that is some perspective for you right there.

Unfortunately, we'll all come crashing back to reality when this ends up getting vetoed anyway. It was nice to get just a taste of this in the meantime, however. And we will be coming back for seconds.

Link via [TPM Cafe]

I don't fucking think so

Site is too busy right now, but Citizens for Ethics is reporting that the White House has "lost" FIVE MILLION emails over a two-year period. This, of course, in relation to the USA firing scandal that I mentioned two weeks ago would go away in two week's time if they would just cooperate with the investigation and let the news cycle run it's course.

This is like getting pulled over for speeding and then as soon as the officer comes up to your window you blurt out something stupid like "DON'TLOOKINTHETRUNK!" and then of course the trooper looks in your trunk and you have a corpse in there. Just play it cool and take the ticket, and then you can go home and hide that dead stripper in your basement where she belongs.

And, of course, those five million emails weren't just "lost". They're like nude pictures, in that once they're out on the Internet they're out there forever. In fact, some of the emails may actually include nude photos, or perhaps photos of dead strippers locked in a car trunk -- either one of which would really bring these analogies to life.

Who's Your Daddy?

I'm really disgusted (but not surprised) by the media's reaction to the way Congress is attempting to subpoena White House aides in the USA Firing scandal. The conflict between President Bush and Democrats leading the investigation has taken the tone of a stern father reprimanding misbehaving children, as though it's somehow out of line for Congress to want to hear some official testimony on this case.

Events like this have been a hallmark of the Bush presidency. Even when it's perfectly clear that the administration is wrong, and well past the point when any savvy politician would've given in and let the news cycle run it's course as quickly as possible. Instead, by puffing his chest out and taking a stand on exactly how Karl Rove and Harriet Miers ought to be interviewed by investigators, Bush is keeping the negative issue in the limelight for extra days and even weeks.

He must really be covering something good up here, because allowing testimony on the record here shouldn't hurt them any more than if they continue to act like they're actually succeeding in hiding any wrongdoing. In fact, the stalling is making it look worse than it probably is. If they were smart, Rove and Miers would've squealed already, everyone's suspicions would've been confirmed, Alberto Gonzalez would probably take the fall, and the American public goes back to their new episodes of Law and Order by the end of the week.

However, this "liberal" media has pretty much removed the necessity for any political savvy in instances like this up to this point. Why should they (or Bush, for that matter) change what they're doing now?

Jack Cafferty is an angry, angry man

Jack Cafferty returns to the Situation Room and tears shit up over the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.


The entire story is just another disgraceful episode of incompetence and mismanagement in this administration -- and I bet most people aren't even concerned with the story. Well, this story in today's Metro paper sure got my attention (emphasis mine):

Under what conditions were you first sent there?

I was at Walter Reed from April 2004 until 2005 with a gunshot wound to the head. They did the surgery in Baghdad and replaced part of my skull with a titanium plate. They transported me to Germany before sending me to Washington.

Were any of the problems that have come to light in the last few weeks visible when you arrived?

It struck me immediately that they were completely overwhelmed. Things like mice, mold and roaches — they didn’t just get there overnight. Those were conditions that had been building for some time, and it became painfully obvious while I was there that I would be competing with my fellow soldiers for the staff’s attention.

The treatment of soldiers has come into question as well. How were you treated?

Let’s put it this way: On my first day there, I was asked if I wanted inpatient or outpatient treatment. This was less than a week after I’d been shot in the head.

Another Hurricane Katrina, indeed.

Video via [Crooks & Liars]
Link via [Metro]

Not only does he read the news, he reads your mail

So Bush affixed another one of his patented signing statements to a new postal reform bill, granting himself unchecked authority to open your mail. Not sure what the purpose of these signing statements are when a). they don't give him any more legal grounds to do this sort of shit than if he had just started breaking the law, and b). they do nothing but piss off concerned Americans by highlighting the fact that hey, he's breaking the law!

The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.

That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.

...

"Despite the President's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.

Well, whether he intends to do it or already has been doing it and is covering his ass now, the joke is still on him and his Administration. People don't use the USPS for anything but sending anthrax nowadays.

W pushes envelope on U.S. spying [NY Daily News]
via Crooks & Liars

The Prez reads the news now, apparently

Flash! President Bush Says He Reads Papers



You may remember our Commander-In-Chief saying a few years ago that he didn't read the newspapers. He got whatever crucial current events that were needed to do his job through his aides (never mind that his aides were petrified to have to break the bad news to him, for fear of getting their heads bitten off) causing many to believe that the Administration operated from inside a bubble, governing according to their own set of facts.



Whether or not he's really reading the papers, you've got to wonder why, with just over two years left in his presidency, he's decided to make a big deal about this now. Or why the New York Times believes that because the President does it, millions of Americans are going to start reading the daily periodicals again. Bush's overwhelming failure to rapidly adapt his presidency to current events is eerily similar to what's happening to the newspapers as a medium. They've ignored the wave of technology that's rendering print obsolete the same way Bush has ignored the news in general, and now both are losing supporters at a similar pace.



Suddenly paying attention to the news isn't going to save this Administration any more than it's going to boost readership and save the newspaper industry. Whatever those parties are doing to try to right their ships now, it's a case of too little, way too late.