Outside the Spectrum

   After a while, I get tired of seeing the president surround himself with ass-licking sycophants and lunatics. Today we have a small addition to this sad tradition: Amir Teheri, the fabricator beind the yellow stripe story, was invited to the White House for a face-to-face with Preznit Drinky with a small group of “experts,” which, these days, translates as “known liars.”

   What’s next, an Iranian National Congress feeding manure right into the Pentagon pipeline? I wonder if the CIA has labeled Teheri as a fabricator, and if so, if the president will ignore that evaluation as well and then claim the CIA mislead him.

   Meanwhile, the Pentagon has published its quarterly report showing an increase in the amount of violence in Iraq. We are at an average of 600 attacks per week in Iraq right now. Iraq’s electrical and water grids are still at or below pre-war levels. This is after three years, 2,500 American lives, and $320 billion spent, which is more money in inflation-adjusted dollars than the United States spent to help rebuild all of Western Europe under the Marshall Plan.

   This, of course, after this administration sold the war on WMDs that were never there. After this administration said the war would cost way less than $300 billion, way less than $200 billion, and that Iraq might even be able to pay for its own construction.

   By the way, Afghanistan has devolved into chaos.

   If this is what a successful foreign policy looks like to you than you are simply a lunatic. Drinky has been reduced to drawing comparisons between himself and Truman, vainly hoping that the future will suddenly, magically, start looking better and that he will be proclaimed a genius…even though his administration had no idea there were no WMDs…even though they clearly had no idea of the price and length of the involvement…even though they let Afghanistan degenerate into chaos, with Karzai’s government controlling little beyond Kabul.

   No, the only thing that will save this foreign policy now is dumb-assed luck.

   David Sirota has a great piece about the definition of “centrism” over at the Huffington Post. The article is a distillation of his book he’s recently published. As an aside, Noam Chomsky has been saying for years what Sirota’s now saying. It is good that the message is being repeated, anyway.

   Speaking of Chomsky, I overheard Attention Deficit this morning ridiculing him for archly observing that the United States harbors terrorists. She dismissed this a ridiculous. Perhaps she should brush up on some modern US history regarding Orlando Bosch.

   This president can’t even tell the truth about his treasury secretary resigning five days before it’s announced.

   I think the biggest reason people don’t like Bush is because he lies even about little things. Things that don’t matter. I sure he had some bad reason for lying. Snow suggested it was to smooth the transition so the market wouldn’t get skittish.

  There’s always a reason, isn’t there? In the words of Max Weber, there is no code of ethics on Earth that has the can discern what ethical ends can justify what unethical means. I don’t what might have happened to the markets for five days without a treasury secretary confirmed, if anything, but I do know the president lied.

   This isn’t a big deal, but this is indicative of what this administration is about on a much larger scale. They just don’t value the truth, in big or small ways. If this treasury secretary thing were an isolated instance it would be meaningless. But it’s not.

   In the president’s never ending war on open government he has delegated authority to National Intelligence Director Negroponte to exempt companies from accounting standards if they are working on top-secret programs. This leads me to believe that he’s doing it so much he needs help managing the situation. This seems to be first time in history this authority has been delegated to a subordinate.

   This is why Chuck Hagel is a “maverick.” He has the temerity to question our “success” in the Middle East so far. Of course, when presented with unambiguous evidence of lawbreaking in the executive branch, he votes against conducting an investigation. It’s always instructive to measure the leash moderate republicans are kept on.

   I’m always happy to point out how bent She Does Respond is. Flag-burning and gay marriage issues on the table this summer aren’t political posturing, oh no. They are pressing issues that people are very concerned about. Or not.

   Karl Zinsmeister, the president’s new domestic advisor, has been attracting some heat lately. Greenwald has some good coverage of the issue, but so does Editor & Publisher. Check it our here. I especially like the Iraq reporters are “whiny and soft” part.
  
  

   The slime machine is in full tilt today. Bob Ney sent out an automated message to Ohio voters that is simply reprehensible from start to finish.

   This reeks of desperation. Ney’s chief of staff has already pled guilty to bribing him and Ney is mentioned in several Abramoff-related plea agreements, as Maddow points out. It is truly disgusting and pathetic to see a senator send out an automated message describing Maddow only as a “cross-dressing lesbian” and characterizing “progressive” as believing in nothing more than “higher taxes, more gun control, more abortions, and more gay marriages.”

   Oh, yes, democrats typically perform two abortions before breakfast every day. And by “cross dressing” is Ney saying that women shouldn’t be allowed to wear jeans or pantsuits? What the Hell does that mean?

   Apparently calling someone a lesbian is a smear in Ohio. It will reflect exceptionally poorly on Ohio if they re-elect this lunatic. I am personally offended that Ney derided Maddow as a “cross-dressing lesbian.” When Ney’s opponents criticize him most do a lot better job of it than dismissing him as a pasty, bloated heterosexual with a bad comb-over.

   But, you know, it’s just indicative of that crazy ultra-left wing establishment that they consort with “cross-dressing lesbians.”

   Democrats should take a transcript of that message and hang it from the rafters. Take a good, long look at Bob Ney, ladies and gentleman.

   Another poll came out recently, this one indicating that Iraqis want a timeline for US withdrawal, with about half favoring a six-month timeline (the poll was taken in January, so they wanted US forces out by July) and another half favoring withdrawal by the end of 2007. Bush and Blair have repeatedly refused to give a timeline for withdrawal.

   Chris Matthews continues to find new ways to piss me off. Recently he was shilling for the prospect of a McCain-Guiliani ticket (his preferred candidates for president, being a moderate republican). First he seemed to scoff at the concept that democrats would improve Washington: “what could change?” The he’s arguing with Howard Dean, saying that people really are concerned about the state of the Clintons’ marriage. Sure, Matthews, sure. Why don’t we look at a poll of issues that concern voters and find out where “Hillary Clinton’s marriage” ranks on that list?

   Speculation is somewhat rampant on the radio waves today that Ken Lay, affectionately known as “Kenny Boy” to the president, will be getting a nice, fat presidential pardon come January 2009.

   Lay and Skilling were found guilty of fraud today and each is looking down the barrel of about twenty years in jail. Lay, however, was one of President Bush’s greatest campaign contributors in 2000 and he was a “pioneer” for Bush’s campaign in 2000…just like Jack Abramoff.  

   Bush today ordered the FBI to seal the documents taken from congressman William Jefferson’s office for 45 days.

   It makes sense. Bush has no vested interest in pursuing one democrat of the House in a way that will antagonize most of congress, though he has shown (and is showing) little inclination to coddle congress on anything.

   His new domestic policy advisor is Karl Zinsmeister, drafted (of course) from the American Enterprise Institute. Zinsmeister sounds like the typical kind of person you would find at the AEI. I especially love the “colorblindness” problem: “The penalty for the person who, ignoring race, turns down the wrong street today can literally be death.” In other words, Zinmeister’s advice to the American people: don’t walk through black neighborhoods. Apartheid would be proud.

   Bush is also cracking down on leakers. The FBI is going to interview current and former members of congress to find out who leaked the story about the NSA’s domestic program. This follows on the Attorney General’s remarks that he might use the 1917 Espionage Act to prosecute journalists who publish leaks.

   I wonder what information the Justice Department will have to declassify to prosecute a leaker. Will the government not have to prove the program is legal to justify prosecuting those who leak its existence?

   President Bush met held a joint conference with Israeli President Olmert recently. He maintained that Israel and America were committed to following the “road map,” but he also maintained that Israel can go it alone if the Palestinians refuse to negotiate. He praised Israeli plans to withdraw from most of the West Bank. When answering a question about Iraq, he seemed to get confused, and he said (erroneously) that suicide bombers are the “main” weapon of “the enemy” in describing how hard it is to stop insurgents in Iraq.

   Of course, in Iraq the main source of casualties has never been suicide bombers. Most casualties have been caused by explosive devices, as this Brookings Institute document details regarding the past month. Other indices have been the similar across the three years of the insurgency. Our president, of course, isn’t a “details” man. Most of the West Bank should be good enough. Whatever.

   It is hard for the United States to be a leader in the world when the UN Committee Against Torture is thoroughly criticizing the US’s practices.
  

  

  

   So in the New Age, in this War on Terra that requires us all to scale back our constitutional rights and simply forget about our constitutionally-guaranteed right to privacy, our congress is exempt from sharing in our sacrifice.

   Hypocrites. Every single last Democrat and Republican who protested the FBI raid on William Jefferson’ s office but who have uttered nary a peep of protest over the NSA’s programs should be ashamed.

   Jefferson’s office was raided because he took a bribe. He was caught on tape taking a bribe. The FBI searched his home and found $90,000 wrapped in tin foil and stashed his freezer. The FBI got a warrant and raided his office.

   But just listen to Bill Frist and Dennis Hastert suddenly discover that, all of a sudden, privacy rights are at risk. It’s amazing how incumbents are not really concerned with oversight or privacy until the FBI comes knocking on their door. When the NSA, without bothering to get warrants, rips open our international communications we can just suck it up and deal with it, according to republicans and some democrats. When the ivory tower is threatened, look out: something must be done.

   I would love to know what arcane statute was stepped on when the FBI raided a corrupt congressman’s office with a warrant. I would love to know what technicality was ignored that is suddenly so important.

   This protest stinks, to be frank. It makes me wonder what congress has to hide. Incumbents are calling for return of Jefferson’s papers. Hmmm…got something to hide, congress? What’s in those papers that’s so important?

   As an aside, hat tip to Nancy Pelosi for recently breaking the 16-month deadlock in the House Ethics committee by helping start ethic investigations again. Dennis Hastert has called for no investigations, to date.

   Of course, the Senate Judiciary Committee had no problem in forwarding Gen. Hayden’s nomination to be director of the CIA to the senate. That’s great. Confirm the guy who ran the most blatantly illegal operation in US history to be the director of the CIA. Just institutionalize lawlessness. That will make it all better. I’m sure that Hayden, once he is in charge of the CIA, will show the same concern for the law he’s shown in the past. I’m sure that, once he’s in charge of an agency that actually has covert operatives and commandoes, things will actually get better over there at the CIA.

   Hat tip to Bush for having the incredible audacity to nominate the guy who ran his blatantly illegal spy program to be the new head of the CIA. Bush doesn’t just break the law: he refuses to stop once caught and then rubs it your face a little by nominating the same crooks to run even more important government agencies.

   Why stop now, Mr. President? Ask for Rice’s resignation and then nominate Elliott Abrams to be the new Secretary of State. Replace Abrams with Oliver North. Who’s going to stop you? Not democrats, to be sure.

   Speaking of investigations, the FCC, following the Justice Department, has announced it cannot investigate the NSA’s domestic program because it can’t obtain classified material.

   As of right now there is no check whatsoever on the power of the NSA. Republicans have blocked an investigation and refuse to hold the Executive Branch responsible for lawbreaking. The Justice Department can’t investigate because the program is classified. The FCC can’t investigate because the program is classified. Lawsuits are being slapped down through the use of the state secrets statute regarding the CIA’s abuses and the Executive Branch is attempting to use the same statute to slap down the lawsuits regarding the NSA’s programs.

   Rep. Conyers has an ominous article over a The Huffington Post. He references Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker article that alleges that the NSA actually gets a live feed that taps into all of the domestic calls passing through the carrier and that it eavesdrops on many of those domestic communications without warrants or court orders. A “former senior intelligence official” and a “security consultant” for the “major telecommunications carrier” provided the information to Hersh.

   I normally don’t comment on allegations in isolated press stories, but Hersh is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who broke the detainee abuse scandal. This latest story is extraordinary. As the New York Times taught us, the first word of the abuses of this administration routinely comes to us from the press, not from the non-existent oversight committees in congress.

  

   Fox News, long a platform for right-wing smear attacks like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, today added to its heinous legacy with the testimony of Sterling Burnett. This follows a counterattack by the “news” organ alleging, as predicate to the discussion, that Gore’s global warming movie is “hysteria.”

   Peter Wehner, Karl Rove’s deputy, “debunks” the “myths” about pre-war intelligence being fixed in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. I’ve been through this argument before on this blog many times. Suffice it to say that I’m not really interested in anything Karl Rove’s deputy has to say.

   Libby will have to face down the testimony of two CIA analysts who are alleging he lied to them and that they provided him Valeria Plame’s identity.

   That should do it for today…what’s this? The NSA is spying on all internet traffic, according to testimony in the EFF’s lawsuit against the NSA.

   The Bush administration has used the “state secrets” excuse to dismiss lawsuits brought against it by individuals who have been “rendered” by the CIA to foreign countries for torture. A Canadian man who was beaten in Syria has had his lawsuit dismissed, and now a German has suffered the same fate.

  

   A global analysis of “progress” in Iraq.

   How much money have we sunk into that country, now?

   Media Matters refutes the co-host of Nightline very effectively here.

   Mark Salter, McCain’s chief of staff and co-author of some of his books, responded to the student speaker at the New School with a broadside.

   It appears that McCain, like our president, values loyalty over ability in his subordinates. He derided the “comical self importance” of the student and her fellow graduates. Apparently unable to detect irony in his own letter, he then patronizes the college graduates two sentences later: “Should you grow up and ever get down to the hard business of making a living and finding a purpose for your lives beyond self-indulgence some of you might then know a happiness far more sublime than the fleeting pleasure of living in an echo chamber.”

   Good Lord. Some college valedictorian practically puking with nervousness voices a very short criticism of McCain’s positions and she looks “like an idiot,” and is possessed of “comical self importance.”

   I love that “should you ever grow up and get down to the hard business of making a living” part. I don’t suppose you would be surprised to know that Mr. Salter rehashes McCain’s military experience in his giant Ad Verecundiam argument. The only question that remains for me is this: is Salter this unaware of what constitutes an effective rebuttal, or is he posturing for an audience he regards as ignorant of what constitutes a red herring argument?

   Sadly, I tend to think the former, as Salter’s emotional essay was not released to the audience of Fox News but instead to the more well-informed audience of The Huffington Post.

   Is this it? Is this a true sampling of the irrational mind of the most powerful aide to one of the most powerful senators in America?

   God help us.

   McCain’s camp likes to frame its recent friendliness with Falwell as “tolerance.” I tend to think that “tolerance” for rabid bigots gives a bad name to tolerance. I’ve already covered Jerry Falwell in this blog. Take another look if you need reminding of what he believes.

   I applaud what happened at the New School. When republicans who cozy up to known liars and bigots like Falwell have to face down a hostile audience they get nervous. They pay a price for pandering. They pay a price they should pay for pandering. It has an effect far greater than that of a few barbed questions thrown at them from the likes of Chris Matthews.

   As an aside, Salter praised the “tolerance” of the Liberty University crowd in contrast to many New School graduates. I was curious as to what kind of tolerance to expect at a fundy Christian school founded by Jerry Falwell. So I delved into their website a bit. I extracted some juicy tidbits:

Liberty University trains students from all walks of life for many different professions and, most importantly, for serving as Champions for Christ. For this reason, the University has established a standard of dress for the University community, which is conducive to a Christ-like environment.

   Oh my LOL. Sorry, Salter, but I guess lefty radicals like us are intolerant sometimes. Is this a university or a seminary? What do you want to bet that the Biology Department has whole sections of the books ripped out relating to evolution and the origins of life on Earth? Man, I’m still…laughing…must…stop…

   Hair and clothing styles related to counterculture (as determined by the Deans’ Review Committee) are not acceptable.

   I…can’t…stop…laughing…

   Seriously, Salter, where’s the tolerance for diversity at Liberty that you so piously describe? They have a frigging McCarthy Committee to review skirt length, for the love of Jesus!

Dresses and skirts should be no shorter than the top of the knee (sitting or standing). Skirt slits should be modest; open slits should be no higher than the top of the knee, closed slits should be no higher than two inches from the top of the knee. Shoulder straps should be no less than two inches wide. Anything tight, scant, backless, see-through, low in the neckline or revealing the midriff (in any position) is immodest and unacceptable. Slips should be worn under thin material. Earrings and plugs are permitted in ears only. No other facial piercings or plugs are allowed, including tongue.

   Oh—and don’t forget—

NOTE: Shorts are never acceptable in convocation or in classes (regardless of time), with the exception of physical fitness classes.

   What is even more pervasive is Liberty’s reprimand system, where demerits are issued for everything from curfew violation to “hair code violations.” See for yourself.

   Wow. Just wow. So, keeping in mind that 18 demerits in consecutive semesters could mean you getting shown the door, check out the penalties for “improper sign out,” “missing convocation,” and “music code violation.” What the Hell is a music code violation? “Improper sign out?”

   Take a good look at fundy America. Six reprimands for attending a dance, entering the entryway of someone of the opposite sex on campus, and gambling. Twelve reprimands for viewing an “R” rated movie. I am dying here.

   And don’t think that the culture policing stops at the campus’s borders: twelve reprimands for “students of the opposite sex visiting alone at an off-campus residence.”

   Eighteen reprimands for just “association with those consuming alcohol.” Oh my LORD. Same deal for “failure to properly identify oneself” and “entering the bedroom of the opposite sex on/off campus.”

   Jerry really lowers the hammer in the 30 reprimand category for things like “involvement with séances” and “possession or consumption of alcohol,” which, sadly enough, is the same penalty for sexual assault and dealing drugs.

   That’s it for me gang. I’m sure the Liberty School kids were very tolerant of McCain’s speech. I can only imagine what would have happened to them if they weren’t.

   This is late by three weeks, but it deserves mention. I would like to announce the first annual Andy Kaufman Award for the funniest really un-funny comedic performance of the past year.

   It took me and my crack team of media reviewers .005 seconds to decide: the winner is Stephen Colbert’s 15 minute performance at the Washington Correspondent’s Dinner. The consensus is in:

“A 15-round, cockpunching tour de force of every Beltway sacred bovine gonad last night.”   -Driftglass

“A merciless skewering of the Cheney administration and its media lapdogs.”   –Billmon

“Refreshing.”   –Glenn Greenwald

“Hilarious and scathing.”  –Joe Strupp

“Sucked pretty bad.” –Polipundit

“Wasn’t funny.” -Captain Ed

“Colbert…fell flat.” –Michelle Malkin

“Bush Kills, Colbert Bombs.” Allah Pundit

   Hah hah! I love Allah Pundit totally unselfconsciously saying “Bush Kills.”

   Colbert’s jokes were so brutally delivered, with barely an ironic twist at the end, that I thought the secret service might be called to arrest Colbert for assaulting the president. Colbert unearthed every sick, court-cases-still-pending activity of the administration and brought it up in a joke that’s real punch line was just that he had actually brought it up. The audience laughed sporadically and uneasily. They laughed far louder at Bush’s self-deprecating jokes about mispronouncing the word “nuclear.” Oh, that George. What a jokester.

   Rock on, Colbert! For a brilliant and courageous display of anti-humor and absurdism you have thoroughly earned the Kaufman.

   Over the Hedge, reality-style.

   It’s an amusing little story. Check it out.

   In other news, the Bush Administration’s obsession with secrecy has led to it spying (this time with warrants, I hope) on journalists in an effort to curb leaks. Much has been written of this administration’s fixation on secrecy, which began long before September 11th. Read John Dean’s Worse Than Watergate for an excellent survey of this subject. That book was published in 2004. I imagine that Dean could write another book just based on the new information that’s come out in the last two years.

   There is other news as well, but this kind of news has become so routine that it should be taken for granted. Energy-industry funded “scientists” are releasing ads that distort facts and make it seem as if carbon dioxide is an unfairly maligned gas and that global warming is a hoax. Bush is raising taxes despite a 1999 campaign pledge. If I had a dime for every campaign pledge he broke…

   Though I have been late in noting this, right-wing bastard Glenn Beck was hired recently by CNN. From Bill Bennett to Michael Savage, main stream media just doesn’t seem to have principles in hiring conservative polemicists and making them a part of the “main stream.” I would love to see some kind of corollary to this, to see CNN hire Noam Chomsky as an editorialist. Beck’s fanaticism has been evident for a long time before CNN hired him: he’s called Cindy Sheehan a “prostitute,” Jimmy Carter a “waste of skin,” suggested that abortion clinics are more profitable than casinos, etc. He loves to skirt outright bigotry by calling Mexico a “scumbag country” and vilifying Mexican immigrants, defending much of what Joe McCarthy did, making jokes of truly questionable taste about African-Americans, Jews, and Chinese.

   My favorite is when Beck praised a caller on air who (at least claimed to have) tortured US detainees by pinning open their eyes and then burning their retinas and blowing out their eardrums with high-pressure water and air. Beck congratulated the caller, telling him “Good job,” “I appreciate your service,” and “I’m glad you’re on our side.”

   RED FLAG, CNN. Merciful Lord in Heaven, what do you have to say to disqualify yourself from consideration as a CNN anchor!?!

   Aaah, the dismemberment of the first amendment. Are free speech zones really necessary for just 100 protestors? Why not just arrest any protestors that get out of hand? Then again, this is Oklahoma we’re talking about.

   The Bush administration has agreed to full oversight of the NSA spying programs. This, however, hardly changes their legality. I also question the quality of testimony congress will receive from an administration that has been so secretive and deceptive before.

   Lawbreaking must be punished, not merely stopped. What is the moral of the story if it is not? You only have to accede to congressional oversight if you get caught breaking the law? It’s OK the break the law for years as long as you inform congress afterward?

   How about the US government subsidizing alternative energy? We gave billions in subsidies to the traditional energy industry just last summer. Can you imagine if a similar amount of money was given to subsidize ethanol manufacturers to start up?

   Meanwhile, the Washing press core are being their usual probing and combative selves. Malveaux and Henry of CNN praised Tony Snow’s “honesty” and “bluntness” even as he misrepresented or deliberately lied about several issues.

   Have White House correspondents not degenerated into ass-licking sycophancy? You have to be kidding me. Snow spins his ass off on his first day and they sing his praises like he’s the reincarnation of Mother Theresa.

   The bar for honesty in Washington has been set incredibly low. The MSM isn’t doing it’s viewers any favors by swallowing administration lies whole, regurgitating them onto the airwaves, and then praising the administration for its “honesty.” Just check out the links on the MSM over at mediamatters.org.

   Chris Durang writes a decent article about Arlen Specter’s capitulation to the “conservatives” on his committee. Note how unequivocally Specter said that the NSA program was illegal. So he admits the president broke the law, but now is throwing up a roadblock that would prevent people from challenging it.

   This is Specter’s dilemma: he knows the president broke the law, but didn’t even have the courage to start an investigation. He just called Alberto Gonzales to testify and then didn’t even put Gonzales under oath. Quite the “maverick.”

   I won’t even explore the positions of the “conservative” members of his committee who have unequivocally opposed enforcing laws with regards to the operations of the White House. They are beneath contempt. They are also too numerous to mention, seeing as they comprise the entire Republican Party. We might as well make an official note of republican Sens. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), John Cornyn (Texas) and Tom Coburn (Okla.)
  
   Sessions, Cornyn, and Coburn have been roasted on this blog before, on this and other subjects of great importance. I’m not even talking about disastrous and deceptive supply-side, sleight-of-hand economics: I’m talking about basic US law.

   A perusal of my memory and the internet reveals Cornyn as one of many republicans who tacitly accused Russ Feingold of treason when he said Feingold’s censure resolution would amount to “aiding our enemies in a time of war.” Note the utter lack of a defense of the president’s lawbreaking. In the party that Newt founded it is SOP to just attack like a crack-fueled wolverine when you or an ally is accused of wrongdoing. Cornyn is up to his ears in the Jack Abramoff scandal, with several emails between Ralph Reed and Abramoff talking about thanking Cornyn for his help and considering asking him for more. Cornyn was the mastermind of the stunning false binary “civil liberties don’t matter much after you’re dead.”

   Tom Coburn I recall vividly as the Frist-like doctor who used his amazing powers of remote diagnosis to assure John Roberts that Roberts was clearly telling the truth in his confirmation hearings. Coburn is simply unhinged, in fact. He’s advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions and has said that homosexuality is the biggest threat to America. According to Coburn, global warming is “just a lot of crap,” not supported by any “hard evidence.” Coburn was busy on a crossword puzzle at the beginning of Robert’s hearings. He paused from his pastime to decry partisan politics while choking back a sob, a scene of utter absurdity that was parodied by The Daily Show in one of the most hilarious pieces that show has ever done.

   Jeff Sessions was one of the vocal proponents of the “Nuclear Option” to erase parliamentary procedures and allow republicans to break democratic filibusters at will on judicial nominees, as Bush’s 95% rate of confirmation of his batshit-crazy judicial nominees just wasn’t good enough. At a pro-war rally held as a response to an anti-war rally the day before (amusing note: the anti-war rally drew 100,000 people. The pro-war rally drew 400) he said he didn’t “know what [anti-war protestors] represent, other than blame America first.” Sessions is very conservative religiously, but that didn’t stop him from opposing the McCain’s anti-torture amendment. Sessions has said that the NAACP and the ACLU are “un-American” and “Communist inspired.”

   Compare these men to the ones who voted against McCain’s anti-torture amendment and you will have an excellent window into the worst of the republican senators in the Senate.

   In a front page story in the Chicago Tribune, a paper that is dead to me and one I should not be commenting on, there is nevertheless an interesting story.

   Sustained sectarian violence permeates Iraq. “But the event that is supposed to stabilize Iraq—the formation of a government that unite the squabbling factions—remains just out of reach.” The Vice President of Iraq told al-Jazeera that the new government might just have to wait on announcing the head of the Defense and Interior Ministries past the deadline because it is so hard to find a compromise candidate. A secular politician, Ayad Jamal Aldin, said that even the announcement of the ministries probably wouldn’t lead to a decrease in violence. “The democracy has become a democracy of sects.”

   Iraq is in middle, not the end, of a long, hard slog to stability. The insurgents are not in their “last throes” by a country mile. Maybe that’s why a majority of Iraqis want the United States to leave soon so they can sort out their problems by themselves. Maybe they see that the violence will take years to control and the US forces aren’t really helping.

   Despite the will of a majority of the Iraqi people, the US remains an occupying force. The latest blast described in the Tribune came in an area that US mercenaries, Global Security, recently abandoned.

   But this is an election year, and as in every election year republicans throw red meat to their base. In off years they spend all day raiding the treasury for the benefit of investors and the upper class, but in election years they need votes from more than 1% of the electorate, so they focus on the social issues that determine the votes of Evangelicals and culturally conservative people in the country.

   Bill Frist recently announced that debate will be held in the senate on a constitutional amendment (!) to prevent homosexuals from getting married.

   It doesn’t matter if it passes or not, and it probably won’t. What matters is that the republicans will be seen as fighting for the conservative values that brings in votes rather than supply-side economics that doesn’t bring in votes.

   I would expect something about abortion to be debated, too, as that is the other big hot-button topic that shores of their base.

   I apologize if I sound cynical, but I long ago learned that the party of Tom DeLay and Newt Gingrich isn’t really interested in Christian values. She Does Respond isn’t very well-versed in the ten commandments, either, for that matter.

   None of this will save the House for the republicans, who are in the middle of the first time in modern history when both their president and their congressional caucus are held in contempt by the vast majority of Americans.

   But our memory is short, and 2008 and 2012 may turn out to be better years for conservatives. Americans will have to institute publicly-funded campaigns and vulgarity laws that cover blatant lying to undermine the republican base of corporate money and propaganda outlets, respectively.

   Conservatives still control the #1 cable news channel in America, along with 90% of the political talk radio market. This outright control of disinformation outlets into the United States is simply a threat to the democracy of the United States. Voters in the United States can’t cast intelligent votes if they’re doing so based on bad information.

   The chief disseminator of this misinformation is media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who recently courted Hillary Clinton by agreeing to host a fundraiser for her. Read Jeff Cohen’s excellent article on this here. RED FLAG, democrats.

   He says it as well as I possibly could. Hillary Clinton may be a rockstar to republicans and fundraisers, but I have never seen a democrat so regularly reviled among democrats on blogs and in “Letters to the Editor” sections of newspapers. She has made a career out of triangulating positions that would make a moderate republican proud. From her nanny-state politics of restricted access to violent video games and a constituational amendment to ban flag-burning, all the way to, as Cohen puts it, “Iraq, military spending, Iran, Israel, media consolidation, pro-corporate trade deals,” and other issues, Hillary Clinton is simply indistinguisable from a republican.

   She’s not even a charismatic politician. Witness her speech at Coretta King’s funeral compared to Bill Clinton’s, to name one example.

   I think it is a sad commentary on the state of our democracy when a bloodless corporate shill is the presumptive democratic nominee for the presidency in 2008. I am not one to underestimate the power of campaign contributions, but I think Clinton’s run in the democratic primaries, if she does run, will hardly be a formality.

   Even The Chicago Tribune whips the Bush administration like a dog for its NSA domestic program, with Steve Chapman doing the honors. He (hilariously) mentions Valerie Plame as someone we should ask if we want to know how this administration treats confidential information.

   Speaking of Plame, a new release in Libby’s trial indicates that Darth Cheney focused quite a bit on Wilson’s wife and who sent him to Africa. Libby’s defense, “But Libby, according to the indictment, told the investigators that by the next month, he had forgotten that the vice president had told him about her.”

   Utter bullshit. The “I forgot” defense. The “I didn’t know defense.” How is it that every time some crooked republican administration is tried for crimes all of a sudden nobody remembers anything or knew anything?

   McCain climbs Mount Hypocrisy recently to cavort with a man who blamed 9/11 on homosexuals, and then decries critics by slamming blogs.

   McCain usually approaches critics this way, by saying that he knows better and puny civilians could never possibly understand the intricate workings of his magnificent mind. Two Latin words: Ad Verecundiam. I remember the video recently that was circulating on the internet of McCain mocking Barbara Streisand by sarcastically asserting that she should leave the politics to him and he would leave the singing to her.

   I expect pompous nonsense like this from McCain, but he is not alone in his feelings. Molly Ivins said in an op-ed recently that she likes blogs that report news but not those that are editorial. I gather a few other famous journalists feel the same way.

   To a certain extent it makes me smile. Ivins and others can insist that they are more qualified to write op-eds because they cut their teeth in investigative journalism, but when they have rank propagandists like Charles Krauthammer and laughable historians like Victor Davis Hanson among their ranks (not to mention a “polemicist” like Ann Coulter) they are hardly in a position to assert the superiority of their profession.

   The written word is a medium that many are skillfull at using, and I thank God for the opportunity to read sober and intelligent bloggers like Glenn Greenwald or hilarious polemicists like Driftglass. Analytical bloggers like Glenn Greenwald certainly don’t litter any debates with appeals to authority, as McCain seems fond of.

   Add arrogance to the hypocrisy of McCain’s sudden friendliness with one of the ugliest and most divisive Americans alive.

   More NSA stuff. Remember that poll taken the day of the revelations about the NSA domestic program? Something like 63% of people said they had no problem with the program.

   As I and Glenn Greenwald said, a poll taken that quickly and worded that poorly won’t produce results that are very accurate. Newsweek’s latest poll indicates that 53% think the president’s program has gone too far. A more detailed deconstruction of the questionable pollster at the Washington Post was done by Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake.

   This has been a while in coming. A couple of weeks ago Greenwald and Christy Hardin Smith at Firedoglake both pointed out that the Bush administration was using the “state secrets” defense against the lawsuit the EFF brought against AT&T in February alleging that AT&T was piping call data right into NSA computers without any kind of court order or warrant. Informed bloggers were sure that this was part of a larger pattern of NSA call record monitoring.

   Misperceptions about the program persist, despite some pretty intelligent commentary in the blogosphere. I would like to mention to McCain and Ivins that there has been a more thorough discussion of this topic in the blogosphere then there has been in any newspaper or magazine, by a factor of about ten.

  

  
  

  So the debate begins about the legality of this latest NSA spying scandal, with debate seeming to focus on the limitations of laws regarding pen registers. Conservatives like Michelle Malkin and bloggers Confederate Yankee and “Captain” Ed erroneously quote pen register statute like drunken lawyers asserting, unequivocally, that this latest program is surely legal.

   The law, of course, states that pen registers, or records of calls made, can be used by the FBI…if they have a court order. Patriot Act amendments to FISA require a court order, not a warrant. The government must prove that the phone records are pertinent to an investigation.

   The Bush administration is asserting that the phone records of every single person in the country is pertinent to its investigation of terrorism, a stunningly broad interpretation of the statutes. Hello, Big Brother.

   The legality of having the NSA do this work is also questionable, as the NSA specifically doesn’t have the authority to investigate or prosecute terrorists or their friends or fundraisers in the domestic United States: that’s the job of the FBI. The NSA’s purview is foreign intelligence gathering.

   I think I know why the president used the NSA: they are the only agency in the country with the kind of massive supercomputers necessary to comb through the phone records of the entire nation. Despite knowing this, I question why, if the president was so concerned about the domestic investigation of terrorism links, he didn’t appropriate funds for the FBI so they could enact this program.

   I obviously don’t trust the Bush administration, and I suspect the reason they just let the NSA do this is twofold: first, the president, in appropriating funds, would have had to involve congress. We all know this president has no desire for congressional input or oversight in anything he does. Secondly, having the FBI run this program would probably have meant convincing FBI administrators that this program was legal. The FBI has a long history of investigating Americans and is well aware of the limitations of doing so. I suspect they would not have been thrilled with the legal implications of this program. The NSA, on the other hand, was run by a four star general who simply didn’t know or remember the words of the fourth amendment.

   Despite her legal “expertise,” Attention Deficit has no problem advocating this program as legal and necessary. Congress is not so sure. Arlen Specter, the republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he would investigate by subpoenaing telephone company executives and others, saying that a lot of investigation would be necessary to determine if warrants were needed for this program, thus questioning its legality. Boehner, the republican majority leader in the House, argued that he wasn’t sure this program was necessary.

   So even republican leaders questioned both the legality and necessity of the program. Democratic leaders did more than “question.” Leahy was apoplectic, as I described yesterday. Most in congress didn’t have statements for the press regarding this incident. Their mood seemed…uneasy.

   The majority of Americans seems to be okay with the NSA’s domestic program, however, they might change their opinion if they knew it was against the law.

   There is more discussion about the laws the NSA apparently violated in its domestic program. Greenwald also has a cogent discussion of the legal uses of a pen register. It’s his May 11th post. Summary: pen registers require court orders, Bush cultists. The NSA, reportedly, never went to the FISA Court. It certainly didn’t go to 10,000 district courts to get orders, either. The language also stresses that the register must gather information specifically pertinent to an ongoing investigation. Taking the phone records of virtually every American in the country is a laughably broad reading of this law, and is apparently the reason why the NSA reportedly didn’t go to FISA: they told the person interviewed by USA Today that they didn’t think FISA would OK their program. Kerr also discusses the various statutes that may apply. He concludes that it’s likely, or a least very possible, that the NSA’s program violates the Stored Communications Act and the Pen Register statute. He concludes that there are a number of “statutory problems” with the NSA program.

   There is actually a lot of news in the blogosphere today. The Bush administration has again denied the International Red Cross access to prisoners.  

   In another age, like 1993, the fact that federal authorities were investigating the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee alone would prompt an uproar. Nowadays that story is buried by the avalanche of stories regarding NSA wiretapping, Rove’s possible indictment, the FBI raiding the home of Foggo (the executive director of the CIA), even the story of the deceptions of the HUD Secretary Jackson.

   Jesus Christ, the entire Executive Branch is collapsing at the same time! Run! Run for your lives!

   There was a round of bad reporting on MSNBC last week that left me disgusted. I tire of GOP shills like Russert and Matthews saying or implying that only those “vindictive” democrats want an investigation of the president’s activities. Read the writing on the wall, you nasty little salon lap dogs for GE.

   I must say I was uninspired by Nancy Pelosi’s recent interview on Meet the Press. Russert hounded her over whether democrats would launch investigations if and when they gain control of congress but Pelosi equivocated, essentially saying democrats would investigate…the Medicare prescription drug program. Come on, Pelosi, check the poll numbers, for God’s sake. The country hates this president. They want investigations. They want oversight. It doesn’t even take political courage at this point to say, flat-out, “we will investigate every suspicious action of the president because it is our constitutional obligation to do so as a co-equal branch of government.” We’re talking about investigations here, not ravening lynch mobs. We’re talking about oversight. If memory serves it was republicans that turned investigations into an irritating, harassing tool of vindictiveness, not democrats.

   CNN has a summary of the State Department’s terror report. The good news: “al-Qaeda’s senior leadership is mostly scattered and on the run.” The bad news: a proliferation of smaller terrorist groups. Also, terrorists are “working” to create a safe haven in Iraq and al-Qaeda is still planning a big attack on the United States.

   “Mission Accomplished” indeed. If the State Department didn’t answer to the man who has bungled foreign policy so badly I suspect they would be even more critical of the world-wide terror situation, but as we know even the USDA has to toe the party line in the Bush Administration. Even the EPA has its reports edited to eliminate content the administration finds objectionable.

   David Corn has a great blog entry sarcastically pointing out that with the murder rate in Iraq at 1,000 people per month the administration is busy pointing out the new water projects they’re completing. Unfortunately, the blog entry immediately beneath that advocates the Nancy Pelosi strategy for winning elections.


  

   So the headline today in USA Today is that the NSA’s activities over the past few years have also included acquiring phone call records from all but one of the major service providers in the United States, including AT&T, Verizon, and Bellsouth. These phone lists were then fed into a data mining project to try and determine patterns of activity among suspicious persons in the United States.

   In the words of USA Today, “The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans—most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime.”

   Coupled with what we now know about the NSA’s ongoing program to read the international communications of Americans on American soil without previously obtaining a warrant, the NSA’s operations amount to a massive data mining project directed against the communications of Americans.

   It is ironic that a similar program, Total Information Awareness (TIA), headed by John Poindexter (the felon from the Reagan Administration involved in the Iran-Contra Affair), was shut down by congress in 2004 when even the rubber stampers in the capital balked at such a comprehensive and intrusive program to monitor Americans.

   I would like to commend USA Today for keeping the lawless eavesdropping of the NSA in the headlines, and also for informing the public that there is seemingly no limit to the illegal and massive instrusiveness of the NSA’s spying programs directed against Americans.

   USA Today points out that “the NSA’s domestic program, as described by sources, is far more expansive than what the White House has acknowledged.” The phone numbers the NSA collects can be cross-checked with other databases to discover names, street addresses, and other personal information.

   Dana Perino, deputy press secretary, asserted to USA Today that “all appropriate members of congress have been briefed in the intelligence efforts of the United States,” a direct contradiction of the accounts of democrats on the hill, and a direct contradiction of the findings of the non-partisan research arm of congress, which found that the Bush administration had not adequately briefed members of congress on the nature and extent of the NSA’s efforts.

   This is a return to the “bad old days,” as Jim Bamford has said. In 1975 a congressional investigation discovered that the NSA had been eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of Americans under “Operation Shamrock” for over 20 years. The FISA was enacted in 1978 in a direct response to that to protect Americans from unwarranted (literally) surveillance of their international communications. This is the law that the president has flatly refused to obey.

   This new facet of the NSA’s program adds a new dimension of intrusiveness—and illegality. As USA Today writes, “under section 222 of the Communications Act, first passed in 1934, telephone companies are prohibited from giving out information regarding their customers’ calling habits: whom a person calls, how often and what routes those calls take to reach their final destination. Inbound calls, as well as wireless calls, also are covered.” When Qwest, the one phone company who refused to go along with the program, asked the NSA to get a warrant from the FISA court first, the NSA refused, because it said it didn’t think it would be able to get one.

   This is blatant illegality of the first water. The republican congress refuses to even investigate these programs, much less impeach the president for admittedly breaking the law. The Justice Department has just shut down a review of the NSA wiretapping program because the administration denied them security clearance.

   Meanwhile, the Bush administration, while egregiously invading the privacy of others, stonewalls the investigation into his meetings with Jack Abramoff. The Bush administration finally released its records of meetings with Jack Abramoff…the problem is, the records are incomplete. The records don’t include several meetings with Abramoff that the administration has already publicly acknowledged.

   This is disastrous. Bush’s poll numbers are going to drop to incredible levels over this. Arlen Specter has said he will now launch an investigation of the domestic NSA program. Senator Patrick Leahy, the ranking democrat on the panel, was furious. ''Are you telling me that tens of millions of Americans are involved with al Qaeda?'' Leahy asked. ''These are tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything ... Where does it stop?'' At one point he held up a copy of USA Today and added: ''Shame on us for being so far behind and being so willing to rubber stamp anything this administration does. We ought to fold our tents.'' He, just today, told Ed Schultz on the Ed Schultz radio program that he didn’t think he had been this angry in 30 years of serving in Washington.

   Many critics of the Bush administration said this would happen. They said that when you condone an illegal program you not only condone breaking the law but you also open the door to further lawbreaking, by the same or future presidents. But few listened.  They said that when you elect a dry-drunk son of privilege to the White House you are courting disaster. Few listened. They said that when you cut taxes in the face of massive government spending you will explode the deficit. Few listened.

   Leahy was right. Shame on us.
  

  

   One of hundreds of examples of how the opinions and judgments of the entire Executive Branch have been compromised. From the CIA to the USDA, are we honestly expecting people to compromise their jobs by refusing to obey directives from the office of their boss?

   The fact that Victor Davis Hansen and Charles Krauthammer were dead wrong about Iraq and the ensuing war hasn’t stopped the Chicago Tribune from featuring their articles in the Commentary Section (at the expense of more responsible journalists like Molly Ivins, who still only makes incredibly rare appearances in the Tribune). The Tribune is officially dead to me, but Krauthammer is a nationally-syndicated neocon, who, for reasons inexplicable to me, hasn’t been tarred and feathered and run out of town.

   He, of course, is all about challenging Iran now, much as Michael Ledeen and the writers at the American Standard are. He starts his latest article with a sad reminiscence on the history of the Holocaust, of course, apparently an effort to use that to justify another pre-emptive war in Iran., though he offers no specifics as far as a solution to the problem, echoing an earlier editorial of his a month or two ago. Poor Charles has, in the past, evidenced a certain amount of frustration over the difficulty of dealing with Iran with a war. For now he is just cheerleading a strong response, painting the threat of Iran in the starkest of terms, with the Holocaust as a backdrop, and with selected quotations from Iranian leaders that reflect their most extreme statements.    

   I imagine in Iran some are doing the same thing, referencing Bush’s line “God told me to strike Al Qaeda, and  I did…” as evidence that Bush is a nutcase who talks to God personally. This would mirror neoconservative efforts to quote Iran’s president talking about the “twelfth imam” as evidence that he is also a lunatic bent on self destruction in an effort to remake the Middle East.

   Krauthammer references an Iranian general who says that Iran will target Israel if America “makes mischief” in Iran. Of course, the general is just one general, and he doesn’t say how Iran will target Israel if the United States attack Iran. Call me crazy, but I think it is more likely that Iran will use Hamas before it will lob a nuclear weapon,

   I have a kind of personal distaste for Krauthammer, as I was convinced by him, among others, that the war in Iraq was necessary. Krauthammer was dead wrong, and the administration was dead wrong, not to mention duplicitous.

   I might say, if I was being generous, that Krauthammer and this administration have pissed away their credibility and political capital in the sands of Iraq, but that would be more of an analysis of their current political situation rather than an expression of my person feelings. My own feeling is that Krauthammer and this administration have a long history of selectively focusing on a foreign country they don’t like for geopolitical reasons and blowing up every sin ever committed by that government to ten times life size, endlessly beating the war drum and playing on the fears of Americans until they have a fragile mandate for an invasion, which they will summarily bungle.

   North Korea actually has a nuclear weapon or two, by most estimates, and the words of Kim il Jung are no prettier than those of Ahmadinejad. But this administration is not eager to get involved in another land war in Asia. The prospects for success are similarly dim in Iran, with most military planners taking a land invasion off the table and asserting that bombing will, at best, delay Iranian acquisition of a nuclear weapon by a few years, and will in the short term lead to massive reprisals in the Middle East, not to mention oil prices that are simply incomprehensible, leading to possible recession in the United States. You will not find this kind of balanced assessment from Krauthammer, who has simply made a career out of one-sided assessments of international situations. Krauthammer is eager to discuss the danger without any mention whatsoever of the consequences of American action.

   Of course, we might dwell on the sins of many dictators in world, including in Zimbabwe or Turkmenistan, but we all understand that Zimbabwe doesn’t sit in the middle of the world’s oil reserves. Nor is Turkmenistan’s government a threat to anyone other than her own citizens. We can only “save” a few nations in this world, and those nations all seem to be oil rich.

   Of course, totally absent from this discussion is any mention of the will of Iranians or anyone in the Middle East. Or even anyone on Earth, really. China and Russia are adamantly opposed to military action against Iran. They are even reluctant to pursue sanctions. Europe also prefers a more moderate approach.

   Does anyone in America dare to consider what Iranians or Iraqis want in this conflict? Is it treasonous to know thine enemy? Iranians hate their clerics, who have approval ratings in the teens with the young population of Iran. Internal dissent has been growing in Iran for years. With America threatening war, however, this dissent, of course, has been silenced. People rally around their leaders in times of war, as we well know.

   Iran will acquire a nuclear weapon in the future. It is not a fact in dispute. The only question is how many years will it take, and what government will be in control when it happens.

   Iran is not the only nation that will acquire nuclear weapons in the next ten or twenty years. Technology has an amazing way of proliferating throughout the world with time. Forty years ago heart transplants were so cutting edge that only a few hospitals in the world dared to perform them. Today the better hospitals in Uruguay are capable of such a procedure.

   It is difficult to argue against fearmongers and patriots who wrap themselves in the flag, especially when the ugliest consequences of their actions happen years down the road, especially when the full consequences of their actions are only revealed with the passage of time. Kennedy’s reckless attacks on Fidel Castro led to the Soviet Union redoubling its efforts in this hemisphere for decades. US military intervention in Korea and Vietnam led to China checking our progress in those nations completely..

   Today, in America, it sounds almost reckless to speak of engagement with Iran, like using diplomacy and international pressure should only be a bone thrown to critics before the inevitable invasion.

   Diplomacy and engagement have many upsides: no one dies, enemy powers don’t retaliate in kind as they do with military intervention, and dissent against the governing powers of foreign nations is encouraged. The Soviet Union never fell under a US invasion: it collapsed under the weight of its own oppressive government.

   But it’s not very sexy to say we have to sanction or isolate an oppressive government and then “wait it out.” But it’s amazing what dialogue can do. China checked us in Korea with infantry reserves. We actually fought a land war with the Chinese army in 1952. They also supplied North Vietnam with supplies in the Vietnam War. The Vietnamese actually hated the Chinese for centuries of colonialism. The Chinese even invaded Vietnam a few years after we left, in 1978. The simple dynamic was that Vietnam and China jumped into bed together in the 1960s because they both preferred to use each other as allies rather than allow Vietnam to fall under US influence.

   Despite this antipathy we had with China in the fifties and sixties Nixon still opened up a dialogue with the country that we had previously waged war on not that many years before. Nixon and Communist China had a common enemy in Communist Russia.

   Communist countries did give each other aid, from time to time, but the myth of the Cold War, that Communism was taking over the globe in a monolithic red bloc, was simply a lie. Communist countries regularly fought each other, and they routinely only aided each other to protect themselves against US domination. The Soviet Union encouraged communist governments and resistance movements to oppose US influence, and to gain influence in foreign nations, but fundamentally the Soviet Union had about as much in common with Communist Vietnam as the United States did with the Suharto dictatorship: they were casual allies of convenience. Domestic issues, laws, and traditions dominated their politics.

   The point is that Communism was never a monolithic bloc threatening the United States, as it was portrayed at the time by cynical politicians who knew better. It was a loose association of nations that frequently allied against each other.

   The American people have a long history of being duped by politicians and pliant or bought pundits who reinforce cultural myths for political gain. US politicians have regularly spent the lives and treasure of this country in unnecessary foreign wars. I and many others thought that we has learned about the price of a rampant CIA after the seventies and the Church Commission, only to discover, with Reagan, that conservatives had never given up on the most brutal and immoral uses of the CIA. I and many others thought that we had learned a lesson in Vietnam. To read today’s Weekly Standard, apparently the only lesson that some learned was that we needed to fight harder, and longer, and spill more blood, and spend another half a trillion dollars to “liberate” a country we destroyed, to prop up a dictatorship we despised, to gain an ally in the most unimportant corner of the globe.

   I have not even mentioned the fact that invading Iraq was an unambiguous violation of international law and the will of the vast majority of the people on Earth. Assualting Iran would be a similar violation. It simply doesn’t occur to Americans to really care about those things, but then we are shocked, shocked, when terrorists fly planes into the twin towers.

   If Iran is so incredibly dangerous why are China and Russia so unconcerned? Yes, they get a lot of their oil from Iran, but we get a lot of our oil from Venezuela, and that doesn’t stop us from threatening Hugo Chavez.

   The truth is the entire Middle East supplies such a massive amount of the world’s oil that even if a nation doesn’t get its oil from a specific nation in the Middle East oil prices are underpinned by all Middle Eastern nation’s production. If the United States dropped off the face of the Earth our disappearance would have no real effect on the world’s price of oil or oil supply (we have 3%). If the Middle East dropped off the face of the Earth the world economy would plunge into disaster.

   A disruption in Iraq’s flow of oil, for example, is the primary contributor to record new prices of oil we are seeing today. Even though the United States never got much of its oil from Iraq, the price of the oil we do get has gone up explosively, as the world market determines the price for oil.

   China and Russia could diversify their oil supply away from Iran, if Iran was so unstable, and then deal with Iran with harsh sanctions or military action. They aren’t bothering to because they simply perceive no apocalyptic danger from Iran. If WWIII broke out in the Middle East with Iran nuking Israel all nations on Earth would lose. US and European allies would retaliate with nuclear strikes on Iran. Iran would cease to exist. Civil unrest in the Middle East would follow. World oil prices would simply become incredible. World markets would flounder with energy prices creating massive inflation and consumer duress as people would see their disposable income absorbed by massive but necessary transportation costs and petroleum product costs.

   Even if Russia were stocked crotch to crown with anti-semites they would be devastated by nuclear war in the Middle East. The entire world would. But the truth is simply that world, for some amazing reason, sees far less of a threat in Ahmadinejad than we do.

   The US press is simply bent. Our government and intelligence apparatuses are run by blatantly dishonest, fearmongering would-be imperialists. The Israeli lobby is strong, and the entire conservative media is dominated by a worldview that sees war as transformative, necessary, and efficacious.

   They are wrong, They have always been wrong. War is neither transformative, nor necessary, nor efficacious with regards to Iran. War with Iran would be destructive, unnecessary, and fruitless. We would strengthen the hardliners in Iran for years to come, perhaps even for decades. We would guarantee terrorist attacks against our forces in Iraq and against Israel. We would face a greatly increased risk of terrorism on our own soil. All of this would buy us maybe three more years of time until Iran creates a nuclear weapon.

   Iran’s president’s remarks have been taken out of context, inflated, and used to scare the American people into thinking that Iran must be attacked immediately. His remarks are unremarkable for several reasons.

   First of all, the head of the Iranian government is Ayatollah Khamenei, not Ahmadinejad.

   Secondly, Ahmadinejad and Khamenei have forsworn the development of nuclear weapons. It is certainly debatable how honest they are being, but Khamenei has even issued a fatwah against the development of nuclear weapons. It simply begs the question to assume that they are trying to develop nuclear weapons.

   Thirdly, Ahmadinejad is brash and somewhat loud-mouthed conservative in Persian politics. He retracts his harshest statements after the fact.

   Fourthly, Ahmadinejad’s words have been misquoted and mischaracterized for months. For example, in October 2005 Ahmadinejad said that the “occupying regime” in Israel must be destroyed or wiped off the map. He also said that Israel is a “disgraceful stain” on the Muslim world.

   His comments were roundly criticized by Europe, Russia, the UN Security Council, and even Turkish, Egyptian, and Palestinian leaders.

   In December 2005 Ahmadinejad questioned the Holocaust and expressed sympathy for Palestinians, saying that if Europe wanted to make amends with Jewish people by giving them a homeland they should have done it in Europe, not in “Muslim” lands.

   Ahmadinejad backpedaled in the face of worldwide criticism for his remarks, insisting in January 2006 that his October speech had been misinterpreted and that he was simply trying to say that Palestinians should be given more freedom. He, awkwardly, admitted that the Holocaust might have happened and that he would accept any European explanations regarding history.
  
   If Nixon could engage Communist China in the days of Mao Tse Tung we can engage Iran. We don’t have to like their government.