Downing Street Memo

Greg Mitchell tries to claim in Editor & Publisher that many major papers five years ago were in fact against the war on Iraq.

You may be surprised to learn that, precisely five years ago, at least one-third of the top newspapers in this country came out against President Bush taking us to war at that time. Many of the papers may have fumbled the WMD coverage, and only timidly raised questions about the need for war, but when push came to shove five years ago they wanted to wait longer to move against Saddam, or not move at all....

...Once equivocal editorial pages got straight to the point. "This war crowns a period of terrible diplomatic failure," The New York Times argued, "Washington's worst in at least a generation. The Bush administration now presides over unprecedented American might. What it risks squandering is not Americans' power, but an essential part of our glory."

Other papers were even more blunt. The Sun of Baltimore, consistently one of the most passionate dissenters on the war, began their editorial with the sentence, "This war is wrong. It is wrong as a matter of principle, but, more importantly, it is wrong as a matter of practical policy."

USA Today asked Bush to finally disclose risks, costs, and democratic government estimates for Iraq while the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wondered "what 'the peaceful entry' of 280,000 troops would look like." The Arizona Republic in Phoenix said that Bush and his "coalition of the willing," with prodding by the French, "have left the United Nations in tatters."

Well editorial pages are certainly where people turn to first, right? Never mind the war-fostering headlines on the front pages. Never mind the lazy absence of any meaningful fact-checking on Administration claims.

Never mind ignoring the sometimes massive anti-war demonstrations in New York and elsewhere.

No, the editors clucked and tutted and therefore should get a pass on their crappy coverage.

Any wonder why newspapers are still in trouble and mistrusted by so many?

Redstate notes that "Cheney Warned Of Iraq 'Quagmire'":

I don't know what to say. Maybe something like I hate it when he's right? I don't think Iraq is a quagmire. Progress is being made. So much so that even the New York Times had to acknowledged it and there is talk of some Democrats being worried about facing a voter backlash for pandering to the left wing defeatists.

I was speaking with a Marine Master Sargent last week. He was getting ready for his second deployment to Iraq. Asked what he thought of our efforts he said He has 25 years in the Corps, looking to make it 30, he expects he will have three more Iraq tours. He thought for a moment and said 'we just need more time. You have to give us more time.'

The problem with Cheney's use of the q-word is that ever since we gave up in Vietnam, quagmire equates to failure in our political lexicon. We have not failed in Iraq, not yet, regardless of what the Democrats and the main stream media say. Another problem is that we can't look at the post-9/11 world through pre-9/11 lenses. September 11th changed everything.

Did September 11th change anything but the level of fear-mongering by the right? I'm still waiting for someone to explain how 9/11 changed anything fundamental about our strategic security. Yeah it was scary, but was it "throw out the Constitution" scary? Blitzkrieg in Poland changed everything. Pearl Harbor changed everything. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand changed everything. The "shot heard 'round the world" changed everything.

But did the mass-murderous fanaticism of 19 criminal skyjackers change everything? Or did it just change us?

Karl Rove's departure announcement comes while we as a country wrestle with the utter debacle that he helped create: the violent occupation of Iraq. It was our ill-intentioned, ill-conceived and woefully ineptly executed invasion and occupation of Iraq, not 9/11, that changed everything. It was our polarization of the world by an administration hell-bent on destroying Saddam Hussein, the man who betrayed the oil men (and let's all now remember all those photos of Saddam shaking hands with American "statesmen"), that changed everything.

It is the continuing state of the State of Iraq that has changed everything. Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. (Hello? Is anyone on the right keeping their ears unplugged?)

This isn't about party. Most of the Democrats in Washington are culpable in enabling the worst foreign policy blunder in America's history, too. This is about bringing America back to the good fight, the smart play, the leadership role in the world -- leading by example, not by sending our finest fighting men and women into neighborhoods to establish democracy at the point of a gun, not by keeping our soldiers and Marines (and as many, if not more, private "contractors") in those neighborhoods with the impossible mission of policing a civil war.

Meanwhile the guy behind the attacks that supposedly "changed everything" -- Osama bin Laden, remember him? -- where is he? "Oh, don't talk about him. Al-Qaeda is in Iraq!" the right cries a cappella. Yeah, some of them are. I wonder why.

The right seems to be obsessed with appearing strong rather than being strong. While the mission of the war on Iraq and the definition of "victory" remain terribly vague, what's becoming quite clear is that this war has become a point of pride for the fragile ego of the modern American conservative.

Conservatism once stood for small government and balanced budgets. Conservatism once opposed "nation building." Conservatism once fought for civil liberties. No longer.

The takeover of the Republican Party by the neocons and "holy rollers" (as Victor Gold calls them) -- that changed everything.

...all you need do is look at Right Wing News' list of "The Twenty Most Annoying Liberals In The United States" to cast aside any doubts. Let's go down the list:

20) Sean Penn Spicoli scores again! This is the first time Madonna's former life partner made the list since 2002, but his publicity trip to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was just too good to pass up. Just think about it: Here we have a very liberal, very pompous actor whose first thought after seeing mega-disaster on TV is, "I bet I could get a lot of press out of this if I went to New Orleans."

You can laugh at Sean Penn for coming across like an overly-serious Spicoli, but I don't laugh at him for dropping everything and going to New Orleans to help people who were suffering and stranded. Maybe John Hawkins prefers bloviating Brownie -- or anyone who cheers for the gubmint.

19) The Huffington Post What do you get when you take a bunch of C-List celebrities, irritating politicians, and liberal hacks, almost none of whom are talented writers, and put them all together in one place? Why, you get the Huffington Post where "enormous talents" like Deepak Chopra, Cindy Sheehan, and Larry David write the same drivel that appears on other left-wing blogs, only with 50% less zing, pop, and entertainment value.

Proper role model: Ann Coulter, who spouts right-wing drivel with pizzazz and an abundance of spittle. (Don't forget the throbbing vein in the forehead.)

18) Helen Thomas Despite the fact that Helen Thomas is no longer even a reporter, she is still allowed to haunt White House press conferences like some sort of ghost of biased journalists' past. This is despite her nasty attitude and the anti-war sloganeering that she likes to disguise as questions for White House Press Secretary Scott McCellan.

Damn those hard questions! She must be a ghost! You can't run a proper power-grab with these old crusties sticking their noses into gubmint business!

17) The Daily Kos Markos Moulitsas Z˙niga and his merry band of moonbat diarists over at the Daily Kos make great, although still annoying, copy. In fact, they're so entertaining that you really don't have to do much more than quote them.

Actually, I find it quite amusing to see Daily Kos labeled "liberal" given the anti-progressivism that seems to pervade discussion there. But then, to the right wing, anyone left of Franco is a "moonbat." (Hmmm....that makes these folks "Franco Americans"! Uh oh! Spaghetti-Os!)

16) Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton The peanut farmer and the pervert almost always make the list for breaking tradition and criticizing the current POTUS. However, Republicans are fortunate that they stay in the public eye because it continuously reminds the American people of what lousy Presidents they were.

Never mind that they're out of office, Clinton and Carter are perennial whipping boys for the wingnuts.
Given that these wingnuts love Bush and his massive deficit spending almost as much as they loved Reagan and his massive deficit spending, I suppose it would only be consistent of them to hate and despise the only two presidents who actually reduced the national debt during their terms.

15) Mary Mapes

Last year, Dan Rather made the most obnoxious liberals list for his relentless promotion and defense of the fake National Guard Memos CBS was flogging. Given that Dan Rather was widely panned for his involvement in "Memogate" and that he no longer has a job at CBS, you'd think everyone else tied into those fake memos would be content to let the whole episode drift into the memory hole.

But, no, bizarrely, disgraced producer Mary Mapes, who was unceremoniously fired by CBS for the part she played in Memogate, decided to permanently tie herself to the story by writing a book that defended the memos as real and attacking the bloggers who proved it was a forgery.

Geez, if all you have to do to piss off the right wing is write a book, it's a wonder they don't dehydrate from all their sputtering. I didn't even know who Mary Mapes was until reading this blurb. Of course, not being a dittohead, I'll probably forget about her all over again.

14) Maureen Dowd

Maureen Dowd, the ranting New York Times columnist whom Democratic Senator Zell Miller once famously referred to as a, "high brow hussy," wrote a book this year moaning how relationships between men and women in America are all screwed up because she hasn't gotten married yet. Hmmmm, Dowd is well paid, famous, and not bad looking for her age. So, what's left that could explain why she hasn't gotten married?

Yes, display your chauvinistic patriarchal attitudes in dismissing a woman. That's classy.

13) The Pro-Tookie Williams Protestors

Tookie Williams, who happily has now been executed, was never actually a very sympathetic character. He was a cold blooded killer who snuffed out 4 lives and never admitted his guilt or apologized to the families of his victims. Moreover, he co-founded the Crips, one of the biggest human scum piles ever to exist in North America and even after he had supposedly reformed, he never gave the police any help in clearing up the numerous Crip related crimes he must have known about.

Yet, because Tookie wrote a few lousy children's books that about 12 people read, there were celebrities coming out of the woodwork to plead for his life.

Again with celebrities. I'm beginning to suspect that this guy's real beef is that he's not a movie star. Too bad. He sure has the ego for it. Of course, who has the time when there are libruls out there being critical of the gubmint? Someone has to do all the hating -- even hating the people you never saw except maybe on a 30-second tv news report. The Hawkins moral: protesting is evil, execution is beautiful.

12) Harry Reid

Did Harry Reid have to shut down the Senate with a ridiculous publicity stunt? Did he have to break Senate tradition by threatening to filibuster the judges Bush selects for the Supreme Court? Did he have to lie and claim Social Security is in great shape and doesn't need to be reformed?

And when did Hawkins stop beating his wife?

11) Randi Rhodes

Randi Rhodes is Air America's flakiest liberal host, which is sort of like being the dirtiest pig at a hog farm. Maybe it's nothing to be proud of, but it sure takes some doing. In Rhodes case, not only is she a trench harpy with a nasty disposition, she's also a conspiracy theorist with a peculiar sense of humor.

Careful, John. Your misogyny is showing again. Nice to know you're an Air America listener. It must be so terrible becoming so enamored with her that you can't just change the station.

10) Ted Rall

What would a most annoying liberals list be without Ted Rall, a man who showed up somewhere on the list every year and actually took top honors back in 2003? Unfortunately for Ted, he has been so distasteful, disagreeable, and just plain nails-on-the-chalkboard annoying for so long that it's almost impossible for him to top himself.

Still, Ted has been busy this year being ... well ... Ted, and he has really had it in for America's soldiers.

Not only did he urge liberals to "drop the 'support the troops' shtick now," he put together a grotesque cartoon that essentially accused Iraqi war vets of being rapists and torturers.

Here's someone else I'd never have heard of, if it weren't for the good ol' right-wing "news." Of course, we know that American military and intelligence personnel have been torturing prisoners in a policy that has been staunchly defended by Bush and especially Cheney. But this Rall guy is really evil -- not because he tortures people, but because he drew a cartoon about it!

9) The Mainstream Media's Katrina Coverage

When it comes to the coverage of Katrina by the mainstream media, the question isn't what did they get wrong, it's what did they get right? It's bad enough that the media shamelessly blamed FEMA for almost every single problem that happened while ignoring the culpability of the locals because they were Democrats, but the press was about as careful with the facts as the Weekly World News is in one of their stories about Batboy. The press wildly exaggerated the overall number of deaths (They were more than 9000 high), the number of deaths in the Superdome, the racial make-up of the people who died, you name it.

Yeah, Brownie really was doing a heckuva job, CNN used CGI to make the stranded white people just look black, and only 1300+ people died! I mean, Jesus, how much attention and sympathy should we direct at an un-American city like New Orleans, anyway? Didn't you see the fetus shape in the hurricane clouds?

8) Newsweek's Quran Down the Toilet Story

You ever made a mistake at work? Maybe you've shown up 30 minutes late or didn't finish an assignment your boss gave you on time? Well, the guys over at Newsweek can top it.

They mistakenly claimed that US soldiers flushed a Quran down the toilet and as a result, Muslims across the world became angry at the US and there were riots "throughout much of the Muslim world" (that) "cost at least 15 lives.".

Yeah. The Quran was only pissed on, kicked and ripped apart, and if Newsweek had only made that perfectly clear, Muslims would have danced in the street instead.

7) Dick Durbin

Defining Quote: "...If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners." -- Democratic Senator Dick Durbin

Yes, with one poorly thought out statement, Dick Durbin, the Democratic Whip in the Senate, managed not only to slur our troops doing interrogations by accusing them of being as bad as the torturers in some of the worst regimes in history, he also simultaneously sent a message to Al-Qaeda saying that Americans are such paper tiger wussies that we even get squeamish about making terrorists who want to kill us a little hot or cold.

Fuck yeah! Torture the muthufuckas! We be bad! We get medieval on evil! You think you've seen evil? America is #1 -- we'll out-evil anybody!

6) Blanco, Nagin, Landrieu, and Eddie Compass: Oh, my!

New Orleans was doubly unfortunate on the day that Hurricane Katrina slammed down on them. Not only was the city built below sea level, but it seems like almost everyone in a position of authority in the entire state from the governor on down were the sort of incompetent, 4th rate, clown college drop-outs you wouldn't trust to run a lemonade stand, much less a state.

But remember, Brownie was doing a heckuva job! Wingnuts love Brownie!

5) John Murtha

John "Cut and Run" Murtha is grindingly annoying not just because he wants American soldiers to tuck their tails between their legs and run from Al-Qaeda as fast as possible in Iraq, but also because of the dishonest way he's been promoted.

The fact Murtha is an ex-marine has been used time and time again as a shield against criticism, as an excuse to falsely claim he's a hawk, and to prop up his credibility when he calls for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

Hail the chickenhawks! They may be afraid to fight, but they'll talk tough to appeal to the right wing's fragile ego and pervasive fear of the other. And they'll send other people's kids to go fight their battles. Anyone who speaks against our chickenhawk leaders is just un-American! (Never mind al-Qaeda wasn't in Iraq, and hardly is now.)

4) Ward Churchill

How could we make it through all the most annoying liberals of 2005 without mentioning the biggest walking, talking example of what's wrong with our education system, pseudo-Indian hippy professor Ward Churchill?

Here we have a rabidly anti-American lunatic, who has endorsed fragging, compared the people who lost their lives in 9/11 to Adolf Eichman, and who has been accused of lying about being an Indian, copyright infringement, plagiarism, and simply making up research.

Another name that doesn't ring a bell. Hmmmm.... Are the wingnuts having trouble finding prominent libruls to hate? Or are they just trying to impress us with their enthusiasm and zeal? (Is this Churchill guy even a librul? If our buddy John is right, he sounds more like Ann Coulter or someone from Operation Rescue.)

3) The New York Times

The New York Times started off 2005 by calling for the January elections in Iraq to be postponed and then went from there to deliberately trying to scuttle a classified CIA program used to transport Al-Qaeda. That had to be what they were doing since they published lots of unnecessary details like plane tail numbers and the shell companies that were used. Then, in December, the NYT pointed out to Al-Qaeda and the rest of the world the existence of a classified NSA program that listened in on phone calls between the Jihadi and their American pals. This was despite the fact that President Bush personally asked them not to run the story for national security reasons.

Al-Qaeda should send them a thank-you card.

Translation: If you report on illegal gubmint spying on Americans and secret torture camps, you just take all the excitement out of dismantling the Constitution. Fucking newspapers! What do they think this is? A democracy?

2) Howard Dean

At one point or another, Dean also added that Republicans were 'Evil,' 'Corrupt,' and 'Brain-Dead.'

Gee, it's almost as if you're a Republican, Howard Dean is going out of his way to let you know that he really, really, despises you.

Earth to Hawkins: He's not the RNC chairman. He's not speaking to you, he's speaking about you.

1) Cindy Sheehan

How did an uninteresting, not particularly well informed woman, with wacky liberal views manage to become the biggest story in America this summer? By deftly wielding the corpse of her own son like a light saber to deflect criticism, gain attention, and fatten her own pockets.

Damn this woman! Who does she think she is expressing opinions?! Just because she lost a son in a war based on falsified intelligence doesn't mean she has the right to criticize the gubmint! And the gall she has to dare make money! Only pro-gubmint Republican hacks are allowed to get paid to express opinions! What does she think this place is? A democracy?

Now let's try a simpler exercise: The 20 Most Annoying Conservatives in the United States.

1. Jack Abramoff

2.- 20. The Republican Committee on the Advancement of the Culture of Corruption

21.-??? The Culture of Corruption members at-large

Geez, that's just too easy.

Raw Story reports it happened quietly Sunday night:

Ranking House Judiciary Democrat Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has introduced a motion to censure President Bush and Vice President Cheney for providing misleading information to Congress in advance of the Iraq war, failing to respond to written questions and potential violations of international law, RAW STORY has learned.

The resolutions were quietly introduced Sunday evening along with a third resolution (HR 635) to create a Select Committee to investigate the administration’s intent to go to war prior to congressional authorization. The committee would also be charged with examining manipulation of pre-war intelligence, thwarting Congressional oversight and retaliatory attacks against critics. As part of this resolution, House Judiciary Democrats seek also to explore violations of international law as pertaining to detainee abuse and torture of prisoners of war.

Raw Story has links to the resolutions....

• to create an investigative body to determine if offenses are impeachable (.pdf)
• to censure President George W. Bush (.pdf)
• to censure Vice President Dick Cheney (.pdf)

I can hear the howling from the right already. It's to be expected. Their fearless Crusader is under political fire.

But they have to face that Bush has made his own bed here. He has acted with more arrogance and abuse of executive power than any other president in history, including Nixon. (Lincoln may be close, but do we want to measure executive standards by an era when slavery was not only legal, but people fought and died for the privilege of enslaving others?)

Disclosure: I didn't like it when President Clinton pushed for more executive powers at the expense of citizens' rights, either. Interesting how the right wingers hated it when Clinton did it, but fall all over themselves to defend neo-fascist actions when their Crusader does ten times worse. Then again, it's no secret that, for them, Party comes before country -- and, now that they (ostensibly) control the government, the State comes before the People. To them, "We the People" represent what's worst about America.

Here's the reality: The Republicans control the White House. The Republicans control Congress. The Republicans have packed the judiciary with their own brand of activist judges determined to undo the past 80 years of progress in America.

If Bush has nothing to hide, then the Republicans and their knee-jerk defenders have nothing to worry about. After all, isn't that the rationale they keep offering us while they strip the Bill of Rights down to a non-binding position paper on "quaint notions of democracy"?

Having realized that whining, smirking and chuckling isn't convincing anyone that he knows of which he speaks, President Bush now has a plan for Iraq:

Facing criticism and impatience about the conflict, Bush went on the offensive with the release of a 35-page plan titled "Our National Strategy for Victory in Iraq."

I don't know about you, but at this point I wonder if the president even read all 35 pages. Okay, I'm being silly -- we all know that staffers wrote this, probably under the guidance of Karl Rove.

The strategy document is full of the same old assertions [in .pdf format], only now they're compiled in a single document -- no doubt so they can point to the document as proof of their assertions.

• The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. And we must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war on terror.

- Osama Bin Laden has declared that the “third world war…is raging� in Iraq, and it will end there, in “either victory and glory, or misery and humiliation.�

- Bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri has declared Iraq to be “the place for the greatest battle,� where he hopes to “expel the Americans� and then spread “the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq.�

- Al Qaida in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has openly declared that “we fight
today in Iraq, and tomorrow in the Land of the Two Holy Places, and after there the
west.�

✔ As the terrorists themselves recognize, the outcome in Iraq – success or failure – is critical to the outcome in the broader war on terrorism.

[emphasis in original]

Again, they're trying to assert that the civil war in Iraq is a foreign operation, instead of a conflict between Iraqis with over 1000 years of historical conflict. How ironic that one of the biggest problems about our Iraq occupation -- that al-Qaeda uses it as a recruitment poster -- is what the Bush Administration crows about as reasons for staying.

The document reads like a division report in a corporate boardroom. It's full of bullet points of declarations and assertions, but little actual argument and essentially no supporting evidence to support their claims. Maybe some paid analysts can take the time to scrutinize the language and find something that's actually new ... or convincing.

The document has an appendix called "The Eight Pillars" which purports to lay out a strategy for success -- a tacit admission that the 28 pages coming before fail to do just that. (I expect the phrase "The Eight Pillars" will be rolling off wingnutter lips over the coming days.)

Right up front is one that is almost ludicrous in content:

Defeat the Terrorists and Neutralize the Insurgency

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE: Iraq is not a source of terrorists or terrorist resources, and neither terrorists, Saddamists, nor rejectionists are able to prevent Iraq’s political and economic progress. They cannot stop the Iraqi government’s development of a constitutional representative democracy, the provision of essential services, a market economy that provides goods, services, and employment for Iraqis, or the free flow of information and ideas.

They go on to assert that the Iraqis fighting US forces are actually foreigners. And they argue that all we need to do is establish peace and stability in order to stop terrorism -- in Iraq. Setting aside the circular logic for a moment, I wonder how we are to stop the ever-increasing and ever-more-bloody violence of the uprisings without establishing the very kind of police state Saddam Hussein had.

These pillars go on and on with other steps that, it seems to me, are more than a few days late and way way way more than a few dollars short.

Why didn't they think of any of this before?

The Bush quote at the end is perhaps most telling:

This enemy considers every retreat of the civilized world as an invitation to greater violence. In Iraq, there is no peace without victory. We will keep our nerve, and we will win that victory.

Then maybe we should focus our "war on terror" efforts on the real terrorists, instead of trying to play favorites in an Iraqi civil war and declaring it a war on terror.

I may not be a warrior (neither is Bush), but it seems to me that it takes more than bravado to win a war. And if war is merely the practice of politics by other means, then this war is steering our politics down the wrong path -- to more bloody massacres, more corruption, more criminality and, in the end, financial ruin.

Just don't expect Bush to realize it, let alone admit it. He has a gift for running things into the ditch. He thinks he's found virtue in that by labeling pig-headed stubbornness as "decisiveness." Three more years of this kind of "leadership" is looking increasingly disastrous. America will survive, but at what cost?